Mini Dude Designers

May 21, 2013, 9:15 am

Alongside the celebrity auction of my Davina Dudette, Dudebox ran a competition to giveaway 100 mini Dudes. Here's a fine selection of some of my favourites.

Georgia is a local surface pattern artist and I love her designs. Her mini Dude is pure genius. After realising that watercolours wouldn't hold, she improvised...

...with nail varnish! Now that's inspired.

Meet 'Mono' and 'Joey' created by Ged, an already established illustrator (not quite 30 years old) and Joseph, a vinyl artist in the making (almost 10 years).

Mono - black and white brilliance

Joey in all his glory

Fletcher's Dude, aged 6

Christine's retro owl comes complete with beads and some of the most ornate detail I've seen on vinyl.

Check out the detail on this gem

Michelle's monster is simply stunning.

Lucy's princess looks rather regal in her tiara

But the one that stood out the most for me (so far) is this one, Paul's Rock Dude.

I love it's simplicity but it's also something totally new and completely different to anything I've seen done before. Paul, get out of your shed and get creating some more. A little vinyl birdy told me that a 'Gold' version was another option... Let's see the bling!

I'll be adding more to the Mini Dude gallery over the next few weeks, as and when the pics come in, so come back to see what else pops up!

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Vinyl junkies

May 31, 2013, 7:10 am

≫ Next: A meeting of minds, crazy ladies and future friends!

≪ Previous: Mini Dude Designers

There are definitely worse ways to spend a Friday morning.

Creating Dudebox mini dudes with a bunch of delightful children at Just Imagine, is my idea of fun.

Armed with vinyl and stickers

I took along a few of my own creations to get the creative juices flowing.

Here are some of the 'crafty' children with their mini dudes, raring to get started.

Concentrating hard as their characters are brought to life.

We used loads of different materials including, wool, felt, paint, pencils, paper and Sharpies.

Lana knew instantly what she wanted to create, complete with yellow wool hair and fuschia pink dress.

'Little Miss Chatterbox'

Sophie designed a vinyl version of Archie, her cat who just celebrated his 5th birthday

Nia came up with some whackily brilliant ideas for her Mohicaned Monster

Joe is obviously a man with Gangnam Style and he made his own 'Psy', the similarity was uncanny!

Tia took great care with her vinyl toy and added some cool features like a belt and pink and silver hair.

Heidi's alien is beautifully vibrant

Jasleen and Louie working hard on their vinyl toys

Aliens and villains over here

Mani even managed to incorporate wings and a tail complete with spikes on his Dude

And here they are in all their glory...

The final creations!

With everything from aliens to villains, we covered a large spectrum of creations and these will be hard to beat at my next workshop on Thurs 22nd August, 2pm - 3pm.

And to top it all off I received this email from a happy parent. Worth it just for this:

"XXXX had a great time today, inspired him to order some figures and get creating and he is really looking forward to coming along again in August. Thank you Sarah

Brilliant hour :)"

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A meeting of minds, crazy ladies and future friends!

June 9, 2013, 3:19 am

≫ Next: 'Mini Me's'

≪ Previous: Vinyl junkies

On Friday, I was lucky enough to be invited along to a networking event at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, by the inimitable Laura Dockrill.

'Not a feminist tribe', is Laura's brain child and the idea of the event was to bring together a plethora of creative women in one room to share their talents, talk 'business' and generally help each other out.

Laura was ably assisted by Shanna Baynard and Tasmin Ace and this was to be the first of many gatherings.

Pic courtesy of @jabberworks

It has to be said that I was totally out of my depth here, what with published authors, illustrators, radio DJ's and actors. These ladies were a force to be reckoned with and really lovely to boot! My little Dudebox creations seemed to pale into insignificance around this awesome bunch.

However, I was super excited to meet @jabberworks (aka Sarah McIntyre) illustrator extraordinaire and no 1 hero of my 6 yo daughter. I had gone prepared with a 'mini me' Dudebox for Sarah, under strict instructions from my daughter, Lucy.

Complete with tortoise shell specs and spotty wellies

See the likeness?

Sarah has illustrated some of my children's favourite reads and Lucy recently entered an animation into one of Sarah's competitions.

Mini Sarah meets real Sarah

Sarah lived up to my expectations and more. She was a great sport and let me snap some pics of her with her 'mini me' which I'd created for her and she blogged about it here too.

A trio of Sarah's!

Big thanks to all of the ladies I met (Gemma Greany, I'll get you next time!) and especially to those at the helm of #notafeministtribeit was a fab event and there will much more to see and hear following this, of that I assure you!

Finally, a special mention for @asbomum! Lovely to see her in the flesh too, as she often makes me titter out loud on Twitter and cheers to Hector for his expert gong banging and impeccable timing! We couldn't have done it without you.

PS Laura, your 'mini me' toy will be winging it's way to you shortly, pics to follow!

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'Mini Me's'

June 22, 2013, 12:59 pm

≫ Next: Jabberworks - she certainly does!

≪ Previous: A meeting of minds, crazy ladies and future friends!

Whilst cartoon/Superhero characters have been my most popular commissions, ever since I created my Davina McCall Dudette, I've had an increasing number of requests for 'mini me' Dudes.

I am so chuffed to be able to unveil my latest commissions.

Meet Gemma and Chris.

I loved creating these two (with the exception of Chris's checked shirt - I almost went cross eyed!) as they both have such distinctive features and I *want* Gemma's eyebrows.

Photographer Gemma likens herself to Velma (of Scooby Doo fame) as she often sports her black thick-rimmed glasses and retro short bob, although it changes colour on a regular basis.

Gemma aka Velma

As you can see, musician hubby, Chris has a distinctive red beard and fabulous ginger hair, so I had plenty to work with.

Separated at birth?

I've already explained, that in order for this to work successfully, the 'subject' must have a couple of defining features and/or a signature item of clothing/uniform. Gemma provided a fabulously detailed brief about their attire, down to her white frilly socks and brogues. I knew this would be a winner.

So far I've had the privilege of re-creating Davina McCall, during her Big Brother era

a comic illustrating genius

Sarah McIntyre (aka Jabberworks)

a very special bride and groom

a fun-lovin' hubby

and the most rock 'n' roll author in the world ever

The 'immense' Laura Dockrill

I never thought my vinyl work would take me down this route, but I've loved bringing each of these little Dudes to life and giving them each their own personalities.

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Jabberworks - she certainly does!

June 25, 2013, 12:26 pm

≫ Next: 3D Lego letters

≪ Previous: 'Mini Me's'

You may have read about our 'run-in' with an inspirational illustrator, namely James Davies, of Space Penguin fame. But it seems this 'inspiring' business is a common trait amongst a few of 'em and we've only gone and stumbled across another!

During a wet and miserable half term, we spotted a colouring competition for Jabberworks' (aka Sarah McIntyre) Superhamster. What better way to kill a few hours trapped indoors, with a bit of good old fashioned colouring-in.

Lucy gets creative

Lucy submitted her pic, then decided she wanted to try her hand at a short animation. With a bit of help, she did. Click here to see her favourite attempt.

Shortly after the closing date, an email popped into my inbox from a familiar name. Sarah informed me of Lucy's win and asked if she could do an interview with her. Lucy obliged and enjoyed answering Sarah's super questions. Read it here on Sarah's blog.

Not only did Sarah treat Lucy like illustrating royalty, she even went to the bother of re-creating Lucy's own Superhero.

Meet 'Loopey Lucy'

And as if all of that wasn't enough, Sarah's sparkly Superkid envelope arrived with yet more treats.

Lucy's personalised Superhamster illustration

I have been totally blown away by the generosity of these illustrators and felt compelled to share it, as they have both done these acts of kindness selflessly and as you would expect, always packaged beautifully ;o)

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3D Lego letters

July 1, 2013, 1:14 pm

≫ Next: Graham's Geniusness

≪ Previous: Jabberworks - she certainly does!

I was recently approached to adapt my 3D paper mache letters, as party gifts for a christening.

My client had spotted my vintage Beano comic letters and liked the idea of the initials for their party goers, but wanted a different theme.

These were intended for a little girl's christening with both young girls and boys attending, so we decided on Disney Princesses for the girls and Lego for the boys.
To make your own 3D comic letters, you will need paper mache letters, comics, decoupatch glue and scissors.

For the Lego letters, cut strips of your favourite images and logos and stick them so they overlap onto the paper mache letter.

Make sure that every bit is covered.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out, as I was unsure how the Princess letters would look. I used a different technique for these, as cutting strips from the comics wouldn't work as well.

Simply place a whole page from the comic on the paper mache letter, ensuring the main character can be seen. Then remove the page, coat the top side of the letter with decoupatch glue and re-place the page on top in the best position.

These were such a winner, I'm doing more.

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Graham's Geniusness

August 6, 2013, 3:18 am

≫ Next: Geeks united

≪ Previous: 3D Lego letters

About 3 years ago, my hubby stumbled across the amazing artwork of Sarah Graham, pictured below. If you're not familiar with her work, you should be!

Separated at birth?

We both instantly fell in love with her photo realist paintings and each of our children are lucky enough to have a print of her iconic work in their bedrooms.

Thanks to social media, I've enjoyed following Sarah on Twitter and Instagram (not in a dodgy stalker type way), having a sneaky peek into her life as a successful artist.

I tweeted pics of her prints in our kids rooms, after she asked to see them. I guess it's unusual for artists to see where their art ends up and I was more than happy to oblige.

Sarah has many celeb fans and her most recent work for the Kaiser Chiefs is one of my faves, along with her 'Penny sweets' pictured above.

Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to bid on the original artwork at a recent auction as I watched the bids soar past £9000, not unusual for Sarah's originals. However, I am lucky enough to be attending one of Sarah's art classes in September and as she commented on my Dudebox creations, I set about creating a Sarah Graham 'Mini Me'.
And here she is...

Cast in vinyl

Sarah's dipped hair, bleached dungarees and favourite yellow satchel HAD to be included.

Complete with yellow satchel!

Luckily for me, Sarah loves her Mini Me and they'll be united in September when I get to attend her art class.

Next instalment to follow after the art class.

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Geeks united

August 23, 2013, 3:54 am

≫ Next: Vinyl junkies Mark II

≪ Previous: Graham's Geniusness

Those who know me are aware of my love of children's picture books (so much so, I have my own personal collection - step away kids!) and my highly geeky collection and customisation of vinyl toys.

Some of my customised vinyl toys

I've talked about the 'power of Twitter' in previous posts, as it has allowed me to grab a sneaky peek into the lives of some of my favourite authors, artists and illustrators. I've even had the pleasure of meeting some of them.

Left: With Laura Dockrill, author extraordinaire Right:Sarah McIntyre, Illustrating genius

The pinnacle came when I collaborated with Davina McCall on a custom vinyl toy which we auctioned for Comic Relief, after she tweeted that she "loved" my toys.

Davina signs my 'Davina Dudette' for a Comic Relief auction

I'm always in awe of the sheer power and reach of Twitter, but yesterday it blew my mind. I've seen a name pop up regularly over the last few months, that of The Book Sniffer.

We clearly had some of the same followers and followed a similar audience so I decided to find out more about this intriguing character and within hours of mutually following each other, we discovered our love of children's picture books and vinyl geekery.

Although, it has to be said that The Book Sniffer definitely trumps my collection of geeky toys.

I spotted lots of my faves in this fab collection

Check out this beast of a showcase!

Not sure I'd be able to persuade my mob to let me have a customised stand to show mine off.

I was so giddy to find another like-minded soul who 'gets' the whole toy collecting thing and who also loves picture books. So we batted a few tweets back and forth and the freakish similarities kept emerging.

I'm usually on my own with my love of vinyl and it's one of those things you either 'get' or you don't!

My long suffering hubby humours my inner geek and has bought me a few bits to add to my collection, but I think he secretly hopes it will subside one day.

Just a few of my Sonny Angel collection

And as if this freak meeting wasn't enough, I then find out that the person behind The Book Sniffer is only the Marketing Manager at Templar Publishing, where I had an interview for an Internship a few months back!

I sincerely hope there will be more to add to this fab story and I'm so pleased to have found a fellow freak. (I mean that in the nicest possible sense of the word Book Sniffer!)

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Vinyl junkies Mark II

August 27, 2013, 6:49 am

≫ Next: Priority Penguin Post

≪ Previous: Geeks united

Back in May, I did my first ever Dudebox vinyl toy workshop at my local independent bookshop, Just Imagine.

Mini Dudes all ready and waiting to be customised

I'm pleased to report it was a sell out and I had ten 6-8 year olds creating various vinyl masterpieces. Due to popular demand, I was asked to do another and this too sold out.

We clearly have some future custom toy designers in our midst and here they are.

My very able students

In fact, one attendee named Louie, loved the first workshop so much he came back for more and in between time he'd created this marvellous Marvel Mash-Up.

Can you spot all of Batman's enemies on this one Dudebox?

It was great to see these young artists enjoying the medium in so many different ways. Each with their own idea and execution. Some creations even had names with their own little personalities and a few included wings, fins, whiskers and one even had a plaited pony tail!

The finished customs

If you want more inspiration about customising your own vinyl toys, you can read here about my first ever customs and my most successful Davina McCall toy, which she signed and we auctioned for Comic Relief.

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Priority Penguin Post

September 5, 2013, 9:31 am

≫ Next: Hyperrealist master class

≪ Previous: Vinyl junkies Mark II

Back in May I blogged about some very special authors and illustrators and the impact they'd had on me and my little family and in particular a certain James Davies, illustrator of the Space Penguins series.

James captured the imagination of my eldest son and spurred him on to read more and Josh even created another member of the Space Penguin tribe. Meet Paul.

James sent Josh the 3rd book in the series and signed his copy, along with a personalised drawing of Rocky (Josh's favourite penguin). Both of which are on the list of his most prized possessions.

So when James tweeted that the 4th book in the series was due out very soon and there was a surprise for Josh, we were super excited to get our mitts on it.

Once again James came up trumps and offered to send Josh one of his advance copies, so we thought the least we could do was send him a little choccie treat, a thank you card and an SAE, packaged up with a cheeky penguin.

When this landed on our door mat, I was intrigued to see what James had done in the book for Josh. But as Josh was at school, my intrigue (OK, nosiness) would have to wait a little longer.

As you can see below, the penguilope was ripped open the second Josh got home, with no thought for poor Rocky, or indeed his eyebrows.

It didn't take Josh long to find out what the special treat was. He quickly flicked through the book and then decided to take his time over each page and he spotted it as soon as he turned the first page.

"For Josh - J D"

As Josh succinctly put it, he gets a 'shout out' from James on the first page.

James, thank you for the acknowledgement (aka shout out) for Josh. Once again, you have surpassed yourself.

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Hyperrealist master class

September 8, 2013, 3:21 am

≫ Next: Tales from Templar Towers

≪ Previous: Priority Penguin Post

Yesterday saw my art class with the UK's top hyperrealist artist, Sarah Graham. I was super excited to spend the day at her studio with 5 other peeps to get a glimpse into her world.

Sarah's infamous Chupa Chups - Pic courtesy of Sarah Graham

In preparation, I made some Chupa Chup cupcakes (2 of Sarah's infamous subject matters)

and created a Dudebox 'Mini Me' vinyl toy of Sarah by way of a thank you.

We were treated to a tour of Sarah's studio and had a nose at the shelves that provide her with much of her inspiration for her paintings.

Sarah talked about her paintings, how they've evolved and the people she's met along the way. Her introduction to Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs, meeting Gary Barlow and the Sheikh who has a room dedicated to her work. In fact, she talked so much, she lost her voice by the end of the session.

Sarah and Ricky - Pic from The Independent

I don't want to spoil the day for anyone who is due to take one of Sarah's classes, but we did a couple of exercises to 'loosen us up' and break the ice. I won't say much more, but it was a fun prelude before the 'serious' painting began.

Charcoal sketch

Getting to grips with paint and brush

We were even lucky enough to see Sarah make a start on a new piece and were given some top tips on how she starts the process.

Then came the scary part... we selected the image we wanted to recreate and got started.

My glass bottle and straw SLOWLY takes shape

I haven't painted acrylics on canvas for years and for me, this was a hugely therapeutic 6 hours, which whizzed by, but I managed to pick up some top tips along the way.

My finished bottle and straw

Sarah can talk for England (must be a trait for Sarah's in general) and has some amazing stories, but is still very much grounded and manages to get herself into the most surreal situations. (They will stay a secret between us though, Sarah)

The students and our Master

A fab day out and one I highly recommend if you have even an ounce of creativity, whatever your style or ability. It was also lovely to meet other keen artists with all sorts of creative backgrounds. Kelty (hope I spelt that correctly!) pimps up mannequins and Heidi is an art teacher who is using Sarah's work with her students, lucky students!

Sarah united with her 'Mini Me' and even sporting her bleached dungarees

Sarah's iconic album cover of the stick of Kaiser Chief rock just fetched £10,250 at auction and every penny will be going to charity.

A special shout out to Mr Sarah Graham too, as he played a massive role in our day, making sure we were all suitably fed and watered and brushes cleaned.

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Tales from Templar Towers

September 26, 2013, 4:46 am

≫ Next: Week two at Templar Towers

≪ Previous: Hyperrealist master class

So my chance meeting with 'The Book Sniffer' didn't end there and if you didn't know already, I've just started my 3 month Marketing Internship at Templar Publishing. Big thanks to Emma (aka The Book Sniffer) for giving me the opportunity. You have no idea how chuffed I am!

Templar Towers - my place of work for the next 3 months

I've had such a fab 3 days and seem to walk around with a constant grin on my face.

I mean, what's not to smile about when you get to see these beauties every time you walk up the stairs?

Templar's coolest illustrators wall of fame

On my first day at Templar Towers, I was given a list of 'jobs' to keep me busy for the week ahead and my creative juices were on overdrive. Coming up with ideas for mail-outs, promoting new picture books and they even let me loose on their Twitter account.

I was asked to do some 'cutting out' and 'sticking in' for a brand new picture book and for anyone who knows me well, this is certainly no heartache, quite the contrary.

See, I kid you not.

I even got some 'colouring-in' for homework.
You'd think they knew me in a previous life or something.

Day 2 and I felt privileged to attend 2 meetings, one about the forthcoming titles, getting an insight into the new picture books for 2014/5 and another about the soon-to-launch Pictura, colouring-in for ages 9 - 90. You WILL hear more about this super cool project! (See above image)

Big Picture Press is another new and exciting project at Templar, producing highly illustrated books, for those who love pictures (show me someone who doesn't).
These are basically really cool books for all ages and I will of course bore you all with pics of gorgeous books to salivate over.
Here's one to get you all started.

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Week two at Templar Towers

October 3, 2013, 3:17 am

≫ Next: Week 3 - The oldest intern in town

≪ Previous: Tales from Templar Towers

Week 1 was a great introduction to my Internship at Templar Publishing, but week 2 has only gone and topped it!

During a meeting, I got a sneaky peek of Gemma O'Neill's next Templar book, which was a real treat. If you missed 'Oh Dear, Geoffrey', where have you been?

Gemma's distinct illustrations are so intricate and the detail is phenomenal. I've seen the process she goes through to arrive at these spreads and believe me, it's a total labour of love.

Gemma's first picture book for Templar - Oh Dear, Geoffrey

I wasn't sure Gemma would be able to top 'Oh Dear, Geoffrey' but dare I say it, I think she has!

Here's a little taster to whet your appetite...

Meet Monty

I was then tasked with coming up with some promotional ideas and online campaigns for Emma Yarlett's forthcoming book, called Orion and the dark. But as it's not due out until next Spring, I'm keeping schtum.

This is also Emma's second book for Templar and I've been privy to some early illustrations and designs for the book cover. It's definitely going to be one to look our for.

Emma's first book 'Sidney, Stella and the Moon' was published earlier this year and I love her style of illustration.

Finally, I've followed Owen Davey's work with great anticipation and over the last year or so, his work is right up my street. His inspired choices of colour palettes and retro style never fail to make me smile, so when I got my sticky little mitts on his most recent book 'Laika the Astronaut' I was over the moon (no pun intended!).

Pics courtesy of Owen Davey

This book is currently on my wish list as it's not due out until later this month, so I felt incredibly lucky to get a preview in the office. It's still sitting on my desk, so I can have a flick through it every now and again. The book is beautifully written as well as the gorgeous illustrations and I really like Owen's ending, but I won't spoil it for you.

One of my fave spreads

Not sure this internship can get any better, but I have even more exciting stuff to share, I'm in the early stages of designing and creating a website for our Templar charity initiative 'The Paper Watch Project' in aid of breast Cancer Care. Read about it here and let us know which are your fave watches.

I'm clearly in picture book heaven, as I omitted to mention THE most amazing cake that entered the office this week. Only the sorting hat from Harry Potter, made by our own bake off King, Will Steele

It not only looked magnificent, it was damn tasty too and was demolished in minutes.

The boss didn't even get a piece - oops, baaaad Intern.

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Week 3 - The oldest intern in town

October 10, 2013, 12:18 pm

≫ Next: The Paper Watch Project

≪ Previous: Week two at Templar Towers

It continues to get better...if that's possible?

You may have spotted a common theme that runs throughout Templar... namely CAKE and lots of it. But not just any old cake, oh no! This is cake on a whole new level. Now I'm partial to a bit of baking, but I don't come close to this lot. Last week saw the Harry Potter Sorting hat, this week, a life-like Dragonology book to celebrate 10 years since it was first published.

This is a CAKE, I kid you not!

This week, my focus has been getting the Templar 'Paper Watch Project' website built and setting up the auction pages. If you don't know about this charity initiative, you should. You can read more here. But basically, 80 UK illustrators have designed and created unique watches to be auctioned in aid of Breast Cancer Care.

You could be the proud owner of your own piece of unique artwork.

A diverse selection

The site will be up and running VERY soon, but here's a sneaky peak of the home page (thanks EmmaYarlett and Will Steele).

You *have* to watch Libby's video - it's utter genius and has THE best music.

Website taking shape

It's not only the watches that have been beautifully designed, we've received some fabulous envelopes too.

Benji Davies, we salute you

And I can't go without mentioning Leila Skelton's fabulous take on her Paper Watch, we don't want to give him up for auction!

He arrived safely from Planet Sock

I also got enjoyed some more free therapy in the form of more Pictura colouring-in, as did my 6 year old.

My 6 year old's attempt. See, it really is for ALL ages!

I really, can't wait to update you on our fab charity auction.

Your chance to own a unique piece of artwork, created by one of the UK's top illustrators.

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The Paper Watch Project

October 25, 2013, 2:35 am

≫ Next: It's all about the Paper Watch Project

≪ Previous: Week 3 - The oldest intern in town

So I've given you a little sneaky peek into my world at Templar Publishing over the last few weeks and provided a little insight into The Paper Watch Project that I've been working on and I'm SO excited to announce that we have now launched the auction for these beautiful watches.

Our lovely logo courtesy of Emma Yarlett

by Emma Block

What is 'The Paper Watch Project'?

The Paper Watch Project is Templar's creative charity initiative. A one-off opportunity to bide on a unique piece of art (in this case a paper watch) created by illustrators from across the globe, all in aid of charity. We have over 80 beautifully designed watches up for auction over the next 10 days, by some of the country's best loved illustrators. So get over there and take a look.
The Paper Watch Project.

Benji Davies - beautifully packaged

Why Breast Cancer Care?
After shocking news that 2 inspirational members of the Templar team were diagnosed with breast cancer, the company set about raising funds for Breast Cancer Care.

Who's involved?

James Brown

Hoping for possibly 10 volunteers, we ended up with almost 90 illustrators willing to give their time to our initiative. You can see the illustrious list here. The project is one of many fundraising ideas and is the brain child of the lovely Emma O'Donovan, aka my boss/The Book Sniffer. Before I started work here, I loved the concept of this project, so creating the site and auction pages was a real treat!

Leilah's sock alien

How do I bid?
Just pop along to our Auction page.
Choose your favourite (good luck with that one!)
Then simply click on the link underneath the image to place your bid. Simples!
Each watch has a minimum bid of £15 and 100% of the proceeds go directly to Breast Cancer Care.

I can't tell you how much fun I've had on this project and feel honoured to have played a small part, although the 87 individual auction pages did send me a bit cross-eyed at one point. Please go and bid, they are all fantastic pieces and all for a great cause.

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It's all about the Paper Watch Project

November 2, 2013, 3:45 pm

≫ Next: Paper watch reaches fever pitch

≪ Previous: The Paper Watch Project

This week I have been mainly emailing, phoning, tweeting and generally harassing journalists, editors, radio producers and random celebs, all in the name of charity.

With 6 days left to go on the bidding, we needed to create a buzz around this unique event so I set to work contacting, nope, make that pestering, people. The Dorking Advertiser was the first to cave in to my powers of persuasion and they sent a photographer to pap the watches and a few unsuspecting members of the Templar team.

Our 15 seconds of fame

Next to agree to support our charity auction was the Beeb. BBC Radio Surrey invited us into the studio to wax lyrical about our project.

For the record, it should have been the formidable Emma O'Donovan who went along to talk about her fabulous idea and her lightbulb moment, but she is way too gracious. I am however pleased that she shares her story so eloquently. Please read it, it's beautifully written.

Other than almost missing my slot thanks to the M25, I was fairly relaxed and then I walked into the studio *Gulp!* It all looked very intimidating and all of a sudden my mouth went dry :-/

I had the 8.50am slot on the James Cannon breakfast show and was armed with some watches. But whirring around my head were the key points I wanted to make sure I got into the interview.

It all seemed to be over in a matter of seconds and I just prayed I'd managed to squeeze in all of the key points into the 3 minutes. Having cringed through the re-play, I'm pleased to report I crammed it all in.

To end the week on a high, The Guardian promoted our charity auction on their site and merrily we watched the bids roll in. To the point where a bidding war ensued on a watch by the lovely Chris Mould, and currently stands at a staggering £147.70

With just under 24 hours to go, Emma and I ramped up our Twitter campaign. She managed to pull some amazing 'extras' such as Alex T Smith's signed book and Sharon King-Chai's presentation book and my celeb stalking resulted in retweets from Gail Porter and Laura Dockrill.

This has been such a fabulously creative and particularly poignant project to work on and I can't tear myself away from the eBay pages.

You still have time to bid, so please go and take a look at the 88 individual pieces of artwork and place a bid, for Breast Cancer Care.

All we can do now is watch...

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Paper watch reaches fever pitch

November 9, 2013, 7:35 am

≫ Next: The Last Post

≪ Previous: It's all about the Paper Watch Project

Last Sunday saw the culmination of Emma O'Donovan's light bulb moment, the Paper Watch Project.

After much hard work and calling in favours from a bunch of already over worked illustrators, the auction came to a frenzied close with OVER £3000 raised for Breast Cancer Care.

The bids for Mark Frudd's Rocket watch soared in

It was an amazing project to be part of and the end certainly didn't disappoint.

Sharon Langdon's beautifully colourful watch

The pace gathered momentum in the dying seconds of each individual auction, with bids flying in at the last minute and there were some 'heart-stopping- moments when the bidding wars started.

Mousaraja on his travels

The 88 auctions closed between 7pm and 8pm and I watched each and every auction finish, completely staggered by the generosity of you bidders, but not surprised, as these watches were worth every penny.

Mark Chambers fabulous books with his Stinky & Jinks watch

It was incredible to be involved and even though I was sat at home on my own, it was super exciting to watch the bids literally double and in some cases quadruple at the end of the auction.

Chris Mould's watch fetched over £200 for charity

Emma and I were frantically tweeting in one last ditch attempt at pulling in a few final bids (I apologise now for the cheesy rhymes and dodgy puns, they were all my doing!)

Shaun Tan's Eric watch fetched the highest bid of £266

In the final stages, we had offers of extra freebies from some of our illustrator friends, including a signed copy of Alex T Smith's latest book

Wayne Blackhurst's original artwork, Benji Davies's Mousaraja designed envelope and Holly Suplice's gorgeous guinea pig watercolour, to mention but a few.

Holly's dancing guinea pig watercolour

Some fun facts from the final auction:

We had re-tweets from the Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn and Gail Porter
Two of the watches pulled in over £200 each!
We were featured on over 30 blogs, including Nosy Crow
The Guardian Life and Style promoted our project
We hit the big time and were papped for the local paper, interviewed by BBC Radio Surrey and made it into The Bookseller

If you wish to donate, you still can, via Templar's Just Giving page

Take a moment to re-live all 88 watches and remind yourselves of the time and effort put into each watch by those lovely illustrator folk.

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The Last Post

December 16, 2013, 9:00 am

≫ Next: Munny Christmas tree decorations

≪ Previous: Paper watch reaches fever pitch

Last Wednesday saw my final day at Templar Towers. Where on earth did those three months go?

For those of you who read my earlier posts you'll know that it was a chance encounter via Twitter, with the fabulous Book Sniffer, that I got the opportunity to be their Marketing Intern and one I am SO pleased I jumped at.

It was fab to get to meet my 'twin' aka Emma O'Donovan. Following several tweets, we seemed to share a growing number of mutual interests, including vinyl toys and other such obscurities, albeit we had to gloss over a couple of small issues such as Marmite and Sherry! But I also got to meet some of my literary heroes and heroines at Emma's Christmoose Bash. Such a lucky Intern.

Sabine Edwards, Alex T Smith, Steven Lenton, Colin West, Chris Mould, Benji Davies, Sarah McIntyre, Emma O'Donovan& Me

Whilst at Templar, I had the pleasure of working on their Paperwatch Project. Templar's charity auction of 88 paper watches designed by the UK's top illustrators in aid of Breast Cancer. Raising over £3000 for the charity, we have a bunch of generous and talented illustrators to thank. I'd seen tweets about the initiative and was thrilled to be able to play a part. I'll never forget the excitement of watching the closing seconds of each auction as bidding wars started!

Orion and the Dark

Getting a sneaky peek at the picture books coming in 2014 was like Christmas come early. I sat through my first picture book meeting with a constant grin on my face. One of the things that drew me to Templar in the first place was the quality of their books, so to see what was on the cards for next year was hugely exciting. I got to work on Emma Yarlett's new book, Orion and the Dark (April 2014) an absolute 'must have' and saw snippets of Gemma O'Neill's second book (August 2014). I loved Gemma's initial offering and it was great to see how she'd top it (and she has).

When is a book not a book?
When it's a cake!!!

If you follow Templar on Twitter/Facebook, (if you don't, you should) you'll know there are some serious cake bakers there and I wasn't disappointed during my brief encounter. A total of 3 epic cakes, various cupcakes, homemade biscuits, 2 gingerbread christmas trees and countless chocolates!

Emma, thanks for taking a punt on me. Templar Towers, I hope to visit again at some point and to all you Templar peeps, thanks for making my Internship such a memorable one.

There is only one thing that I won't miss... the greatest car park in the UK aka the M25!

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Munny Christmas tree decorations

January 7, 2014, 6:31 am

≫ Next: The next phase of peg people

≪ Previous: The Last Post

So I didn't think it possible, but my 3 children have surpassed last years vinyl-tastic Christmas pressie, with even more incredible custom vinyl stuff.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the DIY Munny Christmas tree decoration.

I instantly knew what I wanted to try with these puppies and despite the fact it comes with red and green pens, I fancied experimenting...

So first things first, dismantle the Munny!

Bring on the decoupatch glue. (I use the pink variety as it gives a gloss finish.)

Then set about cutting up your fave vintage comic. I tried an old 1985 Superhero comic for this one and also did another in an old Beano comic (see above).

Where there are curves in the vinyl toy, such as the ears, ensure you make several incisions, so allow the comic to fold around the toy. If you don't do this the comic will just 'bunch-up' and not sit flush to the vinyl.

A handy hint whilst waiting for the arms to dry is to use a peg to avoid them stick to your table.

Now to piece him back together again.

Meet my Superhero Munny decoration

The end result!

My Beano Munny - pride of place on our Christmas tree

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The next phase of peg people

January 22, 2014, 1:30 am

≫ Next: Easy Peasy Heart card

≪ Previous: Munny Christmas tree decorations

I recently asked the Twittersphere what/whom I should create next with my wooden peg people.

A number of suggestions were forthcoming including, Peter Pan characters, The Incredibles and various children's book characters, but yesterday evening at about 5:30pm, I had a request from illustrator Steven Lenton, which has been a recurring suggestion since the film launched before Christmas, namely the characters from the latest Disney film, Frozen.

So despite my growing 'to do' list, I downed tools (OK, the iron) and set to work sketching the main characters, Anna and Elsa.

Anna

Anna and Elsa

It was great to see them coming together and once I started there was no stopping me, it's addictive stuff. Damn you, Mr Lenton! So out came the paints...

As you can see from the photo above, the wooden pegs are 2 inches in height so in order for this to work it's important not to add too much detail, but enough so you can tell who it is!

It's important to stay true to the colours as they're seen on film and I take time mixing my paints to get it as close as I possibly can.

Slowly adding colour

For those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing the film, you must! It's a complete delight and with plenty of adult humour to keep all ages amused.

I finally finished Anna (minus the varnish) at about 11:30pm last night and Elsa wasn't far behind...

The finished Frozen characters.

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