Gorgeous We Make London pop-up shop!

The lovely 'We Make London' pop-up shop in Hampstead was running all this past week. Crammed full of unique hand-made objects up a gorgeous cobbled alleyway in Hampstead it was a truly inspiring occasion. From artworks and prints to childrens clothes, lampshades, jewellry, cookies and toys, it was a huge success and a great opportunity for us creatives to meet, mingle and share ideas!

I met some very inspiring people and we spent a very enjoyable opening night with pimms and brainstorming. What a range of creative talent! I was very proud to be a part of it. A big congratulations and thank you to Mary and Julie for all the hard work.

Sharing the work of some of the inspiring folk I met -

Sarah from Shark Alley is an extraordinary jeweller, creating papermache shapes which she then bejewells - just divine! http://www.sharkalley.co.uk

Tanya from Strikk makes incredible knitted creations and is also a fab photographer (borrowed this photo from her!)  http://www.strikk.bigcartel.com/blog, 

Utterly inspiring Vanessa from Lovely Gorgeous things who makes totally utterly natural vegan body products. www.lovelygorgeousthings.co.uk

And  Chloe from Hatastic, who creates hats to die for! www.hatastic.folksy.com
 

We Make London Summer Boutique in Hampstead

Just been visiting the quirky streets and alleyways of beautiful Hampstead, delivering my work to the 'pop-up' shop which will be there over the next week.

Over 200 designers, crafters and creatives applied and 40 of us were chosen. Very exciting to be a part of it! I will be there tomorrow, Satruday 2nd July for the afternoon and into the evening for the fabulous opening night extravaganza. Come and pop your head in if you are around!

You are all invited to the Opening Night tomorrow (Saturday, July 2nd) Come and join us for drinks, nibblies and lots of original objects of art, jewellry, cookies and textiles.

Lots of my prints will be there ... from the Leap of Faith series ...

... cards and bookmarks ...

... to some dreamy transformingbutterflies....

.. and a powerful winter bird in flight ...

Here is a link to the We Make London site with lots of info on the designers and other tit bits.
http://wemakelondon.blogspot.com/

The shop is up a gorgeous little alleyway, with a fab coffee shop next door that I sampled this morning in the morning sun!

Oak Studios
8 Perrins Court
Hampstead NW3 1QS (2 secs walk from Hampstead tube)

I have been flat out preparing for the past exhibitions and this shop... my home and my studio look like a cross between a market stall and an art installation!

Balance and Blogs

I have a wonderful friend who makes hand bound books, sketches beautiful things and is all round talented! (last year we teamed up and she made those incredible leather hand-made note books)
















Each week she cleverly has a word which she writes or creates about. In her busy life I don't know how she does it!


















A few weeks back her weekword was Balance and she chose my painting...

http://thegiftshed.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/weekword-balance/

Here is the link to her blog - she is a prolific blogger - puts me to shame!

Things which inspire me

 

Painting Butterflies!

In preparation for our two big weekends of Open Studios, I have been painting and dreaming butterflies. Simple paintings of beauty...

They are not quite finished yet ... looking good in my frames so far though.

Creating a simple Facebook name

Today I had an epiphany!Thanks to fellow etsians, I discovered how to change my horrible long Dalek style address to a simple https://www.facebook.com/tarawinona. 

My facebook address used to look like this
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Tara-Winona/119511181442274?v=wall

Once you have 25 likes you too can create a simple name! Go to -

www.facebook.com/username

Make sure you go to the page section and type in your page name and the name you would like.

Thank you to Sleepy Hollow folkart and Dab Hands for the helpful tips (-;

Open Studios in London

'Open Studios'  is coming up down on the island and across south-westish London (loosely the Richmond Borough). It runs over 2 weekends, the 10th -11th and 18th - 19th June. Loads of studios are opening their doors so come exploring.

And for all you lovelies, we are having a private viewing on both the Friday nights, the 9th and 17th, so if you are free come join us for drinkies along the canal!

It would be great to see you, tis gorgeous down there in magical hobbit island arty land this time of year.





For those of you who are interested, here is the link to the global site

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/arthouse_open_studios

which details all the studios which are open across London with a map and titbits of information.