Paula Mills Art

I am having a bit of a creative rut stuck thing going on at the moment - not sure why, feeling a bit unsure of some of my work etc. but I guess it is pretty normal. I am looking for some new inspiration and I have decided to join a class but the one I really want to do only starts in January 2010 - so what am I to do in the meantime?! If anyone has any bright ideas please feel free to let me know. This image is of a doodle done recently and I now I don't feel like finishing it, oh dear there is that stuck feeling again.

We love all things hand made and we love making these brooches. Isn't it good to have an alternative from all the mass produced products out there? Each of our brooches we have formed ourselves, in our own hands and then spent hours pouring love and attention on each of them until we think they are 100% ready - not perfect, just ready for some one else to take home and appreciate the fact they are beautifully and (in our eyes anyway) perfectly formed. Take a look in our etsy shop for a few of our new brooches. Ps a few of our quirky brooches (alsation, fox, geometric) have made really good man brooches, men love them to put onto jackets, bags etc., yay go metro man!

If you have been following us for a little while then you may know that our love for vintage paper runs long and deep. Here at Sweet William we are endlessly rummaging through second hand book shops, markets, thrift shops, charity shops, garage sales - always on the search for beautiful old treasures that no one loves. Then we transform our finds into these exciting packages - filled to the brim with paper goodness, ready for anyone to make what ever you want with them - cards, scrapbooks, artwork. Due to popular demand we have a few available in our Etsy store.

Still being inspired by the change of season's down here in the Southern hemisphere. The topic for Illustration Friday this week was 'wrapped', this is was my interpretation: After a long winter Camille wrapped herself in the freshness of Spring.

Down here in the southern hemisphere we had our first weekend of lovely spring weather, which brought on a lot of sorting and spring cleaning, which for me always involves a drop off at the charity shop, which inevitably leads to more bargain buys! These were a few of my finds. I have these and other images of my home in my flicker account , along with some images of some new brooches for our shop.

I must confess to being a bad dog earer. My books and magazines are full of little folded down flaps. I should use a bookmark or sticky tags, but no, the simple dog ear will do. These two images are from my latest dog earing, from Marie Claire idees, and New Zealand Your Home and Garden. I love the idea of an entire door being a calendar - will definitely have to replicate that idea, and I'm really on an op shop hunt for a Masonite board for hanging things on.

Jeanine and Paula had a fantastic three days in Melbourne at Magnolia Square - the only thing missing was our lovely Shelley, who couldn't make it from New Zealand - but will hopefully come along to the next one in November. Here a few images of our stall set up.

We love paper, all kinds of paper - and a visit to the stationers is like a visit to the candy store. We are so excited about a new online paper store http://www.papermash.co.uk/ - a carefully curated selection of the loveliest paper goods - yum yum! I especially appreciate the free download:

Well at last I have managed to find some time to do some more drawing. I enjoy the challenge of illustrating the topic over at Illustration Friday , this week the topic was 'impatience'. So this is what I did: Camille felt her impatience rising as she waited for the wind to change but then she decided to dance with the wind.

I received a lovely little bit of parcel love in the mail. A fun swap I did with Hanna from Craftykin , we decided to do a theme - something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. This is what I received from Hanna, I can't show mine because I have not sent it out yet (sorry Hanna, its on its way).

We are working like crazy to get everything done for our market - we are very pleased with our latest range of little girls bags, pictured above. We were also featured in this lovely blog for an online magazine called LMNOP . One more sleep - we are so excited!

Prairie Ruffle Necklace by orangepoppy on Etsy , I love because it's quaint, whimsical and so interesting.