#CRAFTfest & new in shop

well its been a busy weekend as I've had 2 virtual stalls at CRAFTfest, (an online craft fair) one for my art and the other for my craft downloads. Craftfest is still open today so click the image below to pop over and take a look at all the fabulous virtual stalls. You can find me at Deborah Dey Designs and Ainjewelz 

Theres been a lot of promotion for the event on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ in the week leading upto and over the weekend.
I'd like to say a big HELLO and THANK YOU to all my new followers, likers, re-tweeters, friends and customers that have popped over to both my virtual stalls :)

I'm told today we've to use the hashtag #SSPS (Shameless Self Promotion Sunday) so have created the image below to use today when networking.

I added new greeting cards to my shop, just in time for the weekend. These are mini prints of 

A Fox Tale of Mothers Love

Buy me Here

Seafood Dinner

Buy me Here

Happy Landings

Buy me Here

These are also available as keyings from this section in my shop

I even managed to find some time to create another Craft Paper Pack Download and add it to my download shop and I have started working on a few other ideas. My head is just overlowing with ideas at the moment.

Well it's time to do a little networking and use #SSPS and then as the sun is shining here in Aberdeenshire I think I need to get outside and enjoy it for a while. This was the view from my bedroom window this morning, theres still snow on the far off hills/mountains but I think Spring is on its way.

What have you been upto this week?

Who wants a FREEBIE?

I've been busy today creating a new Craft Paper Pack Download Scribbles and Circles, which has been added to my download shop

I also created a few tags as a FREEBIE which you can DOWNLOAD HERE these will let you see how the colours print on your printer. **colours may vary slightly depending on printer, ink, paper or cardstock you use**

I'm hoping to get some more creations added to both my shops in time for #Craftfest starting on Friday, so I better get my finger out and get busy :)

Have you got a stall at Craftfest?

Are you going to pop by and see the stalls and make a purchase or 2?

Have a wee read of the Craftfest brochure

Hope to see you all at #CRAFTfest

Another Puffin

The 3rd puffin in my series of puffin prints is called Happy Landings which is available to purchase from my online shop as A4 and A3 prints. Greeting cards will also be added to my online shop by the end of this week. I'm so happy with how this has turned out and it's my favourite piece of artwork at the moment.

I had a few issues with my printer so have a number of  A4 Half Price Whoopsie Prints of Happy Landings. All good prints but the blue background was not printing the same as my other puffin prints. 

Printing issue has now been sorted but if you would like to purchase a half price print with FREE UK P&P just let me know here or over on my Facebook page. It will be a Lucky Dip which print you receive and you will also get a 10% OFF Discount Code to use in my shop. These can also be sent Internationally but I will need to charge for postage. Payment will be through PayPal.

I've had a week off from being creative as my daughter came to visit for a few days.  I then drove her back to Fife and stayed there for a few days so I could catch up with my family and friends. I've had a great week catching up with everyone and now I'm ready to get busy this week because Craftfest starts on Friday 26th till Sunday 28th Feb. 

Hope you all pop over to Craftfest and have a wee look around everyones stalls, theres lots of lovely creations for sale which are all made in the UK. Pop over now to Craftfest the Online Craft Fair and browse through some of the stalls and you can even start buying from most of them now too.

New Prints & CRAFTfest

It's been quite a while since I last blogged......am I slipping into my old lazy ways? Well not really, I've just been so busy............but it's time for a quick catch up.

I finally finished the Fox Heart Art that I have been working on, it took my ages to decide on a background colour, but I got there in the end. This is now available to purchase from my online shop and I will be getting some greeting cards printed very soon.

A fox Tale of Mothers Love

 I also created another Puffin print and was totally surprised when I sold the first one only a couple of hours after adding it to my online shop, this will also be getting printed on greeting cards. I've also started on another Puffin idea, so there will be 3 Puffin prints to choose from or you could buy all 3.

Seafood Dinner

The latest creation to be added to my online shop a photographic art print, digitally created from my own photographs. 

Homeward Bound

 I've taken the plunge and have a vitual stall at CRAFTfest on 26th - 28th February, I've never done anything like this before but thought it would be good to give it a go. I'm really looking forward to this event and I will be adding more crafty creations to my shop in time for this, so I'm going to be even busier....I love being busy though.
If you're a crafter why don't you join in....... theres still time to book a stall. Just pop over to www.craftfest-events.com. You can find lots of us who are taking part in CRAFTfest on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and using #CRAFTfest on our posts.

Before I go I've just remembered I created a watercolour name doodle for one of my granddaughters, I found this so relaxing to do and enjoyed getting away from my computer to create :)

bye till next time...... I'll try not to leave it so long :)

Feathers, Dreamcatchers & a Fishy

It's been a wee while since my last post, but my feather obsession continues :)
I've painted another 2 dreamcatchers and theser are available to buy from my shop

Keep Dreaming #3

Keep Dreaming #4

For now I think my feather obssession is almost cured, I've worked it out of my system..... it's time to move onto something else. Just what, I don't know yet!

The weather definitley changed at the weekend, winter is here! We have a wee dusting of snow and it's freezing.

For the last 2 weeks my house has been turned upside down while I get a new kitchen fitted. To start with I wasn't really happy about having this work done as I would be losing my large walk in larder and the back lobby where we keep wet coats and muddy boots. So walls have been knocked down, outside walls insulated and new platerboard is up, got a new ceiling too. It's all slowly coming together, some  of the units have been fitted, but unfortunately the joiner is now doing jury service, so I don't know when he'll be back. The units are ok, not what I would of chose but I can live with them, but the worktop is horrendous. This is one of the downfalls of living in a Scottish Estate house, someone in the estate office decides what kitchen will be fitted. Also in the last 2 weeks we've had the central heating not working, pipes leaking, washing machine broke down!..............my stress levels this weekend peaked and I thought my head would explode lol so to calm and chill myself I stuck a peice of watercolour paper to my drawing board and when I felt stressed I doodled with the watercolours left on my palette...... I just doodled and doodled and my mind wandered and I created a little fishy doodle.

So I still have workmen in my kitchen with the front door wide open and I'm freezing, but I have a ham joint cooking in the slow cooker and smelling yummy and I'm not going to stress anymore because my dream cooker should be getting delivered today. Hopefully my kitchen will be finished by the weekend and I'm looking forward to cooking on my new cooker :)

Feather Obsession

Over the past couple of weeks I seem to have developed a wee obsession for painting feathers and dreamcatchers. Totally enjoying working away from my computer for a while and discovering more about working with watercolours.

It was my youngest sons girlfriends birthday and he asked me to paint her a dreamcatcher using shades of purple and grey. At last I've managed to get the stringing on the dreamcatcher look better, I created a cardboard template to draw around of the shape I wanted. Still not totally happy with my feathers but my sons girlfirend loved her painting.

I found a watercolour tutorial on You Tube of how to paint feathers and I love this technique. I now have lots of lovely feathers in my watercolour pad.
I decided to use a few of these feathers to create a wee greeting/note/inspirational card design, which can be purchased from my online shop over on Etsy or there's a Special Offer on my Facebook page, both being DeborahDeyDesigns.

I love my puffins so much I have now created some keyrings to share with special people in my life and thes can only be purchased direct from me through my Facebook page, DeborahDeyDesigns.

I also finished a watercolour landscape which I had started, I am very pleased with how this turned out and will be attempting some more landscapes in the future.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I'm enjoying all this painting. Christmas is getting nearer and I haven't even started on a Christmas card design, I'm way behind this year. So today will be spent developing an idea I have for this and at the moment I'm thinking this wil be a digital design, but all that could change. :)

Are you ready for Christmas?

Keep Dreaming

I'm still designing and creating on my computer but I'm also trying to spend more time getting back to creating in more traditional ways again. This week it was the turn of my watercolours to come out in my creative space, they haven't been out for a long long time. What fun I had, music playing, standing drawing and painting with a wee dance thrown in too..... much to the shock of my 2 dogs who looked slightly traumatised by my weird dance moves :)

I thought I'd paint something quite easy to start with.......mmmmm did I say easy?

I gave the paper a colour wash background and then gradually built the dreamcatcher up from there. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, having said that though I am not happy with the stringing in the centre. I am going to try another dreamcatcher soon with better stringing

This week I have also added Wings of Change greeting cards to my shop (only 2 available)

and Cool Yule Penguin Christmas cards (larger the pack the cheaper they get)

Winter is definitely on its way now, the swallows have all left to go to warmer climates and the geese are gathering down on the loch, they are my alarm call in the morning when they fly over the croft to go feed for the day. Almost every morning now there's a chill in the air and the mist is trapped in the valley.

Yesterday it took till almost lunchtime for the mist to totally rise and vanish, but then we had quite a warm sunny blue sky day. I even  ate my lunch outside and managed a spot of gardening.

As the sun sets the chilly night air starts to close in again and it's time to get cosy in front of the woodburner.

We've also been having some beautiful clear star filled skies at night, so I'm thinking I should try a little night time photography. If this works out I will post pics here.

I've just remembered what is was that I forgot at the end of my last post lol There have been Red Kites in the area for a few years but now they are flying up over the croft. The buzzards in the area seem to gang together to frighten the Kites out of their territory. Such beautiful amazing birds I could watch them and the buzzards for ages.

Hows your week been?

Love You....

....to the Moon and Back print.
I have been trying to get back to being creative away from my computer a little more and set myself the challenge of trying some hand lettering. Not an easy challenge but I gave it a go and I will be doing more as I enjoyed it, even though my intial sketch ended up on the computer and was finished off in Illustrator.

If you like it the print is available as A4 or A3 to purchase from my shop.

I have also at long last got my new website up and running and I'm pleased with how it looks. I kept the design simple and clean, so it didn't distract from my graphic designs and artwork. I'm thinking about incorporating an online shop within the website, so this will be a test for my old grey brain cells. Oh well I love a challenge and to be busy. Just realised I seem to be going through a phase of having images in circles!

There was something else I was going to share but can't think what it was now! Old grey brain cells playing up again, never mind I'm sure it will come to me later.

Till the next time I blog byeeeeeeeee

Thanks Fiona & Lin

It has been a wee while since I abandoned any of my art,  at the weekend I did a spur of the moment drop. I discovered in my bag a small ATC sized print of one of my sketchbook pages, it was left over from a previous day of drops. I left it in the supermarket Morrisons in Inverurie, Scotland. It was so spur of the moment I even forgot to take a pic and post it on the Art Abandonment Facebook pages.

So imagine my surprise when I got an email to the address on the label to say the wee piece of art had been found, also the finder, whose name is Fiona, had posted on the Art Abandonment pages. Fiona said "I'd love to find out who put it there, it really is a beautiful piece of art" and " I was so chuffed finding this piece of art, made my day!! Such talent xx"

I love art and I love to abandon art, but what makes it even more special is when you know the art has been found and the finder loves it too and you have made their day :) It is not very often that the finders let us know they have found abandoned art.

This is the photo that Fiona posted on the Facebook pages which was the start of a journey of discovery for me.

I wanted to post a photo of the original sketchbook page, when I outed myself as the artist, but I couldn't find it in the sketchbook that I thought it was in. Since moving house a year ago so many of my sketchbooks and college projects were still packed away in boxes! ...................so the unpacking and searching began...... box after box.....book after book......page after page......but I couldn't find what I was looking for. I did however discover art that I had forgot I had created, it also brought back many happy memories of the friends that I had created designs and art with and also how I had been becoming more free,loose and confident with what I was creating. 

It made me realise that the only time I get my sketchbook out now is to quickly sketch ideas before creating something digitally. I had only had my paints out once in the last year to paint a small canvas which still sits waiting to be finished! Coincidently the canvas is painted in the same colour theme as the piece of art Fiona found.

So I would like to say a big "THANK YOU" to Fiona for her part in making me realise that I have been doing so much digital work lately, which I love, but I haven't really been incorporating any of my mixed media art into my digital art like I used to do. So I'm going to step back from the computer more often and get creative again with paints, inks and papers. I'm also setting myself the challenge (because I love a challenge) to become better with hand-lettering and have already enjoyed sketching ideas for a design I have in mind.

I did eventually find the the sketchbook page I was looking for yesterday morning..... and guess what?....... it was in the sketchbook that I had originally thought it was in...the first book I looked in........but the pages had stuck together :) ......here it is, created using acrylics and inks it has textured parts and the light purple paint shimmers.

To finish off I'd also like to say "Thank you" to Lin at Redwood Gallery in Echt for having my Highland Coos print and  Coos and Puffins greeting cards in her gallery. All of my greeting cards she stocked sold which made me very happy, but sadly the Gallery is closing down on Friday. I wish Lin all the best for her future and thank you for being the first gallery to display my art.

Greeting cards and prints can still be purchased from my online shop or direct from me

.................and finally finally lol I'm still working on my new website design and adding new designs and art, hopefully this will all be ready to go live soon. Some of my older stuff can still be seen on my website though.

Right thats it I've finally finished gibbering on and I applaud and thank you if you got to the end of this post :)

Custom Orders...

..... I love them!
Here are just a few examples of some custom orders I have created for my customers.

Thank you cards for Leanne, using her baby girls foot prints to create a heart

Megan from University of Notre Dame wanted bunting featuring their football teams mascot for their after game celebrations

Jenny was having a party for her English boyfriend, so required the wording to be slightly changed on the bunting and cupcake flag downloads.

Then we have the same bunting file as above with another text change

and another text change

LeAnn was having a Dr Who themed wedding in Florida. I can't take credit for the L & D monogram as a friend of LeAnn's had already created this for her but I did create everything else.

 Letter flags to add with the Jubilee Bunting download to spell the name Ariel for Lisa

Cath Kidson colours for Mylien

Party tags for a going away party

I was also asked if I could create a file with just 1" Union Jack flags for Jill at Jills Cakes. Jill has a printer that prints with edible ink onto sheets of icing and she needed tiny bunting for a wedding cake. Can you believe this wonderful creation was the first wedding cake Jill had made....it's absolutely amazing 

So as you can see the possibilities are endless, so if you need something created just for you please contact me.