The shop's growing up - and so are we

Eek this suddenly turned into a proper business!  Was I asleep when this happened, or just painting things purple?!?  Probably painting knowing me.

Well, what's been happening in the land of the Hippo - yet again I moved the shop around, keep getting told off that things never stay in the same place.  However, it now feels like a proper shop and I feel like it's a proper business.  It actually feels more like yes, we are doing this for real rather than err would you like to see some bits we made? Also, I've got over the initial crafters dread of apologising for pricing stuff - you know that horrible thing where you know that your stuff is worth money because you've seen it in catalogues or shops elsewhere but because you made it there's that stumbling moment of err yes please, if you don't mind it's £xx? To all those crafters out there struggling with that bit, believe me it's quite liberating when you actually cross that threshold.  You suddenly wake up to the fact that actually what you made is good, it is worth money and you don't have to apologise.  Just because you grew up making things that maybe your friends didn't understand or in my case Dad saying 'what on earth you doing this time Ange?' doesn't mean that your creativity and ideas are worthless. 

The other thing I've discovered is that there will always be those that in order for them to succeed they have to push others down.  It's hilarious when customers actually pop in and tell me this about other sellers - slightly awkward but still very funny.  However, we don't need to do that because we know where our shortcomings are and working hard to get around them.  A friend always described that as moving from the unconscious incompetent to the conscious incompetent then to unconscious competent and finally to the conscious competent.  I like that phrase as it sums it up quite nicely. You move from the ooh we have a shop to the eek we have a shop and then to the oh we're selling at the shop to the ahh now I know why we're selling at the shop.  Apologies if you are now all oohing and ahhing as if at a fireworks display!

I love this journey, and can't wait to see where it takes us next - and thank you to all those that have joined the rollercoaster that is the Hippo brain, and apologies if your seatbelt is a little loose :)

The Hand Painted Mini

For those of you of a certain age you will remember that we painted cars! For the younger ones amongst you I will be the strangest thing on the planet - but these are some of the stories connected to the Hand Painted Mini. For some of you, you will remember us tootling round in this and the fact that each person usually added their own little bit as time went on.

 

It all started with a boring Sunday afternoon, the boys were playing paintball and we were bored. So, in a random statement I suggested we paint the car. Ok said my friend, without any hesitation - so we did! Up until now it had been a standard silver mini with no distinguishing features, however these pictures show the finished results. Sadly only 4 pictures exist in the world, 3 are here and 1 is lost to me now.

Personally the funniest bit was returning home after staying at said friend's house, strolling into the kitchen and calmly saying err before you go outside I'd better warn you I've painted the car. Mum just said 'oh red? purple? what colour?', at this point Dad walked back in and just said 'oh yeah, she's painted it all right!' I was a good Hippo though. I dutifully drove to the Police station and asked the duty officer if I needed to inform DVLA of changing a car's colour. While pushing a pen around he asked 'have you changed the colour much?' I pointed to the mini outside and after he choked on his tea, and with as much formality as he could muster said 'err no, I can still tell it's silver underneath, that's fine'.

I miss the fact that we don't paint cars now! It was fun :)
 

Delores - who says papier mache is for kids?

I was lucky enough to go to Paris one year and see a Niki de Saint Phalle piece outside the Pompidou in Paris. Wow is the only word that springs to mind, I love her use of colour and just the scale that she worked on was truly amazing. Over the years I've been to many galleries and exhibitions but there was something about her work that just stays with you, just nibbles away at you and says 'I want to try that too'. Not only was this an exploration into sculpture for me - having never worked on either sculpture or scale before, but also an exploration of how I see myself. As for many women there are times when we either cannot or will not see ourselves as we truly are - and for some reason many of us only choose to see the negative. I would urge anyone to have a go at doing this, if only for the self realisation of seeing yourself as others do - which is usually as an amazing person, we just lose sight of that all too often.

This was the starting point - and as usual, there was no part of me that considered how on earth to achieve this or think about details, just a 'that's what I want to make'!

So, with that in mind I went off in search of: chicken wire, newspaper, modroc, paint, heavy tape

And this is what happened! My parents visited at one point and saw the chaos of the dining room and just went 'oh, what you doing this time?' luckily they are now used to the randomness that occurs around here and just move a space to put their tea down safely.

Phase 1: create a chicken wire outline - this was done by wrapping me in chicken wire and carefully rolling out from underneath it!

Phase 2: wrap in papier mache to create the bodyPhase 3: mod roc!! every house should own tons of this stuff, it's great!

Phase 4: hard bit for me! waiting and waiting for it to dry so it could be painted and varnishedPhase 5: place on top of shed so she looks like she's sunbathing in all her glory! sit back and enjoy :) Do try this at home - it's such a fantastic exercise in what if? and it makes you smile every time you look, and the neighbours' reactions are priceless!