Studio Notes: Mid-week baking, half-term breaks & the art of the ebb

You might have noticed a quiet space in your inbox last week. I stepped away to lean fully into the half-term holidays with my family, and if I’m being completely honest, my newsletter schedule has felt a tad ad-hoc lately.

Usually, the business owner in me would stress about consistency. But the artist in me knows that creativity truly ebbs and flows with the seasons. Lately, I’ve been leaning heavily into a slower, more offline way of living. I took last week to properly tidy the garden - finally getting the cucumber plants potted on and settling the tumbling toms safely into their hanging baskets.

I’ve been actively reaching for my e-reader instead of falling into the trap of the social media doom-scroll (a modern habit I think we can all confess to at times). I’ve been prioritising spontaneous countryside walks, spending quiet hours catching up with friends, and even pausing in the absolute middle of preparing orders to bake a lemon poppy seed cake - because why not.

My British Garden Flowers collection is still very much progressing behind the studio doors, but it is moving at a gentler, more human pace right now. Moving forward, I want to continue at this softer cadence. It is entirely okay to slow things down, and that feels exactly as it should be.

Slowing Down to Grow

When we rush the process, we miss the very magic we're trying to capture. Taking these quiet pockets of time away from the screen isn't stepping away from work; it's fuelling it. It allows me to return to the lino with a clearer mind and a steadier hand.

The shop remains quietly open, and the prints we’ve gathered so far, from the early snowdrops to the recent bluebells, are packed up with care between these slow moments. Thank you for allowing me the grace to run this little one-person business in a way that honours the real, unhurried rhythms of life.

This Week's Inspiration

💬 "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." John Lubbock

A gentle reminder that sometimes, the most productive thing we can do is tuck our tomato plants into their baskets, read a book, or simply watch the petunias catch the afternoon sun.