2025 Paper Theatre Cards

 Hello my lovely loves!

This year's Christmas card will actually be a permanent addition to the shop: Paper Theatres!

I've always wanted to make one of these, and this one has been floating around in my head for at least a decade at this point, but it's finally here!

This time I wanted to create an art nouveau inspired theatre, and it was so fun trying to balance the flowing nature of that style with the utilitarian nature of the theatre rigging.

I went for Cinderella as the first production, because it's pretty well known by everyone, and it's often put on at Christmas. As much as I love the visual of the Nutcracker, it's a pretty wild story, and it wouldn't be as universal. Maybe another time!

I particularly wanted to do a design that covered the entire card to give as much of an immersive object as possible. 

The dressing room was especially fun, and while adding all of the details I kept thinking of all those old cross-section illustrations from kid's history books.

As always, the cards are available on my Etsy shop, and up until Christmas 10% of the profits will be going to the homeless charity, Crisis. 

There's also a video tutorial on how to make them for those who do better with videos than stationary diagrams.

It was a lot of work, and the printing was much more expensive, but I'm really happy with the result. Perhaps the next theatre I do will be Art Deco themed!

Let me know what productions you'd like to see in paper!

H

2024 Christ-Mouse cards!

This year's Christmas cards are these super cute little paper craft mice! I had such a great time putting these together, although it took a few tries to get the feel I wanted.

You can get them at my Etsy shop, as a single card, or in packs of 6 or 10.

There are printed instructions included in the card as ever, but for those who prefer video instructions, I've also made this little tutorial.

Enjoy! And have yourself a merry little christ-mouse!

Siren

 As much as I love doing cute, happy work, sometimes I want to challenge myself to something with a different feel. Here is an old school shipwreckin' siren. 

What a beautiful murder fish.

Spooky Scooters

Since I've been doing work for vehicle companies, I've had a few unused ideas bouncing around in my brain box. 

Here's a couple I had in mind for Halloween promo, because sometimes you need another means of transportation...

Autumn Witch

 A little autumnal witch for you guys this spooky season!  I like to imagine she couriers parcels and scrolls, a la Kiki’s Delivery Service, but she particularly specialises in tracking down rare ingredients and items for the magical community. And pastries. Always pastries.

I did try this with a background but then I wasn't focussing so much on her, so I left it pretty simple!

I love this colour palette. I tend to go for quite cool, bright or high contrast colours in images, so it was lovely to experiment with something a little more earthy and muted. Will definitely be using it again!

Beryls boating

 A recent piece working with Ross Ringham on marketing ideas. This one was for Beryl bikes.

Ross wanted to have two middle aged ladies, both called Beryl, on various travel-based misadventures, so we went for a narrowboat traffic jam as an example piece.

This layout appealed to me but ultimately we decided it didn't show the Beryls clearly enough, so we went for this...

I tried a few different designs for the Beryls to narrow down the age and vibe Ross wanted.

And here's the final piece!

Toponymy: Nottingham

Recently I took part in the Toponymy project with Nottingham City of Literature, and the lovely poet Polis Loizou.

The idea was to create an image and a piece of writing that worked together to explain the meaning of one of UNESCO's Global Creative Cities.

I had a great time, but it was certainly a challenge created a piece that was nearly 4 foot square! Just getting it through my scanner was something of an achievement!

I learned a lot about Nottingham's fascinating history; what a lot of badasses!

There is a physical exhibition in Quebec, but also an online version if you want to have a look at the other amazing participants.

The thumbnail sketch.

The final piece.

The burning of the castle.

Snot (a possible etymological reason for Nottingham's name)

A surprising number of protest based fires in Nottingham. Including by the suffragettes.

More peaceful protests today, but just as important!

Nottingham was the first place to build a network of bomb shelters during WW2, utilising their natural cave systems

The famous left lion

Luddites

A goose hissing at the Sneighton Dragon. The goose isn't particularly significant, but I think if Nottingham was an animal, it would be a goose.