Posts featuring ‘Illustration & Art’

Paint by numbers

Remember paint by numbers? The gift that could turn the artistically challenged into Van Gogh? Well, it wasn’t quite that effective but it did give those who weren’t that handy with a paintbrush the opportunity to complete a piece of artwork, stand back and proudly announce “I did that”. Well you can apply that principle to murals too! Perhaps you want to paint a lovely wall for the little one but think you’re useless at art? Fear not! Just make it a giant paint by numbers like the Cabin Collective do :) Just check out some of their amazing work…

Paint-by-numbers

Awesome images courtesy of Cabin Collective via Making It Lovely

And I don’t think it would be too tricky to do yourself. If you scanned a blank paint by number piece, printed it onto acetate and projected it onto the wall all you’d then have to do is trace and fill in the shapes with paint. True it’s not quite as quick as rolling one coat of one colour on the walls but you will be able to stand back and proudly announce “I did that”. And that’s a good feeling :)

 Heart Debs

P.S. Here’s a tutorial of another method too :)

Owl & Cat & Esther

Today’s post is a special one because it’s about a lovely friend of mine called Esther Hall. I met Esther when we both took an MA in Children’s Book Illustration 5 years ago. It just so happened we lived in the same village which was not only handy as she had a car and gave me a lift to uni (thanks Esther!) but also meant that we could meet up easily to discuss our latest creative dilemma. My time on the course had me creating Milly & Moo: a girl and monkey duo named after my cousin and a cuddly monkey I owned. As I’m an idiot I never even attempted to show my work to anyone and moved away from Children’s Book Illustration soon after the course ended…

Esther’s not an idiot though! :) She developed her fabulous style of lino printing on the course and worked hard sending her illustrations to publishers. This year she had her first book published by Macmillan: Grow Your Own.

Owl & Cat

And she now has an online shop, Owl & Cat, stocked full of goodies…

WIN! WIN! WIN!

What’s more, for your help in getting the word out about Belle Bébés and Esther we have a little giveaway! Yay!

You can win either:

All you have to do is enter! You can enter in several ways and the more times you enter the better your chances of winning. Here’s how…

 Heart Comment on this post. With anything. Just say ‘Hello’ if you’re shy :)

 Heart Tweet about the giveaway. Just be sure to include @bellebebes so we get notified

 Heart Mention the giveaway on Facebook. And again just include the Belle Bébés Facebook page.

And whilst you’re on Twitter and Facebook feel free to “follow” us and “like” us ;)

Tell your friends

You can just tell your friends in person too, as not everything happens on the internet (I need to remind myself of this sometimes!) Sadly you won’t get an entry this way but we’ll love ya for spreading the word!

The competition will end a week today, on the 15th September (11.59pm UK time), the winner will be selected randomly and we will announce it on the blog on Sunday the 18th of September.

Even if you don’t want to enter please share this post around. I’d love to get Esther’s name out there. I know how hard she’s worked on all her fab products and I love everything she’s come up with. Plus I’m hoping if she gets a few orders off the back of this I’ll be rewarded with a sewing kit for Christmas ;)

 Heart Debs

Note: the print doesn’t have to be the one in the image. It can be any in the Owl & Cat shop.

Vendor Details:
Owl & Cat website
Owl & Cat shop
Owl & Cat Etsy shop
Contact Esther
Phone: 0795 652 9962

Theater Clouds

Have I got some whimsical, wonderful and downright gorgeous artwork for the nursery today? Yes, yes I have…

Ontario-based Elly MacKay creates her incredible images by inking yupo paper and cutting it into layers which she then sets up in a miniature theater. A little like this…

But then when she plays around with the lights and filters to create atmosphere and photographs the scenes the result is this…

Theater-Clouds

I love them! The layering gives them a definite 3D quality and the blur makes them so magical.

Once again I’ve shown you something I want for myself that is perfect for children too! But I guess that’s just what I’m drawn to. Things bought for baby don’t have to be something that will only work for their first few years, they can be something your little one will love for a long time. Perhaps even until they decide to put it in their own child’s nursery. And there’s something lovely about that :)

 Heart Debs

Vendor Details:
Elly’s website
Theater Chouds Etsy Shop
Elly’s blog

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