NEW PRINTS // A GIVEAWAY!

So these new prints: Skipping Raccoon, & Sea Lion have been up for a few weeks in my ETSY shop. They are all 8 x 10 inches printed onto A4 paper which makes them super duper easy framers as just about every shop has that frame size, so no expensive made to measure framing. I find ikea and muji great for cheap, good quality frames. They are printed with Canon archival inks on Somerset velvet (which looks a little like watercolour paper) enhanced 100% cotton paper. It is gorgeous paper, mould made and 225gsm in weight so feels lovely.

They were supposed to be there before Christmas but life and work just about everything else got in the way. To celebrate me finally getting my butt in gear (and getting a new printer that actually wants to FEED in my paper without me trying a million times and screaming blue murder at it) I'm doing a giveaway. All you have to do to win one of these prints is to follow my blog, either by clicking on google connect or via bloglovin. Then leave me a comment to tell me so and which print out of the two you'd like to win. For an additional entry you can follow me on twitter @iamsarahdyer and tweet about it, (I'm a late comer to the twitter party!) Just leave me a comment to tell me you've done so and your twitter name. I will pick one winner next Monday evening by random.org and announce it Tuesday morning. It is an international giveaway so anyone can enter. Yippee!

Too see any of these prints in more detail please follow the link to my etsy shop.
Good luck to you all!

CUSTOM ORDERS

These are two child & pet and child & toy portraits I've done recently. If you would like one please email me for more info, or look at the listing on my etsy shop. Make sure you order asap if you are thinking for a potential Christmas present! Many thanks!

If you order in the next week you can use the code EARLYBIRD to earn 20% off anything in my shop!

I MADE THIS.

Yes I did. I have branched out into some light sowing. Think I might make some more as I really enjoyed doing it. Let me know if you are interested in one. Can custom design any face and material for the back. So, to add to my etsy shop or not....

THREE NEW SIZE PRINTS

Hello! So you may remember I have these A3 prints for sale in my shop. Well I've been meaning to sell them in a different size and a recent request prompted me to do so. The cat, dog and the owl are now available as 8 x 10 inch prints printed on Somerset Enhanced watercolour paper 225gsm. The paper is lovely, feels wonderful and is a 100% cotton fairly heavy weight paper. They will be shipped in a cellophane wrapper and in a sturdy cardboard envelope. I'm currently offering them at the price of $20 (or £12.91) Pop over to my shop and have a look. I have four new prints coming in the next week and then a special pre Christmas giveaway to celebrate them arriving so keep checking back here!

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT...

This post makes me very sad. I'm writing this to help out a fellow maker. It comes at a good time off the back of the Meeting Friends post I wrote last week. I do not know Savannah in 'real life' but I know her as a fellow maker and Etsy shop owner. I really love her work, and so too does it seem does the huge brand Lindex. So much so that they thought it would be fine to help themselves to one of her more popular designs, and plaster it all over a baby body suit to sell without telling her or of course paying her. It happens all too often to small designers and makers, recently to an ex-student of mine. Someone in their design team thought it was ok to trawl the internet lazily looking for designs to rip off rather than doing the work they were paid to do. We can only guess how expensive it must be to fight something like this. I cannot imagine the cost of hiring a lawyer to fight for something you've worked so hard on creating. I assume that is why companies get away with it so often. Either it is not spotted or it is just to expensive for people to fight huge profit making organisations. I am asking you to visit Savannah's blog, leave a comment of support or maybe perhaps donate something to her legal fees. (She has set up a donate button on her blog). Spread the word any way you can that this is not acceptable. I hope that this never happens to me or anyone else I know.

UPDATE 10/10/12: Great news from Sleepy King! Apparently due to a huge response with people on twitter, facebook and contacting Lindex directly they have taken down the garments in question. Lots more info on the story here. Quote from Savannah's facebook page:

"Lindex has officially appologized on their facebook page. I have been in contact with the head designers of Lindex and we are working on an agreement before they put the items back online and on the shelves. Thank you to everyone who made this happen!! The power of social media is what made this possible!"

CUSTOM PORTRAITS

I've got a new listing in my Etsy shop for custom portraits! Wahoooo! They are original hand drawn and coloured illustrations of your child with their favourite pet/stuffed animal OR your child with their new sibling perhaps. An example of one I have already done is up in the shop now that I did for Drea over at OhDearDrea and her gorgeous daughter Marlowe and their dog Jerry. At the moment you can win one of my custom portraits over on her blog. I'm thinking that they might make for a special Christmas present (heck yes, I AM thinking about christmas already!) Hope you like them!

BIKE SEAT & WINNER ANNOUNCED!

So some of you asked which bike seat and helmet I used for Stanley in one of my posts, and I had some enquiries on IG too....so I thought I'd expand a little here about why we chose the make we did. I was initially quite nervous about cycling with Stanley, I guess really in that Mum way about doing anything new with your child for the first time thing. Heck, I was even petrified the first time I put him in our baby bjorn carrier just to walk 20 yards to the post box to post a letter, I held onto the under side the whole way convinced he was going to fall through the bottom...hmmm, crazy right?! Anyway the cycling thing has been great this Summer. I'm not sure how we'll go when the winter weather arrives (I am a fair weather cycler for sure...) but for now it has been awesome. I really wanted a front seat, (my crazy Mum brain was still convinced if I put him on the back I'd reach my destination and he wouldn't be there. He would have just fallen right off without me knowing about it. Hmmmm, again.) Anyway the front seat felt right. I could chat to him along the way pointing out nice things like the sea, buses, shops, and doggies of course! We had a look on line and did some research and found that we liked this make the best. Of course it helped it came in an array of colours so I could match it to my bike! We have the Bobike mini+ which is suitable from 9 months - 3 years. You can buy extras like a windscreen (which I guess would also help with the swallowing of bugs?!) and ankle straps to hold little legs in place. We have neither of those yet, Stanley seems to love to swing his legs as we cycle along so I'm not worried about that. Maybe the windscreen will have to get once the weather changes.

It has been brilliant though. Stanley absolutely LOVES going in his seat. Every good weather chance we have been to cycle along the seafront with him. He has discovered my bell, and loves to ring it all the time as well as waving at people and passing cars. Completely hilarious!

It is pretty easy to fit to my style of bike, and fits on Ben's too. I do however think you need a bike with a long stem, or a more vintage/dutch style of bike otherwise the child's legs would struggle to fit between the handle bars. Stanley's helmet is called 'little nutty' by nutcase, it was a little big at first but fits him perfectly now. We have this one and bought it in XS. Perhaps in hindsight although it looks great, a different make would fit a smaller child's head better.

footnote: this is not a sponsored post. all research was carried about by myself, and all opinions on the bike seat and helmet are my own. i just like 'em, ok?!

AND SO ONTO THE WINNER OF MY GIVEAWAY! 

Congratulations to Deborah! The dog is very happy to soon be on your kitchen wall...please email me your details so I can send him off as soon as possible!

Thank you so much for all your entries and lovely words. I'm working on a new series of 3 posters and so there will be another giveaway next month. Hoorah!!!

GIVEAWAY!

So to celebrate the opening of my Etsy shop I am offering a lovely reader the chance to win one of my new A3 prints above. They are professionally printed digitally from my original illustrations on 9 LIVES paper which is a lovely recycled wood free paper. Size 420mm h x 297mm w or 16.5 inches h x 11.7 inches w.

You can see more details of the prints at my shop.

So it is very simple. I'm afraid I'm not that savvy and on twitter, facebook and the like, so all you have to do is leave a comment below stating which of the three you'd like to win and why, and I will pick the winner at random and announce in a weeks time - Monday 13th August!

Good luck and I hope you like them!

♥ S & s

SOLD!

Hooray! A day open and my first sale. I can't tell you how excited I was to see that this morning when I opened up my emails. Makes all the hard work worth it. And seriously all you Etsy pros - how long does it take to load up an item! I only just worked out the 'copy' function. Up until then though this silly lady was cutting and pasting and attempting to cut corners in all the wrong way! Anyway think I'm getting the hang of it all. Onwards and upwards hey. Oh and my prints are ready to collect from the printers. I'm really excited to see them and hope they are nice. Watch this space - giveaway on Monday morning!

Thank you all for your kind comments, support and tips, I REALLY appreciate it all. This internet world can be very lovely and supportive sometimes can't it?

PS if you could extend the love and VOTE for us too that'd be just amazing.

♥ S & s

sold out source here

MY ETSY SHOP - IS NOW OPEN!

Well it has been a long time coming. If I hadn't set this deadline on myself I can guarantee that this day probably would have been another few months coming...there is ALWAYS something else to do round the house. Whether it be the boring old washing up or playing with Stanley or my other book work, distractions here are plenty.

Anyway for most I guess it is no big deal. It seems with everything I'm late to join in. Story of my life hey! I see there are SO many Etsy shops - many of which are selling beautiful animal illustration prints for children's nurseries or art prints for who ever to enjoy. I almost felt for a while like there was no point opening the shop up. Why should I compete against already well established shops. Not only did that just sound silly and a bit 'poor me' but you lot all gave such positive feedback I thought what the hell, let's give this a go! So here I am testing it out on you guys first. I really appreciate the small group of followers I have on this blog and all the others that drop in from time to time so I hope you like what you see. I have a giveaway coming up in a week or so to mark the arrival of the A3 prints I'm currently having professionally digitally printed. When they are in the shop too I want to do a giveaway for one of you - my lovely readers to win!

So please if you get a minute pop on over to my shop for a visit. I am selling a mixture of digital prints from my illustrations and what I'm particularly excited about is selling my original book artwork from my children's books. I will be adding more lines as I go, hopefully greetings cards as well as other personalised goods like wedding stationery, baby announcements etc. Generally freeing up room in my plans chest, and making room for baby no2 when we decide to go down that route!

Make sure you pop in from time to time and see what's new. If any of you have any feedback or criticism with my shop I'd like to hear it - all will be helpful to me to make this a great success.

Thank you, ♥ S xoxo

SHOP OPENING!

It's finally happening! Just loading the last few images up and sorting out details etc. Check back on August 1st for final details, a grand(ish) unveiling and a giveaway!
Whoop de doop!

A NEW LOOK

well i hope you like it. i've been meaning to change it for a while to give it my own stamp and make it look a bit cleaner and easier to navigate. my lovely friend put it all together with me and was extremely patient as i dithered about and changed my mind a few times! i'm hoping to add my contact and about pages very soon as well as a link to my new ETSY shop where i will be selling original book artwork, digital prints and the like. i will let you know when it's all done and celebrate the ETSY shop opening with a giveaway! thanks for all your lovely comments so far about my new blog look, i really appreciate all of them.

♥ S & s

My First Giveaway!!!

UPDATE: THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!

As I'm not sure who really reads my blog, and I'd like to set up an ETSY shop very soon I'd thought I'd see what the interest would be like by offering my first ever GIVEAWAY!!!

I'll pick someone randomly next Sunday to win a Topiary Bear with an initial or number of your choice. Below is one I have done already with an 'S'.
It is 29cm x 21cm and printed on textured Somerset Enhanced paper.

Just leave a comment below, and let me know what initial you'd like.

Thanks for reading! Love Sarah xoxo

PS. The Bear is happy to travel so please feel free to enter if you're not from the uk!