Time off work :: round up

Lots and lots of photos today of all the things I have managed to achieve whilst being off work for the past 5 days, I reckon I've averaged 14 hours each day day sewing!! :: Tortoise magnets ::
:: mini cupcakes ::

:: mini cupcake brooches ::

:: mushroom magnets ::

:: cupcake magnets ::

:: tortoise brooches :::: mushroom brooches ::

and the next photo is of the new idea that I eluded to yesterday :: they are iron on patches !!

:: I think they'll look great ironed on to cushions or tote bags :::: or even onto a fabric covered notebook ::

I've managed to put some of the new things on my website but without any descriptions as yet, just photos, but I'll probably finish that tomorrow.

Looking back like this makes me realise how much I've done....all I have to do now is tidy up!!

my fridge

Before I show the picture of my fridge please let me just say that our Fridge (and the entire kitchen. Make that the whole house) is knackered and needs replacing...we're getting there but it's a long slow slog!!

As you can see the front of the fridge is full of magnets (it's the cool wall from Top Gear!!) but what's that on the side???

It's only magnets made by me!!

I'm having so much fun these few days, I had planned for tomorrow a big website shake up BUT I'm going to continue sewing and do it on Sunday! I has a flash of inspiration yesterday which I've been working on, but it isn't done yet, hopefully this time tomorrow I can share it :-)

Deliveries and Tortoises

My felt delivery arrived already! I ordered it yesterday morning and it arrived this morning, how's that for great service? Another delivery arrived from the postman, from my friend Katy

This is Pete :: The Naughty Astro Boy :-) I bought him from Katy's shop and look how cool he is ::
I Love his space goggles and super happy face :: Thanks Katy, he's amazing :-)
In between deliveries arriving and me packing and dispatching orders I did manage to get some sewing done :: Tortoise Brooches ::
This one is my favourite ::
I've just put them in my etsy shop and now I'm going to put my feet up and have some ice-cream :-)

chop chop chop !!

Yay! a Monday at home :-)

I had a few little jobs to do today, which I managed to get done before lunch, including visiting the Post Office, buying some more white card and some Bondaweb (I was on the look out for some fabric too but can you believe that the staff in my local Fabric Shop have never heard of Moda???) oh and phoning through my great big felt order :-)

1,000 felt squares are winging their way here as I type!!

This afternoon I got down to business with the Bondaweb ::

I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll have some finished items to show rather than piles of cut out pieces!!

Scissor Happy!!

This week I have been mostly cutting out felt.
*cue the Fast Show ::

I've also put together another order for felt, which I shall place tomorrow, I can't believe how much felt you guys get through!! and I thought I was a felt addict ;-)
Today is the first of 5 days off the day job, so expect to see a lot going on around here over the next few days.

Cupcakes and Foil

Cupcakes have been sewn ::

*(please imagine a picture of cupcakes)*

And a gift was received ::

*(please imagine a picture of a pile of foil rolls)*

Lots of thin metal foil that my friend thought I might like so he rescued it from the bin at work (do people actually through things like this away? it's criminal!) I love it but don't know what I will do with it yet!!

* there will be pictures tomorrow, I have a hangover from hell (my fault, I know!) and this morning I was not capable of anything, let alone taking photos! I did manage a very busy day at the shop but now am on the sofa under a blanket waiting for my home-made pizza to cook.
It was a good night out ;-)

**photos added Sunday 27th January....felling normal again, thank you!!

cute and cupcakes

I have received quite a few orders over the past week or so and I have bought sensible things like packaging materials and tissue paper and bondaweb, but I also gave in to temptation and bought something I have had my eye on for a little while ::

His name is Martie and he is from Ireland, you can see his friends here I particularly like Gerald too!! After I'd blogged yesterday I spent the evening chopping up felt and have lots of nice piles of cupcake bits to assemble tonight or tomorrow.

Have a good weekend :-)

Guess What?

But I guess you knew that, right? As recommended by kind comment leavers yesterday I did indeed forsake the tiding and spent the day sewing ::

I've done a few more color combinations of my new letters, which are now in my shop and can be ordered in any letter and colour combination.

Then, just for fun, I made a little hedgehog.
Sweet!

Tidiness

I fear I have given the wrong impression...it was made obvious by John's BIG laugh at all your (really sweet, thank you) comments about my being tidy and organised. It really is only my felt and fabric that is tidy (well, the whole craft storage area) but the rest of our flat? It's messy! and the mess is mine :-)

I'm off work tomorrow so I'm planning on catching up with a few more errands and I might tidy up ..... or I might just sew all day !!

Fabric Swatches

I finished my swatches :: The most time consuming bit was trawling the Internet to find out which designer or range they belong to, but now I have it should make re-ordering a lot easier! I don't know why but I have a kind of fear of running out of supplies...I have loads of fabric and felt and buttons and ribbon etc etc but I still actually worry about running out. I think lots of people don't like to cut into new fabric and I think that is part of it, but I am really going to try to use what I have before I buy more of anything.
Hopefully now I have noted down the names and can find the fabric easily I'll feel happier using it all up before I buy more.....perhaps I should do this with my ribbon selection......?

a beach made of wood

I don't know if you've seen it on the news or not but this is what Worthing Beach looks like right now ::That's the view from the bottom of our road towards the pier
That's from the pier looking back toward our roadclose up of a bundle tied with strong knotsand an artistic display created by the waves.

Craft-wise I am being organised again and am half way through making a swatch card for my fabric collection ::

Apparently today was the most miserable day of the year but so far I've had a great day...made even better because I'm on holiday next week, not the whole week but near enough. I plan to spend this week getting super-organised so I can get some serious sewing done :-)

packages

Today I managed to finish off the packaging I mentioned the other day ::

I've only shown small photos because I'm sure it would be a bit dull to look at lots of the same!!

This evening I've started to write a list :: it's a great big list that is SO big it's kind of scary....but once I've ticked every thing on it then paper-and-string will be heading in the direction I planned for this year!!

It's a funny thing with me but when I am concentrating on something (like my big list) the other bit of my brain goes a bit mad and new ideas keep coming at me, so now I have a new list of new ideas to toy with!!

I'm having a sale !!!

That's right, it's sale time.....


There are lots of cute bargains to be had, and when they are gone they shan't be coming back!!

Nearly There

For a while now I have been working on a selection of new designs. One of my large customers wants a range of products especially for them. They have sold my designs before so I knew what kind of things they may like ( I hope ) Some are variations along popular themes, some are brand new designs.

I've shown most of them as I've been sewing them together but now they are all done.

All I need to do now is finalise the packaging using this little lot :: But for now I'm off to finish tinkering* with my website

*for tinkering read :: I started a small job before work this morning which then created a good few hours work for myself!! oops!!

such a lovely day

I had a real 'me' day today.

John had to leave for work *very* early today (5am) so I had the luxury of waking up whenever I liked. Which happened to be 7.10am. Earlier than my alarm normally sounds!!

I had a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs (lots of black pepper) with granary toast and a big mug of black coffee ...... YUM

and then I settled in for a day of sewing ::

It started raining about 3pm and got a bit too dark to sew, and really 3pm is too early to shut the curtains and put the light on so I updated my etsy shop with all the goodies I made today. I've watched a load of day time TV and have thoroughly enjoyed myself.

It's days like today which make me want to do this ALL the time

But now I'd better attend to the dishes and laundry.....

comments and WIPs

The other day I posed the ever worded 'comments & how to reply' question.

It seems there is a simple answer.

The only piece of action required is that anyone who uses blogger and who would like comments returned/replied to needs to edit their profile. I have not suddenly acquired the ability to fathom these computery things BUT SarahandJack have!

If you would like to activate this bit of blogger then log in, go to 'edit profile' and there is a little tick box (it won't have a tick in it) that says ... show email?

Tick It.

PLEASE ;-)

Then your profile will look like this (with a nice blue link to your email address) ::

Mine does now because I've just ticked my box.......

Doing this means that you can reply to comments via your email...aren't computers clever!!

Christmas in January

My friend Katy sent me a present. It was supposed to be a Christmas present but the postmen lost it :-( but Katy wasn't beaten by the whole of Royal Mail, oh-no she shopped again and sent me another gift, and this time it arrived! Hooray!!

You know it's going to be a good surprise when the wrapping is this cool ::

look what I got ::

Thanks Katy, you're the best :-)

Craft-wise I've joined the crafting 365 group on Flickr, and am slowly adding one photo for every day of this year so far. I like it that there are lots of people out there who craft every day too :-)