Cooooorpany

Our two boys make up words all the time, which they turn into chants and songs. 

We have no idea how it starts or what it means but it's funny and makes us smile all the time :)

We often hear them chanting:

"Coooorpany, cooorpany, stop that corpany!"

so one day we asked the older one to draw a "Corpany".

Here it is. Ohhhh, so that's what it is. It all makes sense now.

I turned it into a felt toy.

I can't wait to find out what a "Big dog danga-doo" is!

Bon Voyage!

In my late twenties, I went backpacking around South East Alaska and a little bit of the Yukon Territory for a month or so. I look back on that time very fondly and often think of the kind, funny, warm and slightly eccentric (!) people I met on my travels. 

One friend I made and stayed in touch with was a lovely funny Japanese girl who was working at one of the hostels I stayed in. In her last letter about a year ago she told me she got married, and although I'd been meaning to write and find something special to send to her, I'm ashamed to say a whole year has passed by without me being able to do so - terrible!! So in the past week I decided to sew a couple of toys for them -  a silly present to hopefully make them smile and detract from my ineptitude! Fingers crossed these toys will travel safely and join them in their happy home :) Bon voyage!

SHOP!

**New stuff in my shop!

Why not pick up something original or unusual for Christmas this year? Many items at a discounted price! Have a peep :)

Loppy & Lugs

**SALE**

These funny creatures are back in my SHOP along with some others so please check 'em out :)

Moany and Whiny

I managed to squeeze in a couple of illustrations, in between preparing for the BedPop Christmas Shop (which will be happening this weekend at The Higgins Museum). They are completely fictional and not based on any little people I know ;)

In a galaxy far far away...

We've made some SPACE backgrounds for the poster book! Where will your intergalactic adventure take you?

Hoshi's words

I did so many of these for our older boy but sadly I've just not had the time to do very much for our younger one. I find the beginnings of language with a little one fascinating, and I love the little mispronunciations and interpretations. I scribble down new words and phrases they come up with - that's about all I can manage these days so I'm really pleased I actually managed to turn these into illustrations, yay!

Can you guess what they are?

Make Your Own Poster Book

We had so much fun at the workshop I ran recently for BookFest, that we have decided to put together activity packs for making your own poster/book, along with a Facebook page where people could share their creations. The packs will contain a pre-folded book, instructions and lots of stickers and will be available from our stall at The BedPop Christmas Shop, The Higgins, Bedford on 3rd/4th December. Come and say Hi!

My BookFest Workshop

The kids (big and small) got stuck in with stamps, stickers, pens and pencils!

Here are some fantastic covers!

And here are some of the "books" created during the workshop- a fantastic range of images and stories. What imagination!!

Some lovely spreads :)

And finally, a collaboration piece between my boy and his friends Tom and Emma. They spent close to 2 hours working on it as one big piece, and I loved watching it grow and grow. When we folded it up at the end, it seemed to take on a new life as a book, with each spread telling a different story.

* * * * *

The workshop was brilliaaaaaant!! What a fantastic couple of hours watching imaginations at work. I LOVED the variety of work that was being created using the same materials. Everybody seemed to just get stuck in, telling their own stories in 3-4 spreads. I hope they will carry on making books and stories at home too :)

BookFest!!

I took our boys to BookFest today - a children's book festival taking place over 2 days at The Panacea Museum in Bedford, and it was brilliaaaaaant!! We saw Julia Jarman who was fantastic. We listened and laughed and spotted and counted and sang and stomped. The boys loved it and so did I :)

There were other author/illustrator talks going on throughout the day, which I would have loved to have seen too but with 2 young ones in tow it would have been hard to keep them contained and wriggle/whinge-free!

The overall atmosphere was great, as was the venue and I feel very lucky to live in a town where these kind of events take place. Huge praise to the wonderful Rachael Rogan of Rogan's Books for making it all happen, and all the volunteers! 

Sadly no pictures from our visit today as my phone died, but thought I'd show some pics of what we've been doing in preparation for my workshop which is taking place tomorrow (Sat 10am-12:30pm).

With our littlest one being completely unpredictable with naps these days, I've not had much time to work on this but we have stamps, stickers and various materials ready to be used, and I've even had a little bit of time to play around with them too, yay!

Looking forward to seeing what the kids come up with tomorrow :)

A Sea of Blue

Managed to squeeze in a bit of prep for the BookFest workshop I'll be running on Saturday 29th October, whilst the little one sleeps, hooray!

There'll be a range of folded papers ready to be stamped/stickered/scribbled on etc, including these textured blue backgrounds which I thought worked well as a sea background. 

At the bottom are some stamped sea pictures my older boy has been creating. Maybe a little influenced by the wonderful "Swimmy" by Leo Lionni, a family favourite :)

Order of Things 2016

Many many years ago, my good friend Jon scribbled a little doodle on my school folder called "Order of Things" (below). Here it is revisited 20+ years later, through my son's eyes during school pick up. I don't get a look in.