hard at work

I spent yesterday tidying and stock taking

(boy, I know how to have fun....I also went to Argos and bought a clothes airer, but that's WAY too exciting to talk about on this post!)

It's something I have been meaning to do for AGES (the stock taking, not the clothes airer shopping)...hopefully it will mean that I'll be super organised, with full up shops from now on...I don't know about you but I can always find time to make things, but the photographing and listing of them sometimes gets put off!

So I updated my website, etsy and ebay shops, and many many things are now back in stock, hurrah!

Oh, and my see-through bags arrived so I spent a while putting my new *much-better-even-if-I-do-say-so-myself* style brooch kits together, this is the new package design...

...I'll show you the rest tomorrow :-)

the right time

The past couple of weeks have seemed a bit wonky ... I'd been waking later then normal and generally mornings seemed harder, I'd put it down to post-holiday-getting-back-into-a-routine thing BUT this morning I awoke before the alarm, enjoyed getting up in the morning sunlight and I feel back on track and ready to start my week.

YAY for putting the clocks back an hour!

I used my extra hour wisely yesterday, I've tidied my stock shelves and re-stocked on stationery that I print myself. I have also been working on my brooch kits and have re-jigged the contents and design of them. I just need to wait for the bags I pack them in to arrive and I'm ready to re-launch them!

rambling on

I really am enjoying running my paper-and-string shops. Sometimes it seems hard fitting everything in around my day job, and sometimes I wish this WAS my day job (well, actually I wish that a lot, but I'm not ready yet!) but mostly I love the challenges each day brings, and all the things I am learning along the way.

I love that there are so many hats that I must wear...sometimes my book keeper hat, sometimes my post master hat, or my designer hat, or sewer's hat. On Wednesday I had my Kit-Maker's hat on and I had fun, I was able to use my teeny-tiny amount of computer art skills to make the instructions, pattern and the cover, it didn't all go smoothly but I got there in the end! And last night I wanted to do something different.

So I did.

I made a monkey :-)

quite frankly, any job that involves making a monkey must be amongst one of the

best-jobs-in-the-world !!

and a job that makes me happy :-)

Kit number TWO!

I made another kit!

This one is perfect for Christmas, either to make yourselves or to give to crafty people
These Robins are quick and easy to make so I've included enough materials to make two Robins
For the moment they are only for sale on Etsy but after my next day off (Sunday) they'll be in all my shops :-)

deliveries

Look what the girls at work bought me for my birthday ::
It was ordered ages ago but was out of stock but, WOW, I love it so much!!

Under the monkey cup is a little bowl for biscuits...perfect :-)
On Saturday the postman also bought my package of brooch backs, which were fast running out, but now I have loads again :-)

At the moment I am working on my next make-your-own kit, hopefully *fingers crossed* it'll be ready after my day off on Wednesday....

finished order

There is nothing I find more satisfying than completing a large order and seeing everything together ::

I like to imagine that the recipient of the parcel gets a big smile on their face seeing all these happy faces looking at them from inside a box!

Plus, making so many items at once is a fantastic photo opportunity!

Lovely!

name in print

Pictures just like that one seem to be popping up all over blogland, the excitement for a new sewing magazine has been extraordinary and I am extremely proud that one of my felt designs was asked to appear ::

I made my sample, wrote my instructions and kept quiet (which is very hard when you have a blog!) but the wait has been worth it to see my name like this ::

The only surprise was that the article/pattern didn't have the name paper-and-string anywhere near it, and that surprised me. Come on, be honest...who knew my real name?
There was this advert for my website though :-)

Thank you to everyone who has sent messages congratulating me for this xxx

routine changes

I have SO many things to blog about but no photos to accompany my ramblings!

I simply cannot get my head round the fact that by the time I get home from the Post Office, it's too dark for photos!

Autumn has just plain snuck up on me!

So it's time to shake up my routine and start taking photos BEFORE I go to work. Except I forgot to charge the batteries this morning and I only managed just one photo!

So here it is ::

a great big mountain of mini rainbows waiting to be wrapped in tissue.

I'll be back tomorrow with magazine news.

progress

I am really enjoying sewing this order together...progress is good and hopefully the order will be complete tomorrow...all I need do is stitch round the edges and stuff with fluff!

chop chop chop

I've been busy with my scissors!

Lots of little piles of pieces ready to sew together for an order from a shop in Plymouth.

circles in boxes

Today the man from BT came and fixed our phone. We haven't had a phone since our return from Dorset, although the broadband worked fine (I have no understanding how that works...I did ask, he said some words, I nodded and I still don't know!!)LOL

I also spent a couple of hours doing my paper-and-string sums, I normally try to do it every week but somehow managed to put it off and hadn't done it for four whole weeks!! oops

I also sewed up all the circles that I cut out and showed you yesterday, but I guess you knew that because I showed you pictures!

scissors and winners

Going back to work after a holiday always seems hard....I've had loads of extra things to do but not a lot of inclination to do them!

Things are gradually getting back to their routines though...including me finding lots of time to cut out felt and make lots of nice piles :-)

In freebie news I have used a *ahem* new version of the Random Number Generator...he's called John (he also doubles as the best boyfriend ever!) & I asked him to pick a number between 1 and 52 and he said NUMBER :: 21....which means that Rachel who owns super-cool blog Owl and Robins is the winner :-)

Well done Rachel, please email your address and I'll send your prize on it's way

back to work

Our holiday was FANTASTIC!

We got back late on Saturday....on Sunday I spent a good while printing stationery and packaging items so I could parcel up all the orders I had received whilst on holidays.

Then our friends cooked us a late lunch, which was perfect :-)

It's nice to be home and I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things.....but I certainly didn't miss the 35 minute queue at the Post Office everyday!!

I will draw the freebie winner tomorrow, so pop by and see if you've won :-)