The Tiny Treasures have come to life!

Let me tell you the story of our new Tiny Treasures. 

At the end of last year I bought a laser cutter for the studio. We have been out-sourcing our laser cutting since I started making lamps many years ago but my laser man (he has been WONDERFUL) was talking about retiring so it seemed like time to buy our own. As well as the practicality of being able to cut the lamps in house I knew it would be an opportunity to play and that new products were bound to happen.

I started using the motifs from my Tiny Treasures wallpaper to practice cutting with the laser. We began using thin paper to cut the shapes and they looked lovely but not super strong so we experimented with thicker and thicker paper which made for some robust little shapes. 

The lovely paper was available in lots of juicy colours too so we have been cutting and cutting lots of lovely shapes and stringing them upon nylon thread to make mobiles and wall hangings.

 We launched them at open studios last weekend and they went down really well.

Oonagh (my wonderful force-of-nature assistant) made these sweet little boxes (knocked them up with the laser cutter one afternoon!) and they were the perfect way to display the treasures.

 It was like a pick and mix sweet shop!

They really sparked peoples imaginations and it was lovely watching what colours and shapes people chose and how they put them together.

 Ever since then we have been working hard, photographing them so we could add them to the website and we are please to announce that they are all now up and available HERE. Hooray!

So now you can order a ready chosen selection or you can pick and mix your own :)

I can also make made-to-order wall hangings with the treasures too. They will be threaded up, hanging from a length of dowel like in the photo below. They would look great on a chimney breast wall or in a window.

I've got loads of ideas and shapes I want to play with but for now me and Oonagh are celebrating having launched this new product after many weeks of work and hope that you'll pop over to the website and have a look. The tiny treasures are waiting....

Shadow Play

I made a few more laser cut shapes today. I'm pretty astounded at the level of detail that the lasercutter can manage.

This Chinese lantern skeleton is another of my Tiny Treasure motifs and it's come out so well.

 I'm not sure what all these shapes will become but it's lovely having them around. They have a lot of energy about them! 

 And here are the beginnings of some elderberries. It's so nice to play with the shadows.

Paper and light is one of my favourite things.

Paper treasures

I haven't mentioned on my blog yet that I have bought a laser cutter. I have been outsourcing my cutting for years and years to a wonderful man named Bob all the way down in Cornwall. But Bob is soon going to retire so I thought we would have a go at doing our own.

Here she is. She's massive and very red and we had to rearrange the whole studio to accommodate her!

Bob has always been very helpful when I am excited about trying out new designs and he sends me them in first class post but I have to say it is wonderful having the machine right here in front of me as I can get into a creative flow of experimenting and tweaking as I go. It makes the process much faster and much more fun.

The last few months we have been getting to know each other. There have been fights and falling out (the software is pretty basic and very frustrating and the machine a little glitchy) but slowly slowly we are beginning to understand each other. I often ask too much of it as I want really fine cuts but too thin and it won't hold together so I am beginning to understand and work with it's capabilities.

Today everything held together. Everything behaved and I remembered everything I needed to remember! We worked well together. 

I've been tweaking these little paper treasures for a while and today they all cut well.

I'm not sure where I will go with all of these but it's really good to play. 

I first dreamed of having a laser cutter way back before lamps when I was still making handmade cards but they were SO much money at the time and it was way beyond me. Then I found Bob and decided it was a much better idea to have someone else do the cutting BUT it's lovely to finally have one of my own. A new toy with new possibilities. 

Open Studios

I love getting the opportunity to see into other artists studios. It's always inspiring to see their works in progress, their bookshelves, the view from their windows and their little collections of things that inspire them. You might call me nosy, but I prefer to call myself curious! 

If you are the curious type too then you will probably enjoy Hebden Bridge Open Studios. It takes place on the 6th, 7th and 8th of July and there are 83 artists in the brochure this year. Some of them are in big shared studio groups and others are independents, exhibiting in their houses.

It's the first time I will have opened the studio since making window film so I'm excited to show you my windows.

And I am looking forward to showing you my Tiny Treasures book too.

I share my sunny studio with my friends Sarah and Suzi who are amazing photographers and  Julia Ogden who makes paintings and prints and we will all be opening our rooms and welcoming visitors.

I'll be having a seconds sale of my lamps in the studio (not online this time, just in person) but if you are just too far away to visit then as a little treat there will be 20% off wallpaper, lamps and fabrics on my website with the code 'openstudiosale' so you don't have to feel like you're missing out!

You can find out more details and directions here.

I hope you can come.

Hannah x

Growing into the new year...

For a long time I've been longing for more time to draw and design. All small business owners know just what a lot there is to do in the everyday running of a business and although I make some time for drawing (I've obviously designed a few things lately haven't I) there is always so much to pull me away. 

But the message is loud and clear and I have known for a while that the next step is full time help in the studio but I've been a little bit scared of making the leap.

But I just did it. I have a wonderful girl called Emma who came to me as a student intern three years ago and has worked a couple of days in the studio through the last year of her degree in Surface Design at Huddersfield Uni and then through her MA. You may have met her at a show or in my studio. She is brilliant and I have always said I want to keep her forever! She has just finished her MA and so the time felt right to offer her a job as studio manager. She gleefully accepted!

So we have been making changes in the studio this new year and it all feels good. I have combined my 'office' space with my 'drawing' space and we have created Emma a work space of her own so we can happily and comfortably work alongside each other.

Emma is supporting my desire to draw more and we are finding new ways of managing everything together. 

I'm loving my new desk. I'm gathering ideas and sitting down to work on my next project which involves lots of tiny treasures....

I've been collecting

and arranging

and drawing

and dreaming.

Right then I'd better get back to the drawing board .....

Playing

I've been playing a lot lately.

With new motifs and old ones...

mixing them up.

I've been doing a surface pattern design with a victorian garden theme for the Bronte parsonage museum shop lately (more about that later) and it has given me lots of new ideas for lamps.

One of the motifs was this delicate fern which has translated well into a lamp design. From a drawing..

to a laser cutting..

to a lamp!

And I have been playing with forget-me-nots too. 

I've also been mixing up engraving and cutting

 and playing with softer shadows to create more depth.

This one is a limited edition 'Daisy Meadow' lamp to go with my wallpaper.

Wild Garlic has made an appearance too

sitting with some ferns and some wood anemones.

And also poppy seed heads.

on candle covers and lamps.

The fern lamp make sweet little off cuts. They are growing all over my studio!