ladybirds and snails

Christmas productions are now well underway. I made a cosy felt leaf for these two dear little ladybirds to decorate Rita's Christmas present, which is a gorgeous 'Colours' cloth book bought from The Trading Circle in Milford. I can't show you the prezzy because I wrapped it up before I realised that I hadn't taken photos of it. Sorry about that.

Continuing with the garden bug theme, one of my handmade prezzies this year  is a 'Snail Mail' Stationery set:

Each Snail Mail set contains 40 sheets of hand-stamped paper and 10 envelopes. Hopefully that should encourage my nearest and dearest to put pen to paper from time to time.

Designing the templates is always the longest part of the process. I used a pack of 10 manilla folders and made up a template with scored foldlines as well as a template for the snail shell.

Jill McDonald's 1966 School Journal illustration provided the inspiration for my patterned snail,. The orange and black decoration on the shell was made with handcut rubber stamps that I made a couple of years ago after being inspired by Lena Corwin's book Printing by Hand.

The envelopes and paper were arranged in large groups on my desk and stamped in two sessions.

I'm really pleased with the way they turned out!

Up next - notebooks, notebooks and more notebooks!