Friday 3 November 2017

My Miniature Isadora Moon Kitchen


I had a craving to make a 3d Isadora Moon set for a while. I thought it would be nice to take around to events with me - an object for the children to look at. I am pleased that I managed to find time to do it! To read in more detail about it you can visit this post on my other blog.

Sunday 21 May 2017

A miniature Witch's Cat book

If you know me then you'll know I love tiny things. I had an idea about creating one of my published books in miniature recently and once the thought had entered my head I just had to do it!

I decided on 'I am a Witch's Cat.' I am not sure why. Now I think about it my book 'The Biggest Smallest Christmas Present' would have been more apt as it is about a miniature girl! But never mind. 


It's not actually one twelfth scale it's about one sixth scale as I was making it for a friend. I am really pleased with how it came out. I got it printed on laserjet so the quality is good and it is fully readable througout. I bound it using the bookbinding technique I learned at university so I am hoping the pages will stay intact! 

I was extremely pleased that I managed to print the pages doublesided! It bamboozled my brain a bit though working out how to do that!

The only thing I did a bit wrong was I misjudged where the writing went on the spine so it is not quite on the spine. But oh well!

Once I had made that one I felt inspired to put together another smaller one to go in my own castle.

Now I feel inspIred to make a miniature version of every one of my published books and maybe one day I will!

Thursday 4 May 2017

Isadora Moon gets into Trouble

Today is the day Isadora Moon gets into Trouble is published!

I really enjoyed writing this book and I think it is one of my favourite Isadora Moon stories so far. I love it because it includes a dolls house, a baby dragon and a witch. I think it's the sort of story I would have loved to read myself as a child. 


this (below) is part of one of my favourite spreads from the book. It is Isadora Moon's dolls house. 

* Spoiler alert *

*** I love that Isadora and her cousin Mirabelle make a magic potion to miniaturize themselves and go and play inside the dolls house themselves. They have fun whizzing down the twisty slide but it all ends in disastrous consequences. That part is actually my favourite of the book! I also really love that at the end they sit and make their own miniature dolls house dolls out of scraps and fabric and things. That's exactly the sort of thing I used to when I was young. Actually I suppose I still do that now! Another thing I used to do was make food for my dolls but it had to all be real food. I included that in the book too. Isadora makes teeny tiny sandwiches and sets out bowls of cake sprinkles which her and Mirabelle eat. ***

I feel like this book reflects most the games I used to play as a child. That's basically my bedroom floor right there! Covered in dolls and tiny clothes and furniture. 

You can buy Isadora Moon gets into Trouble in all good book shops! 


.✮*¨*•★•*¨*✮Happy reading!✮*¨*•☆•*¨*•.

Friday 11 November 2016

Isadora Moon dress up doll and other things

One of the things I really enjoyed doing in the lead up to the release of the Isadora Moon books was creating this dress up doll sheet below. I have always, always had a thing for paper cut out dolls - I think they are so charming - so I was very eager to create one for Isadora Moon. Besides, she has a fabulous wardrobe of clothes and I wanted to show them off!

All of the outfits on the sheet can be found somewhere in the books.

I couldn't resist trying out the cut out doll for myself once it was finished!


These sheets were available at some of my events but if you want to download one yourself then I'll leave a full res one here (below.) You SHOULD be able to open it in a new tab and it will be full size so you can download it!
I also created two colouring sheets for Isadora Moon.


Over half term I was very busy because I did seven Isadora Moon events in various Waterstone's and libraries. I had not done a lot of events before so it was interesting to see what worked and what didn't work and I think I learned a lot doing them. Here are some photos from the Hitchin event which I think was my favourite. Because I am from Hitchin, lots of people who I knew came so it felt more like a launch party which was really nice. There were spiderwebs and pink and black balloons and the whole thing went really well.

Here I am reading an extract from my book to the children:


And signing books! We did a wand making craft activity at this event which went down well with the children.

My mum made some vampire and fairy shaped star biscuits:

There were a few Pink Rabbits (the children came dressed up) but I was especially impressed with this one because the little girl's mum had even sewn black and white stripes into the ears!




I'll leave you now with a little picture of baby Honeyblossom
Bye for now! X

Collecting Berries


Another picture of Vinetta, collecting berries. It was a beautiful November morning today.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Isadora Moon, my birthday and school visits

It's high time for an update on this blog! 

So let's start with a picture of Isadora Moon celebrating her birthday. I am currently in the middle of sketching out and painting the illustrations for 'Isadora Moon has a Birthday.' It is quite fitting as my own birthday was this week. I turned twenty eight on Tuesday.


I didn't really do anything for my birthday this year but I did get some nice presents. I got a miniature necklace and a miniature dragon! I am not sure why I have such an obsession with miniature jewellery but I just love it. It's like fairy jewellery. 

The necklace is tiny, only about the size of a penny. And it is SO sparkly. I only wish I could photograph it better. It is made by Nalladris on Etsy,

I also love the tiny crochet dragon. It goes perfectly in my castle as Celestine has a collection of miniature dragons. I was amazed when it arrived - it looked better in real life than in the photo! It is really amazing actually. Made by SuAmi on Etsy. I wish I knew how to crochet.


Other things that have happened recently: I received a proof copy in the post of the first Isadora Moon book a little while ago which was really exciting. So cool to see it in proper book form! I just love Isadora Moon sooooo much and love every second of working on the books. It's such a dream project of mine.


I did this little picture of her just for fun the other day. She is making flower crowns with Pink Rabbit and looking forward to spring! I guess they are maybe blossom flowers or maybe magic flowers.

Isadora Moon loves Pink Rabbit!

So yes, I am currently in the middle of illustrating Isadora Moon book three. I absolutely love working on them as I have said but I am also reeeeally excited (and a bit nervous) for these books to be out in the shops! They will be released in September but you can pre order them if you wish.

Another thing I did recently was two school visits for world book week. One of them was at an infant school and the other one was actually at my old school, talking to the year 8 and 9's. I haven't had a lot of experience doing school visits before so this was quite new to me. I really enjoyed both of the visits though and it was really interesting to go back to my old school.

I actually made it into the paper for one of the school visits so that was pretty cool. I only found out because my aunt spotted it and texted me to tell me. 

I'll finish up with a picture of me showing my Witch's Cat sets to the children at Highbury Infant School in Hitchin. Photo taken by the school.

And that concludes my update!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

X

Sunday 9 August 2015

Celestine at the pool (+ my instagram account!)

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day, so we decided to go swimming.

Celestine refused to come unless I made her a pair of sunglasses to match her swimsuit. Honestly! (roll eyes) She does insist on being fashionable at all times. I tell you, it can get quite exhausting.

So I quickly made this pair of yellow sunglasses and she perched them on her head. The lenses are made from a ginger beer bottle!

She enjoyed floating about in her new rubber ring.