an ocean and a rock away...

"What you at my gentle spoken friend
I lack a frame to put you in
when you're an ocean and a rock away.

I feel you in the pocket of my overcoat
my fingers wrap around your words
they take the shape of the games we play.

I feel your words through my buttonholes
pin them to my fingerless gloves,
green and prone to fraying.

I keep you in the pockets of my dresses
and the bristles of my brushes
spin you into my curls today.

I spoon you into my coffee cup,
spin you through a delicate wash.
I wear you all day.

Thoughts of you warm my bones
I'm on the way, I'm on the phone.
Let's get lost, me and you,
an ocean and a rock is nothing to me..."

Lisa Hannigan

Olivia and Olivia at notonthehighstreet.com

Check it out, we are live at notonthehighstreet!

This is my Olivia and Olivia from around the corner, her mum very kindly lent her to us and as you can see she was born to be in front of a camera. What a pair of beauties, they remind me of Lotta and Lola and they sound just like them too.

Happy Competition Winners

How great is this photo! Carly in Devon won one of the Little Bird tee shirts in the Green Parent competition, she sent this fab photo of her boy and a lovely email to say;
"Many thanks Joanna...we received the t-shirt today, it is lovely! My son had to put it on straight away...I've attached a picture of my happy boy! Thanks for the extra goodies too, much appreciated :)"

Michelle in Edinburgh chose a 'Carmen Miranda' tee and wrote to say;
"I received the top very promptly a few days ago - its beautiful, many thanks again."

I've just posted off a 'Let's Go Fly A Kite' tee shirt to Jane in Stoke-On-Trent and she's sent an email to say "I've just received it! Thank you very much, I love the design and it feels really soft. My older daughter will be delighted with the balloons and stickers too!."

I've a huge smile on my face from this photo, it's lovely to share with you x

Starting School

My girl put on her first school uniform today and headed out in the big wide world with eager anticipation, I came home and had a little cry. She came home at 3 o' clock and had a very big cry and announced that she didn't like reception and would not be going again. I wanted to tell her that we would home-school her forevermore but I suspect that by next Friday she might be enjoying it.

Time Flies...

I am back to work next week, after six months of maternity leave. So much has happened in what seems like a flash. On Valentines day we were married, Alfie arrived in March, April saw his first smiles, we enjoyed hot sunshine in June, in July Olivia left nursery and by August Alfie cut his first tooth and Olivia has begun to learn to read. It has been a wonderful time and I can't pretend that I'm all that overjoyed at the prospect of returning to work but then again I've been vomited on three times today and however bad it is teaching teenagers in the last eleven years none of them have ever been sick on me...

Here's to the next part of the adventure x

Visiting 'the black smoke'...

'Cold Corners' Eva Rothschild. Tate Britain

'Horizontal Stripe Painting' Patrick Heron. Tate Britain

We've had a wonderful holiday lolling around at the grandparent's house, the service was better than a five star hotel and the 24 hour childcare is now sorely missed. During our stay we took Olivia to London for a few days and had a magical long weekend with her. She went on a train for the first time, saw her first dinosaur bones at the Natural History Museum, we visited Hope and Greenwood sweet shop, rode the Underground, saw teenagers with green hair and best of all visited Tate Britain. She got tooled up at the art trolley and proceeded to spend six hours skipping from gallery to gallery drawing from paintings and sculptures having the happiest day. It was so cool to share our passion with her and have her enjoy it as much as we do.

Area Thrifty One (gorgeous things of wonder from around the web no. 2)

Jersey is such a tiny island that we are usually either related to each other, went to school together or at some point snogged at the Splash. And as I teach at the School of Art I kind of presumed that I had either taught or taught with most of the other artists over here, imagine my surprise then to chance upon Nanette of Area Thrifty One at one of the St Aubin's Craft Markets and see her incredibly beautiful handmade toys.

It felt a little bizarre to find her here, usually at local craft markets I expect to see badly knitted teddy bears and pots of homemade jam (I'm aware of how snobby that sounds) but here was the wonderful world of Area Thrifty One looking like it came straight out of Etsy. When I'd finished mentally buying everything on her stall I was quizzing her, are you on Flickr? Are you on Etsy? Do you have a Big Cartel shop? Do you blog? Are these Moo cards? Because it was a bit of an Anne of Green Gables moment and I felt like I'd met a kindred spirit. When I log on to Flickr and Etsy my little laptop allows me to become part of a much wider world of artists than I can ever be part of here in Jersey and so I have a separate online life and now here was someone else, living just up the road that is part of that too, how cool is that!

So, no wappy legged, boss-eyed knitted teddies here, all of the Area Thrifty One toys and gifts are beautifully sewn from these great fabrics that Nanette designs and has printed. They are deliciously reminiscent of the seventies and I think that also made her work feel familiar to me, the Babushka Bunny reminded me of an orange babushka doll printed on a coaster that my dad kept on his bedside table and the linen rabbit reminded me of a toy rabbit in a dressed in bonkers seventies fabric that my aunt made for me. But best of all we found this wonderful elephant pencil case who looks so much like my daughter's beloved 'Phunt' that we just had to have it. Phunt was Olivia's constant companion but he has become so worn that he is now see-through in places so he just rests on her bed and she carries a little photo of him to school in her coat pocket so that when she feels she needs a bit of Phunt reassurance he's there for her - now she will be able to take her Phunt pencil case to school and have him on her desk all the time, she's delighted and I have a feeling that this elephant may last a lot longer...

Meanwhile, Alfie goes to bed lovingly clutching at a square of dribbly muslin and is in desperate need of a special companion and I have my eye on that linen rabbit, or perhaps that linen cat... either way we have the perfect excuse to do some more shopping at Area Thrifty One! Go on, have a look yourselves...

Joanna x