she's so quiet she must be on holiday!

uuuummmm OR .... I've been sewing this GiNORmous pile of my designs ::

 All of these designs come from the range of our kits that John Lewis stock...

 ...and pretty soon 28 John Lewis Haberdashery Departments will each have a mini garland display on show, all made by me....

website update

lots of favourites have been restocked....

....along with some new ribbons....

....I just could not resist Foxy Santa....

....or this cute Fox in a Christmas Jumper!....

Some cute snowflake buttons have arrived...

...and some 8mm safety eyes for all you toy makers :-)

 

This is Baker's Cord - softer and chunkier than twine....and it's lovely!

 

Last Year's Cotton Christmas Ribbon has had a revamp and new designs have been added....

 ...and the bumper pack of them is finally back in stock!

 26m of lovely Christmas Ribbon....all packaged up in a Christmassy package :-)

 

quick links :: 

cotton christmas ribbon is here & here

foxy ribbons are here

snowflake buttons are here

safety eyes are here

bakers cord is here 

sparkle on Sunday

our ever popular glitter material has been restocked - loads of you asked when red was coming back and it. is. here......

...and so are Glitter Material Mini Rolls!

quick link:
all glitter material sheets, rolls and ribbons can be found by clicking here

a free hour!

lots of kit making means lots of bag making .... these are the bags that are in the mini snowman kit  -  they take quite sometime to do but they always look so jolly when they are finished :-)

and here's another photo of a lot of boxes on a pallet, containing LOTS of kits that we finished today - destined for John Lewis ....can you see the difference with our door???  John has draught proofed & insulated it to help keep us toasty warm this winter...just a coat of varnish needed it finish it off (and that'll be done when we next get 5 minutes to spare!)

what did you do with your free hour this morning??  I did the VAT return....joy of joys!!!....I left it a bit late this quarter ... you get 5 weeks from end of quarter to money due date to file it and pay....well it's now filed, payment due on 7th November ..... phew  - I don't like that hanging over me waiting to be done!

my kind of work

I've been doing QUITE A BIT of sewing ::

LOTS ...

 ...and LOTS of die cutting (of which these photos are just a taster!)

LOADS of parcel packing .... a LITTLE BIT of stocking up shopping....a BIT of kit making....and NOT A LOT of blogging...but I'm trying ;-)

the past week at paper-and-string

Our kits are selling fast in John Lewis - so much so they asked of we could get an order in to them sooner than originally requested....of course we said yes, which meant a lot of late nights , early starts and hard work...and we managed to send this order out on Thursday ... 4 days early!...

In amongst the kit making I restocked the little hoops....

 ...introduced new glitter ribbon bows....

 ...filled up the felt glue....

 and stocked up on snowball pom poms ;-)

 John's been making lots of our Tree Garland Kits because lots of you are enjoying our special offer ....

 ...and we've both been rolling A LOT of mini rolls .... all of these went out to one customer earlier in the week and she should be knee deep in felt sewing heaven right now :-)

 I did manage to snap a few of the John Lewis kits before they got boxed up....

....it's great seeing them all finished - and they should be on John Lewis's shelves asap!

One of our Best Selling Christmas Kits ..... with an added extra!

Launched in 2011 and at the the top of our best seller list that year, and every year afterward is our Christmas Tree Garland Kit

The kit contains patterns, instructions, all the (premium 40% wool) felt AND materials you need to make a 9 tree garland with a selection of embellishments: pom poms, ribbon, ric rac and buttons AND the next 50 of these kits sold on our website will also contain a string of Christmas 'lights'.

 Christmas Tree Garland Kit (£15.00) Available on the website here
 Christmas 'lights' (£2.00) available on the website here

swap parcels

All 55 swap parcels are wrapped, packed and ready to post tomorrow - keep your eyes peeled for the postie :-)
Lots of you have asked if I'll be doing this again and the answer is a great big YES!  this has been great fun to organise and I hope each and everyone of you enjoys receiving your swap parcel, as much as I have enjoyed sending them all out.  All the decorations have a tag attached with information about the maker of your decoration(s), some have contact details and some don't - I've added links if I had them to the photos in the swap album on facebook if you need to contact your maker :-)

PS the birthday treat offer is still running - you can read all about it here

a Birthday weekend

Birthdays that fall on a Friday are just the best! 
And tomorrow (Friday 3rd October) is my birthday AND it's also paper-and-string's birthday....one turns 37 and the other 7....seven whole years of felt selling and stitching - AMAZING!!!
SO with a Birthday filled Weekend looming I've come up with a little something for all of YOU....if you place an order during my birthday weekend of £10 or more I will send you one of these ::

 A Birthday Treat from me to you.....

Each Birthday Treat contains a unique discount code - there are 5 discounts, all sent out at random ::
£2.50 off .... £5 off....£10 off .....10% off ..... 20% off
each code can be used once (on my website) and they expire on 30th Nov 2014, so you've plenty of time to use them

Hurrah for Friday Birthdays!

***SMALL PRINT***
one Birthday Treat will be sent per customer, if you place more than one order you will receive one Birthday Treat.
qualifying orders must be to the value of £10 (before postage charges) 
orders need to be placed on October 3rd, 4th or 5th 2014
etsy, ebay or website orders all qualify.

before and after....

 I started this order over the weekend - the snap of it half done on my sewing tray was taken yesterday and here they are all done today ::

swap update

all swap entries have been photographed and added to the swap album on Facebook ... in total we have :
120 handmade Christmas decorations made by 55 talented crafters!  There are already mummers asking if I shall be organising another swap for next year, and i think I shall! This one has been great fun so far...with the best bit yet to come!....All swap decorations will now be wrapped and packed and your address labels will be attached to parcels ...I'll be posting them out the week commencing 6th October so keep your eyes peeled for postie :-)

the SWAP is closed

Wednesday 24th September (TODAY) is the last day for entries into our Hand Stitched Christmas Decoration and swap - and BOY - did a lot of you leave it to the last minute!

Just look at this little lot!! 
I will be opening, photograping and sharing the contents of all of these at the weekend* - huzzah!
* that'll give a couple of extra days for any stray parcels to get here :-)

Happy Birthday to my Mum!

40 felt cupcake embellishments sent to the same customer as yesterdays haul......definitely not as good as the chocolate cake Mum makes for our birthdays but it's nice that my sewing themed itself so I could show my finished cupcakes on Mum's birthday - hope you had some proper cake today Mum!

my name's Sarah and I love hand sewing

 it seems like a long time ago that I last did a 'piles of sewing' post - these piles are the results of my hard work this weekend - 100 hand cut & hand sewn felt embellishments finished, and now on the way to their new owner ...

...and tonight I will be putting the finishing stitches to 40 cupcakes :-)

Decoration Swap Update

The pile of hand stitched decorations for the swap is growing steadily - the closing date to get your decorations to me is Wednesday 24th September, so I'm expecting a last minute flurry!  that's NEXT WEDNESDAY people! (yes Clare, I mean you ;-) haha!)
all the info is here :: swap details
and all maker info is on the photos over on facebook in this album

and the winner is....

 the random number generator has done it's thing....

 and the winner is comment #82 which was ::
Stephanie Burchatt said...
Fingers crossed for this. would be perfect to make with my little man before his brother/sister arrives this Christmas!

congratulations Stephanie!
please can you email me (Sarah)  your address so I can get your Angel Tree Topper Kit in the post for you :-)
mail {at} paper-and-string {dot} co {dot} uk