Being a couple of illustrators you would think we would have more of our own work up in the house, for some reason we never seem too though, possibly it has something to do with us both being very self critical of our own work and after looking at it for long enough we want to tweak it in some way (this is the reason I have never gotten a tattoo although I would like one!!).

Recently I have been working on a new design for my on-line shop and up and coming craft fair, it is a two colour lino print called Sun Hare & Moon Hare.

Anyone who happens to read my blog over on katwhelan.com will know I have been tinkering with this for a while now. I had a stall at the local craft fair on Sunday and this print was one of the things I sold out of! I am really happy with this design and how it came out, so much so that I has actually made in onto the wall in the living room!

I'm hoping to get this print up in my on-line shop soon, although at the moment I'm snowed under with orders!

Next on the list for us it Christmas decorations!!! Pics soon!

We usually try to reuse as much of our stuff as we can, rather than buying new (well, ok...new to us, as most stuff comes from boot sales anyway), its down to shortage of cash as we usually spending it on more important stuff (plumbing, windows ect) so general everyday household stuff get shunted down the priority list.

As we are getting close to finishing up the bathroom, I have had to start thinking about practical stuff not just where pipes will go. We have an amazing lack of storage in this house as its pretty small and we have a phenomenal amount of art equipment and car parts packed in here with us! We don't have an airing cupboard so we have nowhere to store towels, I have in the past used a lovely Lloyd Loom chest but when we moved house we realised it wouldn't fit in the bathroom. So I had to come up with another option. Another peice we had brought with us from the old house was the really lovely old wine crate that we used to use as a coffee table.

It was bought from a junk shop in Bath back in 2009 and has had several uses over the years from housing actually wine in the kitchen to coffee table. I cant remember how much we paid, I have a feeling it was around the £12 mark.

So a couple of weekends ago I decided that it would actually make a great little store for towels. I started by removing the bottle sections inside it...

...and giving it a damn good hoover out.

We then gave the inside two coats of satin wood paint to seal it and protect the towels from the rough wood.

These crates are not poshly built and the wood it usually pretty wooly and rough, it does sort of add to its charm though (you definitely don't get this sort of thing from Ikea!). I also bought some rubber casters from eBay (£9.90) and fitted them so I can pop in out from under the sink easily.

Then I just added towels!

I'm really happy with how it came out, it should be really useful and if we change our minds we can always reuse it for something else later. I do like a quick cheap project!

Life has been rather busy of late, Rich and I have quite a bit of work on (which I am in no way complaining about!), this is always a busy time of year work wise so not much has happened on the house unfortunately (but hopefully we are earning the money to start some more projects next year!!). So heres a bunch of random pics from the last few weeks to prove we are still  a live and kicking...

Starting to get frosty mornings!

Many, many long hours spent in the studio at the mo....

...not always working. Don't ask what's happening here, I have no clue?!

I did find the time on Sunday to finish painting the bathroom ceiling.

Just need to put the floor tiles down and build the bath panel and we're finished in this room.

As the temperature is now dropping in the evenings we are spending much more time infront of the log burner!

Love coming back to our cosy home, it helps to get me through the dark months!

More random pics soon! x