Another new venture?! Part 1

You may think I have enough on my plate...?

Well I clearly didn't think so...and have added another string to my bow. In doing so, I have made the tough decision to fine tune what I do and cut out the event and interior design (it was SO hard to say no to a job of that nature today.)

Last year, my step sister Sally, asked if I could help with her wedding stationery. I couldn't resist but jump in with both feet. Soon a fully designed invitation was in existence and I had been bitten by the bug. The wedding industry is something I have always felt I could contribute to but was never sure of what particular field. 

Sally and Andy's invitation from my instagram 

Meetings with my good friend and super wedding stylist Kirsten Butler helped me start on the long path to becoming a wedding stationery designer, with the opportunity to design some invitations for a shoot at Arnos Vale. I featured those on the blog a little while back and it really got me inspired.

I needed to improve my painting skills so I enrolled on a wonderful 5 week course at the Folk House and got back to basics with the watercolours. It was a botanical drawing class, which is a subject I love, and just happens to be all over high street prints and homewards at the moment. 

These seems to go pretty well, so I started to have a think about what kind of designs I wanted to do for my wedding invitations. After narrowing it down from being everything to everyone, I settled on hand painted, high end, beautiful and delicate patterns inspired by botanical prints. But I had a strong desire to add a contemporary edge. This would come in the use of colour. Poppy Delevingne's second Pucci Wedding dress summed up the feel I wanted to give: incredibly elegant and drawing on traditional fold art and crafts but beautifully bright, daring and contemporary.

This led me to think of the traditional floral patterns found in Mexican Folk Art...Could I justify going to Mexico just to look at embroidered flowers? Hmm, I needed to think a bit closer to home...

So I booked a ticket to Seville.

You'll have to wait for the next post  to find out if Seville gave me what I needed and to get a hint of my drawings and paintings of Seville tiles and architecture