Cards to Match

Couple of cards to potentially go with two of the repeating patterns I've made recently.

Roses and Posies

I had a real desire to work on a floral print over the weekend, and so that's what I did today. :-) There's too many colourways of this to put them all up, but here's a few.

Vegetables (and fruits masquerading as vegetables)

Working on building up my editorial portfolio at the moment. Here's a single page spread (or possibly even a poster) featuring my personal hot-topic - vegetables*. Just one idea for using these illustrations, although I'm also tempted to make some soup recipe cards. Going to feature one with herbs next. Do let me know what you think.

*And veggie-fruits.

Hoots, Health and Heavenly Chocolate

Owl repeating pattern based on these little dudes.


And the cake I made for my Dad's b'day - choco-cherry cream:


But it's okay. I did juice and drink all of these* too:


I love all the funny little deposits the juicer shoots out:


*That's bigger than your standard bowl - it's a mixing bowl!

Kaleidoscope Stars

In a range of colours. :-)

You Are Invited To My Tea Party

I can't help but think this would make quite nice smooth, matte-finish wallpaper for a feature wall in a jazzy tearoom... Maybe? Or tablecloths. Curtains? More is more!

Ahem. Which colourway do you like? The olive-green has a distinct 1940s wartime feel to it I reckon. I decided to stick with a block-colour background and black and white illustrations, as all the cups and cakes and whatnot have a lot of detail, so didn't want everything to become too messy. But could experiment with line colour? What do you think?


Closer-up in golden yellow:


That (hopefully) subtle olive-green:


Duck-egg adoration:


A sweet and sugary coral. I think this may be my favourite...


You may recognise this teatime ensemble (bar a few cupcakes) from my website homepage. I thought I'd give them another lease of life to show them I care. ;-)

Butterflies and Colourway Dilemmas

A fluttery little print I've been working on today - question is: what colourway do you like best?! I can't decide myself...

Trees Please Louise

I worked on this pattern today. And one with butterflies, but I haven't quite finished that one yet. :-)

Watercolour Traumas

I've returned to painting of late instead of my usual drawing/scanning/digital colouring combo. It's been a little traumatic, I won't lie - there is no undo button! I also like the ability of being able to play around with compositions on Photoshop... Hum ho. Here's a little sneak peak of one such watercolour I worked on in the garden today:


It's a happy smiley girl cycling down a summery country lane. With a cat in the basket, as you do. I also took some pics of my 'office':






Fifi the sausage cat:


Hello Fifi.

Porky Weekend

I did a little bit of baking over the bank holiday weekend - on Saturday I made scones and then on Monday I made some brownies. Since the sun was shining so gloriously on Saturday, I thought it'd be rude not to sit out in the garden and partake in a cream tea - after all, the scones were still warm from the oven and I was a mere whisk of cream away from having all the necessary components. Admittedly, I could have done a bit better on the serving front, i.e. prettier plates and made use of a teapot, but I was that desperate to stuff my face (the most ladylike of terminology, I know) that a frantic fling of a paper doily was as much as I could muster when it came to dressing the table.




By Monday, all the scones were gawn. Well, by Sunday afternoon in fact, when I had another cream tea avec ma famille after a trip to the garden centre. So I fancied making something else, something devilishly chocolatey... Queue the entrance of Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies. Mm hmm. I'd watched the lovely Lorraine Pascale make these beauties a while back on her BBC 2 show, and I happened across the recipe again whilst browsing through her book at a friend's house on Saturday. Now, the recipe says it makes sixteen brownies, but I got.. well, nine. I think this was purely down to how big I cut them, (3x3 as opposed to 4x4? I think that makes sense. My maths ain't all that) as I do like a generous slab of brownie. I also didn't have enough dark chocolate - recipe requires 200g but I only had a 100g bar (bright spark)... Fear not, this is the Peajeux house after all, and I was sure I could muster enough chocolate to make up the extra 100g. I snuffled out a 1/4 eaten 40g bar of the dark stuff and chopped up some fruit and nut to make up the rest. I was two squares over actually, which was fortunate, as I was on the verge of using some Easter egg - an incredibly distressing prospect.

Here's the chopped choc:


The melted butter, just in case you can't imagine what melted butter looks like:


The chopped chocolate, added to the melted butter and the whisked eggs and sugar. Plus a wee bit of flour, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and possibly something else but I can't quite remember. Oh! Oreos, yes yes, some Oreos:


Pouring into the greased and lined baking tray:


The rest of the Oreos waiting patiently to be broken and scattered:


There they go:

Close up. Mmm:


Out of the oven, 25 minutes later:


Cut into squares. Now honestly, 3x3 is way better than 4x4. (Excuse the blurriness, I think it was down to the excitement):


And there we have it! Now I really should get back to updating this blog with drawings...