A newsletter of sorts

I have been pondering the idea of a newsletter for a while and though I don’t think I’m entirely inept when it comes to technology, I just couldn’t seem to get my head around finding a relatively easy way send them out. I confess I do rather enjoy many of the things that come with being an artist which don’t directly involve making art - I love working on my website, crafting my Instagram posts and doing things like perfecting my packaging, but for some reason my brain was just saying no to working out the newslettery thing. I’d heard of Substack being a good option, so I thought I’d give it a go - I’m told (and hopefully you will have found this to be the case, if you are reading this!) that one can sign up to receive new ‘posts’ via email without needing to sign up for an account, so I am hoping that this will work as something of a newsletter.

My main aim with this is to occasionally share some small snippets of what I am working on in the ‘studio’ (I like to call it the studio, in reality it’s a small workspace in my bedroom!) and to let you know when I am opening commissions or when I am about to have a shop update. It won’t be a very frequent thing so I won’t be cluttering up your inbox, and I will still be posting primarily over at Instagram and Facebook. That said, I do quite enjoy writing and it’s something I keep thinking I must do more of, so perhaps this will be good for that, and you may occasionally receive a slightly more wordy newsletter!

So where are we at the moment? I finished a large(ish) batch of decorations for a shop update back in March, and am so grateful to everyone who gave them homes. I find it really special to think of them travelling to different parts of the world, and to think of people hanging them up and enjoying them. I also worked on three 3D felt horses - Marni, Thomas and Elfyn, who are all also in new homes now.

Felt horses Elfyn, Thomas and Marni

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that I also worked on a lovely commission recently to make five geese decorations. I have been wanting for some time to work on some more realistic birds, so this commission was fun to work on in itself, and also spurred me on to get going with some more bird designs. I have made some goldfinches and am now working on some blue tits - so the plan is that the next shop update will have a birdy theme! I will share the date for that nearer the time.

Geese commission

Goldfinch decorations

I also plan to reopen commissions shortly, and will announce that here as well as over on my other social media channels - I know some of you unfortunately missed out last time as Instagram and Facebook didn’t show my posts to everyone, so I’m hoping that being able to sign up to get a newsletter of sorts will help with this :)

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Things I’ve been enjoying

I thought it might be nice to share some things I’m enjoying watching - or listening to - here.

Over the last few days I’ve been listening to a great We Are Makers podcast conversation with illustrator and spoon carver Lee John Phillips - I love the We Are Makers podcast, it’s a brilliant listen to have on whilst I am stitching, and Lee’s illustration work and carved spoons are beautiuful. I also now want to buy a campervan and take it to a forest to do my work! The podcast is available via all of the usual podcast apps, or in video format on YouTube.

I listen to a lot of music whilst I am working. I listen to a really diverse range of things depending what mood I am in; dipping into music I came to love as a child when my parents would play folk music in the car on our holidays in Wales, enjoying some more up to date pop music or fondly relistening to favourites from my teenage years, like Patrick Wolf. I love to discover new artists to listen to and last year came across one whose music quickly became a favourite; I became rather enchanted with the idea of living on a narrowboat (that’s something to talk about another time perhaps!) and I started to watch some videos about the narrowboat life on YouTube. I came across Ben and Emily, who at that point lived on a boat (they are now in the process of converting a new van to live in, which is really exciting) Ben of Ben and Emily creates enchanting music under the name Ben Tangle, which can be both soothing and inspiring I find, with richly complex and often thought provoking lyrics. Well worth a listen - this is a link to his work on Bandcamp, but his music can be found on Apple Music and I assume Spotify too!

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I’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to hear from me in my newsletters, other than things relating to shop and commission updates, so please do feel free to let me know!

Best wishes all, thank you for reading and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Chloe