guddles.

i heart...

favourite friday.

well it's been an extremely busy couple of weeks at the i heart... HQ, we've been making bits for new stockists, typing up hand-outs for our meet & makers on sunday, designing our 'my favourite place' zine & catching up on our books.

so needless to say, the whole decorating the house thing has been pushed to one side. we've managed to strip the living room walls of its 80s woodchip wallpaper & yup... that's about it. i CANNOT wait till it's all nice & un-guddled & i can spruce it up with lovely bits, just like this week's favourite friday...

this adorably cute bunting cushion by Roslyn Mitchell Designs would look just perfect on our (imaginary, anyone fancy buying us a) sofa.

xox.

p.s. if you would like to be featured as our favourite friday, just pap up some of your photos here.

new stockists.

i heart...

my new stockists.

i am very happy to announce that next week our 'i heart you' cross-stitch cards will be available at the lovely Welcome Home in the west end of glasgow, as well as their pop-up shop at the CCA on sauchiehall street.

And if that wasn't enough awesome news, a variety of our cross-stitch cards, hand-knitted bow rings & other bits will also be available at the adorable Made With Love Finnieston. i am very much looking forward to dropping off my wares on sunday & tucking into the scrumptious food they also have on offer!

so if you prefer to have a look-see & touchy-feel before getting your pennies out, head on down to these beautiful boutiques & get yourself some i heart... goodies.

xox.

january blues.

i heart...


favourite friday.


it's that time of year again when i get completely & utterly fed up of the cold weather. i don't know whether it's my australian blood, but i can't be doing with winter at all. i like winter clothes & maybe a little bit of snow (imagine how good snow would be if it was warm?!) but other than that i'd chose summer any day, even spring or autumn is better than being cold all the time.

so this week's favourite friday is a look forward to the summer ahead, which fingers crosses will be filled with days of beautiful sunshine to which i could be accompanied by this beautiful fan...

...made by Barbara Ana Gomez (one of the featured artists in our 'my favourite place' zine, which you can pre-order here).

if you would like to be featured as our favourite friday of the week, add some photos of your work to our flickr pool & we might just pick you.

xox.

granny would be proud.

i heart...


craft fairs.

& this sunday i'll be packing my suitcase full of my handmade bits as well as bobs & getting the bus to glasgow to set up stall at Granny Would Be Proud. it's been a while since i've had myself a wee stall so i'm looking forward to showing off our new fair-trade & eco wares, meeting new customers & makers. it's at the Hillhead Bookclub (they do a mean veggie burger) 12-5pm, so do come down & say hello, have browse & maybe even a bite to eat.

whilst i'm there i'm going to try sneak out for a wee bit to have a catch up with the Made In The Shade gals & of course have a scour round at their sale-o-rama!

see you on sunday!

xox.

charity shops.

i heart...


charity shops.

but this wasn't always the case, no siree. my childhood fashion consisted almost entirely of charity shop clothing, not from choice but from necessity. so as you can imagine i was made fun of, bullied and certainly was not one of the 'cool' kids growing up. so it had always been drummed into my head that charity shops were horrible places & i HATED them. then, i turned 17 & up-sticks down to glasgow & couldn't believe my eyes & ears. charity shop shopping was fashionable?! it took me a while to get my head round this, a couple of years, a move from the southside to the west end & the introduction to my bestie Sheri aka Betty Swollocks who, amongst a lot of other things, educated me in the ways of charity shopping & i've never looked back.

today, i visted the aviemore charity shop, the one i loathed so much when i was younger & found these wee gems for a grand total of just £7...

so now instead of begging my mum not to go into the charity shop when i was with her incase anyone saw me, i hold my head up high & enter with eager eyes.

xox.

projects, projects, projects.

i heart...


community projects.

& i've got quite a few buzzing around in my head just now. first of all there's our 'my favourite place' collaborative zine. at the end of last year we called for people around the globe to submit an artwork & sound that depicted what/where/who their favourite place was. we received an amazing range of submissions & after trying & failing to get funding to get the zines printed & a very busy festive season, i've finally managed to save up some pennies to get the zine finished & they will be ready for you to get your hands on soon. hurray! part of today was spent figuring out what to put on the front cover of the zine. i like making the front covers to our zines a bit different - our last zine, 'i heart...zines!' has a concoction of paint, photos, illustration & sewing on it's front - & came up with this embroidered piece...

unfortunately it's too big, but if you like it you can get it here. (if you would like me to do any custom embroidery pieces just drop me an e-mail at hello@iheartdotdotdot.co.uk)
so, i'm back to square one, but i'll think of something!

now to a project that i've taken part in myself, the 100 million stitches project which is part of the celebration of the centenary of international women's day. they are calling out for knitted patches which will be sewn together to make a huge art piece to raise awareness of the estimated 100 million women that are missing in the world today due to gender discrimination.
this is my patch...

if you would like to get involved too, you can find more info here.

this project has inspired me for our next community collaboration. so watch this space & get your knitting needles at the ready.

xox.

favourite friday is back!

i heart...

favourite friday.

after a wee break favourite friday is back to do a weekly feature on other talented lovelies out there & show off some of their creations that particularly tickle my fancy.

this week it's the turn of Night Owl & their beautiful floral stag plate...

it's so pretty!

xox.

a is for...

i heart...

drawing.

after writing this post back in october, i have finally found the confidence & the time to sit down & draw something. whether it's any good or not is another matter, but it's a lot better than i was expecting after 10 years without putting pencil to paper.

the other day i got thinking about this book i used to love when i was younger - Spike Milligan's 'Condensed Animals'. it was choca-bloc full of silly rhyming poems about all different animals, it was awesome. anyway, it got me thinking about a starting point to get me drawing again & the idea of using illustrations of unconventional animals paired with the conventional 'Aa is for' alphabet.

i started with a sketch of an african vulture - the aasvogel...

& finished up with this...

next up, the biscacha...

xox.

moving home, again.

i heart...

a fresh start.

a new year, a new home. yes, that's right, in amongst designing & re-launching our new website, making new eco-friendly products, planning workshops & thinking up new projects (more on the project front soon, i'm excited!) i've moved house, again. that's 29 moves in 24 years now i think. as much as i loved our wee wooden house in the middle of nowhere, it just wasn't practical & by jove was heating the place expensive! so me & the boy have now moved into our new abode in aviemore.
we've started stripping walls, & have plans to make it all pretty & i can't wait. but at the moment it's a bit of a bombsite...

this is currently my office/craft room. lovely & organised as you can see!
i can't wait to get those walls stripped & painted & get everything else into place. i've actually found stripping walls quiet therapeutic & even stumbled across this wee gem...

i'll be sure to update you lot with photos once we get the place looking nice, but for now if you need to get in touch or would like to send us a postcard/letter/valentines card, our new address is:

21 burnside avenue
aviemore
ph22 1se.

xox.

website re-launch!

i heart...

our new website!

after a month of footering about, our brand spanking new website is here! you can see our workshops, our projects, freelance work, events, badges & shop all from the one place. have a look see, clickity click here.
what do you think?

we'll be adding a lot more handmade bits (and better photos, i was too excited about getting it up & running to fiddle about with my camera!) onto our online shop over the weekend, so keep your peepers peeled.

until then, here's some of our eco-friendly wares that are available now!

 

 

 

i would love your feedback on the new site, good or bad! so do give me a shout :)

xox.