Plas Glyn y Weddw & The Whistling Sands

With all these open doors events happening during the month of September in Wales, we had to take this amazing opportunity to travel around North Wales before the big move to France! We went to Abersoch earlier this year but never really took the time to explore the Llyn Peninsula. So a couple of weekends ago, we prepared a picnic and headed to Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw in the morning to enjoy a walk around the gallery hearing all about its history thanks to a really nice tour guide.

We loved the place, and the view that you get from the top floor is amazing! Unfortunately, over the years it's been used for many different purposes and a lot of original features have been removed. But the brilliant team now in charge of it put it back to its rightful status and it does look amazing. The guide we were talking to said that he could tell when people had never set foot in the building because when they enter, they're always stopping at the door, in awe of what they see and looking at every detail.

We didn't have time to walk around the surroundings of the building much but there are apparently loads of walks to do in the nearby forest, and of course, the path in front of the gallery is part of the official coastal path. Also, let me tell you that if we didn't have a picnic ready in the car, we would have definitely grabbed a piece of cake from the café. All the cakes looked amazing and we were told that the café is a definite hit!

I do apologise for the lack of photos of Porthor (also known as the Whistling Sands) because this is very much unlike me, but I guess I was just in the moment and didn't think about snapping tonnes of photos this time!

We arrived just at the right time as the sun was shining and even though it was quite windy, we really enjoyed having the beach to ourselves whilst having our picnic on the sand (we really should have taken some kind of blanket with us...). The water wasn't too cold and we had fun jumping around with the waves! We also took the time to walk around the coastal path after putting back the rest of our picnic in the car. It started to rain though so we didn't stay much longer!

Before heading back home, we were planning on visiting the famous Ty Coch Inn, but it was closed :(. We'll have to go back very soon!

Design by Humans

After the bad experience I had with my collection of scarves at Vida, I wasn't too sure I would ever want to create more items to be sold with my designs. However, when Design by Humans reached out to me, I realised that the type of products they had and the whole feel on their website was much closer to the type of work I love to do. So I started to think about what I would create and the fact that I could design various artworks that would feel like a whole collection when all put together. All of a sudden, it sounded really appealing to me.

It took me a little more than a month to decide if I wanted to share it all with you guys! I've been working on it as a side project for fun and I didn't want to put pressure on myself. I thought, at the end of the day, if I don't feel that it's right I just won't share it and talk about it and that would be it. However, I'm actually really pleased with what I've done and I started to think that it would be a shame to not promote it. If anything, these are some nice artworks to add to my portfolio right?

I was going for cute illustrations (of course), but with a badass feel. I've always wanted to do it but never had the right client for it, so here they are! If everything goes well, I might start adding more, you never know. You can only see a couple of products on the image above so feel free to have a look at my Design by Humans shop.

You'll find some cool phone cases, framed artworks and t-shirts. The only thing that could be annoying is the delivery fee as they're operating in the US. You know what, I'm so careful with my money lately that I haven't even purchased one of my products, ha! The life of a freelancer.

Anyway, hope you like them as much as I do!

My Favourite Instagram Accounts Lately

Hey guys! It's been a while since I did a post about finding some inspiration on the web, so I thought I would share with you 9 Instagram accounts that I've loved following lately. Let's be honest, I'm now addicted to Instagram more than I was with Pinterest, and I think what I love is the fact that we're following these people's lives little by little, discovering a bit more about them every time. I know that we always choose to show the best shots, and that an Instagram feed doesn't really tell our true life, but I don't really care because to me, that's the beauty of it!

Ali Labelle is the creative director at ban.do and I found her account through Jen Gotch, the owner, that I'm following too. I guess I'm fascinated by LA and how people live their life there so that's definitely a bonus, but I also love the way she sees things. So many of her colourful photos are little details of her life and habits that it makes me feel like I'm having a proper insight into her personal life. Voyeurism did you say? Yes, maybe a little.

@alilabelle

I found her account last week, and I didn't hesitate in following her! For all the creative people out there, she is to me the kind of designer with a cool and trendy style that I never get tired of. Her feed is really well thought out and she shows a good mix of everyday life shots and design work that she creates. Can't wait to see more!

@emmajaneleigh

Carrie always seems to be traveling or eating some amazing food. Plus, her style is spot on and she always looks stunning, even when she's posing on some dirty pavement. I've been following Wish Wish Wish's fashion blog for a while now, but her Instagram account is one of the best ever to me!

@wishwishwish

Talking about tasty food, Jon's feed is full of it, and it's all recipes of his own, which makes it extra special. Sometimes I actually hate following him because the moment I see one of his delicious dishes, it makes me instantly hungry! He's been traveling quite a lot around Europe lately, but rest assured that the food shots will come back.

@jonjon33

This is one of the most poetic accounts I'm following. You can tell how much every shot has been carefully thought of and I particularly like the regular photos of Dominique with her two little girls, all in the same outfit!

@allthatisshe

Alizée was in the same design school as me years ago, and I've loved following her adventures since I discovered her Instagram account. Lately I've been even more eager to see what she's up to as she's been traveling EVERYWHERE with her boyfriend. I'm kind of jealous actually. Her photos definitely take me away and sometimes that's all I need.

@justlittlekids

Another one that I discovered really recently and I loved her account and what she does straight away. It's always nice to find a successful business woman dedicated to helping freelancers, and her fresh and inspirational snippets are always a pleasure to see. Plus, she shares the stories of other creatives regularly.

@freelancewisdom

Her feed is such a beautiful and inspiring world! I basically want to be her. Courtney is an actress and blogger in LA (yes, I love LA), and she shares with us a bit of her life through stunning photos with warm hues. 

@prettylittlefawn

Kelly is super talented and she does have an amazing job. You can find her painting on walls and shop windows all the time, and you're sometimes lucky enough to have a sneak peek of the beautiful illustrations she creates for children's books. She's living the life.

@kelly.illustration

Hope you got plenty of inspiration from all these accounts! Happy Instagramming :)

Portfolio Update - Charles Marlow & Bros

When Charles Marlow & Bros approached me, they were looking at adding an artistic touch to their current branding created by Kota Creative. With an office in Deià, Spain, they wanted to reflect the village's artistic background through their new print material with beautiful illustrations and hand-made typography.

I knew that we would need to stay on brand and I didn't want to create artwork that wouldn't match the rest of their existing documents. Their logo has a watercolour effect on the icon, so I concentrated on this element and created various illustrations and bespoke lettering with a delicate purple watercolour texture. I had the pleasure to work on a few brochures, postcards and corporate documents with them and I thoroughly enjoyed doing something a little bit different from what I'm used to. Minimalism and elegance can be fun too :)

You can see more on my website RIGHT HERE!

Open day at Gwrych Castle

A couple of weeks ago, we were looking at things to do around the weekend to have a break from work and hard labour on the Capri (poor Jason was having to work really hard on it in an attempt to get it ready for Retro Rides!). Jason came across the open day at the Gwrych Castle because he spotted that the Wild Horse Brewery would be there (haha, the call of the beer!). So even though the weather wasn't great, we decided to spend the afternoon there. Jason for the beer, me for a castle that I'd never visited before, and you know how crazy I am about castles!

Cheap cake and cute owls. What else can you ask for?!

Even though we paid £5 each at the entrance, the tours were free so we jumped in the queue and enjoyed half an hour of history about the castle. As we expected, this was a stately home which was built in the 19th century by a rich family. I guess you can tell at the material used for the windows and the fact that we could see the vestige of a proper kitchen.

They're in the process of renovating the castle, one bit at a time, and we had the privilege to see the restored garden and one of the towers that is quite far away from the main building.

The views were amazing from the top and it's a shame that they didn't manage to tidy everything up (it was left untouched for a good while) as I would have liked to explore more!

Little bonus for those of you who read the post until the end:

Jason was snapping away whilst I was being silly, and we thought it would make a great gif, so tadaaa!