New Blue Willow tea towel range.... and a new home for my ramblings

My last blog post was two years ago!  Hard to believe two years has passed, in some ways it feels like five minutes ago - and other times it feels like a lifetime.

It has been incredibly hard trying to maintain a small business involving commercial freelance design work for clients, with my own product range, and having two small children!  A few things have had to slide in order to remain sane and not be too overwhelmed and swamped with life - one of which has been this blog.

So, for now I'm using Facebook and Instagram to communicate and share work and a few personal things I'm involved with.  I've loved writing this blog and connecting with people, and hope that some of you might pop over and say "Hello" over there!

I'm leaving with some images of my latest 'Blue Willow' tea towel range.  Launched a few months ago in October 2016, it's the culmination of a years work in between a baby growing into a toddler, a toddler growing into a pre-schooler, new clients and freelance projects - and that big thing that gets in the way called life!!

Based on my inky illustrations of the famous Willow pattern, and all taken from my own collection of Willow dinner plates, side plates, jugs and teacups etc.  You can head over to my online shop to see more information and images.

Tea towel range photo shoot

A few weeks ago I received all of my tea towel designs, hot off the printing press from the UK!  I was very excited to receive the designs and to have them here pre-baby - phew!  I'd been tinkering with simple packaging ideas for the tea towels but the next step was to get them photographed in order to load onto my little on-line shop, and contact potential retailers.   

I had some difficulties finding a photographer to help get the tea towels photographed, with most of the local photographers concentrating mainly on portraits and wedding photography.  Plus when dealing with a tea towel that will retail for $25, a budget for a professional photographer on top of all the other costs and expenses involved with manufacturing a small range, was pretty minimal. 

However, I was lucky enough to have an offer of help from the super-talented and very lovely Amelia from Simple Provisions to help me out with the styling and photography.  Plus, we were able to use the studio from my local hairdressers Cirkus Hair to do the photoshoot - gotta love living in a small country town with help like this!   

It was a really fun day getting the tea towels photographed, and great working with someone else who had fresh eyes and ideas for the styling of the tea towels.  I'm aiming to get the tea towels loaded into my shop before the baby arrives in two weeks time (eek!).  Big, big heartfelt "Thank You's" go to Amelia and Pete for all their help, support and time to help me out at the last minute.  Do checkout Amelia's Simple Provisions blog / facebook page as she has some really delicious recipes and delightful photography.