Awash with colour!

I spent yesterday in the wallpaper factory trying out colours for my new Meadow Grass wallpaper. My friend Natalie has a great eye for colour and I am so glad she came with me.

The new design has a background colour and two more colours in the grasses so there were all sorts of possible combinations. Communicating what you have in your head is a tricky job and as I discovered last visit colour is extremely hard to pin down and hard to describe. 

I think I said 'Oh this is hard' about a trillion times yesterday I did have to have a word with myself at one point as I began tumbling into self doubt. 'Come on brain, get on side...we've done this before, we can do it again. We CAN find those beautiful colours'.

I took inspiration from some pretty nature photo's. I love the very pale backgrounds and the crisp silhouettes over the top. I wanted to create a soft and gentle palette but have the motif's really pop out. 

The colour guys were amazing, mixing up the subtlest colours by blobbing paint from three different coloured bottles and mixing them up in paper cups.

It was good to see my newly etched cylinders.

We watched them winch them up and over to the printing area

and then marveled at the prettiness as they printed.

When we started to play with metallic's the designs came alive. 

The delicate grasses began to sing!

Please take the colours on these pictures with a pinch of salt. They don't look much like they do in real life. In real life they are soooo pretty and I really love them We will have to work hard to describe them properly in our photography.

There's a kind of oatmeal with dusky pink metallic and grey/brown. There is the palest blue with silver and teal, there is a soft grey with gold and grey/brown.

Printing day is the 23rd April. Just a few weeks away!

Surface Pattern Design at Staffordshire University

Last week I was invited to give a talk to the students on the Surface Pattern Design degree at Staffordshire University. I had such a lovely day with them.

 I spoke to all three year groups in the morning and told them my story. From dropping out of art college, having my kids really young and then finding my own way into my creative career baby step by baby step. Some of these students are about to leave uni and all of them want to find a way of carrying on doing what they love but are worried about the challenges ahead. How will they make it work in the big wide world? I loved showing them my photo's and taking them on a virtual tour of the wallpaper factory. I liked openly sharing the ins and outs of a product based design business like mine and how I make it work for me.

I spent the afternoon in the studio's with the students and some of them showed me their work and told me about their dreams for the future. I'm gutted I didn't take my proper camera (why oh why?) but I took a few snaps on my phone. They have so many great facilities and it was a buzz with experimentation and ideas. I just LOVE work spaces. The mess, the organisation, the possibilities, the works in progress...

This is the desk of second year student Katie Hughes. We had a nice chat about being inspired by nature and the way it can calm you down and how, when you're calm you start to notice it's lovely details and colours.

I watched Rhiannon Roberts hand tufting her lovely rug. Doesn't this look fun? I wanted to have a go.

It made me want to go back to college and PLAY.

Sarah Pearse was having a great time freely splashing dyes on a huge table and taking prints....finding those interesting details.

I loved the pretty printing and paper folding going on at Joanna Mathias's desk. She is hoping to create some sculptural hangings and lights.

This third year students Hayley Murphy is working on a wallpaper collection so we had a lot to talk about - in fact she's asked if she can come and intern for a while next year so we will be seeing more of her :).

I wish I had taken loads more photo's so I could really share the buzz of the place with you. It was lovely to spend the day there and to be able to inspire a few people. The world needs more people doing what they love and I hope all these enthusiastic young people find their way to living super successful creative lives.

The Storytellers

One of the lovely things about sharing a studio space is that you get to watch other peoples projects unfold and you feel as excited as they do every step of the way. Sarah & Suzi just launched their gorgeous video all about the outdoor family portrait sessions that they are so passionate about. It's really sweet.

It features a shoot with our friend Rebecca's family up at Widdop reservoir and then back at her house (check out the HN Paper Meadow wallpaper in their living room heehee).

Sarah commissioned my boy Euan to write the music and I hope you will agree that he has done a fine job. It's got Ffions voice in it too so it's nice she could get in on the act too in a small way! 

You can visit Sarah Mason's Photography's new website here and see more of her lovely portrait shoots.

The video is by Rogue Robot.

I'm in Country Living magazine!

When I took the Hello Soul Hello Business e-course a couple of years ago I did some serious dreaming and planning.  I dreamed of a big light filled studio space with huge windows and lots of plants, I dreamed of having a couple of lovely student interns to help me out.  I dreamed of becoming a mentor and inspiring other makers. I dreamed of rolling out my newly designed wallpaper on a big long table in the middle of my studio and sending it out around the world. I also made a list of magazines I'd like to be in. One was Where Women Create, one was Garden's Illustrated and the BIG one was Country Living.

So you can imagine how excited I was when the feature's editor got in touch last year to ask if they could do a feature on me.

They sent Alun Callender to do a photoshoot for a day which was lots of fun (check out his website. His photos are amazing). Didn't he do a splendid job! And they sent Kate Langrish to interview me. We had a long chat in the studio over cups of tea and she wrote my story beautifully.

It's in the April edition, in the shops now and I have four full pages. I want to share it all with you but I also don't want to give it all away because I'd love you to have a copy of your own (there's even a reader offer in there...an extra incentive for you to buy a copy).  I'm so happy about this piece. I just LOVE it when creative plans come to full fruition. When things you've doodled in your notebook become real life things in your hands or on your coffee table.

It's been busy in the Hannah Nunn studio this week, We've been sending off lots of lamps and wallpaper samples and greeting lots of new customers. Hello!

So now I'm busy dreaming up new plans. Where shall we go next?

Stretching ideas on the Isle of Skye

I have just been to Timber House on The Isle of Syke with my dear friend Rachel Hazell.

It's the perfect place to rest and dream and stretch ideas, as Rachel put it so well. It's a good place for stretching your body too and there was lots of yoga time for me 

and feet up time too.

We like to talk about our businesses and how it's all going and make plans over many cups of tea and Rachel likes to make books.

Rachel is a paper loving, bookbinding artist who has a marvelous e-course called Paperlove which runs in only a few weeks time so there was much buzz about that. Has anyone reading taken her course? Everyone who I have spoken to has loved it.

While Rachel perfected her coptic stitch ready for her Driftwood Binding workshop on Iona later in the month I had short rambles up the hill behind the house in between the hailstorms and driving rain.

The colours are so good on Skye.

And the air is so clean.

And I always notice the mosses too 

and I have to get up really close

There's an old derelict cottage up the hill behind the house.

It's surrounded by the gnarliest old trees. 

The trees were covered in the most incredible mosses.

It's always a shame when it's time to leave the wilderness

but the journey back on the train was astounding with snowy mountains, deer and wild rivers.

Then I had a couple of nights in Edinburgh at Rachel's house which is full of papery wonders and piles books to devour.

There was shopping

and more cups of tea.

Thankyou Rachel for another lovely Timber House time. 

Please visit Rachel's lovely new website and if you are a paper lover too then Paperlove starts in a few weeks time. Check it out here.