Last year I started buying antique documents and experimenting with paper collage and a little mixed media. One document was so exquisite I had it printed across a width of linen and made a bolster, embroidering a little in the margins – my first attempt at machine embroidery (I have been doing a lot more recently, of which more in a future post).

A customer bought the bolster and when I saw her recently she told me she had re-decorated her room around it, which was touching to hear.

For a while last year, snowdrops were a recurring theme, possibly inspired by the card I made for a friend’s wedding in February.

For the same wedding, I helped create a woodland floor in the church, with hundreds of snowdrops in the green, tumbling out of pots and mossy logs gathered in the forest. The picture below is just a tiny corner of it. It took two of us the best part of a week to gather and create the display. The church was Saxon, untouched by the Victorians and absolutely freezing in February, but working in such exquisite surroundings with the scent of paper white narcissi and damp, mossy logs was an unforgettable experience.