Last Weekend of Ashdown Artists!

How time is whizzing right now!! This weekend is the LAST chance to visit Ashdown Artists, a wonderful house which is part of the Worthing Art Trail. The house features 7 diverse artists and designers (including us!) and is well worth hopping on the train if you're not Worthing based. Here's a little glimpse of some of the treats on offer!

Screen prints by I Am John Bond and Ellie Bond 

Hand drawn birds, houses and tea cups by At the Little House

Original ink paintings by Anna's Drawing Room

Beastie Bunnies by Ellie Bond, brooches by At the Little House

hello DODO t-shirts (which are 20% off!)

Hand drawn bunny At the Little House, Handmade Doll Ellie Bond, and George of course!

I Am John Bond cards

Poster by hello DODO

Have you visited yet? If not we hope to see you this weekend! Seen any other houses in the Worthing Art Trail?

p.s. You can read more about Ashdown Artists plus interviews with some of the artists over on Anna's Drawing Room blog here.

George is a WINNER! Mollie Makes Handmade Awards 2015

Ello ello! What a whirlwind we are living in right now?! If you didn't see last week ourselves and Karli from designosaur spent the day in London with the wonderful Mollie Makes crew as we had been shortlisted for the Collaboration Award as part of their annual Handmade Awards! It was of course all because of George that we were there! 

AND WE WON!!! Surprised is a bit of an understatement as we were in the company of such amazing inspirational handmade business owners! We were also the last to pitch to the panel of 8 judges so we had allllll day to get nervous about it. Luckily the judges were all super friendly and it's pretty easy to talk about something as fun as George!

Photo Credit: Mollie Makes

Rewind to the beginning of the day! After having a coffee and meeting everyone we all went off on a photo walk with Xanthe Berkeley in the GORGEOUS London sunshine! Can you spot Jam in the above pic?! Haha.

Here's Karli from designosaur just before she did a star jump and I got an awesome pic of her TOTALLY flashing her pants. I think maybe if I posted that picture our collaborating days might be over...

Our Brighton friends Amy & Claire from Super+Super were also up for an award! The Established Business award to be exact. Another Brighton Babe Lynsey from What You Sow (in the dungarees) was there to give Amy moral support. Was lush hanging out with these girls! The lovely ladies from Margot (Worthing based collaborative Artist Beach Hut, part of East Beach Studios) were also shortlisted and it was so nice to meet them and chat about Worthing! So yeah, the South Coast were well rep'ed! 

Gormless surprised winning faces!

The entire day was so fun, inspiring and a little terrifying (but the good kind of terrifying). We had fantastic informative talks from Pavilion about How to Publish a Book and also from PinterestUK...I wrote LOTS of notes during this one! Mollie Makes did a wonderful job at organising the day and all of the people we met were so so nice. We're hoping that the success doesn't go straight to George's head! Want to hear designosaur's account of the day? Check it out here!

Lucky Dip Club X Folksy launches tomorrow!

We're a TAD overexcited this week as not only is it the Brighton Etsy Team Craft Party tomorrow (got your ticket??) but it's also the day that the Lucky Dip Club X Folksy box goes on sale! This has been such a FUN unique project to work on and massive kudos to Leona of Lucky Dip Club and Camilla from Folksy for all the organisation and bringing it together so beautifully. We cannot wait to see what everyone else involved has made! And for you to all meet our new little friend we've created ;o) Here are our fave picks from the wonder talents involved....this gives you no clue however of what they've made for the box! Aaaah the suspense.

From the Top, Left to Right: DIY Needlepoint by Cotton Clara, Bear Collar Clips by Frilly Industries, Nuthatch Card (with bird seed!) by Kate Broughton, Fried Breakfast Necklace by Kayleigh O'Mara, 'Stuff I'm Likely To Forget' Notebook by Bread & Jam, Dinosaurs by hello DODO (that's us!), Cactus Brooch by Delphine & Max, Moustache Man Wooden Brooch by Elodie G

From the Top, Left to Right: Cocktail Lino Print by Ella Osborne ,  Set of 4 Gift cards by Paper Beagle,  Push Me Pull You  by Little Birdy, City in the Fox Screenprint by Bel's Art World, Cotton Message Doll by Kekekaka, Sunset Necklace by I Am Acrylic, Children's Plywood Clothes Hanger by Red Hand Gang.

What an amazing bunch huh?? Boxes go on sale on Lucky Dip Club tomorrow at 7am :o)

We Built This City!

Is it just me or have we seemed kinda busy lately?! So a week ago today we headed to the Big Smoke for the We Built This City grand opening on Carnaby Street! This is WBTC's second time popping up on Carnaby Street and this time round they have a wonderful big space across two floors which is crammed with HUGE AMOUNTS of wonderful London themed gifts and art. And there's not a Union Jack in sight... We were soooo excited to be invited to be a part of the Pop Up because we LOVE London and think it's so sad how tragic the souvenir shops have become (we were truly shocked on a recent trip to Camden!!) We Built This City is doing an INCREDIBLE job of showing what London is truly about...I think you'll struggle to leave this shop empty handed!

So of course at a grand opening with ENDLESS free beer we're not going to take the GREATEST of photos... But it was a really fun, buzzy night and we got to catch up with friends Sold (whose Battersea Rising screen print you can see peaking above that man on the left's head), handmade jewellery mavericks I Am Acrylic and Birds in Hats creator Alice Tams! All totally wonderful talented people. 

Upstairs looking pretty pretty.

I Am Acrylic....I have a pretty bloody good collection of their jewellery but I don't have this one! Yet...

A whole lovely wall of Lucy Loves This accompanied by a gorgeous Pearly King & Queen by Lucie Sheridan.

We spy Finest Imaginary & Karen Mabon X Sun Jellies!

We need this massive Pigeon by Scout Editions so bad it's ridiculous. Also love that Basil & Ford pineapple print and massive Neon camera by Rude Ltd! All needed for our house!!

The outside and inside of the shop was made SUPER FLIPPING COOL by the even COOLER Camille Walala. You follow this gal on Instagram right? If not you seriously should... We're obsessed! #fangirl

Well here's a terrible photo post beers of us and our Pigeon & Tonic screen print! He's pretty happy hanging out next to Jenni Sparks AMAZEBALLS hand drawn map of London. Seriously, it'll blow your mind. We also have a Big Ben piece in the shop, 100 bonus points if you can spot it and send us a pic (because I forgot to take one!)

Have you visited We Built This City yet?? Or are you planning to?? Let us know what you think!!

Supermarket Sarah!

Hello! If you follow us across any of our social media you will surely know by now that we have an awesome collaborative Supermarket Sarah with our Brighton besties designosaur! We actually had a meeting with designosaur about doing a SMS Wall over TWO YEARS ago (!!!) but this time round we gave ourselves a crazy tight deadline and created some amazing badass new collab pieces too! Please ignore how gross blogger is making these photos look (BLEURGH) but DO head over and explore our real wall cos it's FULL of awesome amazing stuff! 

LOOKY! designosaur have taken our Totem Pole screen print and turned it in to this GORGEOUS cherrywood necklace!

OH YEAAAHHH....we created this sweeeet t-shirt and also a screen print poster using designosaur's Raining Dinosaurs design and printed it in an AMAZING (if we do say so ourselves) neon ombre! YUMMY! These are EXCLUSIVE to Supermarket Sarah!

BATS!!! We designed these super cute wall hangings which designosaur then brought to life! You can hang them flying in either direction or upside down! And it doesn't stop there...

BAT NECKLACES!!! SQUEEEEE!

designosaur have also created three totally lush dinosaur box lights exclusive for our wall.....how flipping cool??

designosaur & hello DODO friends hanging out...

Brand new Nice Hare tote bag! Just think how many strangers you'll make smile when you carry this around!

And here's a glimpse of how it all came together! Do you like our wall?? What's your favourite of our collaborative pieces? :o)

Pick Me Up 2015!

Hello! Oh dear we fell of the blogging wagon pretty quick there... Is moving house a good excuse for not blogging?! I'm pretty sure it is. That also means we have no more excuses from here onwards...

So what's been happening apart from moving....not an awful lot, oh except being in PICK ME UP at Somerset House. You've probably already seen me banging on about this on social media as being in Pick Me Up is a proper life-goal-dream-come-true for us. I've tried not to bombard everyone with photos of the festival as I didn't want to spoil it for anyone planning to visit but now there's only 5 days left I thought I'd post this up in the hope it convinces some more folk to check it out! 

We are exhibiting with the wonderful and diverse Niki Best collective and our room is full of amazing awesome talents! Here I am (above) posing in awkward Japanese style in front of the hello DODO display! To my right is work by the brilliany Nimbws and you can also see a lovely yellow ampersand by Sam Egarr.

More print goodness from the Niki Best room! These are by one of our Brighton faves Delicious Industries and on the left is more great type from Sam Egarr.

Naughty but nice ladies from the superb Dupenny! We hung out with Emily of Dupenny at the private view party and she's so lovely and interesting to talk to and of course as super stylish as you would think she'd be from looking at her illustrations!

We also hung out with the mega awesome Carlos Garde Martin! Brighton folks will no doubt recognise his work from the 2013 Brighton Fringe Festival and also from the cover of Viva Brighton magazine. We love his fun nostalgic style and have our eye on that big ketchup print.

We love Curly Mark's laser cut acrylic 'Wall Hangers'- particularly this POW! Also the craftsmanship in them is incredible. 

WOAH! Even more amazing work in the Niki Best room from the awesome Josh Stika! which leads me on to...

...possibly the most photographed 'S' in the whole of London..? More amazeballs Josh Stika.
Ok time to check out a few faves from the rest of the show...

Most people know I'm a HUGE Lazy Oaf fan and if I could afford to I'd pretty much only buy their clothes. When we first arrived at Pick Me Up we went through a bit of a maze through the back of house and we entered the festival through a door straight in to the magical pastel-filled world of Lazy Oaf! At which point Gemma Oaf (founder/creative director) said to me "Ooh you're wearing us!!" to which I squeaked "of course I am!" and almost hyperventilated from overexcitement. 

I could post a WHOLE lot more from the Lazy Oaf room but you should just go and check out their 'A FUN Project' for yourself.

Each year Pick Me Up has a 'Selects' section where they showcase the cream of the crop of new creative talent. One of our favourites this year is Hattie Newman (above) whose paper sculpture work is completely mind blowing. She then creates crazy beautiful photos using her models.

Another favourite of ours is the weird and wonderful work of Rop van Mierlo (above). I particularly love the pigeons, they make me feel warm and fuzzy.

I've always been really suspicious of 3D printing as I think it's basically witchcraft but I think Jack Cunningham has totally won me over with his dinosaurs. They are so perfect! I was desperate to touch them as I'm sure they'll feel as good as they look. Just look at those itty bitty T-rex arms...

Laura Callaghan's work (above) is full of sassy girls wearing awesome clothes and crazy minute details. A lot of her work is hand-painted and the colours are incredible.

Love the playful work of French artist Thomas Lamadieu (above) and his use of negative space, so clever!

The super cool Peckham Print Studio have an awesome space at Pick Me Up where they're selling work and also live screenprinting. From a business that does all their screenprinting from the kitchen table, we were pretty awestruck by their set up! Also, major drying rack envy.

Beautiful colourful work from Riso print studio Risotto...which is just the greatest name for a Riso studio EVER. Seriously tempted by all of these.
OK! I think that's enough Pick Me Up goodness for your eyes for now plus our other photos are a bit blurry from overexcitement. YOU HAVE UNTIL MONDAY TO VISIT! This blogpost doesn't even cover half of the show (and I'll probably have to do a round up post as I've missed some really amazing things here). 

Hope you've enjoyed this post! Are you going to visit? Already visited? Let us know!