Johanna Basford, Inked

Website: http://www.johannabasford.com/
Blog: http://www.johannabasford.com/blog
Tumblr: http://www.mydesktoday.com/

Basford is an artist, an illustrator, a designer and importantly works with ink and pens to produce her beautifully decorative and maximalist works. She has an interesting website, with photographs of her previous and present works and has a range of stationary and fun things that feature her beautiful drawings all over them, crawling with an abundance of life, and all inked perfectly.
I bought a colouring book as a birthday present for my cousin a while ago

Its a beautifully printed book on this nice thick paper stock that has a kind of a cotton rag or watercolour paper feel to it. A lot of art galleries I have been to stock some of her stuff so I would recommend checking them out, and also explore her website, it's a beautiful little place on the web.

She works, not only on paper but on 3D objects, has produced illustrations and drawings for various fashion retailers such as H&M, created works for publishing and so on.


Also she loves Staedtler ink pens, as commented on in her blog post: http://www.johannabasford.com/blog-article/247
Staedtler is an important brand in stationary and for designers, artists and makers and well anyone! They produce top notch quality stuff, pens that I have never experienced leaking or breaking unless I have been unduly horrible to them.

Archived Snip: Alexis Bittar, bracelets and bangles

Beautiful bits of jewellery mixed with walls cracking and crumbling. 

This jewellery designer is pretty clever and amazing with his variety of bracelets and bangles.
Not a single rough or sharp edge, the jewellery shapes often takes exaggerated forms, tubular and always so beautiful. They have an edge of other worldliness about them that I find fascinating, I think its his use of kind of frosted materials, or materials with a translucency to them.
Lucite, a material used to form the some of the bangles and bracelets he makes, is a type of thermoplastic which is known and used as a shatter-resistant alternative to glass, a material traditionally associated with bangles due to the way glass clinks and makes sounds when bumping or hitting each other - like bells? Plastic bangles don't share this sound, their more clunky really in that respect, but their safer and stronger than glass. Lucite is also known as perspex or acrylic.    

References:

Alexis Bittar (2014) Alexis Bittar. Available at: http://www.alexisbittar.com/ (Accessed:15th April 2014).

Ellis, K. (2009) 'Alexis Bittar Crystal Bangles', The Gloss, 1st November. Available at: http://www.thegloss.com/2009/11/01/fashion/alexis-bittar-crystal-bangles/ (Accessed:15th April 2014).

Scottsdalefashionista (2012) 'Flower power ! Don’t miss Alexis Bittar’s spring jewelry trunk show at Nordstrom !', 19th April (Online). Available at: http://www.scottsdalefashionista.com/flower-power-dont-miss-alexis-bittars-spring-jewelry-trunk-show-at-nordstrom/ (Accessed:15th April 2014).