Sweet Silver...

I have been adding yet more items to the store in the form of this gorgeous fine silver jewellery from Cherry Creek Designs:All of the pieces are hand made and have delicate textures or cute motifs. I am especially loving the hammered sterling silver bangles, they are so elegant but have all these little imperfections from the hand made process that make them that little bit different. They can be worn either on their own or stacked. In fact I liked them so much I bought one for myself!!

See and shop all of the Cherry Creek Designs HERE!

Wonderfully strange

Devendra Banhart's colourful crazy video for 'Carmensita'!

A week of new things...

Ahh it finally feels like July down here in Cornwall, the sun and blue skies are here! Hurrah! I had to get up SO early this morning (talking 5:30am, I am no lark like early riser that is for sure) to take my beloved to Newquay airport as he is off spending a week away in Newcastle and then Belfast on best man duties. The groom in question is his best friend one Geordie Rich who sent him the loveliest text message at the weekend proclaiming that he had been walking around Newcastle and it didn't feel right and that he had realised what it and he were missing was a bearded Cornishman...Aww for best man friendships forever!!

I saw a thrush tapping a snail on a rock this morning trying to break it's shell for some food...It was pretty special.

Sooo, over the last few days and for the rest of this week I have been and will be adding lots of lovely new items to the store!! We have some new designers on the Bonbi Roster and lots of items from old favorites too...Here's some picks:

Very pretty pendants that come with their own matching keepsake box from new artist Leigh Shepherd... The pendants are made from vintage wooden Scrabble and Mah Jong games tiles and have a gorgeous Oriental feel. They are selling fast and if you want one you can nab it HERE!We also have some new sterling silver and gemstone nature inspired jewellery from Gugaw:
These sweet mini framed collages are from artist Steph Littlechild. They have a nostalgic homely feel and would be perfect as housewarming gifts and other such presents, see and shop them HERE!
The art section of the store has expanded further again with the addition of these prints from Gorjuss, aka Suzanne Woolcott! The dreamlike portraits evoke childhood, wonder and dark mysteries and at only £8 each are a wonderful treat for your walls! See them all HERE.
This cute cute summertime tunic is the latest addition to the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium from Victrola Studios! It has a sweet print of little birds sitting on a chandelier on a super soft banana yellow long tunic...Go HERE to buy.
FINALLY last but not least we have a whole load of romantic flavored jewellery from the popular Eclectic Eccentricity in store today as well...Plus restocks of some of their most popular pieces too. See them all HERE!
What a long post! Getting all of the new items for the store is one of my favorite parts of this job and it has seriously been a treat this last week getting all of these amazing goodies in the post everyday. I have more on the way too, so exciting!

So Close!!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. On Friday I found out that I came 2nd in the Fred Flare Next Big Thing vote!! I was amazed to find out that there were only 26 votes between myself and the first placed I'm Your Present, I had 711 votes and she had 737 - so SO excitingly close!! Thank you so much to everyone who voted, I really do appreciate all of your support and I am so pleased that my mini canvasses were in with a chance as a Next Big Thing 2008!! If you like you can see the official results HERE.

Yay!!!

So over the weekend I managed to get some pictures of the new Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip tees: It was actually sunny for a change (!) and the colours in the images are a little bleached out but they give the gist of the design...Two little Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip birds with the letter from God to Man, sitting atop city buildings and below is a smattering of humanity's ills - Bombs, broken hearts, and greed to name a few...The asphalt ones are printed in sky blue, fluorescent orange and white and the eggplant and plum tees are printed in mauve, fluorescent red and white. We may have them for sale for the band through the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium sooon!

Printing times...

I haven't been able to post in a while as things have been a little kerayzee in the studio. It's been printing crazy to be exact!! Earlier this year I was asked to make a limited edition t-shirt for music makers Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, (I'm afraid I can't remember whether I remembered to post about it on here) which seemed to go down really well on their tour and a couple of weeks ago they asked me to design another one based on their track "A letter from God to Man" (Which you can hear somewhere on HERE!). So I did, and that is where I have been, designing and printing 300 tees for their mini tour!!

While I was working I took some images of my hand printing process. I don't have any fancy rigs (except for my heat setter which makes the prints washable...it is a godsend!), just my hands and arms and and some squeegees and lots of space! For these tees I printed 2 different 3 colour colourways for guys and girls and they came out really well, with white and a colour and then a dash of bright bright fluorescent too! So here are some of the pictures...

First of all the screens have to be prepared with the light sensitive emulsion and then my drawings are reproduced as a negative which blocks UV light and makes the screen...
Then the tees arrived and stacked up into an enormous 300 tee stack! The little pic next to it has my test print tee...I always do a test print to make sure that the screen is printing well and the colours are good...
Then comes the actual printing! These images show 3 of the colours going down on different coloured t-shirts...Click the pic to see them bigger if you like. It is quite a long process as with hand printing process and the inks I use, the tees have to be hung to dry between each colour before the next goes on...The studio was swathed in cotton!
Then it was time for a carrot cake break...Mark's lovely mum sent this over to help fuel my printing endeavours. She makes excellent carrot cake indeed.
Then once all of the t-shirts are printed with their colours the heat setting and packaging begins...I didn't take a picture of the heat setting but below is the packaging...rollin' rollin' rollin'! And finally after all of that and lots of counting and re-counting (thanks Mum! She came over to the studio to help me with the counting and adding...) they were finally packaged and ready for the courier to come and take them away to the first stop of the Dan Le Sac Vs scroobius Pip mini tour!! Phew!So that is what I was up to last week. I haven't managed to get images of the finished product yet but will post some on here as soon as I have them...

Toot toot for now!

Where on earth is summer?!

Ugh! The weather is still absolutely AWFUL down here in Cornwall. Really windy and wet with such dense clouds it feels like winter...I WANT SOME PROPER JULY SUNSHINE!!!

Yesterday while walking rather soggily back from making the horses nice n cosy for the evening I spotted the biggest moths I had ever seen in my whole entire life! I think they were having quite a nice time in the rain because they were having a little alfresco mating session right in the middle of the path. I couldn't leave them there to be stepped on so scooped them onto an envelope (still mating) I had with me and put them under the rhubarb plants...


You can see how large they are alongside the post office stamp on the envelope. A little bit of research found out that they are Privet Hawk Moths, the largest breed of moth in the UK with a wing span of 12cm!! We get some pretty ugly and hairy looking moths bashing at our bathroom window when the light is on at night time but I've never seen one of these. If it flew at the window it would probably crack it!

As it has been so windy there are lots of leaves and petals all blown about and in the rain the colours are really saturated. I noticed these pink petals with the eucalyptus leaves on the ground yesterday too and although they look a darn sight prettier on the flower the colours on the dark tarmac were really striking...

It is my brother's birthday today too...Happy birthday Joey!!

Help!

Remember a couple of weeks back I mentioned I was one of fredflare.com's NEXT BIG THING winners 2008 (see here)?? Well the time has come for you to vote for your favorite (me yeah?) and give them the chance to win $1000 for their design efforts. There is some really stiff competition and I would love you to vote for me, you can see the other entries here, but make sure you don't get sidetracked by the other indie craft awesomeness because I WANT YOUR VOTE!!! hehe!

Follow this link: http://fredflare.com/customer/nextbigthing_vote2.php
which will take you to the voting booth and make sure you select BONBI FOREST from the drop down menu!!

You can vote anytime up until the 16th of July, and tell all your friends (to vote for Bonbi Forest) as well, because it's a super competition that supports up and coming designers and indie craft talent!

Little Red...

Today I'd like to welcome a new designer to the Bonbi clan: Little Red!!

April Mawhinney is the lady behind the label and we have some of her sweet purses in the store for all your money holding and card keeping needs. Made from reclaimed fabrics, the purses have a variety of appliquéd critters in pretty patterned fabrics and are fully lined with contrasting cotton.

You can see and shop all of the gorgeous Little Red purses HERE!!

So, an update on the dressage: It seems the training from my last post paid off even though I did get a complete soaking in the horrible summer solstice rain! I have been out competing the last 2 weekends and have managed to do very well indeed, qualifying both my own big horse and my mum's little horse for this summers regional championships! Hurrah!! the champs are in 4 weeks time and there is quite a bit of training to do before then...I'm very excited!!

I have also just realised what a busy month July is going to be...I have some new tee designs I want to get made, including a new design for Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, plus my Heart Art (which has taken a bit of a back seat lately) and lots of other bits n pieces...I'd better get on it!

Jewellery up!

Well I did get a complete soaking at my dressage training yesterday, I haven't been that drenched in a long time!! I was so wet I had fingers that looked like I had been in the bath too long even though I was wearing gloves, and I forgot to roll my hood up and it got filled with water and slapped and sloshed against my back as I rode around... My poor Lauder horse was pretty sodden too, though he soon cheered up when I took him back to the horsebox and gave him some sugar lumps and a nice big net full of hay!

Today has been very miserable and grey too (so much for the longest day of the year, the clouds are so dense it will be dark very early!), so I have been sat in the warm and finally added all of my new jewellery to the store...hurrah!

I have made a selection of lovely lockets, mismatched earrings, sparkles, shapes and colours and you can see and shop all them all HERE!!

Tomorrow I am off to a dressage competition for the day, wish me luck (and fingers crossed for good weather)!!

Mushrooms and jewels

I had a delivery yesterday of lovely squishy cushions from Custom Made. The Lil' Matryoshka Cushions are now re-stocked, and brand new to the store we have these adorable Mushie Cushies!! They have the sweetest print of smiling mushrooms and are available in blue or pink...See them HERE!

I nearly have my new jewellery ready to go in the Emporium too. Just a few tweaks and touches here and there and it will be in store tomorrow...yay!

Here's another peek: Lockets and bauble balloons galore!

I'm off dressage training this afternoon as I have a competition on Sunday...I was getting quite used to the sunshine and now it has gone and been replaced by a horrible miserable grey day. I think I may get quite a soaking later on...Waterproofs at the ready!!

NEXT BIG THING!!!

I have been itching to tell you this for what seems like AGES, but now I can: I am one of Fred Flare's NEXT BIG THING winners of 2008!!!!

The contest is open to designers from around the world and they selected my Lovebird Heart Art canvasses out of nearly 1000 entries (that is where that batch I posted about before disappeared to!). Everyday in June they are revealing one of the 27 winners and on the 2nd of July you can go and vote for your favorite and help them to have the chance of winning $1000 dollar dollar bills y'all, and if you like (and I would like you to like) you can vote for l'il old me!! I will be posting a reminder when the voting booth opens....

So yes, go to HERE! and you can read my interview!!!

Yaaaaaaaaayyaaaa!!!

Eclectic Cat Fluff...

Ok, there's not really any eclectic cat fluff lying around here, but I have been adding new items from Eclectic Eccentricity, Cat and Bang and Fluffstuffs to the store over the last couple of days and I like to play with words...!

From Eclectic Eccentricity we have lots of previous very popular items re-stocked for you and some brand new items too, lots of them with a romantic love theme and also these wonderful Round and Round My Carousel Earrings below. They actually move like a proper carousel and everything!! see all the new Eclectic Eccentricity jewellery HERE!

I have also added a massive update of beautiful new items from Cat and Bang to the store!! We have necklaces, bracelets and earrings with a sea and summertime theme which you can see and shop HERE!

Fluffstuffs kawaii brooches and earrings have long been popular in the Emporium and we have a few new ones in stock now as well as some very lovely pouches and sweet bags too, all with the Fluffstuffs trademark brand of VERY cute!! See all of them HERE.

The new Bonbi jewels are nearly ready too and I will hopefully have in the store by the end of the week, yay!

Compare and contrast

This week has turned out to be a much fun week indeed!

After the loveliness of the sparkling beach on Monday evening, myself and a few good buddies headed down to Penryn's Miss Peapods (A wonderful windmilled eco building over looking the harbour...) to go and see a weirdo psychedelic band called Sunburned Hand of the Man. I have seen them there once before and have to say that I enjoyed their previous performance much more. It's not entirely my cup of tea but their crazy antics were still very entertaining when they covered all their equipment in tin foil and started waving polystyrene heads about on big sticks! They were supported by a local Cornish band called Rosemarie Band who I actually enjoyed a lot more. I neglected to pick up their EP (slap wrists Lee May!) and was hoping to find some of their music on Myspace, but while they have a profile they have no tunes on there as yet. You can find it HERE and I am hoping it will be well worth a bookmark for a listen when they do get some material on there...

Then yesterday I took most of the day off work for some horsin' around in the morning and then an afternoon with my wonderful friend Miss Natalie who I haven't seen in AGES!!

It's not all been play however as I have been making stuff (which actually is play really, but don't tell anyone...!) and I have added the fabulous work of two brand new designers to the store: Design by Kanena and Pippin Designs! The work of these two artists really couldn't be more different and they have reminded me of the wide and diverse range of items that are now stocked in the emporium!

Californian Kanena Peters (who operates under the name of Design by Kanena) makes such beautiful jewellery. She fuses a wonderful array of Swarovski crystals, glass beads, gemstones and shell to create the earthy and unusual pieces.


The Abalone shell of the Amazon Babe Necklace has got the most beautiful shimmering colours. You can see this piece and more of Kanena Peters jewellery just HERE!

So the other designer added to the Emporium is Pippin Designs!! Rachel Young is the creator of these super felt plush brooches, which come in an array of cute n crazy designs ranging from pretty flowers, peas in a pod, fruity bits n pieces, cupcakes and teacups and a wonderful big breakfast complete with bacon, egg, sausage and beans!!


See and shop these cheerful accessories JUST HERE!

Making making!

I've been making some new jewellery which will be on the site next week! Lots of lovely long chains with summer time baubles and sparkling beads and bobs...

Here's a sneak peek:

First trip to the sea...

The weather is so scorching!! Yesterday evening I took my first trip of the summer down to our local beach with the beau and our friend Rob. The beach is in a little rocky cove about a mile away and whenever I go there I am reminded how lucky I am to live and work where I do.

We had a paddle in the sea and it was SO cold! I have never had an ice cream headache through my feet before...it was quite shocking!! I think I will leave it a month or so before I partake in any swimming.

Garden Walk

Oh I love the early summer!

Wet feet from morning garden grass...

The cats always like to follow if we do anything in the garden...! They hate to be left out of anything.


xXx

A Skin, A Night.

I had the loveliest surprise in the post yesterday! My lovely Mark had ordered me A Skin, A Night which is a film by Vincent Moon about one of my favorite bands The National!! I have been waiting for it's release for AGES after watching snippets of it on the internet about this time last year when the band released their album Boxer.

It came with an EP called the Virginia EP which is full of previously unreleased and live material and has a great live version of About Today, the song that made me fall head over heels for their sound.

I haven't watched the film yet as The Apprentice was on last night and I'm a bit addicted to the ball breaking back stabbers, but I will report back when I have seen it...I found this excerpt from the Metro website which makes A Skin, A Night sound rather good!!

Released as a double disc set with their new Virginia EP, A Skin, A Night sees the autumnal Brooklyn indie rockers collaborate with French director Vincent Moon for an evocative film far removed from the conventional rockumentary.

Recorded in the wake of the band's 2005 breakthrough album, Alligator, we're given a keyhole view of the protracted birth pangs of the follow-up, Boxer.

Moon's film challenges the viewer with dreamy, impressionistic techniques that are often revealing, such as his soundless concert footage focusing on the response of fans.

Just as his cryptic style suits this characteristically subtle band, Moon's flickering shots of New York – mostly shot in the similarly stark monochrome of the band's artwork – resonate with the lyrical imagery of frontman Matt Berninger.

This is really a film about the collective creative process and a band at a crossroads between underground obscurity and mainstream embrace. [Nadine McBay - www.metro.co.uk]

Lookie here: It's such a beautifully sad song, I love it when the intro finishes and the guitar melody really starts...