Majolo

Elsa Lambent is a French designer with not only a degree in Product and Packaging, but a Masters in Advanced Studies in Luxury. Sweet Play is a diploma project she created as part of her studies, which explores greater interaction with food, namely chocolates.

Sweet Play is a selection of sweet components which can be fitted together with syrups, fruit and nuts to create unique chocolates, designed entirely by the consumer. You start off with either a white, milk or dark chocoate shell - each shell has a slot for a variety of different fillings including wafers, biscuits, nougat or caramel - and each shell has a depression on top that indicates which type of topping would complement each chocolate best.

I love the whole concept of being able to make your own sweets. There are probably an infinite amount of combinations that you could create, as long as you have the imagination, and the courage to do so. To me, this is like Lego for foodies, but, after you have had the fun of building your own, personalised chocolate treat, you also get the pleasure of devouring it. I would probably opt for a milk chocolate shell, a slice of marzipan in the middle and a nugget of crystallised ginger on the top. Yum.

You can read more about Elsa Lambent and Sweet Play at her → website.

Valentines day, the universal day of romance is the day where we traditionally exchange cards, flowers and chocolates with the people we love. But I think that the day is best for those who suddenly get the courage to tell the person who doesn't know that you fancy/like/love them that you, indeed, think that they are kinda special and fancy/like/love them.

Forget about texting, tweeting or even the classic Facebook poking, to me, the best way of telling someone that you have secretly had a crush on them for the past 12 months is to send them an anonymous card, and then hope that they either realise or don't realise that it is from you depending on how brave you are.

This is a selection of Valentines cards that I have designed. I have used a variety of techniques, including paper cutting, illustration and collage. You might feel that my designs are a little cute, wobbly and quirky, but in a way, so is love!

So feel free to download, print and use these free Valentines day cards, and go on, tell someone you fancy them!

• I love you 1
• I love you 2

This is officially the 100th post on Majolo, so in true illustrator style, I have made a picture. Under normal circumstances any celebration would have involved logging onto Hungryhouse and ordering either a Pollo alla Milanese (Chicken fillets coated in Parmesan cheese served with Spaghetti) or a very large Holland Pizza (hollandaise sauce, bacon, red onion and Italian sausage, topped with rocket salad). But sadly it's gone all healthy in Camp Ralph at the moment so now we stretch our celebrations to doing an illustration and drinking a glass of cold London tap water. I am so hungry I may just pretend my yellow and orange ProMarkers are lumps of cheese, and eat my pens!

Anyway - here's to the last 100 posts and I am truly looking forward to reaching my next goal of 200.

I always find the beginning of a new year to be quite exciting, it's a chance to reflect on the past 12 months and plan for the next 12. For me, it's all about how I can be healthier, happier and more creative! The expression 'Out with the old and in with the new' is so cliche but, it also does have a lot of truth in it. To me, as an artist, the new year is like starting on a new sheet of paper, however, this year I may need a bigger metaphorical desk as I am hoping that, with what I've got planned for 2012, I'm going to need a huge piece of paper.

At the time of writing this post it is the start of January 2012. And as the start of the new year isn't complete without a brand new calendar, I felt it appropriate to round up a selection of the most creative and inspiring calendars that I could find.

First of is a really cute DIY papercraft stand-up calendar made by Scout Creative, a design company based in Portland, Oregon. The downloadable PDF, which includes easy to follow instructions is available to buy from their Etsy shop. Each month has it's own character and theme and some come with special accessories.

The rest of these calendars are also available to buy from Etsy - these are just a few that I loved, but trust me, there are lots of great ones out there...

• Cute printable animals by Loopz - view Etsy shop
• Don't count the days, make the days count - view Etsy shop
• Letter press - view Etsy shop
• Little colourful peacock - view Etsy shop

This Christmas card design was made for my Mum and Dad. The letters and trees are all cut by hand using a Fiskars finger tip craft knife, the stars are made with a craft punch. I like the way that some of the letters are actually cut into the background of the card to match with the trees at the bottom.

This card is part of a set that I designed for Christmas 2011, the 3rd of which can be viewed → here.