new year, new look

A New Year and a new logo! I wanted a fresher, cleaner look.... a fox for me ('cos I like them) and I had to get a star in there somewhere for Hesper. I've never been happy before with the "look" of my Etsy store, labels etc but I think this is a keeper and it means I can streamline everything.

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging recently, mainly because I was beginning to lose sight of why I was blogging at all - do I want to blog about my Etsy stuff, my personal life... anything & everything? I get very little time to spend on Hesperoo - making, vintage, photographing or listing items but I spend all of my time thinking and planning. Once the comfy blanket of Christmas was over, I found myself desperate to get back out looking for vintage pieces and furniture to paint. Slowly, these are being done. I only have a few hours a week to myself for all this stuff and my dark Victorian house isn't the best place for photographing anything, but when I can, I will be listing new stock, re-photographing my old stock ... and hopefully blogging a bit! I have also recently created a business page on Facebook (late in the day I know, Facebook has terrified me for so long!), so if you like please check me out there!

\\//\\//\\// Fox + Star graphics sourced from thegraphicsfairy.com \\//\\//\\//

a room of one's own

I have come to the conclusion that for now, I am going to put my screen printing/Etsy shop on hold... although I do not feel as if I ever really got started with it! I started off about a year ago wanting to screen print & sell my designs on Etsy. I began with with baby/kids tees as a way to print my designs onto textiles. I was returning to work with a one-year old and needed to keep it accessible for myself, so I decided that printing on ready-made garments is easier than printing on items that I also have to sew myself.

My big idea was to eventually include handmade home-wares and accessories, combining screen printing and recycled/vintage fabrics. The vision is still there but I have to accept that it is just not possible for me at the moment. I work three days a week and the rest of the time I am with my two-year old daughter. I do have a workspace which is a converted garden shed, and though it is adequate, it is sill cold in the winter and besides, I rarely get the time to actually go in there and try to create anything!  I know that things would be different if I had a work-room in the house as I could shut myself away and create, returning to ideas without having to pack it all away or leave things for weeks before picking up again. I may feel differently in the summer, when the evenings are longer and it is warmer, otherwise I may have to wait until we can either move, or my daughter is in school...or we win the lottery?!

Anyway, all is not lost. The other great albatross around my neck is the KLC Interior Design course that I enrolled on some ...ooh a few years ago. It is designed to study at home around work/family commitments but I never managed to do it when I was working full-time and certainly not with a baby...not to a standard that I was happy with anyway (I think I'd rather not do something than do it badly).  But as I spend most of my evenings glued to my laptop and even more recently, to Pinterest, this has got my passion for interiors fired up again. I may not have much work of my own to talk about but I can still use this blog to share design finds...which will ultimately help me with my course-work...when I get that room (and time) of my own...

Inspiring work spaces...

All sourced on Pinterest, from top: mintdesignblog.com // heartfish.com // seventhingstowritehomeabout.blogspot.com // scandinavianretreat.blogspot.com // bloomingville.com // 

if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got!

I have been thinking a lot about interior design lately. This has always been a passion of mine since I was little when I would re-arrange my bedroom furniture constantly, or create miniature room-sets out of cardboard, complete with co-ordinated wallpaper and fabrics! That said, it was not a direction I chose to go in when I was at an age to make these choices, thinking that photography would suit me better. And, although I have had some small successes with photography, it certainly has not worked out as I had hoped. It wasn't until buying my first house with my partner a few years ago that my passion for interior design was fully realised as I became a woman possessed with scrapbooks, magazine cuttings, paint samples... perhaps this was why the photography path had never really worked out for me -  my heart wasn't really in it. So, when I found myself between jobs (one of many spells) I enrolled on an open learning interior design course with KLC, so that I could learn at my own pace. And, I'm ashamed to say that nearly 5 years on I have not even started it properly (despite many abandoned attempts). I just have not been able to undertake it properly whilst working full time and being generally distracted by life. My daughter is nearly 2 now and I hope that I will find it easier to start again as she gets older.

I started screen printing on my maternity leave last year, as a way to keep myself creative and to combine my photographic designs with textiles. I started out with baby clothes, but the intention was always to progress to home wares, which I hope at some point in the future will slot in nicely with my interior design studies (is a design consultancy with my own line in home wares too much to ask for?!)

The relevance of all this is that I started this blog when I began screen printing, as a way to post my designs in progress, new work etc. Fine, but this is not enough to keep me or anyone else interested.  How would anybody know that I am passionate about interior design if I only blog about my latest shop listing?

I need to re-think the way I blog and more importantly WHY I blog.

This blog should be a passion to write and a reflection of all the notes, cuttings and photos I collect of the things that catch my eye and inspire me, whether from interior design, fashion, nature, art....or just the everyday. I know its early days yet, but I hope to make this a blog that I enjoy writing ...and hopefully others will enjoy reading.