Nelly's Treasures

a peek into my sketchbook and my screen printing adventures.

[nellystreasures]

Yarn bombed a shipping container as part of #madeinroath #exchangeinroath

[nellystreasures]

Last night printing tea towels at 30 weeks pregnant! I am sore today!!!

[nellystreasures]

Had a busy week screen printing my new range of greetings cards. I've got a few more designs ready to go for next week too😊

[nellystreasures]

The Sho gallery over in Roath celebrated their 5th birthday this week and to celebrate have put on a themed exhibition! I made them a 5B pencil for the show. Handcut paper stencils and some strong bright colours. Love a good piece of stationary.

[nellystreasures]

Started working on some Christmas decorations ready for a busy season of Christmas markets starting next month! I had lots of blanks lazer cut that I've been adding some fun patterns too! Hopefully get the second colour down tomorrow!!

[sosuperawesome]

Cushions, totes and scarves by NellysTreasuresUK on Etsy

[nellystreasures]

Working on some repeat patterns for tea towels atm. I'm enjoying the patience needed for drawing them by hand! I think......

[nellystreasures]

My page from last month's edition of the Snapped Up Market zine. Bicycle themed!!

[nellystreasures]

Pretty much my oldest friend is getting married this summer. As their wedding present I offered my design skills for their invitations and this was the outcome! They're super happy with the results which definitely makes for a happy Helen!!

[visibleart-blog]

MEET VISIBLE ART - HELEN SMITH aka Nelly’s Treasures

Helen is a Textile Design graduate from Falmouth, and part time textile finisher here at VA.

Passionate about screen-printing, Helen started her own label ‘Nelly’s Treasures’ about four years ago, which features her own designed and printed clothes, gifts and accessories. She has recently been focusing on her own unique cushions which come in all shapes and sizes, including zombie fingers and spaceships - which have really taken off! (excuse pun)…

Helen also crochets and knits, creating plush horror themed pieces like giant eyeballs, and has been known to do the odd bit of yarn bombing, participating in Cardiff’s Empty Walls festival for the last couple of years - a hugely successful event.

She is also involved largely at The Printhaus, where she creates all her kooky cushions and prints, and is currently organising a print exhibition with all artists and members at The Printhaus, which will be held in the uber cool art gallery The Abacus in Cardiff city centre this summer.

She has a pretty dark sense of humour and a love for tattoos and b-movies, which definitely shines through her work! Go check her out…

www.nellystreasures.com

and find her on Instagram and Twitter: @nellystreasures

[nellystreasures]

Yay we have a new stockist! You can now buy my cushions from Dear Doris in Penarth.

[nellystreasures]

As part of the Snapped Up Market a few us of us have created a zine to give out. We've screen printed 50 copies in a dark shade of rather tasty blue. The theme of the market is Robots and for my page I made my very first comic strip!! I'm excited for people to see it!

[nellystreasures]

I'm feeling good about how the collection is developing. There are definitely a few tweaks I'm gonna make as I need to print more but that's always been my process. And to top off the week I've already had a wholesale order put in!! So I'm definitely a happy bunny. Today I'm gonna go take some promo shots and get them listed up in my Etsy Shop so everyone can feel the squishy love.

[nellystreasures]

Design work for visible art screen printers. A Mother's Day tea towel, going to be printed using their DTG machine.

[nellystreasures]

This weekend I've been going print crazy down at the Printhaus. I spent all day yesterday working on these big daisies that I'm gonna turn into cushions. I have finally stepped away from the black outlines I always seem to use in my work! This is one of my personal goals for my design work this year, need to stop relying on so much black! It's always been second nature for me to use it as I tend to draw with black pens as that's usually what's close to hand!! I'm really happy with the results though and love the contrast of the turquoise and the yellow. Hurray for more colour!!

[nellystreasures]

The past week I've been working on something slightly different in the background. I spotted a competition/ design brief over on the Tigerprint website that sparked my interest. It's for a floral surface pattern design to be used as wrapping paper. The deadline isn't for another week or two so I'm going to scan in all the drawings I've been filling up my books with and organise a colourful pattern repeat. Briefs like this are always fun little exercises for me to try out some different ideas that aren't suitable for Nelly's Treasures.

[nellystreasures]

I've been a busy little bee down at the printhaus the past few days inking some new greetings card designs. There's a few Valentine's messages and some ones just for fun too. Just got to print my logo on the back and then they're good to go.