Flock

Hand printed birds on soft, white cotton.

I love printing the fabric for the shop - if you have a custom colour you'd like to see, send me a message. This turquoise flock of birds are flying to their new home in Alaska today!

You can find more of this print in stock here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Forest & Sea is 6!

Six years ago today I started this blog! I've learnt so much along the way by joining in with online contests, making my designs available for sale and finally last year opening a shop. Thanks so much if you've been reading about it and commenting here, it's really made a huge difference to me. I'm so glad Forest & Sea is going strong six years on and that I'm still learning and enjoying it every day!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Printing and Wrapping

Hand printing and wrapping custom made cloth for the shop!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Spring Printing, Making

Hello! Are you having a good spring? I think March is my favourite month - starting cold and drizzly but with promising snippets of the good weather to come.

Here's what I've been working on the last few weeks:

Pines & Cranes on cotton fabric; Blackbird, Silver Birch Pouch; Mountains Travel Wallet; Denim back to the blackbird pouch.

I love the brilliant colours and detail you can get printed onto fabric digitally and the way the new Mediterranean landscape pouch has worked out is great (more of these soon)! Also pictured is the blackbird drawing you can see on this blog's banner ^up there^ printed onto cotton twill. With the denim back, it makes a really sturdy and tactile little bag.

I've also been experimenting with paints and methods for block printing on linen and cotton. I love the immediate results and great texture of hand printed fabric:

Hand made, hand printed drawstring bag; colours for spring; Two for Joy block printing and finished zipped bag.

To find out more about these images, visit the Forest & Sea Instagram or Etsy page.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

It's been a gem!

New prints for a new year..

I've loved 2015! As with any year, it's had its set backs but on the whole, it's been a gem! One of the highlights for me was to finally open an Etsy shop, make some sales and find my way around over there. It's still a work in progress but I'm so looking forward to 2016 and making some new things.

How was this year for you and what are you looking forward to in the next? I hope you have a fantastic new year's eve and wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2016!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Online shop!

I've added some zipped pouches, gift tags and fabric to the new Forest & Sea Etsy shop! Click here to head on over and have a rummage :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Six months!

Six months since my last blog post! I'm posting to Instagram regularly if you'd like to have a look and say hello - I will also be updating here more often but here are some of the things I've been working on:

Woodblock prints on canvas for these pouches.

Working on photos and packaging for the new online shop.

Enjoying the beautiful summer weather we've been having this year!

I hope you've been enjoying the summer (or looking forward to it, some of you) too :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Slow - Busy - Slow

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm working on starting a shop over at Etsy. It's taking much longer than I thought it would - there are so many things, for both production and admin, that I need to research and am doing for the first time - but I'm working hard at it and I hope to open soon!

Motifs for the shop banner & cotton panels in the dye pot.

Clockwise: Sparrow - Palace Garden - Butterfly & Bloom zipped pouches!

I'm impatient to open and send off some goodies! Are you the same as me? Do things take longer than you think they will?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Cava-ing

Cava / champagne corks are one of the things I have trouble throwing away if we've been celebrating - they just seem too well made to be disposable packaging and the hoarder in me always thinks that there must be a good use for it. This one, from our New Year's celebrations, escaped the bin and got used for some carving; also known as cava-ing :D

Planning and cava-ing!

Printed cotton and the final zip case!

I really enjoyed this project - a great excuse to be keeping Cava corks in the future! What do you find difficult to chuck?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

@forest_and_sea

From Instagram (clockwise):
~ a greeting card in watercolour
~ one of the pencil sketches for the Arabica Cherry pattern
~ block printed cotton
~ autumn leaves in the park
~ Benny's paw (and some Nilofar on denim)
~ working out the repeat for Palace Garden

I've been posting regularly over at Instagram and I've met some amazing people over there! If you're interested, come and say hi - my user name is @forest_and_sea

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Burlap & Azure

Also proofed and in the shop are the new colours for Arabica Cherry: Burlap and Azure!

This repeat design was made using botanical drawings of the Arabica coffee bush - my favourite bean. So if you're like me and love a strong, aromatic brew to get you going in the morning, then you can find this pattern in my spoonflower shop!

Arabica Cherry - in Burlap and Azure - printed on heavy cotton twill at spoonflower.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Hand-dyed Cotton

If you look at my account over at Instagram every now and again you will have seen that I've been looking into hand painting and dyeing fabric. It's much more fun than having designs digitally printed and it quite often happens that you get some wonderful but totally unintended results! These are my dye experiments from last month, made by stitching, rolling, dipping and tying cotton swatches before putting them in the dye pot:

My favourite is that one on the top right. Don't you think it looks a bit like waves at the beach?

PS For those who're interested, Benny's already put on 400g since he came to live with us - 30% of his body weight! I think he's going to be big :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Waterlight

The Galápagos Sea Lions I sketched from a nature documentary a few years ago have had a bit of work done! I've redrafted the fish and given them all a bit of watery light:

Scatter!

Scatter! details.

The shop has already been updated with this new version here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Nilofar

I'm getting better with the sewing machine and it feels really good to learn something new. I thought the panels I printed recently went great with this old denim and so used them to make a toiletries bag:

I was also testing out an idea for some snap wallets this week; the second turned out better than the first but it was very satisfying figuring out a good pattern:

I've made a digital version of this print if you'd like to try it. It's called Nilofar, which means lotus or waterlily and it's available HERE on all sorts of fabric, decal and wallpaper!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Hiroshige

'Nihonbashi Bridge on Snow Morning' and 'Mt. Fuji Scene from Satta' both by Andō Hiroshige

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige and 'Mt. Fuji on Fine Day' by Hokusai Katsushika

Hiroshige Pouch from the 'Evening Snow in Kamubara' postcard.

When I was about 12, a family friend returned from a Tokyo business trip with a huge pile of beautifully printed, thick, mat postcards with old Japanese woodblock art on them. Everyone was allowed to keep a few and above are the ones I chose. They were blu-tacked to my bedroom wall for all of my teenage years and are a bit worse for wear, but as you can see the colours haven't faded. A while ago, I digitally cleaned one of them up and had it printed on some linen-cotton from Spoonflower. For textiles, digital printing is perfect for this kind of thing - it couldn't have turned out better. I've finally made something of it (the last image here) and it's great to have something to use, made by hand, from an image that's always been there.

I hope you have a great weekend. Spoil yourself at least once :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Sundance

Poppyfield and Sundance

Hi, have you had a good start to your weekend? I've been sorting out these new designs. On the left here is a new version of Poppyfield with updated, brighter colours and a smaller repeat. To the right is a new pattern which I've based on it and I'm so happy with how the colours have printed - they're so fresh and bright. It's called Sundance after the flowers I'd never heard of and only happened to come across after designing this pattern - meant to be?! I hope you like them too; if you do, you can find them in my Spoonflower shop!

Have a good Sunday lovely peeps :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

El Condor Pasa

Textile paint experiments - first flowering cherry - winter sun and a new blanket - el condor pasa.. a few pictures from over at Instagram. I hope you have a great week!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Summer Doves

Summer Doves; a summery counterpart to the Snow Doves. You can find them over here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Get stuff sent for free :)

Hello! If you were thinking of making some luverly stuff for the festive season this year, or if you're like me and just like a bargain, then head on over to the shop and you can get stuff sent for free!!

Free shipping at spoonflower is from 12pm, Thursday November 15th - 12pm Friday November 16th EST (if you're in the UK that's 5pm today until 5pm tomorrow).

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Buy one get one freeee!

New in the shop:

Surf in Indigo, Pines & Cranes, Palace Garden Repeat, Butterflies, Lagoon and last but not least Honey Bees!

If you'd like to order one of these prints or any others at Spoonflower, they're having a fat quarter sale from today until Wednesday the 31st - buy one get one free!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware