New designers!!

This week I have been catching up and adding lots of new items to the store with the addition of THREE new designers!!

First up we have the whimsical jewellery of Finest Imaginary. Choose from cute perspex pendants with Grrr! and Arg! speech bubbles taken from Finest imaginary creator Kim Lawler's monster drawings, a little love heart tea pot pendant or a happy raincloud with sparkling Swarovski rain drops...


We also have fun jewellery from stateside based Zlanarama! These colourful pieces feature stars, boomboxes, little puff hearts and sparkles...sweet!


These bold and bright shoppers are crafted by Ruthy Loves Retro. We have some of her little plush cats too, so sweet and made from vintage and vintage inspired fabrics and buttons and at only £5 a kitty are a cute treat!

ALSO, there are some brand new fun leather jewellery items from Emma Ferguson (sunglasses and feathers!) and beautiful upcycled bracelets and stud earrings from Kirsty Kirkpatrick in store too!

See and shop them HERE!!

Adventure time...

After the design fair I took a much needed few days off and my friend Jemma came to stay. She was only down for a couple of days but we managed to cram in some jewelery making and a couple of excursions.

The first was to a tiny secret beach that only locals know about, I have never been to it though which is really disgraceful seeing as it is just around the corner from where we live but my brother came with us and showed us how to get there. To get to it you have to turn off the cliff path through a tiny and very spiky gap in the brambles, where a narrow and bumpy path winds down the cliff side through lots of blackberry bushes (lots of scratches and nettle stings were acquired and you can't even see the path from the beach!) to a small but gorgeous beach in a little bay all of it's own. The path was so steep and slippery in places some kind soul had put some ropes down it to aid the inching down! It was so pretty down there, and the sun even managed to come out and make the sea look blue and warm us up a little bit...

Then we went to Eden!! I love it there so much and knew Jemma would too. I manage to go about twice a year and it's so interesting seeing the different plants in bloom. If you ever go though make sure you head to the Mediterranean biome first. It is interesting with lots of fragrant oil plants, fruit trees and really beautiful flowers, but it isn't quite as impressive as the absolutely massive Rainforest biome, with it's enormous palms and unusual plants. My favorite is a little shrub that closes all of it's leaves when you touch them...!

I was suprised how much Eden itself has grown since I went last December. It's a proper full day out now with not just the biomes but loads of fun stuff for kids (den building this time around...) and has the newer 'Core' building with interactive educational machines, films and animations as well as art exhibitions with pieces that explore the environment...really good stuff!!

Design Fair and new tees and stuff!

Last weekend was the Hidden Art design fair at Godolphin House (previously posted about HERE) and was a chance for me to get my newest designs out and about for the very first time and also the chance for customers to nab some Bonbi bargains to boot. It was a really good show for Bonbi Forest, despite turning up for the set up and finding that I had booked a smaller stand than I initially thought. I always forget how much room the tees take up when they are on display!! With Mark's help and his excellent hammering, stapling, sticking and pinning skillz though it turned out to be a great success if a little crammed in, but then nothing I seem to make is ever minimalist anyway...!

So over the next week I will be adding all of the new designs that you can see in the stand pictures (click the pics to see them bigger if you like), including new shoppers, Bonbi headbands, new jewellery, cards, all of the new mens and womens tees and my first womens sweatshirt, more owl scarves (which were all sold out by midday on the second day!) and I will get the Love Cat Mini Canvas in store as well as previously promised on this very blog...! Phew!

Heart Art...

Well it's been a while coming but I finally have my Love Bird Heart Art Mini Canvasses available in store!!! Yay! I know I have put pictures of the canvasses online before but here's a couple more to remind ya:


They are ever so slightly different from the version I sent to Fred Flare for the Next Big Thing 2008 store as they have a super bright Fluorescent red heart now instead...(I don't know why but this really doesn't show up in the images, perhaps computers just can't cope with those kinds of colours?). They are all hand printed and stretched onto wooden frames by myself and are so sweet as gifts with a little space on the back for a personal message. You can get them HERE!!!

I have more heart art on the way over the next week too: Love Cats!! So stay tuned for them...

My lack of posts (again...) this past weekend is because we spent it in a little village near Basingstoke called Rotherwick, where Mark was on best man duty at his best friend Rich's wedding!! It was a beautiful (and by the end of the reception a rather raucous dancing) day with a sparkling and magical theme. My camera ran out of battery so I'm afraid I have no pictures of the gorgeous reception decorations (or the Swarovski sparkling beautiful lady Natalie bride) but imagine if you will an old red brick hall decked out with leafy and Gerbera flower arrangements, giant pink and turquoise butterflies, twinkling fairy lights, jars of sweets with neon polka dot lids, rose petals, paper lanterns lots of bubbly and delicious BBQ food and you can kind of get the magical picture...It was so much fun and congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Zabrocki!!!

Nest

Yesterday I found a nest on the ground outside the studio...

It is so perfect and neat and on closer inspection seems to be made up from moss, grass, baling plastic, sheep wool, tiny twigs and tail hair from our smallest pony, the little and palomino Carrianne...

Back for the time being...

A few colourful shapes from a very wet festival time...


The gloom followed me to London, bah! Field Day was SO wet and as usual I was mighty unprepared (surprising since I spend so much time outside with the horses and other animal folk!), all I had was a £2.99 umbrella bought on the way there. My shoes held up until the last hour when my feet got rather cold and wet and the festival itself was ok with so much effort put in to make it more of a day out than last year but it was still massively lacking in lady loos which is a big shame...

Anyhow, I shall stop harping on about that as on Sunday we headed to Derbyshire for the wedding of my cousin Angeline at Bolsover Castle!! It was a wonderful ceremony and they had the most amazing wedding cake I have ever seen - It was made up from lots of gorgeous little lemon cupcakes which had super pretty butterfly cases and were sprinkled with colourful edible flowers. The pictures I took don't really do them justice (er, a little inebriated to hold the camera in a suitably steady fashion) but I wanted to include them anyway...

And the native flowers accompanied by one of the cakes...!

Travels...

Well the sun has finally come out (for the time being at least) just as I am going away! The beau and I and a couple of other Cornish lovelies are heading to the Big Smoke this weekend to go to Field Day Festival. We went last year and while the bar and loo arrangements were less than savory it hasn't put us off going again this time around for some fun with London friends, some good music and hopefully some time away from the Cornish fog and gloom (I hope, it will probably follow us there...).

(Image courtesy of fielddayfestival.com)

Then on Monday we are going to the wedding of my cousin Angeline! I'm quite excited as I haven't seen her in AGES and I'm really looking forward to getting properly dressed up as I have a new dress to wear, yay!

So I will be back on Wednesday and probably starting to panic about the following weekend's design fair...What with all these weddings and parties (damn fun and dancing, getting in the way, hehe!) I only have 5 more making days left, eek!

Super Snappy!

Since I have been back I have also been adding some more new bits and pieces to the store. We have a new designer to welcome: Snappy Sausage! These super pretty jewellery pieces are the creation of Miss Abbi Kendall who uses a sparkling array of glass, Swarovski, plastic, wood, mixed chains and cute charms to make her unusual but very wearable bracelets, necklaces and earrings...

See and shop them all HERE!

Hidden Art

I haven't been on the blog of late, time has seemingly run away with me...It has been good time though as I went away with the horses for a few days and since I have been back I have been making, drawing and printing in preparation for the Hidden Art Cornwall Design Fair which is in a couple of weeks time over the August Bank holiday: Saturday 23rd - Monday 25th. I took part last year and you can see last years stand HERE! As you can see from that, my blog posting regularity hasn't improved very much!

The fair is held at the now National Trust owned Godolphin House, a 15th century part of Cornish history and last year as it will this year, had the extra attraction of a Hidden Art Curated exhibition and a show of work from recent graduates of the Falmouth College of Art. If the goddamn awful weather ever improves (greyness and fog for DAYS...where are you August sun??), it should be as great a fair as it was previously with games, bands, bars and all sorts going on. If you are in Cornwall that weekend I fully recommend it and if you manage to come along please come and say hello to me!

So at the moment I am full steam ahead! In the meantime I also have 2 weddings to attend and I am heading to London to go to the Field Day Festival this weekend as well. Again, I hope the sun comes out for that and I also hope that the bar and lavatory arrangements are better than last year...!

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!