New name, new site! I will has all the newses!

Yup, I’m rebranding myself – literally, I’ve been married almost 2 years now and I’m just getting round to changing my name, so I thought I really ought to have a lovely new website and online shop to go with it :D

So this blog will cease and dissist and I’ll migrate everything over to….

http://www.JemmaAnnMcCardle.com (don’t press it yet! It’s still cookin’!)

– a bit of a mouthful, I know, but it’s my name so….well if I capitalise it like that it’s not so hard to type, right?!

Much of my social media will stay as missjemmaelf though, so you’ll still be able to find me on (primarily) Instagram as well as Facebook and (increasingly) Pinterest

That’s all for now, I will post a link to everything when we’re done, but lovely lovely Neil Brown a.k.a BeamTwenty3 is still beavering away in the background to get it all looking shiny and sparkling for you.

xx

A portrait of Katy

My first portrait – Lovely Katy from Mighty Fine Things and Best of Faversham Market asked me to draw a portrait of her as a present for her partner showing her amazing polynesian tattoo.

Katy says
“Back in 2007 I went sailing… across the Pacific, in a tall ship. The idea of a tattoo came with the territory (or lack of) – and finally being brave enough and meeting the person/ people I trusted to do it. In quite a big way.

Mine is in two parts (so far…) the first by Mata Tiki from Nuka Hiva in The Marquesan Islands of French Polynesia and the second by T in Raratonga in The Cook Islands. Each island has their own designs and every tattoo tells a story based on either spirituality or history and identity – courage, power, achievements, protection, and blessings from the Gods.

The first one I designed the shape for and Mata Tiki used traditional designs to fill in – I’m told signifying change and new beginnings… The second one (top left) I was more relaxed about and is more traditional. I told T my story, he prayed for guidance and drew the tattoo freestyle based on that.

I’d thought about a photographic portrait for a while but, just like when I met the tattooists, when I met Jemma and I saw some of her drawings I knew she was the person to draw the portrait. So a drawing it was – and I love it.”

Thanks Katy, so pleased you like it!

Exclusive shopping events

I’ve had a really wonderful time over the last couple of months planning and putting up two special pop-up-shops with my friends – all talented ladies of course. I thought I’d share them here and tempt you to come and join us at another event, this Saturday & Sunday (23rd &24th) at the Cloth and Clay Midwinter Market at the Tithe Barn, Lenham, which is extra special because the barn is not usually open to the public.

In October we created our Woodland Wonderland Boutique:

If you were lucky enough to be invited to our Woodland Wonderland evening then you’ll recognise some of these photos kindly taken for us by ace photographer Hope Fitzgerald.

Jenny from Dark Horse provided the sparkles, Vicky Balfour aka Victory Sitches, not only made exquisitely sewn clutch bags and hot water bottle covers but also let us use her beautiful home – thank you Vicky!

We had Earl Grey cocktails, mulled cider, nibbles and even waiting staff! Thank you so much to everyone who helped out and made it a success! I would love some comments from anyone who came and we might make this a regular thing because everyone had such a great time – what do you think, shall we do more?

And I can’t miss out the real star of the show, Miss Celia in her party dress!

Abbey Street Open House:

Just a couple of weeks after our splendid private pop-up, Jenny and I joined in with knitted textile designers Claudia Kerr and Gillian from Fankled along with chocolatier Emma of CakeyCakey for an open house at Gillian’s medieval home on historic Abbey Street in Faversham (where else?! Haha!).

Gillian’s front room was positively bedecked with twisty willow and fairy lights to welcome everyone into our little hobbit shop. We had a lot of fun and, though the market is great, I was very happy to have coffee on tap (not to mention a loo) in the warm…a few chocolates help everything along too :) do leave some comments if you came (and even if you missed it) because we would love to do more pop-up-shops/events, if you would like us to!

Hopefully I’ve whetted your appetite for more Christmassy goings on and you’ll visit us on the 23rd and 24th at Lenham, yahoo!

Faversham Markets

We do love a market in Faversham and I’ve been lucky enough to have done lots of lovely illustrated work for them over the last few months. Here’s a round-up, thanks Faversham Market Co-op, Best Of Faversham and Faversham Antiques and Vintage Market!

For the main Market:

A new logo & an illustration for their special shopping bags.

And a lovely advert in our local magazine Kent Life

For Best Of Faversham:

And for Antiques & Vintage:

We’re also planning a very cute map of the town and it’s markets along with a calendar ready for a whole new year of market shopping – no excuse to go to crappy old Tescos then eh!

You can find out lots more about the Markets, the Traders and the town on the Faversham.org website.

In the not too distant future we’ll have our own dedicated markets website at favershammarket.org with trader profiles and a chance to stock up on Faversham goodies online including the official Market shopping bag.

See you at the Christmas market, hoorah!

Christmas In Faversham

It’s Christmas…well nearly and I’ve been working with the lovely people from Faversham Enterprise Partnership to make sure you don’t miss all the Christmassy excitement and mulled wine laden events in Fav by producing a handy Christmas In Faversham guide, here’s a peek:

It should be coming through the door of all you Favershamites, you can pick it up in town or you can even download it at the Faversham website here.

Faversham Markets and the Christmas Lights collective are also collaborating this year to make the lights switch on even more awesome with a night market under the Guildhall – see the purdy lights, buy a prezzie or two, guzzle the Gluhwein.

And don’t forget to join in with the Spot the Santa competition, find him in the shops around The Fav and fill in the form on the leaflet. Here he is:

Good luck!

Survival Arts Competition

Phew, cutting it fine as usual! Here’s my entry to the Survival Arts Short haired bee competition:

Oooh I wish I’d had time to get it scanned properly, typical last minute me!

Anyway it’s been lots of fun planning and drawing this one and I’ve loved checking out all the other entries on pintrest, mostly much more colourful than mine, oops!

For once I drew it on a nice peice of paper, so I can frame the original :)

Good luck to everybody!

Faversham Screen Prints

This is somewhat belated since the fair was last Saturday, but I thought I’d share the Best of Faversham Market flyer design I did for June:

I’ve had a lot of lovely comments, so I’m planning on making a Faversham screen print along the same lines, what do you think?!

On another belated (and related) subject I realised I’ve yet to post about my most recent trip to the print block. It was way back in March…I think! Suki has been more organised than me and blogged about it already, you can see her post here.

I went with my most awesomes tattoo artist friend Heather, so we had a giggle – I didn’t do anything quite as clumsy as last time, but I had forgotten loads of what we learnt, so Karen’s technical assistance was much needed and appreciated!

Anyhoo, here are the results:

A Caribou, based on this sketch

And leaves!

I also did this design on fabric, so I’ve got a couple of projects in the pipeline for it.

And here’s Heather’s gorgeous birdie:

You can buy each of our very limited edition prints at the Best of Faversham Market, from us, on our stall which we share with Jenny Dark Horse Ornament and Gillian Fankled. It’s the first Saturday of the month and the next one is Sat July 6th.

I’m also going to post them up on Etsy at some point, but I’ll let you know when I finally get round to that!

bye bye lovlies xx

Faversham Photo Club

This year Faversham Camera Club will be holding the Kent County Photographic Association’s Ross Cup and I’ve designed a poster to promote the competition exhibition.

It’s not til November, but put the date in your diary!

Last year I designed a little flyer for the Camera Club as well, happy customers I think :)

I’ll be back soon with a wedding post or two, our photographer submitted our photos to Whimsical Wonderland Weddings and we got in, (yahoo!) so it’s given me a kick up the arse to sort out some of my own photos of the preparations for The Big Day ;) Can’t believe this and this are pretty much the only wedding posts I’ve done!

365 Whitstable Photography Competition

The folks from 365, based right here in Faversham, have launched a brilliant photography competition as part of their 365 A Year In The Life Of Whitstable photography project. They asked me to knock up a little postcard with all the details and here it is!

There’s still time to enter, so get going, it’s open to everyone :)
More details from the 365 website here. Even if you’re not quite ready to enter a competition, why not join in the 365 A Day in the Life of Whitstable 2013 Photography project and submit a photo for one (or any, or all!) of the days this year :)

Best of Faversham Market

We have a new and very exciting monthly market here in Faversham, which showcases all the best and emerging art, craft and food from our local area, the next market is…get your diaries out folks…SATURDAY 1st JUNE! :D

Watch our video!

Set up by Katy from Mighty Fine Things (her of the most wonderous dinosaur succulent planters) , we had our first market on the 4th of May (May already?!) and it was a great success! We even had the mayor to open proceedings, whatever next eh?

Credit goes Katy for the great turnout which was mostly due, I suspect, to her great promo – we had leaflets, banners, facebook, twitter, free badges, we were even on the front page of the Faversham Times…

I rather stupidly forgot my camera, so these are ripped from the Best of Faversham Facebook page, Soz! I have just put up a few of my fellow stallholders, but never fear I’ll do a photoshoot of you all at the next market and hopefully the weather will behave itself.

I’m sharing a stall with my dear creative buddies Gillian from Fankled and Jenny of Dark Horse Ornament as well as awesome Tattooer (it’s not tattooist doncherknow) Heather Moore and Claudia Kerr (and my mum ;)

I did a few graphicy bits and pieces for the market, it was such a fun logo to design and I got pretty much free reign, yahoo!

It’s supposed to recall the rather vintagy aesthetic of the stall holders as well as being a little like a best in show rosette or a Faversham seal of approval, aren’t I silly ;) There’s also a lovely Kentish pear (the apple didn’t look quite right), some hops and a pair of scissors for us designer makers. I suppose it’s like a medieval guild coat of arms eh?! Anyway hope you like it, because you’ll be seeing it round here on the first Saturday of every month for the forseeable.

I’m trying to blog a bit more (as always) so I shall be back soon my darlings :)