Photo Shoot Preview

On Monday we held a little Easter picnic in our garden, and combined it with a photo shoot for some new Pointless Pretty Things products. It was so fun! I made a ribbon backdrop and set up a lounge area, and we ate lots of food and drank tea from teacups. Thanks to two of my beautiful besties for being wonderful models. 

I've been working on this new range of wedding accessories for a while now, and I am SO excited to finally release them next week. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine...

x Rachel 

A little look into my Studio...

When we moved house in September, I finally gained a home studio – and it is the best. Every place I’ve lived previously has been taken over with my designer mess – with all my supplies stacked in boxes in cupboards and work having to take place on the living room floor. As I’m sure anyone who has a combination work/living place will know, it can be a bit chaotic. I was finding it really hard to be productive, and the lines between work time and down time were completely blurred – I often used to just work until it was time to go to bed. I’ve been ready to move into a studio space for what seems like forever, and it feels so great to finally have my own space! So I thought I’d share a little tour with you, to show how I use my studio in a normal working day. Also, you can play spot the cat!

I have two desks – this one by the window is my main desk for both admin and making jobs. It’s from Ikea, and it is height adjustable so I can also use it as a standing desk – which is so handy for things like fabric cutting. The grey worktop is also great for a neutral background for photos – so if you've seen my instagram that explains a lot of my photos. This is also where Ceci the cat likes to hang out all day people watching.

On the opposite side is my sewing table, with my shiny new sewing machine – the Singer One - which I am loving. I use the three clipboards to display my weekly schedule, my goal lists, and also any inspiration images from projects I’m working on. The shelving unit holds all of my non-fiction/craft books, magazines (mostly Mollie Makes) and stacks and stacks of wood slices that I use in my shop. Also a little storage favourite is my cake-stand turned washi tape holder.

The room divider/storage unit is my favourite. All the supplies I need are organised and easy to reach, which cuts down the dead time between tasks where usually I would have had to search around for things all over the house.

Having a studio in my house has completely revolutionised my work life! Even though it is quite small, having a whole room as a separate work place is amazing – both practically and psychologically. Getting ready in the morning, then popping into the studio with a cup of coffee really helps me to focus and get into work-mode. When it’s time to finish for the day, I can leave the craft mess behind me and shut the door. I love it.

So that's it! I hope you've enjoyed this little peek into my studio.

x Rachel 

Homemade Marquee Signs

I mentioned back in May about a Moulin Rouge themed event that I was designing, and that event has come and gone... I thought I'd share my favourite part today, my handmade marquee signs! I've seen these floating around on Pinterest for ages, so it was great to finally have an excuse to make some of my own. 

For the red "Moulin Rouge" sign, I roughly followed this brilliant tutorial from Oh Happy Day. It worked a treat, and although it was super time consuming, I was really happy with the result. It was perfect for setting the scene at the entrance to the event. 

If you are thinking of making some of your own, make sure you use LED fairy lights (which don't get hot) - anything else will be a fire hazard with all that card and spray paint. I bought mine here and they were perfect. 

I also made a slightly different version for the "Cabaret" sign. It's basically the same method, but without the edges on each letter. I was really pleased with this one actually, because it took a fraction of the time to make and still looked really effective. 

If you'd like to see a bit more of the event, there is a short video here. All I will say is that I was not responsible for those chair covers. Or the balloons. Sometimes you just have to let these things go haha... but if there's one thing I've learned, there is nothing a bit of red velvet draping and plenty of fairy lights paint can't solve. 

Moulin Rouge Event Design

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Hello, it's been a while - again! I just thought I'd pop by and share one of the many reasons for my internet absence... I'm styling up a Moulin Rouge event next week for around 300 guests - crikey.

Moulin Rouge is a bit of a gift of a theme really, lots of luxurious red draping and marquee sign making, black and red ostrich feathers and diamantes . I've finally got an excuse to try out the many light-up sign tutorials I've been seeing on Pinterest recently. I'll be sure to share some pictures of the finished article next week. 

In other news, although it has been quiet here, I've got plans for little old bloggy... Maybe a redesign, but most definitely a refocus. This year so far has been amazing work wise, but has knocked me sideways slightly. I feel like I am spinning so many plates that my favourite ones keep slipping (this blog and shop being the favourite plates in this analogy). I just need to find a way of slotting them back into my life in a way that's sustainable, so hopefully some of you will stick around while I work out the kinks. 

Lots of love, 

x Rachel 

Creative Mess

This is what my week has looked like, lots of desk time making miniature things. I'm right in the midst of designing quite a detailed set at the moment, so a scale model is a must for getting the best idea of what the space is going to look and feel like. I'll be sharing this with the rest of the company tomorrow, so I better crack on! I'll share some better pictures when it's all done and looking beautiful (hopefully).... Hello coffee. 

x Rachel 

Thoughts on Pigeon-holing...

I have always been pretty indecisive, especially when it comes to career choices. I thought that when I chose to go to drama school to study theatre design my path after that would be pretty direct... It's quite specific as degrees go, right? But actually the further I went through the course, the more I realised that within theatre design there are a lot more choices to make. What kind of theatre do I want to design? West End, opera, fringe, live art, dance, site specific, devised... Each one comes with it's own set of practices and contacts - some of them are different industries all together - so we were always taught that picking a clear route through would make success a lot easier.

In our third year we had to do a five year plan which showed in detail how we were going to follow these paths - which in theory is great, but it's not so fun when you have no idea which area you want to pursue and you are reluctant to have to choose just yet. To make matters even more confusing, I had just discovered blogging and was really interested in this as a side project, plus I had always wanted to run an online shop. I'd just started working on designing events, and started to wonder if maybe I loved this even more than theatre. Cue identity crisis. I tried to form a plan that would include all of these things simultaneously and was told that I was trying to squeeze three full time jobs into one life. While this was completely true, I hated the thought of having to pick one route and felt like I was being pigeon-holed before I was ready to decide. 

I have spent my first two years out of uni just saying yes to things - accepting any work that has come my way. It's been exhausting and sometimes stressful, scary and fulfilling. I have felt like I've been living two lives and building two very separate careers - one in theatre (and dance, live art and everything in between) and one in events, blogging and small business ownership. For ages I've been teetering on the edge of dropping one to focus on the other, then maybe I might have time for actual life to fit in too! But I've come to the realisation that actually I'm not ready to give up either one as I love all of it too much. And I also kind of think why should I have to choose? The whole reason I went into this career was to have a job that I enjoyed, and for now that is exactly what I'm doing - enjoying it. From now on I'm going to try and just carry on on this meandering path - it might make the journey a bit slower, but it will definitely be a lot more fun. 

Thanks for reading through my over-analytical thoughts... Does anyone else have these pigeon-holing issues? 

x Rachel 

ps. hope you enjoyed my silly little pigeon drawing - I like to think he is also having an identity crisis and that's why he has a crazy eye.