Happy New Year!  Back to work with a vengeance after the Christmas and New Year break - hope it was ...   more »

Well, I have to say that our Christmas Cracker Day was one of the most successful days we have ever ...   more »

I am very upset.  I am getting customers who are very irate at having to go to the Post Office ...   more »

We have just received a phone call from The Royal Mail telling us that a lot of the stamps on ...   more »

We went to the Private View of the Exhibition at Croydon Museum last night.  And I have to say it ...   more »

CroydonExhibition.

I just spoke to The British Home and they exceeded last year's amount raised!  I am so pleased for them.  ...   more »

We are lurching from one Exhibition to another at the moment, no time to draw breath!  (I'm not complaining.)

We ...   more »

Well, we have been really busy this week, getting mounts and frames done for the Residents' Art Exhibition at The British Home in Streatham.  The British Home is a charity and gets no funding from the government so relies on contributions.  It is a fantastic place - originally a Victorian building, it has been extremely sympathetically extended and is spotlessly clean, with brilliant staff and a wonderful art room.  (Guess what - I'm a fan!)  The residents have been busy getting ready for their second art exhibition and hope to repeat their success of last year.

So we have been beavering away, cutting mounts and framing a small selection of paintings.  The Exhibition is open on Friday and Saturday 25 and 26 September from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm.  See the flyer on my 'Latest' page on the website.  I recommend you pay a visit and I am sure you will be surprised by the high standard.

Have had quite a good week - busy in the shop, plus the added bonus of becoming a supplier for the ITV Show, 60 Minute Makeover.  For those who don't know, it is a programme where the team revamps about 4 rooms in someone's house in 60 minutes!  They work for half an hour, have a break, and then do the remaining half hour.  Claire Sweeney is the presenter.

I received a phone call from someone on the 'team' and at 430pm that day, their courier picked up a mirror and two swept frames for filming the next day!  They called me on Friday to say that the day's filming had gone very well, that the two frames were used above the bedside tables in the bedroom and the mirror was on the wall opposite the bed.  Apparently the designer was over the moon with them!

So, will let everyone know when the show is going out - sometime in the autumn - and I look forward to reaping the rewards from the resulting publicity!!!!

Well, here I am again, after another Private View, and mulling it all over.  We had lovely people visit us on Sunday and Colin was a joy to have here.  He is such a nice man.  The general consensus was that everyone loved the Croydon paintings, but we did sell some of the London ones as well.  He has a unique style, sort of impressionist and ethereal without being too representational, and it works really well.  What pleased me was the diversity of pricing - we had beautiful mounted limited edition prints at £32 each and an original painting at £2495!

The Exhibition will be here till next Saturday so I am hoping that people will still come and visit.

Now, back to the real world - orders and paperwork to do!

Well, here we are again, on the eve of another Exhibition.  This time for Colin Ruffell, current Master of the Fine Art Trade Guild, and a very fine artist indeed.  Needless to say, things still take longer than I think, so I am still here in the gallery getting things ready for tomorrow.  I am very pleased with the way it looks though, and the Croydon paintings he has done specifically for this Exhibition are particularly good.

Must remember to put the champagne in the fridge tonight ...

Well, I'm through to the final for the fourth year running!  The Regional Heat was held at Reigate Manor Hotel last night and there were 8 entries in our Branch.  I was runner-up, after Lyn Hall, the guru of mountcutting!, and so am through to the National Final in May.  It's funny that last year, I was the regional winner and she was the runner-up!  Roles reversed this year!  We had a lovely evening and as usual had to mark each entry in silence without discussing anything with anyone.  Very hard to do.  It is always interesting to see what other framers are up to and it never fails to amaze me that everyone does something completely different to everyone else.  I get some great ideas from them as well.

Will let you know the result in May in due course ...

The theme for the framing competition this year is 'A day at the seaside' and anyone can frame anything they like within the parameters set that they think fits the theme.  Deadline is next Wednesday's Guild meeting so the pressure is on.  I have chosen to frame five illustrations from a children's cd called, funnily enough, 'A day at the seaside'.  I have managed to match mount colours for the sand and sky, but can't find a suitable blue for the sea, so I'm going to paint it to match.  Then I'm going to cut out mountboard in the shape of kites, sandcastles, etc, to finish the mount design off.  I will limewax a plainwood moulding to make it vaguely look driftwood-ish and keep to the seaside theme.  Fingers crossed!  This as well as fulfilling orders!  But I always enjoy doing the competitions, keeps my creative juices flowing and also shows customers what can be done with a frame.  Just got to get on with it ...

Well, what a great success!  David came to the Private View last Sunday and we had a fantastic day.  Lots of collectors of his work turned up and not only did we sell what we had on the walls but also had orders as well.  His work really is excellent.  The gallery looked great with pictures of wildlife in it and it was a great change as we had not had anything like it before.  Very refreshing.  We are now the official Croydon stockist of his work as his previous outlet closed down.  Here's to a long and fruitful relationship!

It's exhibition time again!  This time we have gone for a completely different artist, David Dancey-Wood, international wildlife artist.  David does the most superb pencil drawings of wildlife and they are so realistic that some people mistake them for photos!  We have a fantastic selection of drawings, they are limited edition prints, and a few originals.  We have framed them ourselves, so have been really busy, but I have to say, they look fabulous.  We have framed a couple of them with Miroguard Plus glass - expensive stuff but it looks like there is no glass there so the image is really clear.

Looking forward to a good Private View tomorrow ...

Well, our first exhibition was a great success!  We sold five paintings and I was so pleased with the way everything went.  Learned a lot though, so I know that next time an exhibition will be for one week only.  We had a great time at the Private View with lots of champagne being drunk and the gallery looked fantastic with Frances' paintings adorning the walls.  I wish I had more wallspace to enable just one row of pictures to be hung, but I haven't so there's nothing I can do about it.  But, overall it went extremely well so now I'm busy planning another one!

The Exhibition's Private View is on Sunday 20th April.  Frances and her husband, Richard, and me and my husband, Colin, spent last night re-hanging the gallery with all her paintings, ready for the Sunday.  We finished at 1140 pm!  We had a good evening, it was very hard work, and treated ourselves to a curry and a bottle of wine halfway through to keep ourselves going.  The curry was delicious and came from Rupees next door.

Today I am finishing off bits and pieces, tidying up and clearing things ready for tomorrow.  As it is our first Exhibition I am a bit nervous, but positive thinking will get me through and I am sure it will be a good day.  Pray for sunshine ...

The Exhibition deadline is getting nearer and nearer.  This week contacted the Croydon Advertiser, hoping they would publish something, and finally the moulding for Frances' pictures arrived.  Nothing like leaving it till the last minute!

Also had to update the website with the Exhibition information, and put the information on Croydon Guardian events listing on-line and on thebestofcroydon's events listing too.  There seems to be so much to think about ...

Well, I won the Branch heat in the framing competition!!!

It was great.  There were 15 entries altogether and everyone there had to mark each entry out of 20 for technical ability, creative design, materials used and whether the frame enhanced the print.  And we all had to go round in silence without discussing anything with anyone!!!  Quite surreal, really.  And very difficult to do.

We then discussed our frames with the group whilst the marks were being counted up and then the Mayor of Reigate and Banstead read the names of the winners.  The 3 top entries now go through to the final on May 17th in Bristol.  So I have to wait till then to find out if I'm the overall winner.

Still, a finalist 3 years' running!  Not bad!!

First ever...   more »