Remake & Remodel - finally a catch up!

Hey guys, long time no speak! I'm sorry last week was a little empty on the blog. This term at uni is whizzing past and I feel like I haven't even shared any of it with you yet! I'm hoping to organize my time a little better this next couple of weeks so I can share some more work and London life with you.

This term I have two big projects, one named "Remake - Remodel". I'm not going to go into any crazy detail with it yet as I've been sat at a computer for 12 hours today! So here's some dodecahedron patterns that I made for the project. Hopefully I'll get to explain the project to you some more in some future posts, but for now I'm off home to sunny Preston! I can't wait to finally get some fat cat and crazy doggy cuddles! Can you believe I've been away from them almost 2 months now?

Back to School bags with Case Luggage

It's only 2 weeks until I move to London now, and 3 weeks until I start my uni course. For an art or design uni course like mine, where I will be carrying lots of material, stationary and a laptop around, a good bag is a very important purchase.

I've been searching the Case Luggage website for some practical and fun bags to take to uni with me, here are some of my favs.

Now of course, before I show you my practical finds, I have to show you my absolutely favorite find. I think it's very apt for this post, as it is London themed:

This childrens London Bus case is by Cuties comes with stickers so you can personalise it yourself. As you can probably tell, I've never really grown out of personalising things, so I think this is perfect.

My actual practical finds look just as awesome and fun! They're by Kipling. I chose the Dallin Wheeled School Bag (right) and the Poona School bag (right). I first noticed these bags for their awesome prints, but it turns out they're really well designed too. The Dallin comes in 3 different prints, has wheels and built in laptop protection. It can also be carried on your back, so it's multi functional and very practical. The Poona is a little smaller and comes in a fun monkey print.

 I also really liked this Umbrella with a matching zip pouch by Knirps and this Converse Backpack.

What are your "back to school" essentials?

Portfolio In Progress

Remember my post on Tuesday about Dr Martens and LCF? Well, I've been crazily preparing my portfolio for the last few weeks. I'm hoping to get some decent pictures of my portfolio soon, but for now, here's some of the work in progress.

My first attempt at live trace. I draw the Dr Marten on some paper, scanned it then used live trace in Adobe Illustrator

 

Here's a sneak peak of a collaboration I'm doing with one of my fav artists - Laura Manfre

A big fat shoe update

Pictured: Dr Martens Hincky Boot

Well, it feels like it's been a century since I last wrote a personal post. I've had a busy few weeks and because of that the blog has been a little neglected. I'm now getting back into the swing of things and have a few outfit posts/recipes/DIY ideas planned for the next few months!

At the beginning of the year I announced that I had big plans for my future with shoes and shoe design. One of my big goals this year is to learn how to make shoes (or at least begin to learn), It's been an ambition of mine for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE painting shoes, but it would be amazing to be able to design the whole product.

The first few weeks of 2013 were spent scouring the internet for short courses to learn how to make shoes. The ones I found were all based in London, and I couldn't learn nearly enough through one course to build a business on or base a career on. So there has been a little change of plan!

In February I found out about an apprenticeship scheme at Dr Martens! I love the Dr Martens brand, they make such fantastic shoes with a great attention to quality and functional design. Working for Dr Martens would be my dream job! So I went ahead and applied.

A couple of weeks ago I got to visit their English factory and see them making the "made in England" shoes, which was so interesting. England used to have a great trade of shoe making, so it's really refreshing to see a big, worldwide company keeping up the tradition.
Last week I was invited back for an interview and some tests, I should find out this week if I got the job. As I write this my stomach is churning with nerves!! I want this job so much.

Before I applied for the Dr Martens job, I'd also applied for the place on the shoe making course at London College of Fashion. Check out the shoes the students produce, they're freakin amazing. Last week I had an interview there and it went so well, and they accepted my application! I love the course leaders there, they're so enthusiastic about design, knowledgeable and very friendly. The course itself is like a dream come true. I'll get to learn everything I ever wanted to! I can't wait to get stuck in. It's a 2 year course with a view to doing a third year and getting a degree. They have so many competitions available to only LCF students and great contacts in the industry, it really is an amazing course.

Of course if I get the Dr Martens job I'll be taking that and putting uni on hold for a while. I don't think I'd be able to turn down the job of a lifetime!

The last couple of days I've finally been able to breathe again, I spent the last few weeks as an exhausted bag of nerves, constantly working on my portfolio and getting more and more worried about my interviews. It's great to finally get back to spending lots of cuddle time with the dogs & Tofu again (and Ash, of course).