Olivia sticks with Layla- The Blog

We are now August and Grace!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 23:31:00 +0000

Hello there!

Well, how rubbish I haven't updated this blog for over a year... however this will be my last post on the Olivia sticks with Layla blog....

As Olivia sticks with Layla is now rebranded to "August and Grace"!

Why the reason for such a big change?

After the success of Olivia sticks with Layla we have decided to expand to include ranges not just for girls aged 0-8 years but any age and both genders!

From a creative point of view it is nice to be able to explore all the genres of design we like- from fashion illustration to Victoriana, to collage to country classic.

So Olivia sticks with Layla so longer seemed a good fit as though it a sweet child-like name so no longer represented all styles to suit any recipient.

After much thought we choose August and Grace- August is my birth month and Grace is my youngest daughters middle name and we thought the two names made a pretty combination. Timeless, elegant yet not too specific.

So come and join us

Our new website: www.augustandgrace.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/augustandgrace

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AugustandGrace

See you over there for the next part of our journey....

Mother's day Card

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 17:41:00 +0000

It's Mother's day on the 30th of March in the UK. There is only a few day's to go! I'm not sure what's planned for me but it's s a surprise apparently. I just love being a mother too my beautiful daughters! The are both so cute and are now each other's best friends despite the 5 year age gap. Happy Mother's day to all the mums out there. You do a great job!

I have made a cute Mother's day card based on a revised version of my Father's day Breakfast in Bed card. You can personalise it and even request a little space inside the card to draw your very own picture. You can get in here.

Let me know what you did for Mother's day!

Love is the air....

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 19:41:00 +0000

Only 9 days to go until Valentines day! Love is the air....

What do you think of the cute couple above? I had great fun with this illustration. I have been experimenting with new patterns and fonts too. It's hard when you building a brand as you don't want to repeat the same old thing over and over, and you want to experiment- yet you have to stay consistent with you work and design to remain cohesive.

An update on the website- I have decided to put it on hold for a minute. I think I would be better off building up a much bigger product line first and then launching a site.

I read an interview with an independent jewlerry maker the other day (sorry I cannot remember her name) and she said "sometimes my mind thinks of ideas faster than my hands can work". I completely agree with her on that.

I have about 47 illustration ideas and about 133 product ideas now! The problem is I overwhelm myself and end up doing nothing sometimes and this is very frustrating to me. I cannot wait to have a much bigger product line.

I was thinking how nice it would be for me to start to get to know other designer-makers on the "real world" too- either by being in a collective or attending craft fairs and so on. Being part of online communities is wonderful but I think it would be nice to meet people in real life too.

Also I still need to get to grips with how far in advance you need to have your seasonal products ready. I have about 4-5 more valentines cards ideas but really I should have started back in November to get them ready on time! I'm still half tempted to try and squeeze one more design in...

Well at least I know now I must get ready for Mothers day...now where is the pencil

Valentines day card for children available from http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/oliviastickswithlayla/product/valentines-card-for-or-from-children-kiss

Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:19:00 +0000

"Balloons Invitation" Available from Notonthehighstreet.com from 95p each

It hasn't been the best start to 2014 for us.
For details I won't trouble you with, but it hasn't been great.

One of the problems that I can share with you is that my website has been hacked. It was a wordpress site and, yes, I had heard they can get attacked but I suppose I didn't think my site would for some reason. Pretty upsetting.

Its made me realise I just don't have time to deal with the technical side of a website as I was always struggling to maintain it so now I have spent every spare moment looking into options for a new hosted website so someone can help me when I need it. I would say to anyone considering wordpress for their ecommerce only do it if you are very, very technically savvy.

It is one thing to know how to create a site, it is a different art knowing how to fix them when they go wrong- seriously wrong. I spent days trying to fix the speed of my site and it is now way as simple as making sure images aren't too big- trust me!

I made it slower. I didn't really have anyone to check if what I was doing was ok.

On another note the new birthday invitations have been flying of the shelf, already over 100 sold in less than a month- a real record for me! Thank goodness for notonthehighstreet.com right now, as I wouldn't really have any orders at all with a hacked site.

I wanted to share this beautiful photo of you of Layla helping to cook her very first dinner. She is seven and half now and although she has helped bake plenty fo times, she has never really helped with dinners (minus the odd summer salad) and we think it s lovely to get involved at this age. Hopefully her cooking skills are more like her dad's than mine!

New work: Birthday Balloons

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 00:42:00 +0000

I have had such fun recently getting around to designing new ranges. I haven't really had the chance since October due to the Christmas rush to do any more work so it has been a real joy! I had this idea for Layla running with balloons over a year ago when we visited the Teddy Bear's picnic. Layla was running across the field and I thought it was such a wonderful image to capture the joy and freedom of a childhood Summer. Above is the illustration so far and rough ideas for an art print and greeting card. Below is the greeting card idea.

Greeting card idea

The greeting card is a bit of a departure from my normal style with much more decorative text, but I'm pleased so far. I am also trying to develop a better range of personalised art prints as art prints are my passion. No doubt the images will change a million times before I settle on the final image, but I would love to hear what you think. Is the new text style to much? Do you prefer the simpler style? How about the border? Again, is it too much? Thank you for any comments!

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 20:39:00 +0000

My goodness, I cannot believe I haven't written since the Summer. Time has flown so quickly.

Although my Etsy store hasn't picked up yet, my Notonthehighstreet.com one has done much better and I'm pleased to announce in December I reached the 1000 sales mark!

Jenny from Not on the high street even sent me a little congratulations card you can see on my Facebook page.

I have also learnt a tremendous amount about retailing, mainly just how far in advance you need to plan seasonal products. I'm thinking I really should have nailed valentines day 2014 products by now, but If not sure if illustrations of children particularly translates to the romantic season. More research needed!

We have had a wonderful Christmas so far. The lead up to Christmas was very busy with lots of orders, especially of the Personalised Christmas cards for children.

We visited Garden centres near us to see Santa, went to Polesdon Lacey in Bookham to visit the house as it originally would have been decorated for Christmas and did Christmas crafts. I tried decoupage for the first time with Layla on some wooden hearts and they were a disaster! My husband made gingerbread houses, cinnamon cake and Nigella Lawson's Christmas morning muffins which were far more successful.

We have been severe storms in the South East. The pub we were supposed to have Christmas eve lunch in was without power so it was cancelled, the pubs next to us flooded and some friends had Christmas by candlelight.

We managed to get a last minute table at a pub I used to work in as teenager (a long time ago!) for Christmas dinner and it turned out to be wonderful. It was a dingy place when I worked there all those years ago, but now it is a wonderful country style pub with cosy nooks and fireplaces.

We also went to Carols in Shere village square and it was just magical!

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and are not too sad it is all over.

If you have any products you would love to see in the range next year, then please do get in touch!

Above are the four personalised cards I released this year. I had such fun making them all!
Finally to all my blog readers, supporters, friends, family and customers I would like to say

A Royal baby is born!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 21:02:00 +0000

Its has been a wonderful time here in England recently with the whole nation celebrating the arrival of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge baby son named George Alexander Louis.

He will be the third in line to the throne, who was born on Monday at 16:24 BST, will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge, who was born at St Mary's Hospital in London, weighing 8lbs 6oz.

Our family watched live as Kate & William came out of the hospital carrying their new son. I felt quite teary as I know what a special, life changing event they were experiencing. I was also amazed at how lovely Kate looked for someone who had given birth only the day before. Certainly nothing like me!

Below is my own contribution to celebrating this very special event in British history.

Congratulations!

New work!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 00:54:00 +0000

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the blog. I am staggered to see I have had nearly 9000 visitors to my blog now. Well it's nearly the end of school term- hurrah! I have designed a personalised thank you teacher card for the end of term. Your teachers name and child's name will magically appear on the chalkboard.

You can purchase it on Etsy on Not on the highstreet. I hope you like it!

World of wonderful wesbites

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:46:00 +0000

Well things have been really busy. Really busy.

My not on the high street shop has really started to take off meaning I need to dedicate a good chunk of the day to getting orders out. Hurrah for orders!

As well as this I am rebuilding my website from scratch this time as I want to add my own ecommerce (this has caused a LOT of headaches!) as well as getting new product lines out there and designing upgrading my mailing packaging.

To be honest I thought I was mad trying to learn how to build my own site at a time like this but despite lots of tears in the beginning (including that awful night when all my website would show is error 404!) I'm really glad I pushed myself to do this.

Firstly I feel like I have really achieved something. I feel quite proud, which is a nice feeling as sometimes I get sick of myself for being one of those "fall-at-the-first- hurdle" types but for once I really hung in there.
It will be worthwhile in the end as I will have the website exactly as like as this way I'm not restricted by so templates and of course I wont be paying the monthly costs to keep the site running. It feels to stressful to think what if one month something went really wrong and I couldn't pay that month (this comes from my husband losing his job twice- now we hate paying monthly commitments ,we would rather pay things off there and then).

Anyway I did try and lot of shopping cart software just to try it out. I tried ;

Supadupa,
Big commerce,
Shopify,
Goodsie,
Indie Made,
Americommerce,
Weebly ecommerce,
Prestabox,
Prestashop,
squarespace,
Volusion,
magento go,
create.net,
webkeepers
moonfruit!

Phew! There is probably a lot more but I was exhausted by the end!

For what its worth, anyone body looking for their own shopping cart software I liked Bigcommerce the best as you had lots of choices for selling personalised products and the whole thing looked quite slick.

Goodsie is also nice and easy, with lots of customise options and you can embed your shop onto your website which is a nice touch.

If your in the UK squarespace isn't viable right now as it use stripe as a payment gateway which is only available in the USA I believe.

Well here what the new mailing packaging looks like... I was so, so excited to get it! Like a child on Christmas day!

This is the round sticker design for product packaging

The sticker for the mailing packaging

Thank you!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 22:14:00 +0000

Hello everyone! I just wanted to stop by to show you a little card design I have been working on. The style of the illustration is a little different to my usual but I am very pleased with how she came out (I think you know a drawing has worked when it comes to live on he page and this little one certainly is full of smiles!).

I think she will be made into thank you cards and thank you notes- maybe a "thank you for my present" type of a note.

I hope you like her :)

What we have been up to

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sat, 25 May 2013 14:35:00 +0000

Hello everyone! Things have been very busy recently. Firstly Paul, my husband, was out of the country for a week so I had to close both my online shops down for a week as with two little one's I would have not had the correct focus to produce the best work my customers deserve.

Secondly I have been ill with not one but two viruses in a row- oh lucky me! After a visit to the doctor yesterday the suspect I might even have glandular fever. Let's hope not, as two of my friends have had this and it went on for weeks, if not months. Hopefully the medication I have been given will beat the pesky bugs.

Now my shop has been back online for the week the orders have been growing at a very steady rate. Especially for personalised cards which are proving very popular. I'm very happy but it is daunting as you want to get each and every order right. I'm still very new to this so every order is a new learning curve.

As you can see from the top picture, despite all the illnesses and orders we have tried to squeeze the odd family day out into our schedules!

This picture was taken at the "Teddy Bear Picnic" just down the road. It is a lovely day as all the families come with a picnic and teddy and sit by the stream. There is a mini fairground, stall, crafts, face painting and games such as duck races! Strangely enough though I bumped into not one but two people from my past- the girl I sat next to English in and my old neighbour!

I have also added two new illustrations to my work. One is "Baby & stork" which I'm happy with as it is so cheerful. I plan to release a boys version too soon, which will be my first boys drawing.

The second illustration is my ballerina one with the working tittle "The reluctant ballerina". I plan to release this as series of three ballet prints you can buy individually or purchase all three as set.

I have lots of ideas in the pipeline. Lots of ideas for series of drawings and am in talks with various companies about getting the illustrations onto other products too. So watch this space!

Finally I was also asked by our local church to make a holiday club poster., They already had the illustration so I did the graphics. As you can see it is a huge departure from my normal style as I had to work in harmony with their existing look but it was great fun!

Hope you are all well and I would love to hear your comments,

Happy Mother's day!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:36:00 +0000

For all those of you all over the globe who are celebrating Mother's day today here is a free illustration especially for you! Please feel free to email this to your mother as a free mother's day ecard, post it on her facebook wall or print it out. Happy Mother's day to all the wonderful Mother's in the world! Love Claire x

Introducing the new card range...

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:51:00 +0000

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the first "Olivia sticks with Layla" card range. I have been working day and night behind the scenes on this range from sourcing the best card stock to finding the best photographer for the cards.

There is a line of personalised and non-personalised cards. I will be launcing the personalised cards on line first (as well as a couple of blank versions) and we already have some local stockists for the non-personalised versions!

The photography was done by the beautiful and very talented Lillian Spibey. Lillian is passionate about working with children, so its only natural her passion showed throw when taking photographs of products of children.

You can find the cards for sale at both my Etsy and Notonthehighstreet stores.

Staying original... How?

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:34:00 +0000

One of the things that is tough for a children's illustrator is staying original. How do you keep coming up with fresh ideas for new drawings without looking like you are a mere copycat? Its no easy task. The other day I thought of drawing a girl with an umbrellas and hearts and rain falling on her. I added the idea to my notebook. Then last night I stumbled on the drawing already done by somebody else on Pinterest. Do I still go ahead with my idea and draw it in my way or will it look like I cannot think of my own ideas? The other dilemma is, was this idea truly mine or had I seen this other illustration before, forgotten about it but my subconscious had pulled it out of the filing cabinet?

The problem is we are all subconsciously effected by our culture and for a children's illustrator , also the great illustrators that have gone before us, may it be EH Shepard or Shirley Hughes. We are all influenced by our contemporaries, as well as been shaped by our own childhood. Even if we don't mean to be influenced we are.

The next issue is finding things to illustrate that interest the illustrator themselves ( to be sure the passion shines through ), that will interest others and can be illustrated beautifully and successfully. Finally, but bluntly , it also, probably needs to be commercial too.

There is a limit to finding ideas that fit all the above criteria. Most of us would end up with the same ideas in the end.

So I think the solution for now is, strive to be original but realise you wont always reinvent the wheel with every drawing. Just make you sure you execute your idea well.

The most important thing is maybe not the subject of what you draw, but that you are drawing what you truly love.

Hopefully that is the key to originality.

How about you- how do you stay original? Does original subject matter or is it only original style?

Belle Bebes Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:13:00 +0000

Im very pleased to let you all know that the fantastic Belle Bebes Blog also have featured some of my illustrations! Its a lovely blog run by Verity & Debs and worth a visit.

You can see the blog post about Olivia sticks with Layla here .

Thank you Belle Bebes!

Personalised baby illustration

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:02:00 +0000

Drum roll.... I am pleased to announce the arrival of my new Personalised Baby print! The style is very simple with no background and a new type of font ( which I will probably be changing all my print fonts too). It is also the very first drawing of baby from front on view so I was a bit nervous about getting the face right.

However I am very pleased with how it turned out and love the simplicity of this illustration. You personalise this by adding the baby's name and changing the hair colour. Or you can leave the text off -it is up to you!

So if your looking for a personalised baby gift, maybe this print could be the perfect.

It is available in Etsy and will be on Not on the Highstreet shortly.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/128775467/personalized-baby-first-birthday-gift?ref=shop_home_active

Happy Easter!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:51:00 +0000

I hope you all had a very enjoyable and an eggscellent Easter! What a lovely treat to have four days at home as a family with the bank holidays either side of the weekend.

On Friday the girls visited their Grandad and then we had a takeaway in the evening. On Saturday we had friends over and Sunday the girls had a surprise visit from the Easter bunny .Layla then hid the eggs in the garden for our very own egg hunt. It was so cold outside we were all huddled up back inside within 10 minutes though! Also Layla hid the eggs on tip of some bird poo... so perhaps not the best Easter egg hunt in history...

Monday was a relaxing day. Layla played at her friends and we made a visit to the farm shop to get some of their famous bread, followed by a countryside drive to make the most of the little bit of sunshine. Yes, we should have walked but I don't think we can take anymore little red noses as its still Winter temperatures.

Note to Spring: Please turn up. Thank you.

Happy Easter all!

My beautiful daughters, aged 16 months & 6 3/4

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:24:00 +0000

A fun little image I made for Olivia sticks with Layla...

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 20:01:00 +0000

One snowy evening (in March!) I decided to create this fun little image. What do you think? It is, I guess a mini advert for the illustration. I loved seeing all the little characters coming to life...

"Pushing my toys" illustration updated

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:31:00 +0000

I decided to revisit this illustration as it felt to wishy -washy. I added stronger lines, bolder colours, and blocks of colours.

I would be thrilled to hear your comments!

"Afternoon tea party"

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:12:00 +0000

The afternoon tea party is a very special illustration to me, as it is my first one I ever created for "Olivia sticks with Layla".

However, it sort of got forgotten about as life got busy with a travelling-all-the-time-work-husband and a very lovely but, erm, full on 1 year old girl.

However this evening my lovely husband took the kids too bed early so I could finally get the illustration back out and finish it.

As I applied the last bit of colour I must admit, it felt like it came to life....

What do you think?

Our new look, our new logo!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:01:00 +0000

I am proud to show you all our new logo.

Please let me know what you think!

As much as I loved our old logo it just wasn't very "sensible". After I got a test batch of greeting cards back I realised how hard the logo was to read so it was back to the drawing board.

I was a little lost at how to go about the design but that very day some board books for Olivia arrived from zulily.com and I loved the use of the wonky and different coloured letters in the books so that whats inspired the design.

So ta-da, here it is!

The new logo.

The logo with the new banner for Facebook, Twitter, this blog and so on.

The old logo.

Kettle of Work, Bottle of love

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 11:14:00 +0000

I wanted to share with you the most beautiful mothers day poem my 6 year old daughter Layla presented with me last week.

I though the idea of a poem was very inventive and clever with a good dash of genuis thrown in. I will treasure the little poem forever.

Layla's Mother Day Poem

Kettle of work,
Bottle of love
Cup of care,
Box of kisses,
Spoonful of hugs,
Jar of fun smiles,
Plate of happiness,
Bunch of sprinkle of jobs,
Pouch of sweetness ,
Pot of Business,
Sack of safeness,
Mix it together and say the magic words;
Hip, hop, rush, run, make my mum,
Find that makes a.... mum!

Thank you my little Layla for your beautiful poem x

Mini Tour of our home

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Well, if your any thing like me you probably love having a ~~nosey~~ tour of other peoples homes.

So I present you a mini tour of our house! (I say mini because frankly its not a big house and the kitchen is still rubbish).

Enjoy!

"Here comes Baby blog" names me as top 10 Etsy illustrator!

noreply@blogger.com (Olivia Layla) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000

I am just thrilled that the lovely Kirsty from "Here comes Baby" blog has named me as one the top ten illustrators on Etsy.

Thank you so much Kirsty. Be sure to check out her lovely blog.