exciting times!

For the past few weeks I have been working on a project with my sister.

I ordered in extra felt, ribbon, beads and packaging bags.

My clever sister provided the artwork, which I printed on the new printer.

She also re-drew my *awful* pictures to use as instructions, which also got printed on the new printer. (she's a clever one my sister, you know)

And the end result?

My new make-your-own kit ::

make-your-own Owl Ornaments!

Yay!

Each kit contains :: pattern, illustrated instructions, felt (4 pieces), ribbon, felt ric rac, and glass beads...

They come in 5 colours and cost just £5.oo each!

They are on the website already and will be on Etsy in a short while

bobble-y felt

Yesterday I had the urge to make something with the felt I test washed the other day.

I love the texture of the washed felt, so thick and lumpy!

So I started to sketch a bear

which turned into a pattern, which turned into ::

A little bear!

his tummy is synthetic-sheepskin-fleece but the rest of him is

lumpy-bumpy-bobble-y felt :-)

letters

This teeny pile of sewing is the sum total of all my crafting this weekend!

Worthing held it's annual seafront festival this weekend, Friday night was a free firework extravaganza, then on Saturday was a free concert, warm up act was ...Bucks Fizz!!! and then Ultimate Earth Wind and Fire ;-) Then on Sunday there was a HUGE American car show, followed by drinks in the pub.

John is working away again so tonight I will be delving deep into the button catalogue and working out my order :-)

rainbow stacks

I've been a busy bee....cutting out 4" squares to turn into some more felt-rainbow-freebie-packs, which I have been adding to orders placed in any of my online shops throughout out the month of July

AND I've been looking through a new (to me) button wholesale catalogue....if all goes to plan I'm going to place an order on Monday!

felt washing experiments

I cut two pieces of felt, exactly the same size.

...popped one in the washing machine (40 degree wash with powder and softener + a duvet cover, can't just wash one bit of felt can I!) and it came out looking like this ::

haha!

once it had dried I layed it on the other sheet to check for shrinkage ::

...it shrunk....a lot!!

BUT what a lovely texture ::

Next I cut another two pieces and this time I hand washed one piece (with special kind-to-wool washing liquid, in lukewarm water) and once it dried it looked like this::

It shrank a bit and the texture changed to this ::

ooohhhh the possibilities of newly-washed-chunky-lumpy-felt....

*this whole experiment was inspired by a customer, thanks Net :-)

drawers

John is working away this week....'twas only supposed to be one night, now it's three :-(... but before he left he gave my drawers their final coat of paint...I've put some fabric covered card in the label holders and covered the bottoms with shiny white card....all I need now is to fill it up :-)
John says there is still a bit of tidying up to do, scraping excess paint off the handles etc etc but I think it looks great!

Even though it seems that the minty green glossy paint I picked is very hard to photograph!

link goodness

This morning I was reading through my bloglines and came across a few interesting things::

First of all my friend Claire has organised a swap!

And it's a robot swap!

BRILLIANT!!!!

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Then I read this post about charging for postage and all that that entails

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Then I saw that Heather Bailey had opened a shop selling her loveliness

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and THEN I saw a post about needles and wondered how I didn't know about needles as I use them A LOT!!

and because I can't help myself, here's another picture of Christmassy Things!!

Blue & Green should never be seen?

This morning the post man delivered 2 parcels....one from America which contained this ::

and one from down the road which had lots of lovely new tissue to wrap orders up in ::

It wasn't intentional but they are nicely colour co-ordinated!

and for those people who say Blue & green should never be seen...you're wrong!

:-)

Nearly there...

Today I'm putting the final sewing touches to a few more Christmas Ideas and then I'll be all ready to start designing my Christmas Wholesale Catalogue!

I've never done this before...ordinarily if people are interested I use my website as a catalogue and email prices as and when.

This year I'm trying my hardest to be more pro-active about wholesale....the next hurdle will be getting out and about and trying to send the catalogues to shops who would like to stock my designs...anyone know any great shops that are crying out for paper-and-string things???

If you have any suggestions they shall be kindly received...and if the recommendation leads to an order you can be sure they'll be a little Christmas something in the post as a Thank You :-)

Early Morning Blogging

John had to get up at 5.30 this morning to get ready for work and when he left at 6am he woke me to say goodbye and for some *crazy* reason I decided to get up too!

I've spent a while cropping and filing photos so I thought, why not blog now, rather than later!

Last night I put the finishing touches to some Robins, this time with a more natural colouring :-)

and some roly-poly penguins too

I tried to add smiley faces to the penguins but Beaks and Smiles do not go together!

Christmas re-think

I feel a bit strange blathering on about Christmas all the time but it's what I'm working on right now so I haven't got a lot else to share!

I didn't blog last night because I wanted to finish re-making something to show here, and I just got them done :-)

A few months ago I was asked to design a few new items for Christmas with the view to supplying them exclusively, I worked on these designs, but things changed, as these things do. I decided to make my life a little simpler and to limit any wholesaling I may do to items I always stock, and now they are no longer exclusives I can show you!

SO....here are the designs I did ::

Russian Dolls ::

Handbags ::

and Happy Presents! ::

elves with leg warmers!!!!

Look at this ::

I've re-designed my Elf pattern, he used to look like this ('scuse the BAD photo) ::

but now Elves are made from felt, not fabric AND they have leg warmers!!

LOL

I'm having so much fun working on Christmas designs, it's so nice to have a little time to sit and work on new ideas, even if they are quite silly :-)

what a funny weekend!

well......as you know I work at the shop on Saturdays and then Sunday is my main day off.

BUT this Saturday John (my John) was decorating the shop.

I work full time managing a gentleman's outfitters and the ceiling needed re-painting (last time it was painted was 20+ years ago!) so we got loads of quotes and the best we had was estimated to take place over 4 Sundays (I SO did not want to be there supervising for 4 Sundays!). So I had a word with John (who is very handy) and he thought he could do it a little quicker.

So during the last half hour of Saturday he arrived at the shop and we moved things and helped any way we could....he started masking and covering things and then painting...I finally got to lock the shop up at 11pm....Sunday meant an 11 hour day for John! I took him bacon sandwiches in the morning, a snack at lunch time....I even went and helped paint around 5pm......but painting is boring! .... I was very good at re-doing the displays and hoovering and wiping up drips of paint (!)

So mostly I didn't get much sewing done...one Robin and a few Santa's!

But tonight I am on a sewing mission (withdrawals me thinks) so watch this space!

oh, and the ceiling looks FAB! it's so bright and welcoming now....John did a great job :-)

paper-and-string on show!

My little felt goodies have been popping up in all sorts of places....first my robots were on cuteable ::

Then I saw my turquoise monkey AND my funky flowers were in the same treasury ::

Then this magazine plopped through the door ::

and on this double page spread showing loads of summer themed craft goodies that can be bought ::

are paper-and-string flip flops AND ice creams!

Then this morning I saw that my happy trees are smiling away in another treasury!!

It always makes my heart beat a little faster to see my designs in unexpected places!

more batches

Another batch of felt-y-ness

Eskimos this time :-)

batches

Now all my Christmas samples are made I have started to work out prices.

The first step of that process for me is making items in batches.

The first batch I did was the robots I posted yesterday and now I have a few Fir Trees too :-)

I wish there was a secret formulae to help with working out prices! (is there? is it really a secret and I don't know what it is??)

I've worked in retail for ...ooohhh how long.....9 years ....and pricing has always seemed like educated guess work! I've only really worked at independent shops where I have had an input and (sometimes) control over prices charged. It's good fun to do and a luxury to be able to see people's reactions and to learn if you've got it right or not!

In the shops we would have a cost price as a basis for our educated guess work and that is why I make in batches...it gives me the chance to work out the cost of materials used and an idea of the time it takes too. I then 'guess' the prices to charge based on that!

I have a lot of batches on my to do list so expect lots of pics from me this week!