About Me and Design Rocks!

My photo
Hello and welcome. Here's a bit about me: I've spent my childhood and a lot of my life traveling. Places, colour and pattern are my biggest inspiration. I've surfed & lived in a tent in Cornwall. Sketched my way round Morocco. Designed from an antique textile archive in Manhattan (dream job!). Styled and written for an interiors magazine on the sleepy island of Malta. Now I live in Manchester, UK, where I run Design Rocks greetings cards. Whilst in Manhattan I amassed a large collection of vintage textiles. These were used as inspiration for my first card range, Vintage Rocks! We sell wholesale so if you'd like a brochure visit the website or get in touch. Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, 31 August 2009

Back to school - YAY!


I've got that back to school feeling - yay! After getting my head around the end of summer, I can't wait to get stuck into designing ranges, business, selling & growth for my little business. My new mantra: Create, enjoy, have fun & sell!

I have some new stationery (any excuse) my pens and pencils, a tidy(ish) desk and my new shoes - I'm ready to roll and all excited about preparing for Top Drawer London in January.

My exercise books sell really well but I just found this french exercise book complete with exercises inside from Etsy shop Petit Vintage. She has gorgeous Gallic goodies so have a nose if you get chance.

Saturday, 29 August 2009

I feel a little autumn shop coming on...



Rather than grumbling about my canceled camping trip this weekend (rain stopped play), I decided to enjoy the autumnal weather by going for a country walk and a big pub lunch. It's blinking freezing!!! But the upside is, I don't have to wait for the first leaf to fall before I hit the shops.

I'm already sporting a cute pair of grey slouchy ankle boots instead of my standard issue gladiators. I've planned a few autumn outfits and some disco eyelashes to help me grieve over the loss of summer.

I love the changing of the seasons - I get a massive design hit from all the new patterns and textures in both the shops and great outdoors. I've been designing my new collection so I'm like a sponge at the moment. I'm thinking about checks, autumn colours, berries, tweed, preppy styles and I love this red satchel. I organised a jumble sale a couple of weekends ago and amongst my vintage bargains (first picks) I got an old leather satchel - it's so cool!

I brought a pair of leopard print tights this week and they now feature on one of my new card designs! Well, that's my excuse for buying them - hmmmm, I wonder if that makes them tax deductible??

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

The height of bloggy laziness...







I'd love to say I've been busy on a Mauritian Beach guzzling cocktails, but alas no...I've been working my little butsky off the last 2 weeks on things that are too tedious to talk about. So apologies for my absence this week.

Down to the nice stuff - here's my Little Vintage Dresser of Joy - after all those plans I had of painting and papering it, I put it in place and it was just perfect as it was, and too good to paint.

So embracing full granny chic I adorned it with all my little nik-naks (ornaments not crisps) and I just love it! It's so nice to see all my Other- half's childhood books on display. I wanted to show you the gorgeous illustrations.

Storage should be good on the eye and not always about capacity and a place to shove stuff.