About the Studio

A creative studio for the beauty, meaning and imagination found in ordinary life.

Gloriously Ordinary is an independent creative studio founded by Nicola Ball, bringing together original surface-pattern collections, illustrated stationery and The Wellbeing Witch Post.

Although these creations take different forms, they share one purpose: to bring greater beauty, imagination and attention to the things that surround us, the words we write and the quiet moments we make for ourselves.

Hello and welcome, I am Nicky.

I am the artist, surface designer, storyteller and tarot reader behind Gloriously Ordinary.

Gloriously Ordinary is not simply a collection of things I make. It grew from something much more personal: a longing to live with greater attention and to recover a sense of beauty, meaning and imagination within ordinary life.

My creative practice brings together drawing, pattern, imagined worlds, paper, correspondence and tarot. These may appear to be different strands of work, but for me they come from the same place. Each begins with pausing long enough to notice what is present, listening for what lies beneath the surface and giving visible form to something that might otherwise remain unseen.

This is the heart of Gloriously Ordinary: the belief that ordinary life is not something to hurry through while we wait for more important moments to arrive. It is where our lives are actually taking place.

The First Remembering

Gloriously Ordinary began with what I came to think of as The First Remembering: the recognition that I did not want life to become a succession of tasks completed, days managed and meaningful things continually postponed.

I wanted to remember how it felt to be fully inside my own life.

I longed for something slower, warmer and more intentional. I wanted to notice the flowers growing in a familiar garden, the atmosphere created by a particular colour, the intimacy of a handwritten letter, the pleasure of a beautiful piece of paper and the small rituals that help us return to ourselves.

This was not about making life appear perfect. It was about recognising that beauty can be restorative. It can interrupt the automatic movement of a day, bring us back into the present and remind us that our inner lives deserve attention.

The word “ordinary” is sometimes used to mean unremarkable or insufficient. I understand it differently. The ordinary is where love is expressed, where memories gather and where most of what shapes us quietly occurs. When we begin to notice it, ordinary life reveals its depth.

Gloriously Ordinary grew from that remembering. It became a place in which I could explore the relationship between beauty and attention—through the things we live alongside, the worlds we imagine, the words we write and the spiritual practices that help us listen more deeply.

The Creative Practice

My work often begins with a feeling before it becomes an image. It may be an atmosphere I can almost enter, a colour carrying a particular emotion, a fragment of a remembered place or the sense of a life waiting to be imagined.

A flower is never only a flower to me. Its shape, movement and colour can hold a season, suggest a room, evoke a person or become the beginning of an entire visual world. I draw to discover what is there. One motif leads to another; a pattern begins to form; and gradually something that first existed only as a feeling becomes visible.

Creating in this way can feel almost meditative. I become absorbed in the act of noticing: the curve of a stem, the rhythm created when forms repeat, the relationship between one colour and another, and the emotional change that occurs when those elements are brought together. The finished design matters, but so does the process of arriving there.

This is why the pattern collections of Gloriously Ordinary grow from imagined worlds.

Emmeline Marlowe, Linnea Dahl and Valen Quill are not simply decorative themes or characters added after a collection has been designed. Each world allows me to enter a different atmosphere and explore a distinct way of seeing and living.

Emmeline carries the layered beauty of English gardens, old houses, handwritten letters and traditions lovingly kept. Linnea brings Scandinavian folk forms, natural rhythm, birds, flowers and the warmth of expressive simplicity. Valen offers colour, movement, decorative confidence and the freedom of joyful modern opulence.

Through them, I can create from within an entire lived experience rather than assembling disconnected motifs. The worlds guide the flowers, forms, colours, objects and stories within each collection. They allow every pattern to feel as though it belongs somewhere—and as though a life continues beyond its edges.

The Wellbeing Witch Post

Tarot has been part of my spiritual life for many years. I have read privately for friends and family, hosted tarot gatherings and previously worked as a reader through Biddy Tarot, where I completed more than one hundred readings and consistently received strong feedback.

I turn to tarot because it allows me to move beneath the noise of everyday thought and listen for what is trying to be understood.

I do not experience the cards as something separate from ordinary life, nor do I see them as a means of being handed a fixed and unavoidable future. They create a pause: a space in which image, symbolism and intuition can bring something half-known into clearer view.

Tarot often gives form to what we have already felt but have not yet found the words to express. A card may illuminate a pattern, reveal where energy has become stuck, open an unexpected possibility or ask a question that changes the way we see our circumstances.

For me, the value of tarot does not lie in surrendering our choices to the cards. It lies in returning to those choices with greater awareness. Tarot cannot live our lives for us, but it can help us recognise what is present, listen to our inner wisdom and decide how we wish to move forward.

This is why tarot belongs so naturally within Gloriously Ordinary. The studio began from the belief that our lives are changed by what we learn to notice. Tarot is another practice of noticing: looking beneath the surface, listening more deeply and recognising the meaning that can exist inside an apparently ordinary moment.

The Wellbeing Witch Post grew from my desire to allow that moment of recognition to remain with someone for longer.

A tarot reading can be powerful, but its meaning can disappear quickly into the movement of everyday life. Through a carefully written letter, original botanical artwork and beautiful paper pieces that can be written upon, displayed, carried and kept, the reading becomes tangible. It becomes a quiet companion whose meaning can continue unfolding throughout the month.

Each edition begins with tarot genuinely read and interpreted by me. It is then shaped into meaningful correspondence that brings together spiritual insight, creativity and the tactile experience of receiving something beautiful through the letterbox.

The heart of Gloriously Ordinary… Beautiful living is not luxury, it is attention.

Gloriously Ordinary is the place where the different parts of my inner and creative life meet.

Drawing teaches me to look closely. Pattern allows a small detail to gather rhythm and become part of something larger. The imagined worlds give me places in which beauty, character and story can unfold. Paper gives thoughts and feelings a physical form. Tarot asks me to pause, listen and recognise what may be waiting beneath the surface.

Together, they express the same belief: that meaning is not found only in extraordinary revelations or significant occasions. It is also present in the objects we live beside, the words we choose to write, the symbols that speak to us and the moments in which we become fully attentive to our own lives.

Gloriously Ordinary is still growing, because I am still discovering what it wants to become. But its purpose remains constant: to create work that invites us to slow down, look more closely and remember that the life already surrounding us is worthy of our attention.

I hope that something you find here—a pattern, a piece of paper, an imagined world, a letter or a tarot message—helps you experience that remembering for yourself.