Etsy Treasury-tastic

Well lookie here...Bonbi items have been spied in TWO Etsy treasuries this week: Click the images to see them bigger..

Thanks to Sleepunderstars and JellieBabies09 for picking my items out of all the millions and billions on Etsy to feature in the picks :)

Seen by the light of the Moon...

Yay and hurrah, for I have made a brand new batch of Seen by the Light of the Moon Deer Necklaces and they are available in the shop now!

Those of you who have been following Bonbi Forest for a while now will know that these little sweeties aren't a new design, but they have been so popular in the past and I got my hands on some lovely juicy coloured vintage Lucite beads that I knew I had to make some more...

Every so often late at night on the way back from town from a party or some other gathering of friends or trip to the cinema, Mark and I have spotted deer on the verges of the rural roads we have to travel along, or jumping into a hedge or running across a field. Of course driving back like that it is most often a fleeting glimpse in the head lights of the car that we catch and not a sight by moonlight, but a touch of romance never did anyone any harm right?

These sweet necklaces are inspired by those moments with their leaping deer, little hand carved moon and touch of sparkle. Just a pretty little reminder of the vast natural world out there...

They are available in green, blue, pink, tangerine, lavender and grape at the moment and you can buy them HERE!

New print...

Just a quick heads up and a peek...

I have finally gotten around to making my 'Goodbye Visitor' painting into a print! I am so pleased with the way they have come out, the archival paper and inks have really retained the richness and vibrancy of the colours which I am very happy about.

Goodbye Visitor print is available for £8.50 HERE!

Also, these little moon leaping deer will be in the shop very soon...here they all are lined up for their photo shoot earlier today:

Feet of Courage

A little Nancy Elizabeth music to help you through the day...



“Feet Of Courage” from Nancy Elizabeth's new album Wrought Iron

Dartmoor and new things

Wasn't the weather wild at the weekend? Pretty crazy and stormy. Mark and I were in Devon to see some family and took a walk up on Dartmoor...The wind was so strong and the clouds were flying by so fast in the sky the atmosphere changed by the minute. One minute dark and threatening the next sunny and clear.

So this is just a quick post to highlight a couple of new things really. The first being a fresh new batch of hand printed business cards. The first ones went down so well I printed loads of new colours, and love this pic of them all together all rainbow-like...there are more pics over at my Flickr stream HERE.

The other is a new necklace I have in the shop: Come Fly. It has a swooping bird with a couple of very pretty Czech glass beads and is very pretty indeed. I hope you like it :)

See and shop Come Fly HERE!

I will have the new berry coloured Owl pattern scarf in the shop soon too! I haven't yet got used to the darkening evenings and the limited time for taking photographs. I shall keep you posted...

Bright Star

Last night Mark and I took a trip to town to go to the cinema. I love going to the cinema, of course for the film but also for a fix of sweet popcorn, a favorite treat! I'm so greedy I'll eat an entire large bucket to myself, ha ha!

Anyways, the film we went to see was Jane Campions newest, 'Bright Star'. It is the story of the relationship between Fanny Brawne and poet John Keats which tragically ended with Keats' death at the age of 25.

It is a lovely film with beautiful cinematography and soundtrack and superb attention to detail. When Mark first suggested we go to see it I asked him if he was sure, since it appeared to be a period drama which he isn't a big fan of. But actually it is a story of love that just happens to have happened nearly 200 years ago. The sets aren't over blown and it is filmed as if it is the present day, making it seem more real.

Fanny isn't the most likeable character to start with, a little abrupt, but she softens as the love between her and Keats grows and by the end you really feel her sadness the difficult sorrow she went through. It is very sad.

There is a production 'scrapbook' website of the process of making the film which can be seen HERE! It has some of the wonderful props on it such as this 1800's Valentines below, just gorgeous:

Little animals...

I love, love, looove animals! Left over from my shop's days as a handmade Emporium I have these wonderful little glass badges made by Happy Owl Glass in the USA.

They are so sweet, each with a different animal and the colours and glassy sheen make them really gem like. They are now in the shop anyway and will make the cutest little gifts and stocking fillers...Have a look at all of them in the accessories section HERE!

Here's my favorites: a cute Okapi, wily Fox and little Ladybird...

I also have a new Owl Pattern scarf colour coming to the shop this week! It's a lovely berry-like colour and a bit more subtle than the current colours in the shop...I think you are going to like it :) Here's a peek:

Moomin Love

As a child I was never introduced to The Moomins and only really heard about them when I went to art school. I still didn't read any Moomin books then but around that time, my most Moomin obsessed friend brought home a copy of 'The Book of Moomin, Mymble and Little My' which really grabbed my heart.

It's not so much the story but the wonderful illustrations that really got me hooked on this book. I hadn't seen or thought about it for ages but found a copy in a shop on our recent trip to Brighton and got it for myself...

I love the cut out pages, making canny use of the illustrations on pages preceding and following the one you are on and the way Tove Jansson used flat and limited colours to create the quite simplistic drawings and lovely patterns...The pears in the tree in the bottom picture below (the one of Moomin mama with the berries) are so perfect, and the red, white and blue flowers around the writing in the third picture down, oh!

There is so much to look at (hence the abundance of images here! Click the pics to see them bigger), I love it so much.


If you would like a copy for yourself, I think it is available on Amazon. Or if you are in Brighton I gt it from the comic shop on Sydney Street (I think...) in the North Laines...

Brand new business cards...

I have been working on these for a little while and this week I made the screens and printed them...my brand new hand printed business cards!

This first batch have either a foresty green or bright blue image on the front with pink information on the back...I am so pleased with the handmade feel of them and love how the screened ink 'sits' on the surface of the card.

I have made 4 designs so far and all orders from now on will come with a couple of these little artworks for you to keep or share :)

Feather Thread Bracelet...

I have had a good selection of vintage chain around the studio for a while, using it to create pretty things as and when the inspiration came to me and now I have just about used it up and I'm down to my last strand! It's one I've been saving as I like it so much and it is a vintage gold plated fifties style textured link chain that is really pretty, with a definite dash of old time glamour.

I have been making a lot of bracelets lately with a celestial and feathery theme and yesterday I finally made up my mind about how to incorporate this into another of these lovelies, and came up with the Feather Thread Bracelet (All sold out now!). It has a large cluster of feathers, a little swooping swallow and three vintage look Swarovskis along with two newer chains and (what has now become an oft requested addition to my bracelets) a thread of bright red cord...

Of course, not having much of this chain left means Feather Thread is a very limited edition little number...I hope you like it!

See and Shop it HERE!

Bauble III

Well, I wasn't wrong...the last couple of weeks have been SO busy, I feel like I have been going here, there and everywhere! It was lovely to catch up with old friends on a brief trip up to Brighton and although I wasn't amazingly successful at the dressage competition (a 3rd and two 4ths...a little off form) it was great fun and I have learned a lot from the two days of training last week too, which is always a good thing :)

Anyway, things are just about back to normal and I will be adding some new goodies to the shop this week too. In the meantime here is a lovely start to all of the Christmas hoo ha:

The Shop Floor Project are a long time stockist of my Bonbi Forest wares and this week they announced their annual Bauble exhibition of alternative artists decorations.


I love the theatrical feel to the collection with leaping horses and acrobatic ladies, colourful birds (those of the fabulous Zosienka whose work I used to stock in the Emporium), a game based on age old phrases and unusual miniature antique furniture...


Visit The Shop Floor Project HERE! and you can see and perhaps shop the limited edition jewellery I created for them HERE! (Just scroll along a little to my cabinet...)