How to pick yourself up when you get those rejection emails

It's difficult to keep upbeat when your a young designer in a very competitive industry.  Rejection comes at you from every angle, and it sometimes feels like you have to claw yourself up each little step!

This means it is really important to focus on the little things, the little positives in your day.  I'm taking part in #100happydays, this is where you find at least one happy moment in your day, or one little thing that makes you happy for 100 days in a row.

I'm only about 30 days in but it's been a fantastic way of seeing what makes me happy, which helps when you get another rejection email or when all of those emails you've sent out don't get a reply.  I love a nice milky, sugary cup of coffee, I love those songs that make you feel unstoppable, with the amazing drum beats (I'm a drummer) that make you want to get up and dance.  I love to dance, if I'm feeling tired or unproductive I put on an amazing song and have a dance about to get my heart rate up, I can focus after a good dance.  I love spending time with my mum, she always believes in me and when I'm worrying about the future or I doubt myself then she is one of the people I go to to fill myself full of confidence again.

It's good to recognise what makes you happy, so that when you get bad news or something doesn't go as planned you can get back to being yourself and working your way up the ladder.

I had another wonderful treat this week, I took part in a little snail mail swap that Mirta from Mi+ed Design set up (I love getting mail!) and I received a little parcel all the way from Austria, from Belle Accessories.  We were asked to send something we had made, something we had bought and something old to our partners.  I was so lucky to be sent two beautiful pairs of earrings (I really must go and get my ears pierced now!) and a hand drawn postcard which I plan to get framed for my studio.

Thank you so much to Barbara who sent me these and I hope she receives mine in return!

What I love about paper!

I absolutely love paper!  I couldn’t do my job without paper, it’s where all of my designs begin.  Even when I’m using my tablet I begin with drawing in my sketchbook.  I love that when presented with a new, crisp, blank piece of paper the possibilities are endless, it’s just up to your imagination what you can do with it.

I’m a surface pattern designer and illustrator and begin every new design with just this, a blank piece of paper and a pencil.  I have folders stacked full of my sketches which very few people will ever get to see.  So just for you I’ve taken a photo of a tiny section of these initial ideas.

A tiny selection of my sketches

I get so excited about getting a new sketchbook or notebook, then the terrified feeling that I’m going to mess up the first page and ruin it all (as I’m sure every other stationary lover does too!).  This means I have some beautiful notebooks that have never been written in! I’m waiting for an amazing project that feels worthy of writing in them.  Am I alone in this? I suppose we all have our little quirks, if anyone has any suggestions of how to use them let me know!  I mean look at them, they’re just too beautiful to use!

I’ve taken part in quite a few different snail mail projects, ones where we send each other a beautifully illustrated envelope, or send little drawings inside and I’m taking part in one at the moment where we send little gifts (more to come later this week!).

An illustrated envelope I've sent

My world seems to revolve around paper and card at the moment, I have a greeting card and notebook collection currently for sale with more on the way.  There’s something so wonderful about holding a printed version of your work and my love of stationary made it clear what to manufacture first.

Spaceman Notebook

A selection of my greetings cards

I’m so happy to be part of this bloghop where lots of paper lovers are sharing why they love paper, make sure you keep reading =)

Here is the participant list so you can easily find your way:

Majo Bautista / Tona Bell / Louise Best / Cathy Bluteau / Jennifer Bomgardner / Giova Brusa / Lindsay Buck / Beka Buckley / Joanna Caskie / Jonathan Chapman (Mr Yen) / Halle Cisco / Sarah Clare / Cathryn Clarge / Dawn Clarkson / Rhiannon Connelly / Jenny D'Fuego / Molly Dhiman / Ian Dudley / Ayisatu Emore / Akmal Farid / Monika Forsberg / Claire Fritz-Domeney / Louise Gale / Chrissy Gaskell / Julie Hamilton / Emma Hawman / Rachel Hazell / Holly Helgeson / Claudine Hellmuth / Kim Henkel / Sarah Hoffman / Joanne Hus / Paula Joerling / Beth Kempton / Julie Kirk / Eos Koch / Katie LaClair / Kristy Lankford / Michelle Manolov / Doreen Marts / Rosie Martinez-Dekker / Tori Mears / Maria Mederios / Lise Meijer / Debbie Miller / MaryJane Mitchell / Suzy Naidoo / Grace Noel / Hannah Nunn / Camilla Olsson / Jo Packham / Rachelle Panagarry / Monette Pangan / Melanie Paul / Nicole Piar / Jen Pitta / Liz Plummer / Julie Reed / Michelle Reynolds / Lisa Rivas / Angee Robertson / Natalie Ryan / Aisling Ryan / Elisabet Sapena / Kyrrha Sevco / Jamie Sprague / Elizabeth Steele / Terri Stephens / Juniper Stokes / Mary Tanana / Maike Thoma / Linda Tieu / Gabrielle Treanor / Tammy Tutterow / Deborah Velasquez / Jordan Vinograd Kim / Cat Whipple / Brooke Witt / Katie Wood / Amelia Woodbridge

The PaperLove Blog Hop is a celebration of all things paper! Follow the links to discover more bloggers who love paper and use it to inspire and delight. And if you want to explore a whole world of paper, and stretch your paper passion further with a host of creative projects, why not join the innovative new online course PaperLove (starts March 31). Led by book artist Rachel Hazell, PaperLove is a five week creative adventure for paper lovers. Find out more here.

Off to meet the Duke of Edinburgh!

Something very exciting is happening this Wednesday for me!  It isn't design related but it is such a huge achievement that I just have to share it with you.  Last year I finished my Gold Duke of Edinburgh award after almost 6 years of working towards it I am so happy to announce I'm off to St James Palace to get my award from the Duke of Edinburgh!  a.k.a Prince Phillip (the Queen's husband!).

There are three levels of the award, Bronze, Silver and Gold, I finished my Silver back when I was 16 but the Gold award is by far the hardest to finish.

For each award you have to take part in expeditions where you go hiking and camping for 2-4 days depending on which level you are working towards.  You have to plan a route, including working out the compass bearings (don't ask me how to do these, the guys in the group thankfully handled them!), and carry everything you might need for the whole expedition, this means a super heavy bag on your back for days. 

The expedition is only one part of this though, and even then you have to go on a practice expedition before the actual one!

You also have to complete a skill, service and sport for these awards, so for this you do an hours worth of each a week for a certain amount of time.  for the Gold I did 6 months of a sport and 12 months of the service and skill.

The sport I did was kickboxing, which I ended up in more pain after one session than doing a four day hike.  For the service I helped at Girl Guides which I had been part of for 7 years already, and the skill was my drumming lessons.

So it was fairly easy to get that part of the award done as I did most of it already anyway.  The last part of the Gold award that sets it apart from the others is the residential trip.  Which the website describes as "Undertake a shared activity in a residential setting away from home for 5 days and 4 nights."  Basically go away from home for at least 4 nights, I went and helped kids with asthma for AsthmaUK which was a weeks trip to Edinburgh.  I got to see some wonderful places and pretty much play games and organise fun activities for a week.   I stayed at Fettes College, which is such an amazing place to stay!  I was a volunteer so my travel and accommodation were all included, for anyone looking to complete their Gold award that are still searching for a residential to do, I couldn't recommend this highly enough!

So you can see there is quite a lot that needs to be done to achieve this award, especially when your only 17 and having to motivate yourself to do all of these things.  It has taken me 6 years to finally finish it (mostly due to starting the sport while I was at University as you've got to be part of a group to get these things signed off).

I have so many funny memories from the expeditions, although I doubt they would seem quite so funny at the time when your feet are sore and blistered and your shoulders feel like they're about to drop off from the weight of your bag.  It's been 6 years since we did this expedition and since then we've all gone to different Universities and most of us are now in full time jobs around the country, but we still keep in contact and meet up whenever we have the chance.  I made some amazing friends from doing this and it definitely made us a lot closer.

The beginning of the 4 day expedition

The morning of the last day, only 10 km left! All looking a little worse for wear.

First group to finish so back to the youth hostel and hot showers!

Good thing you can't see closer because my face is unbelievably puffed up.

Getting back into the swing of it again!

I am finally reunited with the internet! Wow it has been a tough and rather boring two weeks.

I didn't realise how much I rely on the internet for running and building Emma Frances, I've been able to get to my emails and check how things are ticking over through my phone but emailing people takes soooo long and then there is the possibility of auto correct messing up a business proposal!  I spent the first week finishing off designs I'd begun and then the weekend we travelled back home but last week was the longest week ever.  I rely massivly on the internet for gathering inspiration and although I can get that away from the computer screen it is quite difficult to feel inspired when it's raining and windy outside and you've no maps of the new area to find your way around.  So I began by sketching from photos on my compueter, but I'd already used a lot of them for past projects so that didn't last long.  Next I flicked through loads of my magazines and books which gave me some good ideas but again didn't last long.  In the end I gave up and spent the rest of the week cleaning the house and knitting.  Exciting I know.

Monday was supposed to be internet day so I waited around (with my knitting) for the little red light to change to green which meant I could emerse myself in the world of surface pattern once more!

It didn't happen.

Internet day came and went and the next morning the light was still red.  Boooooo.  My fingers were aching from the knitting, how do you prevent that? I end up with a strange claw for a hand after a while.  By this time I was going a little stir crazy from uncreativeness and the miserable weather so did some pilates in the front room to help me feel semi productive and as I was about to begin the little light switched to green. HURRAY!  I still did my pilates then spent the rest of the evening trawling through as much of the internet as I could and filling my head with tons of new ideas.  I've got about a million plans for this year and I can finally get back in gear and get going with it all.  Lots to keep you updated with!

Oh and now I'm back to work the sun is shining gloriously outside....typical.

Sorry I've been away for a while!

Well you'll be happy to hear the move went fairly smoothly!  Well as smoothly as a house move can go, I woke up bright and early to finish off the kitchen and wash the pots before packing them, but honestly there are so many little jobs you don't think about!  Suddenly I had about 20 minutes left to do a list a mile long, and then the doorbell goes and the removal men are here early (I mean of all the days for people to come early!).  So they set to shifting all of the furniture into the van, there were two men to begin with, then there came a third and a fourth so they had it done in no time as I was still frantically sorting the kitchen out and packing the cars.  

By this point my hair looked like Monica's when she went on holiday...

So Matthew set off to the new house and the removal men weren't far behind (if that boy didn't have a sat nav he could have ended up who knows where! So we decided he should have that and I'll use my internal compass) and I was left to clean the old house.

Well.....who knew how much of a work out cleaning and hoovering a whole house could be.  My right arm is now twice the size of my left from pushing the Dyson hoover, which suctioned itself to the floor and felt like I was trying to drag a sack of potatoes across the floor.  By now my hair had far surpassed Monica's and I still had an hour and a half drive to the new house.

The guy came for the keys and I was finally free to set off to the new house, I'd put myself a flask of coffee together so sat in my car and demolished the cereal bars I'd packed and pretty much the whole flask of coffee to keep me going for the long drive.  I was on my way to a new home!

Once on the motorway and I had my music blasting out I noticed a drumming noise in the background...it was an almighty noise from under my bonnet.  Of all the times Doris (my little green Clio) decides to misbehave now!  She's done this before and would be fine the next time I drove her so I figured it may be her just telling me she doesn't appriciate going at 70, she's an old lady after all.  I had to pull off the motorway and check if anything was loose and banging about, the dipstick was loose but I'm fairly sure that little thing wouldn't make that amount of noise.  Clipped it back in and set off following a Tesco van at 50 down the M6.

Doris was happy.  I even made it up to 60, although I'm sure the other drivers were cursing me.  It took me a little longer than it would have but I got to Derby safe and sound and little Doris is happily parked in the drive.  I'm sad to say she may be off to a new family soon, before anything goes wrong! I gave her a good telling off and asked her to get me there safely and she did.  She's been a wonderful first car and I've had barely any problems (besides the exhaust falling off in Leeds city centre, but come on, it could have been worse!).

The removal men had left and Matthew had been setting up the house, I couldn't have arrived at a better time.

I just wanted to let you know what I'd been up to and why I've been so quite this week, which is because we don't have internet in the new house just yet.  I will be back up and running this Friday! However I can get emails and check important things via my phone in the meantime so you can still order products and get hold of me.

I'm thankfully back to internet land this weekend because I'm at my parents for the weekend for little brother's birthday (He was 9 on Valentine's day!), which is how I can magically write this post.  I hope you've all had a lovely Valentine's day and can't wait to be back with more designs/news and other exciting posts next week!

Happy Sunday :)

My Tigerprint Entries

I know it has been quite some time since I last shared some of my work, it's heartbreaking not being able to share my newest designs with you, but I assure you there will be lots happening in the future that I can share with you instead!

I'm so happy to be able to show you my Tigerprint entries for their last competition.  The theme was 'Everyday Surface Pattern' which is right up my street, I seem to live, breathe and sleep patterns at the moment.  Having been designing for children, and particularly for boys for the past month I went straight to the florals for these patterns.  Oh how I've missed drawing florals!

I went for a bright and delicate colour palette aswell as darker opposite to give two different end looks. While playing about with the composition I came across the outlined piece and loved it straight away so that became my third design.  After the first three I started to work on the last two which were patterns I had put together a while ago and just needed to colour. 

What do you think!?

 

February Calender Freebie

I am one of a group of designers who have come together to bring you some digital freebies each month.  One of my surface pattern friends set this up last year, Majo picked 11 designer to work alongside herself to produce a printable calender for each month.  This year she has stepped it up a notch and has not only brought you downloadable calenders for your desktop, tablet and mobile backgrounds but also brought you printable weekly planners to keep you super organised.

February is my month to design, I went for a bold but romantic theme, bringing in some florals in the shape of snowdrops, which are some of my favourite flowers!

You can download all of these from here, each of the files are clearly labeled with the pixel size and the device type.

If you would like to download the printable you can find their links by hopping over to Majo's Blog!