In the years that followed I would while away many hours making models from salt dough, dried pasta or empty boxes and tins. In my teens I began making jewellery from polymer clay and selling it at a local craft market. 

Since those days, I must have tried my hand at almost every craft! And I'm still always dabbling (with varying degrees of success) in all manner of art and craft projects. One thing I'm particularly keen to get back to is bear-making, something I took up while suffering a horrible time of grief following the loss of my dad. It was a slow, gentle craft that helped to soothe my soul. I think creating, crafting and even just coming up with ideas for designs you may never make is incredibly therapeutic!

I think it’s safe to say that I absolutely love both designing and crafting. I also have a huge passion for vintage and I am an avid collector of all manner of vintage and antique bits and pieces! Again, this has been a lifelong enthusiasm of mine.

So, it will be of no surprise that my creations and designs are heavily influenced by my love of vintage style. I am a nostalgia addict and I love to create a warm sense of nostalgia and a flurry of happy memories in all that I create.

The result of my obsession for crafting, my love of all things cute, my passion for vintage and my desire to recreate a sense of comforting, fuzzy nostalgia was Ava Loves Rosie - a happy little online place encompassing all of the above!

A little bit about my design process…

When it comes to the designs featured on my range of gifts and homeware, I use a variety of different resources:

Typically, I work with licensed graphic packs from artists and illustrators - I love discovering new artists, font creators and pattern makers and I almost always combine the work of several different artists within one design.

Last year I started working with the Mary Evans Picture Library to license work from artists popular in days gone by, such as Molly Brett and Rene Cloke. 
I am also thrilled to work with some modern artists - Sarah Summers and Natacha Chora. It has been a delight to work with their illustrations and showcase their work and I hope to expand on this further, working with more artists.

I work with Stegmann Licensing to create designs featuring Brian Paterson’s Foxwood Tales and Cloudco Entertainment to produce products featuring Holly Hobbie.

I also sometimes choose to blend traditional creativity with modern technology to create completely new designs. This process begins with sourcing vintage imagery that inspires me or creating my own (in my opinion, not very good) illustrations and then using AI design software to rework and transform the image. Afterwards, I spend a significant amount of time editing, reworking, and sometimes redrawing parts of the image to make it fit into my vision. I build on these elements by adding textures, patterns and text, carefully creating each design to ensure it feels fresh and new but with a deeply nostalgic vibe. AI software is a tool that assists me in this creative process; it allows me to recreate the look of old imagery and I put a lot of effort into reworking and refining each element to ensure it aligns with the timeworn, vintage look I seek. My aim is to create unique designs that feel like they were produced many moons ago; perhaps back in the 1930s-50s. I then add (in photo editing software) details like rust effects, worn edges, fading and so on to create a sense of age and to further build on that vintage 'feel'. 

I want to be completely transparent about how AI is sometimes used as a tool in some of my designs because I know not everyone likes the notion of AI. Other digital design software I use includes Procreate (using digital brushes), PicMonkey design (when adding textures and fonts) and Indesign (our printer uses this to set up our little book).  I acknowledge that all of this is a very high tech/futuristic method to create designs that look old/timeworn! This process - namely the fact that I sometimes use AI technology as a tool to alter images - isn’t for everyone. I would like to say with complete honesty that I absolutely don’t intend to present myself as a trained artist by any means. My aim is to design products that add a little cuteness to your home, bringing the faded charm of old, vintage imagery back to life in the 21st century and into everyday homeware and gifts.

With all the different artwork I work with - from licensed vintage illustrations to digital designs - the resulting designs are scaled proportionately to fit a range of mugs, signs etc which are all printed and pressed here in our little garden workshop at home.

I do hope you enjoy your visit to my little online shop. Thanks so much for stopping by and reading a little more about my process and what inspires me!