a big Christmas order & business-y things

 today I officially gave notice to the landlord of my workshop to break my lease.  Leases are funny things - mine was/is a 5 year lease with a break clause at the end of year 3, but to use the break clause you have to give 6 months notice - if you give it one day late, or haven't paid your rent on time or any other thing you could do wrong then you can't end it at the break clause and you have to stay the full term .... but as you know we have run out of room and we have made the decision that we cannot stay here for another 2.5 years (as an aside, I can't really believe I have been in this workshop for 2 and a half years already!!) ... we started looking for bigger premises late last year, but as you know, the one we found didn't work out but we have been looking and visiting and having talks and *think* we have a new one in the pipeline.  I'm not showing you photos or telling you anything about it until I know for sure, and that can take weeks because it just does take weeks to do anything involving solicitors and estate agents....so I am in workshop Limbo - I have officially said goodbye to the current one and don't have a new one lined up - and that it is slightly terrifying!!!

but I'm not worrying about it - my only sleepless nights are caused by making sure I wake up early enough to do all my sewing!

a 5.30am start...

...wasn't so bad! Not that I wish to do it every day mind you ;-)

I just finished everything in the nick of time to get them in the sacks with today's post! 
8 days from order to delivery - not a bad turnround on 150 embellishments!

 and we shant mention that they didn't actually order flowers.  they only actually ordered frogs, mushrooms, diggers and cupcakes.  Don't know why I made flowers.  But I noticed before sending them out so have 30 for next time.  But we won't mention that. OK?

* all of these are on their way to my regular customer in Ireland who attaches them to blinds for windows - I think I shared a link before but if you didn't see it you can click here to see it now (when the page loads click on accessories, then on children's)

planning a late night in

the homework went well - but there is no way to speed up the process of hand sewing, apart from just doing more of it! after sewing last night and early this morning the homework looked like this ::

 by lunchtime it looked like this ::

 and at home time (now) like this ::

 I'm getting there & I am pleased I managed to do so much inbetween phone calls, emails & parcel packing ... which is a good job because the homework pile is ever growing - this little lot needs to be in the post this week too ::

 

  ...then I've John Lewis garlands to finish, a huge order for felt flowers, some felt boxes and whatever else gets ordered inbetween times :-)

homework

I cut out LOADS of embellishments today - 30 frog faces, 30 mushrooms, 30 cupcakes and 30 flowers (and 30 diggers but I forgot to put them in the photos!)

 and I've  boxed them up ready for a mammoth night of sewing homework

I've no idea how many I'll finish but I will show you the progress tomorrow :-)

I like it when ...

 ...I pile up all the things I have made over the weekend and surprise myself with how much I managed to sew !!

First I made a trio of decorations which are being sent to a magazine for a few seconds of fame :-)

 

 then an order for a set of my Large Christmas Decorations

 

 and then 20 Christmas Trees (from my new Christmas Tree Garland Kit) which will be joined by more sewn decorations (snowman, robin, reindeer & penguin) and attached to 15m of ribbon for a new display garland for John Lewis

phew-ee! 

stock shuffling

when the printed felt arrived we quickly found some 'spare' space so it had somewhere to go (ie my cutting table and our spare stool) so today I did another stock room shuffle and found it a new home (mostly so I could actually do some cutting out, on my actual cutting table)

 there's still felt on the stool - but the rest has it's very own shelf in the corner...I also found a better space for all the crafty bits and bobs (they are on my shoe rack under the table! - the shoe rack is very useful indeed and has been used to store lots of things other than shoes over the years ) 

 The Polka Dot stack fits perfectly...I'm just not sure how I'll get the green squares from the bottom... but hey, at least the cutting table is free!!

piles of loveliness

there's just something particularly lovely about great big piles of felt isn't there?

after a lot of cutting.....

.....and a lot of stacking.....

 our depleted stocks of 12" packs and 12" rainbows are full to the brim again

and before you all think I must be working 24 hours a day, let me tell you I'm not (just the normal 14-16 hours a day) - all this hard work is John's - he's good isn't he?

Autmun is here

the weather outside my window is starting to take a turn towards Autumn which matches perfectly with the Autumn themed goodies which just arrived inside the workshop ::

Quick Links ::
Hedgehoglets Fabric can be found here
Acornucopia Fabric can be found here
Wooden Hedgehogs are here
and Wooden Owls are here
It's time to get your Autumn Craft ON !!

full to the brim

my cutting table has been taken over by felt

 and so has the spare stool!

it looks pretty though doesn't it :-)
In case you missed it we have now got printed felt - polka dots, stripes and hearts
all can be seen here: here: & here

can't - stop - packing

we had a HUGE flurry of orders over the weekend - so much so that 3 of us were picking and packing orders All Day Long (normally it takes two of us on a Monday ... a 3 person Monday is a new level of busy-ness!!) it got a little bit hectic around 2pm because I suddenly realised that Royal Mail still hadn't delivered any sacks to put the parcels in and I had just used my last one, but John came to the rescue and sped to the Post Office and got some more!- I did manage to snap a photo of some of my weekend sewing - but mostly I was stitching up some samples for spring/summer 2014 - so all I can share is this batch of Christmas decorations which were sent out to their new owner today :-)

printed felt in the shop NOW!

Quick Links :: 
Polka Dot Felt click here
Stripey Felt click here
Heart Felt click here
12" x 12" squares :: 100% acrylic :: each print comes in 20 different colours :: just £1.10 a square:: and all of them are on the website NOW!

the story of the forward ordered ribbon ....

ordered in April :: paid for in May :: refunded in May :: order deleted :: order lost :: no one has a clue if I will get my forward order or not in June :: I give up and think order will never be delivered in August :: order delivered in September :: not the easiest way to get good stock - but get it I did, now feast your eyes upon the most gorgeous and most bargainsome ribbons for Christmas EVER!!

 there are 25 designs - all printed onto lovely cotton ribbons (15mm wide)

 you can by them in a Mix Pack - 1m of all 25 designs for just *wait for it* ....£8.25!!  I know!!

 OR if you are a sewer who needs tonnes of ribbons you can buy a whole roll for £7.25 - 25m for £7.25!  I told you it was bargainsome!

 or, you can also buy it by the metre

 but however you buy it

 you need to buy it quick

 because I don't think it will stay in the shelves very long at such great prices

 and knowing how hard it was to get the order in the first place, I'm not promising I can get anymore!!

 now go and shop

 you know you need to :-)

 quick link :: click here

tools top up

I love a delivery of Fiskar Scissors - look at all that Orange loveliness - snip snip snip - chop chop chop, you can't beat a pair of Fiskars!  Needles & pins have been re-stocked too, as have all my lovely sewing thread colours!

quick links:
scissors, needles & pins are here
threads are here

sunday sewing

two holidays in one photo - and seeing as Halloween is first lets do the close up of the cute ghouls....

weekend of sewing

I do all of my hand sewing at home - early in the morning and after work in the evenings, and when I can I like to spend whole Sundays stitching - and that is exactly what I have planned for tomorrow

I've spent a happy couple of hours today choosing felt colours, ribbons and buttons then packed all my projects and orders into boxes and they will be taken home after I have finished doing the accounts (my only Must Do job every weekend)  Most of these projects are new ideas that have been whirling around in my brain for the past few weeks/months and tomorrow is the day they either come to life or get chucked in the bin :-)

Winners !!

woah I made this freebie a bit complicated didn't I ?
I have used the random number generator to pick all the winning comments, typed it all below, with links if they were available, and picked all the chosen prizes and taken a photograph so everyone can see all the prizes...and now it's time for you to do some hard work for 2 minutes...there are lots of freebies and lots of winners so please read through all of this carefully to see if you are a winner (if you are a winner scroll to the bottom to see what to do next) ::

Freebie Part One ::  free ribbons sent out in orders over the past weekend, so no winners to announce here

Freebie Part Two :: open to all that shared my freebie picture on Facebook - with a prize of 1 mini kit, 1 medium kit, 1 large kit, 3 fat quarters, 3m of ribbon and 5 packs of buttons
there were 255 shares and the winner is.....

Sew Kidding shared Paper And String Ltd's photo.

Freebie Part Three :: 3 winners each win 2 mini kits of their choice

Eli said...

They're all so cute! My son would love to win the lion and the fox.
Thanks a lot.
Fingers crossed.
Eli

Sweet Treats - Carlisle said...

So cute,
I would love the snowman & Santa please

Anonymous said...

hello!! I like the bunny and the lion very much, are cute!!
Andrea
annb****ynolds@yahoo.com Bottom of Form

 Freebie Part Four :: 2 winners each win 3 fat quarters of their choice

Teasel said...

Pin spin teal, soul garden pink and doodlebug flowers. All lovely!

Louise B said...

I would love the doodlebugs heart multi, Ta dot teal and Ta dot stone. Thanks for the chance to win.

Freebie Part Five ::  3 winners each win their choice of 3m of embroidered ribbons

krazy knit kerena said...

hi could you please enter me for the ribbon freebie i would like the owls and flowers,hedgehog and mushrooms,and snails thank you

Nicola F said...

I would love the bees, owls and snails.
They are all so cute though 

Kerry Dunn said...

Owls and flowers, snails and flower embroidered ribbons are gorgeous! X

Freebie Part Six ::  4 winners each win a medium or large kit of their choice

Lynn Hardy said...

The Felt and Fabric Holly Garland Kit is my favourite. Thank you for your generosity!

Leah said...

The Felt and Fabric Holly Garland please!

Hannah Passco said...

I would love the owl purse kit! I love felty owl things :)

Owlsandco said...

Cupcakes for me, pls..

WINNERS
please email me ::  mail {at} paper-and-string {dot} co {dot} uk
with the following details
the name you commented under
which freebie you have won (part 2/3/4/5/6)
AND
your name and address
I will be wrapping and packing your prizes as you read this so they are ready to post asap :-)

*********************************************************
well done to all the lucky people and a great big thank you to everyone who joined in - I love freebie day!!!