Champion of Champions!

A while ago I designed a tee for Independent record label I Can Count, and the samples they promised me have arrived! The theme was numbers and I really wanted to make a design with rosettes on it, so I made a Crufts inspired Best In Show tee with little poochers all over...

In my imaginary dog show the Afghan Hound was the clear winner with her long silky dog coat, and the little bouncy Pug was a worthy reserve champion...The Labradoodle was last. Funnily enough, only a couple of weeks after making this design I saw a sign in the local agricultural store for some Labradoodle puppies..Too cute!

You can't buy these tee's at Bonbi Forest as they are exclusive to I Can Count, but you can buy them from their online store by clicking HERE!!

The Cornish Hands Made market that we did over the Bank Holiday weekend was great and I met some lovely people and ate lots of REALLY good homemade cake too, yay! to Hazel and Emily for the vegan ginger cake and lemon drizzle cake! I took some pictures of the stall on the first day just after we set up, the pictures aren't particularly good and I did tweak the stall a little after I took these because the signs looked all wrong but they give you the gist. Unfortunately my lights went out during the second day and no amount of waggling the wires would bring them back to life...Boo!


You can just about make out (if you squint and get very close to the screen!) the new Bonbi Forest Kilt Pin brooches in the second pic, they'll be in the Bonbi Forest shop very soon!

xXx

Food roundup or so it seems!!

I had a lovely birthday, and thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings!! I had a lovely day, which seemed to revolve around food and various beverages...

My dad grew these strawberries and gave them to me at the birthday barbeque, they are some of the first of the year...needless to say they didn't last long!



Our Bat For Lashes merch stall at All Tomorrow's Parties was a great success, we ran out of free Bat For Lashes and Bonbi Forest badges within about 1/2 an hour, and sold 63 t-shirts in the few hours that we sat there...We were going to stay a bit longer, but Natasha was hungry! So we all bundled off to the canteen and arrived with 6 minutes to spare, a close shave as I'm the kind of person who likes to EAT!!

I met some lovely people there, and some Bonbi Forest customers too!! I think my musical highlights of the weekend were the much hyped Battles (it's really very well deserved!), Akron Family were really great, I really enjoyed Edan and also Grizzly bear too. And The Books, and the half of Bat For Lashes I managed to see as well...and Mogwai... There was lots to like!! I was disappointed that I missed Cornelius, all my friends said that it was an amazing show with really cool visuals...I think I was eating or something ( I think it's not just my birthday that revolved around food....!). On Sunday night I danced like a nutter and felt sooo tired all day Monday, but it's all well worth it. Yay! for ATP!

On Sunday and Monday of this week, I am taking the Bonbi Forest wares to the Cornish Hands Made market at Jubilee Wharf, Penryn..There will be loads of other hand made goodies for sale, demonstrations and all sorts...I've even been told that there may be dancing too!! So if you happen to be in Cornwall this Bank Holiday weekend for Run to the Sun or whatever do try and come along. It's all indoors in a lovely big sustanable eco building with windmills on the roof, so if it rains like its forecast to do (BOOO!) then it'll be a great day out inside!

It's ma birrrrthday!!

It's my birthday today!! I'm 26, I'm really definately not in my early 20's now...YIKERS! The slippery slope to 30!! Oh well, I guess it's time to grow up a bit... Cornwall is so beautiful and we never make enough time to really appreciate it so my lovely Mark beau and I are taking some time off today to go and be birthday tourists for the afternoon. When you live somewhere with lots to do and see, how is it that you never go and do or see any of those things?

ATP was such great fun, I'll post more about it tomorrow...I've a few pics and everything!

Have a good day!!

xXx

Badges and Battles

I just wanted to post a pic of the new pony house and owl badges that arrived this morning! I'll be giving them out at ATP again this weekend...


Battles are playing All Tomorrow's Parties, and my buddies are kind of convinced that the lyrics to their new single, Atlas, are 'People won't be people when they hear this sandwich...'. My friend Ben just emailed to say that he rang Nemone on 6 music to tell her that, and she read it out...

Right best get back to work!

xXx

I got a 9!!!

I'm having an ultra busy week this week as I've just discovered that Mark and I are off to the second weekend of All Tomorrows Parties as Bat For Lashes crew!! Yay! I LOVE ATP! We'll be selling the BFL tees on Sunday, so if you are going do come and say hello.

So with that happening this coming weekend it means that I've had to condense the weeks work into a few short days, eek! I've been preparing lots of lovely new jewellery for the shop, including some great brooches too...So look out for them over the next couple of weeks.

While I've been messing about with all the jewellery beads n bobs, I've been listening to the new Sea and Cake and Bjork albums. The Sea and Cake is great as always, and Bjork's took a few listens, but it has suddenly clicked like all her albums seem to do, and now I'm really enjoying it. Have you seen the Earth Intruders video yet? Strange stuff! I've also been lucky enough to get handed a promo of the new National album too, they are SO good. It's out next Monday and I highly recommend...

So, about the title of this post...I had a dressage competition on Sunday, and it was the worst weather! I was meant to do two classes but I scratched from one to concentrate on the Advanced 100 test.... BUT, amidst all the rain and a waterlogged arena, Lauder - my ever forgiving horse - swam around the test, and scored over 66% (which is a good score in dressage) to win, and for one of the movements we scored a 9!!!! (A little explanation - Dressage tests are divided into movements, and each movement is marked out of 10, and then it is all added and calculated so that your final score is a %. I usually consider good scores are about 63% and above and high scores as 67% and above, over 70% is very good going! and 9's and 10's are hard won...) It's my first ever 9 at affiliated dressage!!! YAY! I am dead chuffed, and very proud of Lauder!!

Ok, enough horse stuff...

xXx

Ceasar Manrique Postcards

I was having a dig about and I found these postcards I picked up on a trip to Lanzarote. They are of artist Ceasar Manrique's House, which I remember being just totally blown away by!

Each room in the house is within a hole in the volcanic rock formed when there was an airpocket in the lava...The colours of the black rock, white paint and dark wood alongside the simple upholstery, the blue swimming pool and the greenery is pretty special...I want to live in a house like that!

New Studio...(Almost)!

I've had a day of organising and stock taking and tidying today. The studio just gets so messy and disorganised when i have a lot of work on and the paperwork sure does pile up! April was mad, and the May diary is filling up fast too...

When I had tidied as much as I could bear I went over and took some pictures of what will be Bonbi Forest's new home! As you can see, it's not quite ready...I have been getting stuck in helping out with the hard work though, I now know how to lay a concrete floor (get a builder! It's a horrible job!), and bash down things made of bricks.

Yes that is a huge hole in the wall at the back, but the hardest jobs are over (new roof and floor) and when the walls are lined and made good I get to go and do fun stuff like pick tiles and work tops!

The roof slates are going on --> There are loads of trees around, it's going to be lovely, I can't wait!

Tomorrow the cross country phase of badminton horse trials is on, so I'm going to spend my afternoon watching nutters on telly galloping a-top half tonne beasts attempting to jump over solid obstacles...Right now I'm off for beer and sushi and enjoy this lovely evening!!

xXx

Bat tees and birthday cards...

Maybe starting a blog on my busiest week of the year so far wasn't the best idea in the universe! I will definately be posting more often than this I promise....

It's been a mad printing week at Bonbi Forest this past week. I've just shipped a restock of Wings!, Mirror Deer, Eskimo Kiss and brand new Hometime tees to our great stateside stockist Cut + Paste, and a batch has also been sent to our brand new stockist Modishoppe, who are also over in the US. Jena who runs Modishoppe also has a great blog--> Modish, it's all about handmade and indie crafts. A very good read indeed.

I've also been beavering away making the newest batch of Bat For Lashes tees, which were shipped to the band this morning, phew! There are 2 great new limited colourways, I hope they go down as well as the last ones which totally sold out! See the sneak peek above... They'll be for sale in the Bonbi Forest shop by the end of this week....so if you want one, keep your eyes on the Bonbi Updates!

All Tomorrows Parties was great fun and I gave out loads of Bonbi Forest Owl, Pony and House badges. I almost didn't get them though as the postman was late on Friday. He turned up just in time, as my travelling companions were getting itchy to leave, we were in the car and pulling out of the gateway and the Mr Postie came flying round the corner. Another phew!

It was my mums birthday yesterday and I used the same Owl image from the badges on her card. Check it out, it's really rather cute if I do say so myself! The owl is on an acetate window..aww!

xXx