New arrivals

February has been an exciting month, as it has marked the arrival of my first ever batch of Hilary Clea illustrated cards. The culmination of a lot of preparation has now happened....or begun to happen, anyway. Thanks to my very good friends at Bluepepper Print and Design (www.bpdesigns.co.uk) I had eight different designs made: my beautiful Birdsong collection, which celebrates some of the best loved British Birds, my new Stork card, which I created on a whim after being inspired by a friend's impending new arrival of her own, and the first of my 'Countryside' collection: a Fox and Pheasant. Ideally, I would have completed more drawings in the Countryside collection - I'm certainly not short of ideas - but time is precious to me, and I am still managing a full time job as well as the matters of this new little venture. More will come, in time - and this is just the beginning.

Add my new 100% recycled envelopes and 100% biodegradable card bags (made from corn starch, amazing, and unbelieveably strong) - thank you Eco-Craft (www.eco-craft.co.uk) - and we are ready to go to market!

The next step was a photo shoot - this was tricky. With little photographic equipment to hand, and nothing like enough light, I set up a makeshift studio in the dining room, consisting of a large peice of white card bulldog-clipped to the side of a cardboard box, a light covered in tissue paper, props (from the bookshelf, mainly) and a borrowed camera in the hope it would be slightly better than my iphone.

I don't think the photos turned out too badly, though if I learned one thing from the day, it's you can never have enough (evenly dispersed) light! You can see for yourself how they turned out in the shop.

Fingers crossed I will have the time to get the website finished and cards on sale....here's to March!