Summer at last - and a big decision!

Suddenly we have something a lot more like summer weather – dry and sunny but with quite a stiff breeze to keep us from overheating. 

The schools broke up last Thursday and it is so unusual for the weather to change for the better once the children are at home – it’s usually the exact opposite!

I heard that the birds are getting confused by the weather and migrating at the wrong times and something quite bizarre is certainly going on with one of my little apple trees –

It’s hard to see but yes, that is blossom up at the top, on the right and apples down near the bottom, all on the same tree!

I’ve been working on that rose and lavender design, making it into a repeating pattern, trying not to get frustrated with my laptop running out of memory and placing the design elements as accurately as I can by eye.

Nostalgic Scents of Summer Pattern Throw Pillow by helikettle
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But on Saturday, I heard about some so-called ‘improvements’ that Zazzle are making to the site, which most people seem to think will be disastrous for sales!

Products seemed to have gone missing from our stores - I clicked on the 'Tote Bags' button only to find that there were 'no products found' in spite of knowing that I had created more than fifty tote bags!

I was quite overcome by a feeling of 'powerlessness' in respect of the various Print-on-demand websites I sell through. During this past year, each one of the four main sites I use has made changes that have adversely affected the artists and there’s not a thing we can do about it.

I read on the forum about an artist ‘leaving her computer in tears’. I felt a bit the same way but instead, I went out and mowed the lawn and took out my exasperation on the edges with the shears! I should really have been working on my designs -  putting the 'greetings' on the Roses and Lavender card above! - but it was the first of the beautiful summer’s afternoons and it would have been a shame to stay indoors.

I often do my most constructive thinking whilst trimming the edges of the lawn!

And as a result of my pondering, on Sunday morning I did a google search for online surface pattern courses as the products that Zazzle have launched this year – cushions, bags, sleeves etc, have reawakened my love of surface pattern design.

Scents of Summer Pattern Messenger Bag by helikettle

I was completely amazed when a UK-based course came up straight away and it looks like just what I need!

Here it is -

Do What You Love

The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design

So - (deep breath!) - although it will involve expenses that I don't really want to think about, I have decided to do what I wanted to do more than 20 years ago . . . . . . . . better late than never!



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The Humble Daisy and Exotic Mock Orange Blossom!

The daisy is, apparently, the Birth Month Flower for April. 

According to one website I found, so is the Sweet Pea. But April seems a bit early in the year for either of those flowers here; though when I mowed my little lawn a few days ago, hoping that my wrap-around sunglasses would protect me from the pollen, I noticed a couple of little daisies in the grass. And they inspired this April Birthday Card design.

I painted it with gouache on blue sugar paper so that I wouldn’t need to paint the blue background. Sugar paper absorbs the water rather quickly so I used the paint much thicker than usual. It almost felt like using pastels and it freed me up from the rather ‘tight’ approach I’ve had to use recently when making repeating patterns. I was almost able to revert to my ’fast and furious’ ways that I feel so at home with when I use both oil pastels and soft pastels.

But I really do enjoy making repeating patterns, in spite of all the extra stages they take, and the accuracy they demand, even though that doesn't come naturally to me. And I was really delighted that a customer ordered a phone case with my primrose repeating pattern earlier this week.

Pretty Spring Primroses Case-mate iPhone 4/4S by helikettle

It just happened that on the same day, I was tidying up – something I have to do occasionally when I run out of flat surfaces! – and came across a whole sheaf of papers with drawings of flowering plants that I made in my Norwich garden, in the days before the pollen began to affect me.

It seems miraculous to me now that I could have taken the time to make a careful study of probably my all-time favourite flower, Philadelphus, or Mock Orange Blossom without any pollen problems. In the days before its wonderful fragrance began to have this adverse affect on me, I used to have jugs and vases of it all around my house when it was in season, but sadly, now I mostly just admire it through the window!

So this series of plant drawing was a terrific ‘find’ and it included the daffodil drawing I mentioned a few posts back. I couldn't wait to make a start on a repeating pattern with Mock Orange and Weigelia and here is the tracing:

'Can you see what it is yet?' - as Rolf Harris would say!

I seem to have a horribly busy week ahead, dentist check-up, appointment with the bank, and the newsagent wanting some of my Easter Cards, featuring our local  St Mary’s Church, with the greeting in Welsh.

All these things are extra to my normally very full schedule of uploading cards and, currently, organising my Weddings category on Zazzle – a rather huge and tedious task!

But I really hope to have the Mock Orange Blossom design ready to post next week - if only because there are so many more flowering plant drawings just begging me to make them into designs!

July Garden Update

With the change in the month came a change in the weather - our first real rain for weeks! In Wales, usually known to be unrelentingly wet, this first half of 2010 has been the driest since 1929 and the second driest for 100 years! So the heavy rain at the end of last week was welcome for the garden and fortunately it came in the night and  brought to an end the really hot weather, though it's still been pleasantly warm.

It's also brought with it a noticeable change in my garden with many of the flowers that made late May and June so glorious, past now their best and the later flowering plants not quite reaching their peak. I look upon it as the garden taking a bit of a rest after the abundant, almost extravagant displays of June. 

My Alchemist climbing rose went from this:

through various colour stages,

 - to this:

- and is now in dire need of dead-heading! But it's really earned its keep, not only in terms of the pleasure it brings but it started me thinking about occasionally using photos for greeting cards, something I hadn't previously done very much.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the predominant colours of the garden change with the seasons? We begin with the yellows of primroses, daffodils and crocuses and the purples of bluebells and yellow and blue irises in Spring.

Then the early summer flowering plants seems to be predominantly pink, blue and white,

while the later flowers tend to be bright reds and oranges.

 These nasturtiums in my kitchen window-box are just beginning to peep out from behind their rather over-sized leaves.

And my organic runner beans, planted rather late in a tub, are just beginning to flower - red again!

It's been really difficult to photograph flowers this year because we've had such a windy few months and the plants tend to sway around vigorously, which my camera doesn't much like!

The big white daisies are getting going -

Mine never stand up straight because the high walls mean they have to lean forwards to get the light - but I rather like the way their stems curve!

I moved my lilies last Autumn and they seem to be sulking, producing mostly just one bloom at the time -

And the self-seeded Californian Poppies are a bit thin on the ground this year.

It seems to be mostly the orange and red flowers that succumbed to the very low temperatures last winter, though my lovely red salvia that I thought was well and truly dead, has sprung a few new green shoots recently. Probably too late to flower this year, but at least it's alive - as is the Spanish Jasmine in my front porch, which looked thoroughly dead until a couple of weeks ago! I always give plants the benefit of the doubt and don't immediately remove the dead-looking ones for the sake of tidiness -  and I'm invariably rewarded for my patience.

Of course there are exceptions to the colour pattern I've described but it seems to me to be striking enough to make me wonder whether there's a scientific explanation - maybe to do with the amount of daylight available?

Earlier today I enjoyed a picnic lunch in the Linda Vista Gardens (above), celebrating the birthday of one of our Walking Group leaders. It's a beautiful terraced garden, sloping down from the edge of the town to the Castle Meadows, open to the public but as not many people know of its existence, it tends to be little frequented, except when the ABGV Borough Band puts on a concert of a summer evening. (You can see one of my pastel paintings of the audience on Red Bubble.) It's one of the most peaceful spots I know of around these parts, with a view of the Blorenge mountain, and one of my favourites places to go to take photos. Today there were still plenty of roses blooming as well as all sorts of lesser know plants and I had a field day with my camera! So if anyone needs flower photos for reference for a painting, please just ask! It's quite likely that I'll have something suitable on my poor groaning computer!

Sweet Pea Mug by helikettle
Get your own ceramic mug at Zazzle

'Giant Sweet Peas' Tote Bag by helikettle
Browse other Bag Bags

'Giant Sweet Peas' Keds Shoes by helikettle
Make custom shoes with zazzle

Increasing Online Sales

I'm wondering how far to go in order to increase my sales through the online stores.

A newsletter from Zazzle this week listed the following 'Top Searches':

- Personal Business Cards
- Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers
- Bridal Shower invitations
- Wedding Postage
- Wedding Announcements
- Graduation Invitations
- Birthday Cards
- Bachelor Party Invitations
- Funny Posters
- Geek T-shirts

And the top sales through GCU were:

- 4th July cards
- Weddings
- Graduation

Of all those listed, the only categories my designs would fit into are the birthday cards and perhaps the wedding announcements, though I haven't made a lot of those - and even this one was not my idea, but came from a customer who found my sweet pea bookmark and asked me to make it into invitations for her wedding and I adapted it later for GCU -

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Just as I find it hard to create Christmas Card designs in the summer, I don't find it easy to design for something to which I can't relate and if I try to, I think it comes through in my work. Unfortunately, the subjects of most of the top searches and sales are outside of my experience - for instance, we don't have 'bridal showers' in the UK, as far as I know, nor do we celebrate 'graduation' in quite the same way as in the US. We do have 'Stag Nights' which I presume are what are meant by 'Bachelor Party Invitations' but they are generally very informal affairs and formal invitations would hardly be in keeping with the spirit of the occasion. As for the 'Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers', I'd never have known that there was any demand for such a thing!

So - unless I can somehow get my head around these, to me, quite alien concepts, I'll have to continue with my birthday cards and perhaps take advantage of all the flowers coming out in my garden to make more Wedding Invitations.

There are plenty of roses for inspiration -

- and my first autumn-sown sweet peas are beginning to flower -

And maybe I can make something of the mock orange?

Or these love-in-a-mist might make a pretty design?

But with the flowers in my garden coming out thick and fast at the moment, it's difficult to keep up with them all!

I've just checked on Zazzle and there are a few floral business cards - so maybe that's something to be thinking about, if I can put myself in the shoes of a florist or garden centre owner? I often find that I have my best ideas when I'm not trying to think of something. My son is coming down from York to stay with me next and I expect we'll be out and about in the mountains, weather permitting. So perhaps something will come to me while I'm trying to keep up with him on one of our hikes!

Gardening on a Shoestring

Two major printer jams later, one of them very scary, I'm relieved to say that the latest batch of greeting cards is packed up and on its way to Norfolk. It's really been far too hot to be working so hard!

But, yesterday, on my way to fetch some packaging from my garage at the end of my garden, I surprised to notice that my 'Dreaming Spires' rose had begun to bloom -

It's always one of the first rose to come out but even so it seemed a bit sudden! This evening it's covered in buds and blooms -

I'm very fond of this rose, partly for the obvious reasons - the rich buttery golden colour of its blooms, its fragrance and even its name - but also because it was such a bargain! I bought it for less than £2 in the garden department of our local equivalent of Woolworths and it's particularly good value because it flowers twice a year!

It set me thinking about how a garden can so easily eat into - or should I say 'devour', one's income, especially for those of us who are gardening enthusiasts! But it doesn't have to be that way so I thought I'd mention a few little tips and ideas which have helped me to create a frequently admired little garden without breaking the bank!

The first and perhaps most obvious tip is to grow your own plants from seed, rather than buy plants. It does require a bit more patience and care and you have watch out not to rack up the cost by spending on expensive composts and containers. But the cost can be kept really low if you save the seeds from year to year and sow them either straight into the ground or in tubs of soil. I do this successfully with annuals such as Sweet Peas, Pot Marigolds, Nasturtiums, Californian Poppies, Love-in-a-Mist amongst others and mostly avoid the expense of 'bedding plants'. They self-seed as well so are a really cost-effective way of providing colour in the garden - especially as they've provided me with the inspiration for so many of my greeting cards!

   

   

     

So whether you are looking for something like nasturtiums or marigolds to brighten up your garden or whether you prefer the more delicate colours and wonderful fragrance of sweet peas, you don't need to spend much beyond the original packets of seeds! There are plenty of websites such as this one if you need advice on how to go about harvesting seeds from your garden. 

Sometimes you can end up with far more seeds than you need and then you may be able to exchange them with friends or through the Cottage Garden Society website -  though, be warned! A friend of mine regularly exchanges her seeds through this website each Autumn and has been known to discover in the fullness of time that she has carefully tended and lovingly nurtured a pot of grass! (I've sometimes popped a little packet of seeds from my garden in with Christmas presents for friends and nobody has told me yet that I've sent them weeds!)

My second piece of advice is that if you are on a tight budget, Garden Centres are best avoided as much as possible. If you love flowers and are anything like me, you are likely to come home overspent and overloaded with plants you won't know where to put! It horrifies me to see pots of annuals that grow more or less wild in my garden for £4 and upwards! If there's a plant that your garden really seems to need that isn't available 'on the cheap' then dropping heavy hints about garden centre vouchers, or even plants, in advance of your birthday is one little trick I'd recommend! That's how I came by my fabulous 'Alchemist' rose, pictured here in an oil pastel painting -

My mother never went to a garden centre in her whole life; I'm not even sure that they existed while she was still alive. There were 'nurseries' but even they were few and far between and not much frequented by the general public.I don't know if she had particularly green fingers but my mother spent as much time as her seven children and later, other committments, allowed, 'doing the garden' and it always looked lovely. I think she must have found it therapeutic as she always seemed to be in her best moods when gardening. She had very little spare cash but she knew how to divide up perennials to make new plants for any spot that was looking bare and this is something I've always done when moving house. 

As soon as I know that I'm definitely going to move, and weather permitting, I divide my favourite flowers, making sure that I leave plenty behind for the new occupant, and plant up what I want to take with me in large plastic flower pots or tubs. That way they can stay put after the move until I have time to plant them in the garden. Quite a few of the plants in my present garden, such as these Mountain Cornflowers and Snow in Summer -

have moved with me at least twice! As has the blue plant, which I think is a type of geranium - I'm hopeless with names! - which gave rise to this waterdolour card design:

I put it on a Zazzle mug and it's been much admired -

Blue Geranium Mug by helikettle
More Blue Mugs

- though I actually much prefer its 'Nasturtium' cousin:

Nasturtium Mug by helikettle
Design a travel coffee mug at zazzle.co.uk

Finally I'll share with you another of my mother's little money-saving tricks, though I don't recommend that you follow it in its entirety! She had a knack of seemlessly 'tidying up' the flowering shrubs in the public gardens along the Esplanade of the seaside town where we lived and transplanting her 'tidyings' to our garden, where they invariably thrived! The nearest I've come to this is my splendid Mock Orange which originated in my garden in Hereford!

Its Abergavenny offspring is  on the point of coming out today -

- but it started life as about half a dozen small shoots around the base of the parent tree. I 'tidied them up' and planted them in a large plastic tub, where they stayed for almost five years waiting for the retaining wall to be built around the flower bed in which it now resides! It didn't wait the usual seven years to flower but began to bloom in its third year after the move. 

Maybe I have inheritied green fingers but I'll pass on my very simple method of replanting, which always seems to be successful, learnt from my mother. You simply dig a shallow hole or put some soil into the bottom of a large pot, water it till you make a pool of water and then lay the cuttings all around the edge, leaning outwards. Cover the centre of the hole (and the roots) with soil and firm it down as 'robustly' as you can. Hold the cuttings up in a more or less upright position and place more soil around the outside of them, again treading it down, or in the case of a tub or pot, pressing it down really firmly. Then talk to it nicely (very important!) and before long you will have a nice healthy plant to fill a space in your garden and provide subject matter for photos and paintings! 

Mock Orange, or Philadelphus is traditionally associated with weddings because the scent of Orange Blossom is said to be an aphrodisiac -

  

Just one last little tip - don't waste money on garden tools that you'll rarely need. Either improvise (cut the bottoms off large lemonade or mineral water bottles for great little cloches for individual plants!) or borrow tools that are not likely to get much use. For instance, a rake seems like an obvious 'must' in a garden, but I haven't used one since I first laid out the garden 8 years ago because my garden is now so full of plants that there's simply nowhere to rake! 

And now I'm off to water my garden - a big downside of the hot weather, especially when the water is metered and the water butt is running dry! We could really do with a few heavy downpours - as long as they're at night! 

Happy gardening!