Portobello Road

Carrying on from yesterday, I thought I'd share a few more pics with you from my birthday weekend...here's some snapshots from one of my favourite activities of the day:

- loved all the pretty houses!

 - some snaps of the market / shopping area; lots of lovely things to look at!

- and with all that walking we built up rather a healthy appetite; check out this monster from gbk!!

...and yes, I managed it all!! YUM! :D

A lovely time in London Town

Phew...it's a late one tonight; sorry guys - been a busy D-I-Y day today, so only just had chance to update you on my wonderful birthday weekend....there'll be lots of snaps on the way over the next couple of days; but for now here's just a few highlights of my surprise day trip (organised by lovely hubby)....I was one spoilt missy; felt very lucky! :)

- after arriving bright and early at the station, we headed on down to Columbia Road, to take a look at Rob Ryan's shop, Ryantown...I love, love, LOVE his work...

...next we headed to Notting Hill and more specifically, Portobello Road (more pics tomorrow) - was great to see all the market stalls and lively hustle and bustle. 

 - along the way, we popped in to Cath Kidston's shop; lots of pretties! :)

- a quick coffee stop to recharge the batteries, and then on to Hyde Park....look at what we found!

 - my, the artist must be HUGE! :D

We then headed on down to the 'West End', and then jumped on the tube to Covent Garden (my feet had almost fallen off by this point!!)

- check out this ice sculpture 'celebrating 30 years of shopping heaven'.

My -  we did fit a lot in! Stop by tomorrow for more pics.....

Strawberries & cream time....

 - Oooh, it's one of my favourite events of the year, and it starts here today - Wimbledon kicks off this afternoon, with Andy Murray and Laura Robson flying the flag for good ol' Blighty; best of luck guys!! :D

- I'm sure, as with every year, there'll be plenty of these consumed by the eager spectators (it's tradition, dontcha know?) ....Mmm...Mmm...Mmmmmm! :)

And one more for the men....

With World Cup fever well and truly under way, and Father's Day coming up on Sunday, I thought it quite apt to be working on a football design. Take a look.....

- Here's wishing England a whole load of luck for tonight's game (it's gotta be better than last week's game, huh??)  C'mon guys; do it for all the English dads, if nothing else....it'd make their Father's Day complete! :)

Have a great weekend everyone, and a very Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!! :D

Happy, sunny day...

Twas a beautiful day yesterday; the sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue, and, we have more poppies......LOTS of them! :D

copyright Emma Truman Designs 2010

- It's looking like another glorious day today as well...and with my birthday coming up at the weekend, I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that it'll hold out for another few days yet... 

Pretty pleeeeeease - make it happen! :)

Creative games from yester-year.....where it all began

My mum and dad were having a big clear out of the loft the other week, and promptly handed me a bag full of games and toys that they'd found.... 

- inside was this old favourite - Fashion Wheel - does anyone remember it?? I used to have hours of fun playing with this; creating new combos every day! :) As you can see, some of my creations were still left in the box! Haha...brilliant! 

Another great favourite of mine was Dial-a-Design - you must remember the song..... 'Just dial-a-design, and colour it in, that's all you have to do!' 

LOVED IT!! :D

Ahhh, lots of happy memories...and the rest, as they say, is history! :)

Something for the boys.......

It's project masculine designs at the mo' , so here's a little taster of what I've been up to:

For the sports fanatic......

and for the DIYer......

Look at that face!!!!

- Just had to share some beautiful moments from my weekend with you; this is my cute as a button niece pulling the most BRILLIANT face on Saturday...it was one of many! :D She had me crying with laughter; the more we laughed, the more she did it!

LOVE IT!!!!

And here's another gem (though not quite as funny) ....the first poppies arrived in our garden; YAY!

photographs - copyright Emma Truman Designs 2010

World Cup 2010

Well.....it's arrived (though I'm sure, like me, not all of you are over the moon about it!) - today is the first day of the World Cup 

With all the preparations being made well in advance over in South Africa, a couple of years ago I was asked to do a number of football designs for the childrens' bedding market....here's a few snippets of what I sold:

Best of luck to England on Saturday, when they'll be playing their first match,  against the USA...

Have a great weekend everyone!

Conquering fears

Well, I'm feeling rather proud of myself today as I went to another kickboxing class last night, but this time on my own (anyone who knows me will realise what a mean feat this is for me!!) ! Anyway, I'm so glad I did (having very nearly chickened out!) as I thoroughly enjoyed it, and in fact, I don't know what I was worrying about really.....it was fab! :)

 - We did lots more kicks than last time, so I'm feeling it a bit in my legs and hips today....all good pain though! :)

Here's to conquering fears! :D

What fears have you conquered lately?

Lots of sugary summeriness...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend - it was so nice and warm; I made the most of it and spent the majority of my time outside. :) I had a gorgeous day with my friend on Saturday - we spent the whole afternoon and evening out in her garden....enjoying the heat, homemade smoothies and butterfly cakes (made by by own fair hand) 

I hope there'll be more summery weekends to come; Matt and I picked up this little gem earlier in the week from British Home Stores - he was working at the weekend unfortunately, so no opportunities to use it yet, but I can't wait 'til we do! :)

- I LOVE the pretty rose pattern...

 - excuse the blurriness of the last image (oops!)...hopefully you can still appreciate how gorgeous this little hamper is though! Bring on the picnics!! :)

Now, after much relaxation, here's hoping it'll be a very productive week....

Lean, mean, fighting machine!

...................................or at least some day anyhow! ;)

Last night I tried my hand at karate kickboxing, and boy was it FUN!!! :D It was so great to channel all that extra energy into something good - I certainly recommend it as a fantastic stress reliever...I was buzzing after it! :) We got to do sit-ups, push-ups, kicks and punches - such a great workout - and to top it all off we even got to wear pink gloves - HA!

 - I'll certainly be going again, that's for sure!

A lot of lovely things from Jamie....

I was kindly invited to a Jamie At Home party last night at Rachel's house - it was fab! Lots of lovely Jamie Oliver goodies to get your hands on, a fun, foody quiz, and to top it all off a lovely homemade cake! :)

It was soooooo difficult to choose what to buy as there were so many gorgeous things, but, in the end, I settled on these:

 - A big thank you to Rachel for an enjoyable evening and for being such a fabulous host; can't wait 'til my goodies arrive!! :D

This cat is tooooooo cute!

Oh my word - I just had to share this with you all....happily browsing the blogging cosmos this morning I stumbled across this little gem from Color Me Katie - isn't he GORGEOUS!?? His name is Moo - love it!! Check out the post here.

I'm soooooo excited!!!

Woo-hoooo....the day has finally arrived - Sex And The City 2 lands on the big screens over here in the UK today, and I cannot wait!!! :D 

I'm off with the girls tonight for a fabulous evening of cocktails and viewing pleasure, as we all attend the specially themed night at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham - thank goodness we got in there quick and booked our tickets - it's a sell-out!!

So, with that in mind, here are a couple of oldies but goodies I created for the home furnishings market:

 - This is a snapshot of a design that has now sold for wall stickers / borders here in the UK (created back in 2008)

 - and a bit of glamour for the girlies; this design has been rather popular - selling in both the US (for borders, bedding and wallpaper) and the UK (for scrapbooking). You can view the scrapbooking design here.

So, whether you're a big Sex And The City fan or not, I hope you all have a fabulous Bank Holiday weekend everyone -  let the fun begin! :D

Oh why do cats have to have such horrible habits sometimes? :(

- Look at her; all angelic....like butter wouldn't melt. Little did I know what horror would greet me the following morning....perhaps she'd been planning it all along...

This morning I went into the conservatory, opened up the blinds, and what did I see?? Chico, munching happily away on a poor little defenseless bird!! I was horrified; in all the 8 years we have owned her, I have never once witnessed such a gross act from her - I always thought she was such a lovely cat..obviously didn't hunt like most others (otherwise I would have noticed by now), but, alas, it seems I was wrong. 

Oh, Chico, why did you have to break the illusion.... :(

Oooh, what a lovely find!

On Saturday, as well as the fete, there was an Antiques Fair being held at the university, and as we were there we decided to have a little look around after packing up the stall....I'm so glad we did; look what I found:

- it was such a beautiful pattern that I fell in love with it straight away; it really caught my eye! Anyway, we decided it was far too lovely to leave behind, and purchased it, even managing to knock something off the price (well, you have to be a little bit cheeky sometimes, don't you! ;D )

When we got home I was so thrilled with our find, and proudly started unpacking it - we hadn't really paid much attention to the make or designer at the fair, but then I took another look and decided to google it to find out a bit more. Turns out it was designed by a very important figure in the ceramics world - Jessie Tait - and that her pieces were now highly sought after! Sadly, I read a bit more and found that she had passed away earlier this year at the age of 81. A fellow 'Midlander', she grew up and lived in Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent, designing for most of her life - even after her retirement apparently! She has some fantastic designs - I recognised some of them, though never knew the designer's name. Whilst searching her name I even found our set in an online article taken from this month's 'Vintage Life' magazine! What a coincidence! 

It really was a great little find...now all that's left to do is to find this pretty set somewhere safe to take pride of place in my home! :)

Trying my hand at the Community Fete....

It's been a quiet couple of weeks on the blogging front, but I'm back again to tell you what I've been up to...

 - My good friend Eve told me about this local event as she thought it might be a good way to showcase my crafty wares, so I thought hey, why not give it a shot (it was free after all!)....here's some snaps of what was on sale:

- I created quite a lot of new stationery items - larger notebooks, notecards, postcards and address labels.

It was a scorching day, and with lots of entertainment going on it attracted quite a lot of visitors - there was Brazilian drumming (which was fab), dancing, singing, it was great...but, unfortunately, not many shoppers.  I did have some success though, and was so pleased that my dalmatian print went - it's one of my favourite pieces and was purchased by a lovely little family, so that made my day! :D

I'm still on the look out for new places to try out my work, so if anyone knows of any great crafty events/ venues where you think I may fit in then let me know...it would be muchly appreciated! :)

All set for Surtex 2010!

Much preparation and time has gone into this year's Surtex show -  there's a whole new look for us this year, so it's going to be very exciting!! All the gang will be represented by Inspire By Design Ltd, with lots of lovely new designs to choose from - you'll not want to miss it! :) 

Come along to Booth 264-266 and check it out for yourself...

...but for now, here's a little taster of just one of the new sets I've been working on - making it's debut at the show:

Drip, drop, drip...

...little April showers; or rather....BIG May showers!

 This Bank Holiday's been a complete washout (nothing new there then, I hear you cry!), but, at least it's helped to make it a little easier to sit at my desk for hours on end. Every cloud and all that.... ;)