THE BUNGALOO

Sarah Waites | Mummy | Freelance Graphic Designer CONTACT | [email protected]

[thebungaloo]

Fun with Forget - Me - Nots

So here we are on lockdown, with lovely weather & lucky enough to have a garden. Lucky enough to have a garden FILLED with Forget-Me-Nots. I have a special love for these tiny flowers as they were my nan’s favourite. 

These sunny days doing nothing can, with the right direction, be filled with imagination. And gazing out of my windows looking at the abundance of the blue flowers reminded me of these images on my pinterest page

So we went out into the garden with a little tub of vaseling & stuck forget me nots to their faces & the rest of the afternoon was spent with them being fairies.

The following week, again, gazing out of the window at the sea of blue flowers, I googled as to whether or not they were edible. THEY ARE! Hooray. First thing we did was make pretty cocktails. Gin (with chambord, & raspberry lemonade) for mummy, & raspberry lemonade for the girls.

To take it further we decorated biscuits. Now, I don’t know about you, but this lockdown has had a bit of an effect on the girls attention spans. I can get at the most maybe 30 mins out of them on one task. I wasn’t about to make this hard for myself. We used shop bought biscuits (these nice shaped ones are from IKEA), it really isn’t worth the washing up or your sanity - making you’re own biscuits. The girls spent a nice amount of time icing them & covering them with (washed) forget me nots. We then sat in the sun & enjoyed them.

I’m pretty sure I’m not done with ideas for what to do with all of these flowers - but here is one last idea which had the girls excited. We looked up other edible flowers in our garden - primroses & dandelions feature (of which we have made cocktails with too). The girls collected some which were washed & put into ice cube trays, Safety first (helmet! haha).

And now the girls keep asking me if its happy hour! haha

Cheers! 

[thebungaloo]

Frida Kahlo Easter Bonnets

As we are in Lockdown with the rest of the world & trying to keep the kids busy all day, we jumped on the chance to be more creative when the school suggested a virtual Easter Bonnet Parade. Obviously I went straight onto Pinterest to get some ideas. I had been saving my cardboard & egg boxes for a rainy day as I am a certified hoarder.

With our inspiration saved we got cracking (pardon the pun).

I cut the egg boxes into varying flower (ish) shapes & the girls got started on painting them

And at the end of day 1 we had some lovely coloured flowers.

We left these to dry over night & after 20 minutes of painting the girls got bored. So it was a good time to stop. 

The next afternoon we got some flat brown card & cut out a circle. We then traced the inside of an alice band onto the circle to get a rough size of the girls head & cut that out. Try it on & if its too small open the band a bit & trace & cut again until it fits. We then cut out some green paper into leaf shapes & stuck them on with pritt stick.

We then used a liquid glue to glue the egg box flowers around the flat bit of card, being careful not to overlap on the inside - but build up a bouquet on the outside. The liquid glue was put on quite heavily to ensure a good stick. A hot glue gun would have been good here too. 

By the time the girls got bored this day we had stuck all of the flowers down & the bonnet had taken shape.

Our 3rd & final afternoon spent on our bonnets was for glitter & pom poms!

Friday morning we raided the loft for my old clothes, Again - great time for being a hoarder! We found some brightly coloured skirts & scarves.we put together these great outfits to be like Frida Kahlo & popped on some bright lipstick too! 

These bonnets took the entire week in short bursts. Which was great for taking up the time in lockdown - but also great to watch them evolve. Worth every minute! 

[thebungaloo]

STRIVE: PARENT SUPPORT HUB BRANDING

When women get together they can achieve greAt things. Being a parent & moving to a new area was a daunting task, but I have been blown away by the support & sheer amazingness of the mums I have met! (Is amazingness even a word? I don’t care!). A group of mums have got together to form a support group to help and empower other parents! Woo! And I was asked to come up with the logo & promotional materials to help them on their way! 

We wanted something bright & welcoming & hopeful! 

As parents we all go through tricky times with our children. Strive is going to be a great source of comfort & information for us parents! 

All the best to Sam & Becca!! woo!

[thebungaloo]

BLOOMING FOODS BRANDING

The very talented Charlotte Reynolds of Blooming Foods contacted me, very excitedly with a project that I was super happy to help with! Woo! 

Check out Charlotte’s instagram page to see that she is one of the emerging talents in the food industry & I have never met anyone so enthusiastic & successful in this field! 

This particular project was a competition with Sial - the world’s largest food innovation exhibition, based in Paris. Charlotte had been shortlisted to exhibit her Lupin Hummus & she needed branding & packaging & information about herself, the company & the product on a flyer. So we put our heads together & came up with the following items.

Above, business cards & below a flyer which folded out with more info.

Here is the lovely Charlotte with her pots of hummus & at her stand at Sial Paris 2019.

I was deligted to hear that Charlotte’s Blooing Food Lupin Hummus won the Sial 2019 Future Lab award.

It was a great project to work on & an award winning one at that! Woo! 

Watch Charlotte talk about her project here!! (Keep watching - Charlotte’s part is in english)

[thebungaloo]

DECEMBER - LEARN NEW SKILLS

December, my last ‘month of’ & I wanted to grab this last boost of gusto to push myself to try some new things.

Firstly - I turned this bucket of beautiful cuttings from my garden into a Christmas Wreath! Ive wanted to try this for YEARS & this year I did it! 

I didn’t really have any of the proper stuff to make a classic style wreath so I popped upstairs & grabbed myself a wire hanger & stretched it out to make a kind of circle. And then using wire & pliers I haphazardly fixed the green into place - literally hoping for the best.

I worked at my neighbours table whilst she had a crack at her own! 

I finished it off with a gorgeous striped ribbon.

I quite pleased with the finished results!

Another skill I wanted to learn after hours of scrolling through Pinterest was Needle Punching, which is a kind of rug making. My aim here, is to make a textured cushion for my spare room as the price of these in shops are astronomical. I have decided to spend the money on the tools to invest in myself. I normally make things from what I have lying around. I am a hoarder, so I do tend to have thing lying around after other projects. So to actually invest in myself is a big thing for me. Am I worth investing in? 

I purchased a budget needle punch set on eBay & a quality punch for thicker yarns from Etsy. I found some Aida fabric in a charity shop & some nice big yarn & got going... but Aida fabric wasn’t holding the stiches! RAH! I tried some other fabric & still I wasn’t getting along with it. And then had to invest further into some burlap which has a strong weave. I felt sick at having to invest a mere £!5 more on the fabric - but I had to keep going.

I have cut my fingers to shreds to learn this skill... and almost given up so many times. Watched so many youtube tutorials which give the impression that it is so easy when it isn’t! Having posted my progress on Instagram, the lovely Claire from Monty Knits  said she would post me some yarn. The generosity of this gift was so much more than the yarn it was that someone was rooting for me & thought I was worth investing in too, which really did spur me on! - Thanks Claire! 

I am so pleased to have made this sample piece after all my perserverance... and now I have the confidence to start a cushion... and who knows - I may just finish this sample & make it into something too! 

[thebungaloo]

NOVEMBER - TO START & FINISH A PROJECT

November was pretty simple really... I’m a massive procrastinator. I can put things off for yonks. I can have ideas for years before realising them. I also get the fear about starting a new project. And then when I start something, it can lay on the kitchen table for months before it’s tidied away & then it will be tidied away before I finish it to never be finished. SO - this month I shall start & finish a project in its entirety! Woo!

I have been wanting to embroider something intricate on an item of clothing for a long time. I have an entire pinterest board full of potential things to embroider... animals, birds, words, objects etc... the hard part is choosing something & starting. The fear I face is ‘this is going to be shit, why am I dedicating so much time to making a mess when there are so many other things I need to be getting on with. This top is going to be completely ruined.’

I waited until I was babysitting for a friend. I took a big bag of supplies - no distractions of the house because starting was going to be the hardest. I eventually chose a beetle from a vintage illustration.

After starting it I flew! Each night in bed I did a bit which kept me awake rather than falling asleep immediately! hooray! 

I’m not 100% happy with the finished item, however, I have been enthused enough to want to improve my technique with practise. I am looking forward to warmer weather though as I will definitely be wearing my new & improved shirt! Hooray!

[thebungaloo]

OCTOBER - MONTH OF GETTING SHIT DONE

Anyone else guilty of passing a particular thing in their home repeatedly & thinking ugh I need to sort that out? So do I - and these things can get me down! So I decided my month of in October was to sort this shit out!

In the snow last year our pipes froze & leaked into our living room ceiling leaving a nasty stain. Our living room is one of the few rooms we have decorated so this happening would really annoy me each time I saw it. CHEEEEE-ECK! All fixed! 

Also whilst moving one of my previous projects was ruined! argh!!! And each time I saw it I was so heartbroken that I had to look away - despite us hanging it up in the spare room... One evening during October I fiddled with the wire until it resaid the words... ‘Judy & her dream of horses’ after the Belle & Sebastian song! hooray! it made me extremely happy to have mended it back to its former glory! 

We have summer houses in our garden, one of which I have declared mine (by standing outside & declaring it out loud! haha). I have always envisioned it to be my studio where I can store & create all my designs & manifestations. However, since moving in almost 3 years ago, it has only served as a dumping ground & storage for boxes of things that havent seen the light of day since our previous home. It also houses a lot of my late sisters possessions which I hadn’t had the strength to look through. Well I went through ALL  of the boxes, sorted & took many things to charity.

I purchased a vintage yellow kitchen unit from eBay! It has an excellent work surface on it! And treated myself to a beautiful glass display unit from Ikea for all my vintage crockery - so now it has pride of place rather than stuffed in some cardboard boxes! It gives me joy to see these brightly coloured & patterned pieces!

I sorted and folded my fabrics & put them in our upcycled chest of drawers.

Got myself a peg board to position some easily grabbable items (is grabbable a word?).

Repainted these MDF storage drawers that I have had for years & labelled them with a Dymo! 

The space is now clearer than photographed above. This was such a big & emotional task so I am super glad I got it done! And I am now ready to make! Roll on warmer weather! Woo! 

[thebungaloo]

SEPTEMBER - MONTH OF VISUALISATION

By the time the girls got back to school & started & settled at nursery there wasn’t many weeks left of September... This time also coincided with planning being granted on our extension... and whilst I have been slow to get this started - I am keen to get a move on so decisions have to be made! 

At the back of our house our kitchen leads onto a very old & leaky wooden conservatory - the neighbours roses & ivy like to grow through which is actually a nice touch - the rain, however isnt! haha. So the idea is to knock down the conservatory & build an extension on its footprint whilst opening out the kitchen a bit more. I’m hoping for a seating area & a dining table in this space which was previously a dumping ground. We have a change of floor height to be considered but other than that I think (I hope) its relatively straight forward.

It was time for me to visualise how I saw the space looking - the left hand side of the pins above are the ideas for the kitchen & then the right hand side the extension sofa area. I’m not sure how these wallpapers will sit with each other - I mean is it ok to go full on maximalist like this? (Floor tiles - Mandarin Stone, blue wallpaper - Sandberg, colourful floral wallpaper - Nathalie Lete - the sofas etc are from pinteret with no tags - sorry!)

I attempted my first interior visual in a very long time - excuse the bad perpective, it is to be used as a tool to see if it works... and so far so good I think! This was a fun process... 

In a previous post I visualised my loft guest room with some potential wallpaper options here, however I then discovered Woodchip & Magnolia & their designs blew the others out of the water... their large scale florals aren’t geometric enough or have enough of a repeat to be irritating on the eye with the strange roof shape... I have purchased one of these wallpapers, but shall wait for the room to be finished to show you which option I went with! Hooray! 

[thebungaloo]

DAHLIA FIELD | SUMMER OF SURREALISM & DREAMS

Our last day of the summer holidays deserved just a small outing somewhere not too far or too strenuous before the early start of the new school term the following morning.  I had loved over the summer the girls had pretended to be fairies flying around the flowers & vegetable pick your own farms & had invested in some fancy dress butterfly wings from ebay (whack kids butterfly wings into the search box & loads come up in all different colours). They had arrived & I packed them as a surprise to fly around the Dahlia Field at Finchley Nurseries. 

They flew around the field flapping their wings & excitedly jumping up & down at the gorgeous array of dahlias to cut.

We pretty soon had a HUGE bunches with such a variety of colour & shape to bring home & even enough to gather a bunch for my mum as they are her favourite flowers.

The field now has wildflower editions too & huge gorgeous bushes of anemones. Judy was flitting around them trying to inhale their scent. It was such a magical sight as she did look like a fairy... I’m pretty sure this was my idea of fun moreso than the girls! haha I’m so happy I snapped this!

Look how many we got! I enjoyed playing with these images on the Hipstamatic App on my phone. I love the dreamlike images they produce which i feel convey the feelings of the shot rather than just how it looked. 

After delivering a bunch to my mums house, we managed to fill 3 jars/vases of gorgeous dahlias - 2 of which went up to the girls bedrooms to fuel their dreams of being butterflies. What a glorious & magical end to our summer of surrealism & dreams.

[thebungaloo]

SE PLUMBING BRANDING

SE Plumbing contacted me to do a new logo for their plumbing & heating business. They wanted something contemporary & bright - exactly the sort of thing I love to work on! Hooray! I love the primary colours of water & heat & the yelloe gas safe logo. Another joy of a project! And handy to know a good high spec bathroom specialist - wheres my bathroom pinterest page? 

[thebungaloo]

Whitby | Summer of Surrealism

This summer we decided to go to Whitby! Hooray! I had wanted to go for YEARS... mainly to stay in the fantastically eccentric La Rosa Hotel, once frequented by Lewis Carroll. Can you get more surreal than Alice In Wonderland? So we drove up the August Bank Holiday Monday for a 2 night stay (& went on to stay with family not as nearby as I had worked out... )

We checked in & dumped our bags into our room - which tonight was The Saloon! (Click for more pics). A cowgirl style room with a couple of camp beds made up for the girls & a massive silver bath! 

After our 4 hour drive where the girls were too excited to nap (groan!) we decided that a little sit in the library/cocktail lounge would be a super idea for a rest before heading out for some dinner. We made use of their board games & introduced the kids to some Guess Who & flicked through beautiful picture books.

The room was filled with amazing quirky niknaks, it took a while for it all to sink in & even then I’m not sure all of it did! We categorically DID NOT play with the ouija board we discovered at the bottom of the pile!! (eeek!)

I grabbed a cocktail menu & sat down. I was so engrossed in the list of gin cocktails that when my youngest Ada said ‘Mummy, careful, that fox is going to eat you’ with a weirded out look on her face - I turned to look in the direction she was staring at and came face to face with this!! ....

Judy wanted to get involved - she was braver than me! haha! We went out that evening & had been recommended the Magpie Cafe. We were so lucky not to have to queue (every other time we passed the queue was so big!) and we had a fantastic fish & chip dinner. We popped into the amusements & had a wee go before heading back to get an early night.

La Rosa usually brings breakfast hampers up to the room, but as were 4 we took our breakfast in the tea room with sea views. Our hamper was filled to the brim with fresh fruit, yoghurt, granola, cereal, cheese croissants, cake & orange juice with tea & coffee. Oh my gosh it was so good & the pastries still warm. Yum! We couldn’t possibly eat it all, so we popped some in our bag for snacks later! 

Our first stop of the day was Whitby Abbey. It looms above the town in all its gothic glory, inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula & the town is so proud of this. It was great to have a wander & let the kids run free through the grasses. 

We descended from the Abbey & roamed the town, perusing the gift & book shops. We met some friends had more delicious fish & chips & then headed to the beach, where despite being freezing the girls headed straight for the North Sea! 

Our second night we had booked into La Rosa Room to maximise our La Rosa experience by not staying in one room. Oh my goodness - the girls (& I) were delighted. Swans & roses everywhere & a gorgeous view of the sea & Whitby Abbey! 

After rinsing off the sea & sand & popping on some warmer clothes we headed out for some dinner at The Fisherman’s Wife. The children’s menu here was outstanding, they had choices such as salmon & seabass & the girls happily gobbled it all up! We couldn’t come all the way to Whitby & not try Whitby oysters & they were amazing here! 

After dinner we did a couple more rides in the amusements & then went on a ghost walk! (haha) The girls loved it until it got dark & then Judy got scared & Ada fell asleep. But it was great fun! wooooooooo!

We had a great night sleep back in our room.The pillows & duvet were so soft.

The following morning we had our breakfast again in the tea room. We said good bye to all the oddities as our stay was over. The lady at the front desk showed me the basement bar which they hire our for weddings & parties etc. It looked so cool - I  got to meet Lady Rosa who told our fortune! 

I would 100% recommend La Rosa for a visit, they were super friendly, quirky with comfortable beds & delicious cocktails & breakfasts, everything I love in a Great British Holiday! And I would say to try more than one room whilst you stay! It was so much fun! 

We couldn’t leave Whitby without visiting the dismally acclaimed Dracula Experience. If Tripadvisor reviews give an attraction a 1 star (just checked this & it has risen to 2 stars!), chances are I will love it. So in we went! To be honest Ada was so freaked out by the dark that we had to rush through, I didn’t fully experience the horror nor grab any story... but there is a treat if you go during peak times! It was hilarious. One big jump for the girls to use up their tokens, a fresh & gorgeous crab sandwich & tray of cockles later, we climbed into our car & said a fond farewell to Whitby!

[thebungaloo]

SCOOP - SUMMER OF SURREALISM

During the summer Bompas & Parr presented Scoop: A Wonderful Ice Cream World. I find that I see a lot of things going on in London & then we never get around to doing it... so I booked for us all as a family to go here for my birthday! Woo! I was so excited! 

The imagery everywhere was so dreamy & ice creamy (I just made that up!! groan! haha). It was so obviously instagrammable (I’ve stolen the above left image from Bompas & Parr Instagram page! )

Walking around this exhibition was great - it really hit the senses - we walked into a freezer - brrr! There was a hallway of smell here wallpapers - lots of popular & not so known ice cream flavours to sniff out. And then we had a go at making our own ice cream - the girls chose to flavour our attempt with banana & raspberry & it was delicious! 

There was a big machine to pump hundreds & thousands & who doesn’t love hundreds & thousands (parenting Ada who was picking them off the floor & eating them was tricky!! but who could blame her???) The vanilla vapour was another fun olfactory experience... But the most exciting was the GLOW IN THE DARK ICE CREAM....

YES... GLOW IN THE DARK ICE CREAM!!! It was brilliant & just like that it was over. Hey Bompass & Parr  - we wanted MORE!!! I can’t wait to see their new project! I shall be keeping a beady eye on their website!!

[thebungaloo]

SUMMER OF SURREALISM & DREAMS PART 2

We didn’t waste anytime on our summer of surrealism & dreams - the last day of school we drove straight to Hitchin Lavender Fields.

To be hit with the olfactory whack of lavender was a very calming experience. All that stress of the school run for the last term instantly left my shoulders & blew away over the gorgeous sea of purple.

Wading through the lavender was a crazy weird experience. Halfway up the walkways the humming of the bees became really loud, to stop & look around you surrounded by lavender & so much sky & then this loud hum was unnerving & almost like the sound of something from a horror film. It was so surreal.

And then finding the gorgeous sunflowers taller than the girls was like they had shrunk & was in Alice in Wonderland or running through a Dorothea Tanning painting. It was amazing. the sun was just beginning to lower & lens flares were created through my squinty eyes. It was a glorious day out. So glorious we visited again a couple of weeks later as Adav wanted to go back to be a ladybird!

One night I took up the tipi (from Nobodinoz)  to the girls room & stuffed one of their mattresses in with some fairy lights to have an inside camping experience. We read some books & told stories. It was so cute & the girls were so excited.

August saw in my Mum’s 60th Birthday & we celebrated with dinner at The Grove. After dinner we explored their glorious grounds just as the sun was setting. The magical hour of twilight seemed to bewitch the girls who took their shoes of & ran pretending they were fairies! 

I had taken advantage of the Kid’s Theatre Week & bought some tickets to see Wicked the Musical. I thought it fit into our Summer of Surrealism very well & the girls adored it! Also this gorgeous photo of Ada in her little green dress all skewed by the curved window reflections on the tube! 

For 15 years my friend from university has been inviting me to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta & this year we FINALLY went!

We got up at 5am & left the house at 6am, arriving just as the sun was rising. I have never seen a hot air balloon in person & had never fully appreciated just how gigantic they are. It took my breath away! The light was stunning & I felt so in awe at these magnificent flying balloons.

My friend had packed us a breakfast feast fit for kings & we grabbed hot tea & coffee from vendors. 

With no exaggeration this was one of the most magical experiences of my life.

Balloon Fiesta! We shall be back! 

Every summer we try to go fruit picking at Parkside PYO Farm. It is such a wonderful way to spend the day. The girls love it & we love all the fruit we get to take home. There is something magical about it.

This year it was a bit overcast which was nice as they rest of the summer had been so hot. It made the greens look so luscious & I’m not sure if all the Studio Ghibli had affected the girls as they kept pretending to be either super large or super small or looking at things in a different way. Here on the farm they made friends with the ladybirds in the cornfield! 

I had booked far in advance tickets to see Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up at the V&A with the girls. They LOVED this exhibition, seeing all her clothes & jewellery & her accessories. They loved her surrealist (maybe super realist) paintings & even picked their outfits for the day trying to be as individual as possible. So afterwards we had to take a jaunt down Carnaby Street to visit more alternative fashion outlets such as Dr Martens & Irregular Choice... They had such fun picking everything up & oohing & aahing over it. In fact, maybe Christmas time I might have to introuduce them into customisation of their own clothes... ugh I love these kids.

We had a fantastic surrealist holiday as well - but I am going to pop this into another blogpost - because this will end up being 10m long! And I’ll just pop these in - Judy got so involved in this world of make believe that trips to garden centres became adventures. We signed up for a local bat walk & listened to them on radios  - it was amazing, and Judy insisted on dressing like a vampire & dancing through the trees as it got dark. Whats that quote? ‘Children see magic because they look for it’ Christopher Moore. Brilliant.

I’m going to stop this post here - but have more to tell you about our summer of surrealism & dreams.

[thebungaloo]

SUMMER OF SURREALISM & DREAMS PART 1

My Summer of Surrealism took many forms, so many that I had better split this post in two... the surrealist things i fed myself & the surrealist things I took part in! 

Leonora Carrington’s paintings are wonderfully strange & with this visual language I was excited to enter her head in a more descriptive way. The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington were wonderful. Whenever you put surreal writers into google - top of the list is Haruki Murakami. I have previously read Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  - a book of short stories & loved getting lost in its pages... I don’t even think I read them in order... This time I chanced on Kafka On The Shore - one of his more surrealist works. It did not disappoint! 

I had over the course of a few months listed the films I wanted to watch. The more bonkers the better. One that came up was Daisies (1966) written by  Vera Chytilová. It was sublime. And the fun colours & effects added to the film definitely had an affect on the kind of summer I wanted to have with the children. It did alter the way I saw things. The story - also fantastic. I urge everyone to watch it. ( I found it on YouTube).

Valarie & Her Week of Wonders (1971), also found on YouTube, I had seen before, but revisited. The visuals are so beautifully crafted.

Over the summer holidays Film4 had a season of Studio Ghibli films. They are a firm favourite in our house & it was brilliant to have the opportunity to see more amongst the ones in our DVD collection. The girls loved these - we still have them saved on our Sky Box to enjoy over & over again. I love how immersive these animations are - the girls too are transfixed by their stories. 

Another film that comes top of the surreal list in film is Aria (1987). The idea is that there are 10 short films written & directed by 10 people to accompany opera soundtracks. The result is visually glorious. It reminds me now that I should have squeezed in a few Ken Russell films over the summer! 

The Company of Wolves (1984) is my most favourite film ever. A scarier take on the Little Red Riding Hood written by Angela Carter. This film is so gorgeously dreamlike & strange. I loved the excuse to rewatch it again! 

I also read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. I have read a few of her books previously, such as The Magic Toyshop & Nights at the Circus & am keen to lose myself in more of them. I love that when you put her book titles into google images the diverse book covers & illustrations are so beautifully crafted. So opulent & strange - just like the stories. 

This summer I also introduced my eldest daughter Judy to my favourite childhood book. A Necklace of Raindrops by Joan Aiken. I loved the story & also the beautiful filigree illustrations by Jan Pienkowski. Again so dreamlike & surreal. I do think about this story often... and was delighted to also discover that Aiken also wrote the Wolves of Willoghby Chase - so I bought it & will devour that too. 

[thebungaloo]

DRAWING MASTERCLASS AT PRINGLE OF SCOTLAND

I entered a competition with Pringle of Scotland to win a place at a drawing masterclass with illustrator Frida Wannerberger & won! Yay! I was so excited! My husband managed to help with the logistics of childcare for a midday midweek jaunt into the city of London! Below is Wannerbergers illustrations for Pringle Of Scotland A/W 2018. They are magical. 

It has been a very long time indeed since I have done any drawing - life drawing - illustration - fashion illustration! Indeed the only fashion illustration I have done was a 2 day project at my foundation course at Central St Martins back in 2000!! Wowsers. Anyway I was super happy to get the opportunity to draw for the sake of drawing. No pressure of any kind of outcome or what it should look like. When the pressure is taken off drawing is actually very good fun. 

Wannerbergers tips were great & suggestions for the next drawings. Ah it was super I really enjoyed myself. Other peoples work was so great & professional looking. My tips of drawing have come from - almost 20 years ago & it looks it! haha!

Thank you to Pringle of Scotland & to Frida Wannerberger for a brilliant afternoon! It was a lot of fun! 

[thebungaloo]

JULY - MONTH OF COURAGE

Ok, so as you can see I have been finding it really hard to continue down this route... and thinking of things to do in my 30 days. This month of ‘courage’ wasn’t exactly a ‘month of’ but was more of a firm decision, & maybe it is because I have been on this journey since January that I had this realisation/outburst... But it was clear that in this specific month I would have to leave my safety zone & step out of it. I was going to have to make a noise. 

I find this exceptionally hard. People who know me may be confused by this - but big emotional events these past few years had me bite my tongue more & more until nothing was said.... dun dun dun... until now. 

And guess what, I learned that when I speak out the world doesnt collapse. The clock hand still turns & the world still goes on. So I’m making a concerted effort to step out of my comfort zone. 

My July didn’t last long - I obviously didn’t spend the entire month doing this - but having flipped the switch & exercised it a couple of times (when I didn’t want to) I felt I had done enough & dedicated the second half of July & the entirety of August to a summer of surrealism & summer of dreams - which I had been excited about & worried a month wouldn’t be enough to explore this as much as I would like to. Plus it coincided with the kids summer holiday! Hooray!

[thebungaloo]

FLOURISH BRANDING

The lovely Cheryl from Flourish contacted me to design her new logo & branding for relaunching her career as a Researcher. Oh my goodness, what a gorgeous project to be a part of! The word & all the positivity that springs from it & the brief for all things botanical was just too wonderful! Dream job! 

For all your researching needs find Cheryl’s instagram here & her linked in profile here