hello!
if you’re coming to the blog via the link ‘cardboardcities.co.uk/news’, it should now redirect to where the blog is now located, which is http://blog.cardboardcities.co.uk. all these posts, and of course the new ones are located there. if it hasn’t redirected, you’re obviously seeing this, so please update your bookmarks, and remember to go to blog.cardboardcities.co.uk from now on!

lots to see!

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my mask for the arjowiggins second skin contest is complete!

i took some photos on saturday, so i could put one up on the site for voting. i’d really appreciate your votes! you can do so here: vote vote vote.

i’ve really enjoyed doing this, and it’s definitely something i’d like to do again. not masks necessarily, although it has been fun. as surely it’s obvious, i love paper and i love cutting things out. i love my little embroidery scissors, and i kind of have a thing for scissors in general. there was quite lot of cutting involved in this, which, although slightly painful after a while (hello hand cramp) i would happy do it over again. it would be fantastic to do something on a larger scale, perhaps. who knows what the future holds.

this was my favourite picture out of the ones i took, which i used as my submission photo. incase you’re interested, i was actually saying ‘grr’ under the mask. also you can see a sneaky bit of the tshirt i won from tim easley recently. you should definitely take a look at his work/products because i’m almost certain they’ll make your day better and brighter. i’ll definitely be getting one of these when i have some spare pennies.

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i discovered the arjowiggins second skin contest about a week ago, and instantly i knew i had to enter. essentially, the contest is to design and make a mask using the curious collection skin range of papers. you can use other papers too, but i wanted the challenge of only using something specific instead of using lots of other paper too.

i LOVE paper and all things stationery, as well as making things with them. no surprise there i hope. as always when i’m making something, i much prefer to go with my instincts when i can, rather than overthinking and over-designing something. i had the basic idea and shape of what i wanted to do in mind, but from there on i went with what my head/heart/scissors told me to do. i’ve taken a few progress shots (after the jump) as well as this photo of the finished piece if you want to see! i need to take a photo of me wearing it for the site too so people can vote, i hope you will help me with that in a day or two! i will put a link up on here as well as on my twitter.

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if you’ve not heard about secret 7″ they give the chance for designers to design a cover for a song by various artists. the proceeds of the sales go towards the charity art against knives. i heard about it on time this year & i really wanted to have a go. initially i wanted to do the design for nick drake, but as a long time listener/lover of him, i felt like i couldn’t do his music justice, and so shied away. i really like some of laura marling’s music though, so i went for designing for her. plus, her name is laura, can’t go wrong with someone with the same name as you, can you?

here is my design, and you can vote for me through this link: http://tlnt.at/WCqNjV. i’d really appreciate your support, and if you could spread the word too that would be more than welcome. thank you!

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it’s about time i finally blogged about this! progress on the a to z project. in january when i was in the middle of making a collage, i found some letters i’d kept from a college typography project, and it fit well with what i was doing, and so, it (re)sparked the idea to make an a – z project. it’s something i’ve wanted to do for a long, long time, but i’ve never quite known how to go about it. i have been a fan of abc books for as long as i can remember and am always collecting them. i really want this one by marion bataille. love the music on the video, too.

all the actual letters are hand drawn and painted, and the rest of it is collaged. as much as i love typography, lettering, signage..whatever you want anything to do with letters be called, to be honest i’m not so good with the technical aspect. i feel i have a good eye for design, colour and such and so that’s what really matters to me. but this is a very good excuse/reason to improve on my skills and i always have a curious mind and love to learn, and what better way by actually doing something creative? have you ever done any a to z related piece? i’d love to see!

as i finish each letter and cut it out, i take a photo of them on the background i will be using. these have been quite popular too! the ‘A’ even got onto the tumblr radar. when i’m finished, my ultimate dream is to turn the whole alphabet into a zine or book. that would be absolutely amazing, but i’m trying to get at least half way through the alphabet before i start thinking about the planning and other aspects behind that. i’ve only done up to ‘D’ so far because i’ve been a little sidetracked by other projects, but it’s go go go from here! first i want to show you the ‘before’ photos, before i added the collage. i’ll show you some finished letters once i’ve done a couple more, so that there’s more to show. OH! and you can buy all the individual finished letters at my society6 shop as prints, iphone cases, tote bags and more here.

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i recently discovered petra green of room39 through the twitter of james skevington aka skevism or skev, because they’d done a trade and he’d posted a picture of the cushion cover he received. i loved how it looked and was curious to learn more. i had a look on the room39 website and was instantly saying to myself ‘ooh, i want everything!’.

here’s a snippet taken from her site:

“Petra Green launched Room39 in 2010 with the vision to create playful, modern environments, with a ‘twist on tradition’ and a penchant for trompe d’oeil effects.  Central to Room39 ethos is to support like-minded designers and craftspeople, working as far as possible in a sustainable way and marrying craft techniques and modern technology.“

i contacted petra, to see if she’d be willing to do a trade with me too and she said yes! i sent her two of my collages for an amazing scarf (i chose the turquoise one because it’s my favourite colour) and fantastic mug. i kind of have a bit of a scarf addiction, and this is definitely one of my favourites i now own. one day i will buy this beauty from rebecca desnos and i will be a very happy, well scarved, lady. i can’t decide whether i want to keep it to wear, or hang it on the wall in my living room to admire.

it also doubles as a lovely graphic looking mountain:

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on wednesday my boyfriend and i went to bristol. every time i go there i think how much better it is than cardiff. cardiff just isn’t for me. there’s some nice areas, but it doesn’t feel like ‘home’ in any kind of way. ideally i’d like to move back  to south east england at some point in my life, as that’s where i feel most home. it is where i lived for almost 16 years, albeit in many different places. (still can’t believe i’ve lived in wales 10 years. it both seems less but at the same time SO much longer. a lot has happened in those ten years though.) close to london or close to the sea, either is fine with me. but that’s more of a long term goal, and i’d really like to live in bristol for a few years first, too. it really feels like somewhere i’d be happy, whether that be a year or two, or longer.

it was such a cold day, it both snowed and rained and i was afraid my camera would get damaged, but luckily not. i took many more photos than this, but i don’t want to bore you with endless photos. i really wish i could afford a nice fast 50mm lens though. one day, one day.

first we went to st. nicholas market. i just mainly wanted to look at the books. i had no money to spend, which was a shame because there were so many books i wanted. will definitely go back there at some point if i ever have money again.

any bristolians have recommendations for places to visit next time i go?

i love the colours of all these stacked up kids books. i’m intruiged about mick the disobedient puppy.

..and then we went to the museum. after that a LOT of walking and looked around the plentiful amount of charity shops, but i didn’t take anymore photos because i didn’t want to get my camera wet. i also had a delicious moroccan chicken sandwich. so tasty.

my favourite part of the museum was the geology and the pottery/ceramics sections. but they’d probably be my favorite parts of any museum. are there any museums out there dedicated to pottery and ceramics? if so i definitely want to go! the huge ceramics collection in the v&a is fantastic. i remember going to the natural history museum in london with my dad a few years ago and spending a ridiculously long time in the geology section. it was fascinating. i’ve always been really interested in rocks, minerals, gemstones and the like. one thing in there i particularly loved was a beautiful opal necklace (this isn’t it, but isn’t it beauitful?)

back to the pictures…

i LOVE this.

and this chair wasn’t part of any exhibit, i just liked it.

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recently i did an illustration for amelias magazine. if you’ve never heard of amelias magazine (shame on you!) it is an online magazine/blog with articles on art, fashion, music, illustration, and much more. if that appeals to you, be sure to check it out.

the brief was to do an illustration based upon your favourite colour, as part of a post to inspire people to think and talk about their favourite colour for a contest by blair and oliver. you can submit your colour story as words, photography and video. to take part, send your stories to renewalstories@redant.com with your contact details too. the deadline for submission is 1st march 2013 so get creative! oh..and the winner will receive £250!

what is your favourite colour? let me know in the comments. i’m always really curious why people love certain colours. please remember to look at the post on the amelias magazine site to see others’ interpretation of their favourite colour.

here is is what i said, and my illustration, but i’d like to add a little more about what colour means to me in general, too.

“i absolutely love all colours, and colour is my world. turquoise is my favourite, though. it both gives me energy and keeps me calm. i like to always have this colour around me because it also helps me feel creative but not overwhelmed. i feel as if there’s something magical about it that other colours don’t possess. to me it’s representative of earth and life.”

i don’t know if you realised by looking at my work, but, i love colour. a lot. if you were to take a look through my home and my clothes, that would also lead you to see the same. colour is so important to me and is one of the few things that make me truly happy. so many of my happy memories aren’t just about good things, but the colours that were around me at the time.

i remember once someone asking me if i could define perfection as a colour, what would it be? my answer was orange. a slightly golden yellowish orange. i don’t know why, but when i see that colour, it just exudes the aura that i feel ‘perfection’ would have. it’s not my favourite colour, even, but ..that’s just the colour of perfection.

as much as i love almost every colour (there are a very few exceptions, but even those could be acceptable in the right context and in small amounts), i think blues, greens, turquoise and greys are the ones that speak to me the most. maybe it’s because they are colours that can be seen in nature, maybe it’s the calming yet invigorating it’s effect they can have ..maybe it’s something else completely!

i could honestly talk about this all day. maybe in another post i’ll share stories and photos about colour. i’ve said that word far too much in this post now, so time to stop and let you get on with your day.

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recently i found out mail me art was starting again, and i really wanted to contribute this time round. it’s closed for submissions now, but if you want to submit for the next one you can express your interest here. i was chosen to be one of the 200, which i was very happy about. later on there will be an exhibition and a book, which is very exciting and i will keep you updated with details of that.

for those of you who don’t know what this is all about, here’s an excerpt from the site:

Mail Me Art is a fun little project that was created by Darren Di Lieto of The Little Chimp Society in late 2006. He was looking for a way to connect on a real world level with all of the brilliant and talented illustrators who had become part of his community and network. Mail Art was the perfect way to accomplish this task.

i decided to make my own envelope for this project, as i love the challenge of doing something from scratch. i actually made the envelope from two old envelopes. i’m one of those people that keeps old envelopes, the security patterns inside and all that stuff. i wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more collage artists and artists in general who do the same thing. on that note, check out this diy on design sponge and these security pattern paper bags from the ever amazing present and correct.

here’s some photos of my progress, and the final image. you can follow progress of the project on the mail me art facebook, and twitter.

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i have a question for the collage artists out there, be it people that use just collage as their medium, or sometimes use collage as part of what they do.  for example, the amazing emma block.

what is your preferred cutting method, scissors or scalpel? i personally prefer scissors, especially small embroidery scissors like these. part of this may be that i have a ‘thing’ for scissors (don’t even get me started on that). but really it’s because i find i have more control. also, i’m really clumsy and tend to cut my fingers a lot with scalpels. i don’t want blood on my work, thanks.

some people may be the complete opposite, and find that a scalpel offers them more control. with tiny scissors you can can get into the details just as well as a scalpel, but if i was doing something very intricate ..papercutting for example, i’d go with scalpel as you can go really into the details a lot more without (hopefully) accidentally cutting the wrong area with the blade.

do you have a reason you prefer one over the other, or is it just that you’ve always had a particular ‘weapon of choice?’

let me know!

ps. how fantastic is that marimekko wallpaper?

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