All good things come to an end...

...so the saying goes, and holidays are no exception! We arrived home at 3am this morning after a week in beautiful, sunny Praia da Luz in Portugal. True to good old English form, it rained as we drove home.

The tan is already fading and it's back to work tomorrow; it's beginning to feel like the last week was just a lovely dream!

We stayed with friends in an incredible villa on a hill overlooking the beach at Praia da Luz. I would definitely recommend James Villas, the villa was extremely clean, service was excellent and there was always someone on hand to help (if, like us, you're silly enough to lock yourself out for example).

I painted this watercolour from the balcony. I wanted to capture the subtle colours of the terracotta rooves and cool white buildings against the backdrop of lush green trees and gorgeous blue sea.

Just to prove it did happen and it isn't just a figment of my imagination, here I am, painting.

Here's the painting and view for comparison. I tried to be accurate but used a little artistic license!

I didn't quite get round to finishing this one, a painting of the contents of my suitcase.

I have to admit there were a few more clothes than pictured here!

This little drawing contains all our memories from our holiday. I thought it might look nice with a bit of colour and framed, but I expect I'll get too caught up in new projects to finish this one!

Today I finished sketching out a paper cut which I hope to start next weekend as I need to borrow my Mum and Dad's scanner to transfer it to the cutting paper!

It'll be the most intricate one I've done yet but I'm really excited about getting started.

I designed it for the Papercutting Workshop 'transportation' challenge on Facebook. The following photos show a bit more of the detail.

The pencil gives a bit of perspective to show how teeny it is!

I'll leave you with a few more of my holiday snaps, hope you've all had a lovely week! Don't forget you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter which I update in between blogs :)

PS. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you're interested in commissioning a paper cut; I've finished a couple for other people now and really enjoy them!

I'm sharing this post on the following blogs: Manon Popje's Illustrations, Be Different Act Normal, Handmade Harbour and Sunny Simple Life.