Finally in bloom!!! I thoroughly love this time of year, with the sudden bursts of colour everywhere, fairer weather and so much inspiration pinging up. All these blooms make my brain whizz into action, but away from painting, I have still been very floral focused trying to sort out our little garden.
It is very scruffy from storm Eunice, lockdown kids and a lockdown dog and needed a good sort out. I was encouraged by how well my bulb lasagne containers turned out, so I've been planting loads of seeds ready for new containers to spritz up the front door and embellish the back garden (I have a potted floaty cosmos/ammi vision I am aiming for!!!!!).
However, the steps leading to this vision has caused a mild addiction to planting seeds (I can't choose- everything is too lovely) and now I accidentally have got a lot of seedlings and mini plants needing bigger pots and somewhere to go… so I am on the hunt for pots. Lots of pots. If anyone has seen any bargains out there please let me know!
As there is so much painting inspiration at the moment (hubba hubba) and I popped to Hyde Hall for some quick sketching. We're really lucky to have this so close and love visiting there. Few quick pics below.
I was so chuffed to have raised over £500 for the DEC Ukraine Appeal. Thank you to all my lovely customers that bought one and helped achieve this donation amount.
I have had messages if I will be doing some more, soooo I've updated the sunflower design to a new sprinkle of sunflowers, with a mini reduced scale, these look really sweet.
These will be available at the next drop with 100% of the sale price going to the DEC Ukraine Appeal.
I couldn't send the newsletter and not show quick pics of the new collections. I will send a little reminder and pre-browsing email just before the next drop (see bottom for dates). As always I'd love any feedback so I know how many to paint and try and make sure I have enough of the favourite designs!
Some new flowers making an appearance are cosmos and snake's head fritillary.
The town where I live, Leigh-on-Sea, has been voted as one of the best places to live again, and we are very lucky to have lots of great small businesses here and in the surrounding area. There is much creativity, entrepreneurship and lots of thriving independent businesses, it's very inspiring to be surrounded by such a community.
Leading on from this, I have teamed up with 3 local craft focused business women, to pull together a nice floral giftaway. Click on the photo to enter (give away is open until 7pm Sunday- sorry UK only). Click on their names to see more about their businesses too!
The Lucky Dip option for February was a Seasonal Floral Collection, including daffs, iris, pansies, hyacinth, primrose, tulips, crocus and snowdrops.