Giveaway Time: New Hedgehog Tote Bag!

This week we introduced our new Hedgehog design to our range of cotton tote bags, and now you have the chance to nab one of these beauties for yourself! To enter the chance to win a lovely Hedgehog Cotton Tote Bag, head over to our facebook page and click the “like” button on the post about the giveaway and “like” our facebook page – the lucky winner will be announced next Monday 1^st April!

In my old house we used to have hedgehogs in the garden, but in the house I live in now we have badgers instead. There is a badger set on the edge of the garden. It sits the other side of a wooden fence in the part we leave to be wild. The ground is sloped and there is a little stream at the bottom, and during the spring bluebells bloom in the shade off the trees; I think all gardens should have a little nature patch, and ours is gradually growing stronger. When we moved in, our lovely neighbours told us about the badgers and we made a hole in the fence for them to come through and explore. It wasn’t long before they started digging little muddy holes in the lawn, but we didn’t mind that because it was lovely to hear them frolicking at night. There have been many times when I’ve been sewing into the early hours, with the patio door open for some fresh air, and I’ve heard the badgers playing in the grass.

Whilst I love the badger family and the midnight entertainment they provide, I do miss the hedgehogs; there is something undeniably adorable about them, and it was not uncommon to see one or two snuffling in the grass in the evening.  Which is why when I was drawing my Badger illustration, I was compelled to also draw a Hedgehog illustration too. I’ve added these designs to my range of tote bags, and I am working on adapting them for pocket mirrors, badges, lavender bags and zipper pouches in my etsy shop too.

Don’t forget to enter for your chance to win one of our Hedgehog totes here!

Website Updates

I’ve been remaking my website over the holiday break. I’ve had the domain name for many years, and it used to feature some of my installation work, but nowadays it combines both my work for Ceridwen Hazelchild Design, and a project archive of past works. (I find something very therapeutic about tweaking html and moving things around on the screen. It makes me feel like I’m redecorating without the dust sheets and spilt paint, in much the same way that deleting files on my computer makes me feel like I’m tidying up.)

The main reason for changing the website was the change in the new business name. I wanted to keep it in much the same style of the last website, to reassure continuity, but I took the opportunity to make some improvements. I still have hopeful plans to make an online shop on there, but this may have to wait for a while until my website skills are up to scratch!

Until then, you can buy Ceridwen Hazelchild Design products in my etsy shop and my folksy shop!

Fabric Pocket Mirrors

One of the improvements I’ve made in the New Year is a little redesign of the pocket mirrors I make to sell in my etsy shop. The mirrors are hand pressed in my studio, with a glass mirror and metal body. Until recently the metal body was covered in a sheet of illustrated paper and a protective sheet of mylar, but now they are covered with fabric illustrations. I transfer the image onto the fabric using a heat press, in the same way I transfer images onto my tote bags, which gives a beautifully bright and crisp image on un-dyed natural cotton. These fabric images are cut out and the mirror is constructed and sealed. The pocket mirrors comes complete with a lovely blue or pink hand stitched felt pouch with delicate off-white lace detail.

The new fabric illustrations have a wonderful texture and give a much craftier feel to the pocket mirrors. Let me know what you think!

Lovely Things

A few more lovely things I’ve been looking at recently:

Between Folks: British Butterflies is just beautiful. Take a look at some of the other works in this series.

These delightful chicken footstools from The City Girl Farm. I also love the design of the website.

Mystic Moose’s new Folksy shop!

 Oh Comely magazine. Who couldn’t love such a delightful collection of charming articles?  I can lose myself for hours in these stories.

Lovely Things

A few lovely things I’ve been looking at over the last few days:

A wonderful music video for Østersøen by Ödland.

 The beautiful packaging of Zodiac Tea.

Charming cards from Whit & Whistle.

Our new Mystic Moose pocket mirrors.

This delightful guinea fowl apron from Stephanie Cole Design.

Union Jacks and Corgi Dogs

People may have read my post a few weeks ago about my London trip to see the Wizard of Oz, and how it prompted my double decker bus tote into being. With the Queens Jubilee and London 2012 on the horizon I felt the urge to make a few more themed designs to celebrate.

Regular followers will remember several occasions where I have said how much I want to get a dog, but won’t allow myself right now due to various practical reasons. Of course that doesn’t stop me gazing longingly at the adoption websites for hours on end, picking out potential matches! Recently I’ve been ogling at Corgis.

I guess my current obsession began a few weeks ago, whilst I was on my morning run and rounded a corner, coming came face to face with a huge, fluffy husky. I paused out of a kind of bemused shock – not at the husky, but at the scene behind it. A man in his mid twenties stood there and I guess he was an employee of a local dog walking company. I say this because clustered around his muddy green wellingtons were corgis. Lots of corgis. There were about 15 of them in total, each scampering along on short legs, interweaving their leads and panting heavily.  I’ve seen these corgis many times since, but never as many and never with the same walker. I wish I had had my camera with me to document the sight – but perhaps it is the kind of scene which improves and transforms into something better in the memory?

Since then I have been doodling corgis throughout my sketchbook (which I will put on this blog soon), and one of the outcomes is my Union Jack Corgi Tote bag. I love this little guy, and this bag makes the perfect shopping companion, reminding me of both the bizarre event which inspired its creation and my love of dogs. Since I uploaded it to my etsy shop earlier this week, it’s had quite a bit of attention, so I have high hopes for this little doggy in the coming months.

I recently set up a facebook page and twitter account for my etsy shop, and welcome followers and ‘like’ers! My New Years Resolution was to keep all these social networking outlets up-to-date, and its going fantastically so far, especially since I worked out how to link the accounts together!