Christmas is coming...

It's picture day today at the studio.

We are photographing the ornaments and getting ready to launch our new handmade holiday ornament collection this Wednesday.

We were playing with tones of blues for the background and waited for just the right light in the studio. This collection is a nice mix of fun whimsical designs like snowman, festive trees, a few juvenile designs like a cookies and letter to santa design, and a snowman riding in a buggy, as well as some traditional imagery like a gold glitter tree and a holiday house design.

We hope everyone likes our designs and make sure you to check out the designs on Dec 1st because like ever year, they are limited and go pretty fast.
~Lianne & Paul

Meeting Matthew Mead and a GIVEAWAY!

Last week I had the pleasure to attend the Matthew Mead Decorating for the Holidays presentation at Company C in Concord NH. Lianne really wanted to attend event to but had went to represen the both of us. So I apologize for the bad photos..that iss usually Lianne's forte.


So I did the hour drive to Concord NH to check out the presentation, not really knowing what to expect. The event was held at Company C, a retail store full of colorful modern home furnishing. They set up a large screen in the middle of the store, showing the cover of Holiday with Matthew Mead. I spoke to one of the sales people and they said they were expecting approx 130 people at the event. I wasn't able to get a seat but I did manage to work my way towards the front of the room to snap a few pics.


Here is Matthew Mead introducing himself to the crowd and sharing a little about his background. If you haven't met Matthew before, he is a very friendly apporoachable creative gentleman. His hour or so long presentation was full of behind the scenes stories (which I personally love to know) and photos of the process of creating and producing his new holiday magazine.


During the presentation he also invited a few people in the audience to come up and see how simple and easy a lot of the projects and desserts are to create that were featured in the book~azine.


Here is the red paper wreath along with other wreath samples that is displayed on the cover of the magazine. Matthew explained to everyone how simple it is to recreate this for your own front door.


There were two tables full of items that were featured in the magazine.


After the presentation Matthew took some questions from the crowd. I found out that Matthew is hoping to make his magazine quarterly and the next issue will most likely be Summer. We were also treated to taste some of the yummy cookie recipes that are in the magazine. I got to sample the Austrian Chocolate Ball cookie..it was yummy!


Matthew then stuck around to meet a great and sign copies of his book~azine. So, as always I was thinking of our wonderful swirly blog readers, I picked up an extra issue and had Matthew sign it (see above image) for one lucky swirly reader....


So here is all you need to do for this early Christmas Gift GIVEAWAY!!

One lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of Holiday with Matthew Mead.
Just leave a comment on our blog sharing something to do about the Holidays (an idea, tip, color, memory... anything goes).

Contest will end midnight MONDAY DECEMBER 6TH (EST) we will pick one random winner and send them this wonderful autographed book~azine just in time for Christmas.

FIVE Optional Bonus Entries - Leave each extra entry in a separate comment.
• Follow Swirly Designs on Twitter and let us know in your comment
• Like Swirly Designs on Facebook and let us know in your comment
• Follow the Swirly Blog and let us know in your comment
• Join our e-mailing list and let us know in your comment
• If you have your own Blog, spread the word about our giveaway on your Blog and let us know in your comment, with a link.

~ Good Luck!!

THIS GIVEAWAY WILL RUN THROUGH MIDNIGHT ON DECEMBER 6, 2010 (EST). WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN USING RANDOM.ORG FROM ALL VALID ENTRIES AND NOTIFIED VIA EMAIL. WINNER WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO CONTACT US BEFORE ANOTHER WINNER IS CHOSEN.
GIVEAWAY IS OPEN TO U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY (18+).

Happy Thanksgiving

We'd like to take this time and wish all of our Swirly readers a Happy Thanksgiving!

We are looking forward to taking a break from the craziness of the studio here and enjoying the time with our family. This is why we love this holiday so much.
Family + food, it doesn't get better than that.

Gobble Gobble!
Lianne & Paul


This turkey was created by our little guy last year for Thanksgiving. Using a piece of paper and covering with color crayons he then colored all over it with a black crayon. He scratched away the black to expose the color underneath. Next he decorated it with seeds and acorns. Not bad for a four year old.

Celebrate the holidays with Matthew Mead and Swirly Designs

Nothing says holidays like Matthew Mead and we are super excited to be apart of this truly unique project that he has created. We have been an admirer of Matthew’s work for years and back in March we had a chance to meet him while he was promoting his Flea Market Style magazine. We showed Matthew some of our designs in person, and he said that our work would work great in a new holiday magazine he was producing and self-publishing all by himself (well with a very small core group of creatives). So after 8 months of sending him design samples and corresponding back and forth we now hold this wonderful book~azine our hands.


We have a beautiful full page shot of our fun mini swirly snowman wind catcher ornaments


and this mini snowman pick we created exclusively for his book~a~zine. Matthew who is the king of styling, took our ornaments and created such wonderful visual treats. Really, the whole book~azine is a visual treat. Each page is filled with inspiring images and stories that evoke the very essence of the holidays.

If you love the holidays as much as us please be sure to order a copy of this wonderful book~azine. Matthew is hoping to make this self-publishing project into a quarterly issue.
We sure hope so too. Thank you to Matthew for making our stuff shine!


**Come check back here on Monday and we will be having a Matthew Mead Giveaway to kick off the holiday season!

Holiday Cheer

We have two fun events here in blogland that we thought we would share with you all...

It’s always nice to support our fellow artists, especially if they are doing a super neat giveaway like this one.

If you are not familiar with Johanna Parker and her whimsical folk art papier mache holiday sculptures please check out her site and see all her wonderful designs and be sure to enter her giveaway and maybe you could add this Frosty the Snowman candy cane stand to your holiday collection this year.

And tomorrow night (Thursday Nov 18th) Company C and the famous stylist Matthew Mead will be doing a Decorating for the Holidays presentation at the Concord NH store location.

One of us is going to make the drive up there tomorrow to support Matthew and his wonderful new book~azine Holiday with Matthew Mead. Swirly is thrilled to be featured in this very unique issue that can only be purchased via his website here

We'll give everyone a recap of the event and hopefully have a little surprise too.

Busy little elves....

We are busy working away here in the studio in these last few weeks before our December 1st deadline.

Above are some shots of the work in process. These ornaments are waiting for a coat of varnish and glitter.

We do have to switch gears a bit this week though. This Saturday the 20th we have our first of two holiday craft shows. We're busy finishing up the ornaments and gathering all our stuff for the craft show.

Anyone who is in the Boston area, come and get an early sneak peek of this years Holiday collection this Saturday, at the 34th annual Wellesley Marketplace.

We hope too see you there!

Swirly is a little bit Country?

Around this time last year we were approached to have Lianne be featured in Country Woman Magazine. We were very excited and accepted, even though it came right when we just moved into our new house and we were living out of boxes.

Well, the magazine arrived in the mail today and we are very happy how it turned out. Truth be told, Lianne couldn't be more further from the country...she was born and raised in the North End, (an Italian neighborhood in the heart of Boston, MA) But we do appreciate the
the profile on our little cottage industry:

We had to take our own pictures and we tried our best to create lifestyle shots. The entry way was the only place that wasn't overloaded with moving boxes.

In this issue we also contributed a Chill Charmer how-to ornament project that is perfect to do on chilly winter weekends.

Hope you are enjoying some of the press we have been getting and let's get ready for the holidays!!

Have a great weekend!

We are Inspired!

The Holiday season is in full gear here at the studio.

We are working vigorously every day, getting ready for our upcoming craft shows as well as getting our new holiday ornament collection ready for a Dec 1st launch on our website (cross our fingers). That being said, we might be MIA in the coming weeks, but we have so much fun stuff to share that we are going to try to post as much as we can.

This being one...

We are super excited that we have a fun Holiday how-to project in a truly inspiring eZine (online magazine) titled Amy Powers' Inspired Ideas Christmas issue that was launched this week. Please take a moment to go visit and check out the awesome issue over at inspire co. We are sure you will enjoy it as much as we did! It's full of wonderful Christmas projects from some very talented artists and crafty people.

So... go get INSPIRED!!

Here is a sneak peek: