Hasta La Ideas

Regular CR blog readers may recall our post last year about Lydia Leith‘s Royal Wedding Sick Bags. Now the Carlisle-based artist has created a batch of new products to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June…

Among the new batch of Jubilee-themed products are two sets of temporary tattoos with which to display one’s allegiance to our sovereign. The corgi tattoo is a firm CR favourite:

And yes, if all the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June become too much, Leith has produced some new sick bags for the occasion:

Leith’s informs us that the Royal Wedding sick bags she produced last year totally changed her life. “I was 24 years old with a part time job at a cinema when I first printed my royal wedding sick bags,” she says. “I didn’t expect to sell any, I just made them to entertain myself because I love designing and printing and it was a fun idea.

“When my sick bags got seen online, they became an overnight hit. Next thing I knew they were in every big newspaper across the world, trending on Twitter and I was selling thousands. I was thrown in the deep end and suddenly I was running a business. For three months solid I was replying to press emails, signing sick bags and taking boxes of orders/envelopes to my local Post Office. I was so busy I couldn’t take one day off. I had to get my parents and next door neighbors to help me too, it was good fun. I sold around 10,000, and I hand signed each one.”

Apparently inspiration for the jelly mould struck at Leith’s parents house. “My parents have an old image of the queen hanging on the wall,” she recalls. “I was staring at it one day whilst thinking about what I could do for the Queen’s Jubilee. It just so happened that earlier that day I’d been served jelly at a friend’s house. All of a sudden I had the idea!”

“Jelly is the ultimate party celebration food,” adds Leith. “I love the idea of everyone taking part making their own jelly queen to create centrepieces for their street parties.”

lydialeith.com

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