Check Out Oodlique

Hello , hope you're all having a great weekend, just to let you know my work is being sold with the fab Oodlique www.oodlique.com now too. They're an online store that specialises in personalised gifts. Check them out , there's lots of great items for sale on there many perfect for Christmas.

New Jewellery Collection

I love clouds and rainbows, and know a lot of my friends do too , so I decided to create a range of jewellery based on them. They have gone down really well and are available to buy in my Caught in Dreamland Etsy shop. It really takes a lot of trial and error to get  these just right. The pendant part is made using shrinkable plastic , and the trick is to get the colour and size just right before it shrinks. The colours darken when the plastic is shrunk so you need to print it up super pale. The chains are either sterling silver or rolled gold, and each item comes gift boxed. Go and see more pics of my jewellery here ..https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CaughtinDreamland

Hello Again

I never realised people were still looking at my blog!! So sorry you guys, I've just looked at the stats and its seems you are still all out there. So I better tell you whats been happening here in Caught in Dreamland Studios. I have spent the last year trying working with a couple of different design agents to see what works best for me. I have been lucky and had a couple of sales even one with Hallmark, which was amazing, but I found I was struggling to keep up an endless supply of designs, while trying to bring up my two girls and all the joys at that come with that. I started to fall out of love with design so took a step back and have begun to use my work in other areas. I really enjoy being my own boss and want to make a success of it, but don't want it to take over and spill into my family time. That's the down fall of working from home you can never shut off from it and my work does tend to creep out of my studio at times and I end up finishing off something while testing the kids on their spellings, or package up an order while I am cooking tea.

Anyway after some careful thought I have moved , only slightly into a bit of jewellery making, I'll post some pictures below. In the summer I started by creating a small range of summery floral jewellery. This was very popular , especially the earrings, its all available from my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CaughtinDreamland?ref=seller-platform-mcnav  .

My greetings cards are still selling well , and customers are particularly loving my lunch box cards and temporary tattoos.I love having an Etsy shop, it means your work is out there all the time, and you don't have to rely on others selling your work for you.It's such a thrill to make something from initial drawings to a final handmade item and then have someone actual buy it!!Go and take a look at my shop.I will post pics of my new collection later in the week....

My poor old blog has been really neglected lately, but its for good reasons, I have been really busy developing some new product ideas and I am currently working on a range of Christmas items to add to my Caught in Dreamland Etsy shop. At the end of the Summer you may remember I made some lunch box notelets and I have now added to them with some cool greetings cards, funky temporary tattoos and even made badges using some of the characters featured on the lunch box cards. They have gone down really well...and I am hoping some gorgeous shops may want to take them on to sell for me, I have them in a couple of places , but this week I shall be approaching some carefully selected shops to see what they think..fingers crossed. In the meantime here are some pictures..let me know what you think .

Summer Project - Complete!!

So this summer I have been beavering away on some lunch box notes , lovely colourful, motivational cards to put a smile on children's faces when they open their lunch box at school. I know I am always drawing my own each day , but sometimes time is limited and it would be nice to have something already printed. So here's a peek at them, they are available now in my Caught in Dreamland Etsy shop.

Summer Holiday Arty Bits

So it's the summer holidays and I love my two girls being home with me, it gives us some time to do some arty stuff together without the pressure of time constraints and thinking of all the other stuff we should be doing. This week we sat out in the garden and painted some lovely wooden beads and turned them into necklaces. We chose some neon colours which seem to be quite trendy these days, we also added a bit of gold glitter ..I was really pleased with the end results, and will definitely be wearing mine lots for the rest of the summer.

The Beautiful Jurassic Coast

So one of my aims this year was to explore a little more , so this weekend we packed up a picnic and the beach blanket and headed for Lulworth Cove, on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset. It's not a million miles away from where we live, but somewhere I haven't been since I was a child. Luckily the sun was shining so we definitely saw it at its best.

We did a little exploring when we got there, the parking was in a small valley so we walked up one side to take a peek at  Durdle Door, which is another gorgeous beach, that has a limestone arch, its pretty stunning. My two girls were a bit pooped after the steep climb though so we didn't make it down to that cove. We walked back down to Lulworth Cove where we were stunned at the gorgeous-ness of it. It's a lovely pebble beach, with crystal (but chilly) clear sea, you could be abroad, when the sun is shining. There was a little boat taking people out for trips around the bay, and a kayak group stopped off on the beach for lunch. The perfect lunch stop ! People were chilling out, kids were collecting stones and looking for fossils, one nutter went in the sea in her bikini !! You always get one !!

There are several little cafes and pubs there, as well as a fossil shop, a traditional beach shop and an old fashioned sweet shop. Just as we were leaving we spotted a man known as 'The Shell Man' , he's been going there for years apparently and paints lovely shells to sell. It really is worth a visit if you are in Dorset, well definitely be going back , its such a beautiful coastline, takes your breathe away. Here's a few pics