Shortlisted for The London Bookfair Selfies Award

(now available to purchase from shop)

How it all began…

I would never have imagined that I would be able to create my own children’s book. But after having my three children and reading many books every single night, I began loving the illustration aspect and wondered if it was something I could turn my hand to. Drawing and ideation has always been my favourite part of my job and story telling from a consumer point of view. The more I started drawing little scenes and stories the more I wondered if it was something I could do. I didn’t study illustration at uni, nor am I a graphic designer, but the idea started to become more of a reality when I would sit doodling on my train journey to and from London. I had so many ideas…

But then one year after Christmas, nearly 3 years ago, my little boy was devastated that our Christmas elf Eddie had stopped moving at night (because obviously he was losing his magic spirit as Christmas had passed) and he cried when we had to put him back up with the decorations in the loft. He asked me “Where do all the Christmas elves go? Will he be lonely?” And I wondered myself, what do they do between January and December each year? And this was were the story began…

So I sat by the fire one eve in January and started to write and I scribbled out the ideas as little sketches and began to bring the pages to life. I’ve never written a book before, but I had read thousands so I figured this was my biggest teaching. I juggled this between other jobs and commissions and running around after my three children. I worked harder and harder to create all the magical details they insisted must be present! And at every opportunity I used their ideas and asked for their opinions, after all they were my consumer market and biggest critics!

I’ve learnt that children simply LOVE to hunt for details in the pictures and I’ve lost count of how many ‘Where’s Wally’ books or similar we have. So you will see I have added some “Where’s Eddie?” pages to add that little extra bit of fun, which my three are in firm approval of.

So what do my children make of it all? They’re pretty excited. Giving them the first ‘real’ printed copy was an actual dream come true. And I can’t tell you what it was like to watch and hear them read it. I’ve written them their own story, it’s something we’ll all treasure forever and maybe one day they might read it to their own children. And this was my biggest reason, I wanted to inspire them to see that any idea can be made a reality. Ideas and dreams are so important, and there’s no reason that they aren’t achievable if you work hard enough.

I hope that now other children can enjoy the story, and families can read together sharing this story year after year as part of a Christmas ritual. It’s a tradition in our house to read a different Christmas book each night of December. It will be pretty amazing to add this to our collection.

And when Christmas is over, many more children might not be so sad, as they imagine all the mischief and fun their little elves will be having until next Christmas…

Danielle x