In 2021 I was lucky to have been able to exhibit and sell my work all over the north of England and even North Wales too. I was able to spend a lot of time working on my illustrations and textiles as well as selling my work at some stunning venues including Victoria Baths and Hebden Bridge Community Centre. I've had the luxury of spending a lot of time with my little family and exploring lots of new places on walks, even sneaking in a camping trip with my mum to Malham, somew

On Monday last week the Facebook owned apps crashed and failed to work, this included Facebook messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram. Until this point I hadn't realised how much I had relied on these apps to network and communicate with my creative community. My world felt a lot smaller for an unknown amount time (thankfully it was only a few hours). I opened my Molly Newport Design Instagram account for my illustrations and textiles work when I was in my final year of uni in 201

Every year I like to find inspiration in emerging makers and what a better place to start than the university where I studied for 3 years, Manchester Metropolitan University. *Disclaimer: all images used in this blog post are from the Manchester Metropolitan University Degree Show 2021 website* For the last two years the university has had to change the way it runs its degree shows due to covid restrictions, this year the degree show is online. I have had a nosey through the

With a serious lack of any deadlines to work towards, I gave myself a short 6 week project to work on some new ideas. When I initially set out the project I didn't have any particular aims or inspirations that fuelled it, I just wanted to create a set block of time that I could measure as well as have a deadline that I could work towards. Having this project during lockdown has really helped me to focus and feel like I'm making the most of my time. Now that the 6 week project

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with the wonderful team at Manchester Mind. I was approached by them after creating an illustration for The Small Fry Collective's 'Who You Zoomin'?' project in the summer. As my work is usually around the subject of mindfulness and staying connected, I found it very fitting to work with a great charity that focuses on these things. I usually use animals in my work to keep the characters age and gender neutral so that everyone can relat

Every year I sum up how the year went for me and my business, as we all know, this year has been a little strange.. It’s had it’s ups and downs and some hairy bits in the middle. As the pandemic hit and the UK went into national lockdown many businesses had to adapt quickly. Amongst this chaos some businesses and opportunities flourished. Businesses such as The Thriving Box Co and Post Snail Press were born and they encouraged us to send surprises in the post to our loved one

I am a huge supporter of shopping with local independents, small businesses and makers. This year has tried it's absolute best to try and grind many small businesses to a halt or in the worst case wipe them out completely. With markets being limited, trade events being cancelled or postponed and non essential shops forced to close at a moments notice, these small businesses owners have tried every option to try and keep the cash coming in. Fortunately there are some fantastic

This year I decided to take part in Anastasia Berry's Spooktober drawing challenge. As I had taken part in an Inktober challenge last year, I wanted to push myself again to keep up with the prompts this year. Some of Anastasia's prompts I disagreed with, 'twins' and 'scar' for example. I am a twin and I don't think we are particularly scary, I also think that scars should be celebrated and not feared. The drawing challenge really pushed me to draw each day and to come up wit

Some very exciting news for you all this week! Throughout lockdown i've been looking for new ways to get involved with different projects, I recently joined the Post Snail Press collaborative with my Wolf Design. This project is connecting artists as well as encouraging others to stay connected as well as giving money to a great cause. Post Snail Press is a collaborative project created by Nicola of Fernandes Makes and Laura of Loaf & Bear, who set out to create a range of af

This week I have created a little illustration in response to a project by The Small Fry Collective who I have worked with in the past. This project is working with Manchester Mind to keep people talking during these times of lockdown as well as to raise money to help those who are feeling isolated and may be struggling with recent issues. The Small Fry Collective is made up of two illustrators, Maisy Summer and Aine Gordon, they work to bring creatives together to "encourage

I have some exciting news from lockdown, recently I was contacted by Keep Manchester Thriving, to include some of my greetings cards in their delivery boxes. Keep Manchester Thriving are a company that started up in Edinburgh and have since branched out to Glasgow, Bristol and now Manchester. They are working with local producers to deliver a box full of goodies straight to your (or a friend's) doorstep, the idea is to keep local small businesses busy and to keep delivering g

I mentioned in the last post how much I love to send and receive things in the post, I love creating something special and posting it to a loved one for them as a surprise - it's so much more personal than a text! With the social distancing rules and trying to keep everyone safe, I wanted to create some products that could be downloaded and printed out at home- completely germ free! This greetings card has endless possibilities, it can be printed out as many times as you need

You heard that right! I've been busy working away to create 9 new designs, most of which are inspired by different lockdown scenarios. I absolutely love to send and receive things in the post, I find it so much more rewarding and thoughtful than a text. So with this new collection I want to encourage everyone to send snail mail to their loved ones to remind them that they are loved. Suddenly having a lot more time on my hands has meant that i've been noticing a lot of small t

Hello Everyone! I hope you're keeping well and not climbing the walls just yet, I'm just writing up about how i've been keeping sane with some hand embroidery. Not many people know that my degree is actually in textiles and that I specialised in embroidery- just not in the traditional meaning. Occasionally I really enjoy getting back to my specialism and finding comfort in hand stitching. One thing I do love about embroidery is that it can suit every budget and most situation

During the coronavirus lockdown, I have been creating new ideas and projects that I can create using things i've found around the house. Last week I learnt how to make a tiny zine out of an A4 sheet of paper and inspired by the Woodland Trust, I took my tiny zine on a walk around our local park and filled in what wildlife I could spot. Making a zine is great because you can change the size of the paper to make a massive project or a teeny one, you can change the colour, thick

One thing that i've learnt to be very important recently is the need to make time to make mistakes. I'm not talking huge financial melt down but smaller scale mistakes within my drawings. When I get the chance to sit down at my desk to draw it's only one day a week, not giving me much time to experiment and play before it's time to pack up and go home. This is usually when I feel the pressure to make good work and this is usually when I make the work that I am least happy wit

Craft & Flea Market, Manchester Cathedral February 2020 In 2019, I started to take selling events more seriously and I applied for larger events including specialised print fairs. At the start of this year I began to miss the buzz of events but was worried that I wouldn't sell enough work to cover the costs . This was a bit of a gamble for me, so I applied for the Craft & Flea- an event i've never done before and just went for it. My initial worries about the event was that t

Throughout the year I fill in a list of my 50 favourite moments (inspired by The Design Trust), I find it really useful to look back over at the end of the year to see what i’ve achieved. I think it’s really important to take time to reflect on how far you’ve come in a relatively short space of time. In 2019 I did some things that i’ve never done before, I filled in my first tax return, I attended my first ever life drawing session and I also illustrated the windows at Market

Over the Christmas break I was lucky enough to spend time with family and friends in the North East, this meant plenty of inspiring walks and adventures. I've picked out a few of my favourites to share with you. Northumberland is filled with historic and natural landscapes, I love these old castle structures surrounded by tufty textured greenery. These castles are a slight upscale from the Scottish bothies that I was inspired by over summer but they are just as full of charac

With my day job comes many unique and interesting opportunities, between the 10th and 12th December I was running a pop-up shop in the Manchester School of Art cafe representing Marketplace Studios and CornerShopNo70. It was really inspiring to spend three days in the place where my story began, over 3 years ago when I was studying textiles and creating monsters! It was so humbling to display and sell lots of handmade goodies created by talented makers from all over the UK, a