buttony dreams

If I had an actual shop where customers could come in, could see products in the flesh and hold them in their hands, I would definitely have a pick & mix button section.

It would be amazing - I'd have tables & shelves full of buttons in all sorts of jars, bowls, pots, troughs and trays....

 ...customers could come in & scoop up or count out the buttons and fill their own bags with whichever buttons they fancied...I'm sure some customers would spend hours, sifting through to find their favourites, and others would buy in a hurry, scoop - fill- scoop- fill, some customers may be overwhelmed by all the buttons and spend ages looking and thinking and not buy a thing...

...some would be happy to buy a few buttons, others would buy bags and bags and be in button heaven....One thing I know for sure is that every customer in my imaginary pick & mix button display would see these buttons and have to have one...or two!

After all,  I *HEART* BUTTON and I'm sure you all do too!

*sigh* I love my job!
My Virtual pick & mix section can be found by clicking here

ooohhh I forgot to say:  my felt delivery arrived today and all the colours are now in stock again, for those of you waiting for red and natural, it's back...and I have tonnes of it!

a free hour

 I used my free hour* very wisely yesterday - I HAD to finish a new set of felt bunting/garlands for John Lewis.  I have had them in the works since August-ish and have made them as and when time allowed...and as always it was a bit of a panic at the end!!

 I have made 8 strings with 72 felt decorations in total!

Half are for John Lewis Milton Keynes and half are for John Lewis Oxford Street!  They are due to be hung this week sometime so if you're nearby look out for them!
* for those outside the UK our clocks went back an hour so that's where the free hour came from!

bbbbbrrrrrrr

It's certainly chilly outside today, the wind is whistling through the gaps in my old front door and the windows in the workshop ... it makes a great whistle!....but luckily the fan heater, my jumper and working hard are keeping me warm as toast!

I've been absent from the blog because I have been sewing non-stop and have created another colourful pile of cuteness

 AND today I have also photographed and listed all sorts of exciting new things for the shop:

 

I have stocked up on Ric Racs, sewing threads, zips, twine and Mini Brads

I now stock Christmas Papers & Cards and tonnes of Ribbon Gift Packs! (this is what was in the boxes on my stairs!)

Stocking cards and papers is a new thing for paper-and-string ... I got them because I love the design, and although I am not a paper-crafter I can imagine making loads with these:

This year I have TWO Christmas ribbon packs to choose from

AND new grosgrain polka dot packs...

...plain grosgrain packs....

...AND baker's twine packs too!

phew!...it's too early for a glass of wine, so it must be time for cake!
Quick Links:
Christmas Cards click here
Christmas Papers click here
Ribbon Packs click here
Ric Rac click here
Sewing Thread click here
Mini Brads click here

unpacking

This afternoon I have cut out all the orders I need to sew over the next few days ... nearly all of them are hand sewing so I will do them at home in the evenings/early mornings .... my day time work will mostly be working my way through my deliveries...this is just two of them (yes I know, storing boxes at the top of the stairs is a bit silly, but I can't leave them at the bottom because then i can't open the door!)...I have another 3 deliveries that I have unpacked and left on the table, ready to deal with tomorrow...I'm aiming to have all my orders made and all my deliveries unpacked and on the website by the end of Sunday, wish me luck!

marathon #3

the boxes are completed ::

I love the colour combinations that customers choose...the orange with pink cupcake is so bright, and the purple with miss monkey is cute...but I think my favourite box today is red with panda...one of these days I'll make myself one of them!

marathon #2

I'm a lean-mean-parcel-packing-machine*... 2x big sacks  + 2x little sacks + 2x special deliveries (they aren't allowed in sacks - Post Office rules!) = over 50 parcels today!

* actually, i'm more of a round & cuddly, happy & smiley parcel packing machine, but that doesn't sound as cool :-)

marathon #1

this weekend I took part in a one woman sewing marathon...it started on Friday evening, continued through some of Saturday (I had to do the paperwork and accounts in between - boring but vital!) and continued until late Sunday...

...It was great fun!

 Today I started my second marathon entitled 'the most humongous parcel packing marathon the world has ever seen'

and I have two more marathons still to partake in:  the 'unpacking of mammoth deliveries marathon' and the 'many many boxes to sew on the sewing machine marathon'!...and orders are coming in thick and fast so I may well do another sewing marathon soon too!!
It looks like a busy week ahead, hope you'll come along for the ride ;-)

Halloween Decorations

This time last year I designed these cute little fellows really scary Halloween creatures:

and the tutorial has been up there, in the top bar (in the tutorial section) all year long, but I thought with Halloween fast approaching it might be worth jogging your memories, in case you'd like to make some of these too!

They are small decorations so all you need are off cuts of felt, some Halloween-y ribbons and some mini brads for eyes and cheeks...just be careful though ~ they are way scarier than they look ;-)
quick link :: tutorial is here

a NotOnTheHighStreet Addition

Last weekend when I was adding new goodies to the website (remember?) I also spent time photographing these A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. lavender bags.  

They are not made by me, they are made by Suzie aka Dotty Red

 We are blog friends with a shared love of guinea pigs and Suzie is a dedicated felt addict customer and well,  I just love these bags, so I asked if she wanted to put them for sale in my NotOnTheHighStreet shop 

Any Dotty Red Blog readers out there will know that Suzie has recently jumped in with both feet and taken her sewing business full time (a truly scary step!)  and I hope it's all she dreams it will be :-)

 So if you're shopping for kits or handmade decorations from me, why not buy a few pressies as well??..everyone loves lavender, and these bags are so squishy and full of detail....PLUS if your purchase is over £30 then p&p is always free on NOTHS!!  woo-hoo!!

quick links:
dotty red blog : click here
my NOTHS shop : click here
Suzie's amazing lavender bags : click here

chasing my tail

I have a million and one things to do and I can't stop thinking of new ideas of things I'd like to make!

 It always happens like that when I am busy - I think my brain switches off whilst I'm packing parcels (or paying bills or chopping felt or counting buttons!), and goes mad deciding what to make next!

These photos are of sewing that was finished this morning - starting sewing at 6.30am really helps to get the orders out on time!....cross these off the list, only a million* things to do now!! :-)
*I am of course exaggerating - it is busy here but I LOVE it!  so many customers are buying kits and felt and crafty things, I love looking at the picked orders and wondering what they will be made in to.

weekend trio

This weekend saw a lot of sewing prep, but not much actual sewing.  I did manage to finish a little trio of felt cuteness:

I have no idea who elephant is, but he sure is lucky to be loved by little monkey!

New Shop Stock!

Hooray!
Today I have added tonnes of new things to the shop...so this post is full of pictures and links to tempt you to buy all my lovely new things :-)

 owls + scarfs + Santa hats = the cutest Christmas ribbon ever (click here & here)

 spools of woven Christmas ribbon (click here)

lots of stripey ribbons (click here and here)

 aaahhhh sweet:  All My Love ribbon with polka dot hearts (click here)

 more Christmas ribbons: snowflakes and polka dot hearts (click here) and Christmas Puddings (click here)

 Amazing glitter Sellotape, it's so sparkly and I love it! (click here)

 Jingle bells in a smaller size (click here)

 mini wooden shapes (click here)

 fantastic new flower buttons in mix bags  OR pick and mix your own (click here)

 more Christmas colours...flowers and garlands and buttons (click here, here & here)

 luxurious velvet ribbon, all the old favourite colours AND new ones too! (click here)

 Bright Christmas Buttons (click here)

AND last but not least:  Halloween Buttons (click here)
all I have to do now is find somewhere to put it all :-)

Scuppered.

This morning I spent hours & hours taking photos of lots of new products....merrily loaded them onto the computer, edited them and filed them away....but then,  when I went to log into my website I couldn't!
It seems that the server for the background work is down....the website is still there and still working , but I can't do any work to it...the gurus of website cleverness are fixing it so hopefully I can do it all tomorrow instead!
So I decided to fill my actual shelves up, rather than my virtual ones, and to go home early to do sewing ::