Ghosts, Magic and stickers!

It's been quite a week here...

Unbelievably, I woke up on Monday morning to find that my Kickstarter Campaign for The Little Shop of Magic had reached its funding target. That means the book is going to be made, and, well, what could be more exciting than that? There’s plenty of work ahead, but I’m so pleased this little story is going to make it out into the world. I can’t wait to see how far it goes.

We have three weeks left of the campaign, and I’ve just added a stretch goal of a sticker sheet for every order if we hit £4k.

I love stickers, and there have never been any Hotel Flamingo stickers, so this is going to be GREAT! I thought, ‘What would I like to make as a fun add-on?’ and stickers were the answer. Who doesn’t remember something from their youth that they stuck stickers all over? Your bike? your guitar? Maybe stickers are the answer to everything?

Any way, we’ll see how that goes, but as you can probably tell I’m already over excited about the prospect of them.

Halloween shenanigans

In other news, this is the week of Halloween, which means it’s also the festival of my daughter’s birthday. Interestingly, Halloween birthdays come with them an awful lot of work. Cakes, outfits, decorations, trick or treating…

Last year, she went trick or treating as a Dalek. We spent the week making the outfit, only for it to disintegrate in about twenty minutes in a rainstorm. The photos are great, nonetheless.

The short-lived Dalek costume. Turns out cardboard bodywork are as tricky for the aliens as a set of stairs.

This year, she went as a Yiga Clan member from The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild video game. This outfit was less labour-intensive, but no less fun. It wasn’t raining this year, either, which meant she and it returned in one piece.

They are annoying and love bananas, but the Yiga Clan look really cool!

Another Halloween treat was a trip to West Horsley Place, otherwise known as Button House from Ghosts. Probably our favourite family TV show, Ghosts is always being rewatched here. It’s joyful and always funny, even on the 80th watch.

Me dying like Fanny Button.

The house is Grade I listed, so many of the rooms inside can’t really be touched. This means at least a couple of the rooms look exactly as they did on the TV show. It’s amazing how a house that’s cold, damp and seen better days can feel so warm and lovely to be in simply because of a TV show. Still, if you put enough love into a project, and create as much joy as the creators of Ghosts did, then what other outcome can there be?

If you’re ever in the Leatherhead area, not far from the M25, you could do a lot worse than go and visit. You may need to book well in advance for a tour though, as they’re really popular. I mean, you too could pretend you’d just been pushed out of a window like Fanny, or even re-enact being shot in a duel and dying under a tree like Thomas.

How to die like a tragic poet in a botched duel.

Don’t forget, the Kickstarter Campaign for a new children’s book trundles on, and if you want to get involved there’s now potentially the added incentive of stickers! Go on, you know you want to!