Telling the Bees, a foggie toddler

I am loving spending time in our garden just now and try to find some time each day for pottering and planting and pruning, there is always so much to keep me busy.

After two years tending what began as a wild patch, the garden is  finally coming in to it's own and each nook and cranny holds delicious splashes of colour and tucked away gems. I find gardening such a peaceful and healing pastime, the growing of things, fingers buried in the soil, listening to the bird chirruping in the bushes. (This year our blackbird is feeding three babies!)

 We have so many more bees now too, humming among the blooms and I find myself talking to them as I work, calling them by the Scottish name - Foggie-toddle, a name used in Deeside - ‘Fog’ meaning moss or grass, and ‘toddling’ is meandering with a gentle sound. It suits them so well!

In Celtic folklore bees were thought to be the wisest of creatures, messengers between worlds. There is an old Scots saying 'Ask the wild bee for what the druid knew'. The old highlanders believed that the soul of a person left the body in the form of a bee once a person had died or whilst they were in a trance.

I had the perfect excuse to study my wee bees up close for a new commission that came my way earlier this year. A lovely customer of mine all the way from the USA asked for a painting for a dear friend, a glass artist who makes bee & honeycomb necklaces,  isn't this stunning!

The painting was to include bees, honeycomb and daisies, so I took lots of photos first to inspire me, then began sketching and very soon an idea bee-gan ( sorry couldn't resist) to form. 

I wanted to capture the bee close up and have a hint of the honeycomb behind filled with a delicate blend of honey colours and lots of splashes of gold ink to highlight.

I am rather pleased with the final result and love the way the gold catches the light. I'm also happy to report that my lovely customer liked it too when it arrived safe and sound over seas.

I have just added 'Foggie Toddler' to my Etsy store as a limited edition print.  Each print is hand finished in gold ink - you can follow the link here.

Well I'm off into the studio to carry on working on a new exciting project which I will share very soon.

Oops I nearly forgot to mention  - the winner of the Butterfly bunting giveaway was KJ Sutcliffe from the sweetest blog 'I live, I love, I craft, I am me', congratulations!

It's Friday!

Yay, it's Friday, it's been a long and busy week in the studio working on some new creations I am excited to share very soon.

 I wonder what adventures the weekend will bring - a visit to see Whithorn Art trail, doing some work on our 'in progress' Summer House and hopefully a long soak in a bubbly bath with my newest book!

I wonder what does the weekend bring for you?

Butterflies and colour your own bunting

An abundance of butterflies have been flitting into my garden lately, such a lovely reward for all the planting of shrubs and flowers I have been doing in an attempt to attract more of these beauties!

They have some wonderful names for the butterfly here in Scotland: in the North East they are called 'Butterflee' or 'Buttery' , whilst elsewhere a chrysalis is a 'Tammie-Nid-Nod' or a 'Tammie-noddie-heid' (heid meaning head), isn't that just lovely!  

 The many photographs i have taken of my garden visitors have inspired me to include butterflies in a new creation! So I have designed my 'Colour your own Butterfly Bunting kits'! The kit contains 12 butterflies and 10 flowers for you to colour, all in assorted sizes, enough to make 1.5 meters of bunting and you can choose from a selection of 4 colours of organza ribbon to thread them on to.

I had great fun choosing my colours had a very relaxing afternoon filling them in! I love that the collective noun for butterflies is a' Kaleidoscope', I think it perfectly suits this riot of colour.

 You can find these bunting kits in my Etsy store here , alongside some birdy bunting I created too!

Till next time x