teeny tinys (and an impromptu freebie too!)

 I love my teeny tiny buttons!

 this morning I've been counting, counting, counting and this empty stock drawer....

turned  into this gloriously full stock drawer ::

 all 10 of the colour mix bags have been stocked up - along with the rainbow mix bags...

 ...scrummy!
I also counted out a load of individual colour bags....

 ...which is when I thought - 'lets have a rainbow freebie!'

 So here we have one pack of all 45 colours...they are dyed to match the 45 felt colours I sell...there are 25 buttons in each pack which is a grand total of 1125 teeny tiny buttons- and someone reading this will win them all!

 All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post and on Wednesday 2nd April I'll select a winner....here are the rules ::
FREEBIE RULES
only one comment per person
I absolutely must be able to contact you through your comment
it doesn't matter what your comment says but it'd be nice for me and all the readers to read about what you may make with them all :-)
I will post worldwide (for free) so everyone from everywhere can enter (even if you've won a freebie before)

GOOD LUCK!

BT day

the long awaited day has arrived - and we finally have a phone line!

woo-hoo!

it was a tricky job but our fab BT guys worked their magic - I'll be updating all my online places tomorrow with the new number :-)

shiny post

 boxes of stock have started to arrive in droves (hooray!) - today the metalwork has been restocked : brooch bars, keyrings, hairclips, bells, clips  -  all sorts of useful crafty-metal-things!

quick links:
brooch bars : click here
key rings : click here
clips : click here
hairclips :click here
jingle bells : click here

weekend catch-up

My making area is slowly coming together - John helped me on Saturday (he built the cupboards that hold the green trays & put the slatboard on the wall) and I spent a happy few hours filling iti all up :-)  On Sunday we had our first visitors - my Mum & Dad came for the day, it was a bit chilly/windy out and about but we still explored around Bridport and West Bay Harbour - it was fun, and it's always lovely to see them :-)

these photos are a follow-on to a previous post about my sizzix diecuts - many of you asked which die I used and this it - hope it helps?

new zips!

 bunches of 4" YKK zips in glorious colours were delivered yesterday (there are some new colours in there too!)

quick link
zips : click here

getting my craft on

after a very busy week of sending out orders & moving related thingummybobs I decided that I needed to do some crafting.

today.  no more delays. no more waiting until I'd just done this or that.  today had to be a crafting day.

I think it was the unpacking of all my lovely fabrics the other day that tipped me over the edge...so this afternoon, once the post was ready to be collected, I got my iron, my sizzix machine and a pile of felt & fabrics and got to making a little pile of my die cut kits. 

Heaven.

no more stock boxes!

I have unpacked the very last box of stock!

 the next boxes to be unpacked in the stock room will be new and fill up stock (the best kind of boxes!)
do you like my button rug?  I'm sure you've all seen one like it before, Ikea have had them a while now...I kinda didn't notice it was WHITE - I just saw colourful buttons when I hit the buy it now button, and a white rug in a barn that's surrounded by mud is a little bit silly...we shall see how it gets on....

 these are my new button drawers - I won them on ebay quite a few weeks ago (before I'd signed the barn lease) and I have been itching to get the drawers full of buttons...

 the colourful buttons look GREAT when you open the drawers...

 ...and I really like how the wooden buttons look in there, I don't have many wooden buttons in stock but I will be getting some more - I have a drawer to fill ;-)

 the two happy people on top of the new drawers need an introduction I think?  This handsome fellow has the crazy name:  Dude With A Head and used to take pride of place in my window displays when I worked the day job (in the shop underneath my old Workshop)  and a good few months ago he was in the big wheelie bin out the back because he had jumped off the shelf and smashed his head (hence the flat cap).  John found him when he was putting the rubbish out so we have rescued him - if anyone knows a mannequin restorer I'd love to see if I could fix him up properly.

 this little fellow is Gnomey - John got him for me for Christmas and he is temporarily waiting for me to find his final 'home' in the barn - he's just here to keep him safe whilst I move things about - he's great isn't he?

 I've also made a BIG dent in unpacking my making area ::

 and I now have some temporary tables covered in little piles of things

 It's great to finally know where everything is, even if it isn't properly sorted yet!

a long weekend

bright and early on Saturday morning saw John and I at a hire van place in Bridport.  A three hour drive in the sunshine and we were back in Worthing.  Our mission? to empty John's two (rather full) garages, clean and close down the old workshop and finish packing all the delicate things that were still in the old flat.

We did it, almost - still some bits on one garage and still some things in the flat to sort, but we did well...we got back home to Dorset (we like saying that!) very late on Saturday, which left the whole of Sunday to empty the lorry ... the weather was glorious and made a dirty, heavy looong job much more enjoyble.
The photos are from the passenger seat of the lorry and are of the view from the start of the drive down to the barn...in the far distance is Lyme Regis.  We love this view and how different it is every day.

new (to me) storage furniture

before we moved I learnt that Worthing Craft Shop was closing down and all their shop fittings needed new homes - so I popped along and picked up some bargains.....

 the rack on the right was originally designed to hold scrapbooking paper, but is SO much better when it's full of printed felt ::

 the racks on the left originally held A4 card and DL envelopes...

 ..but now they have little drawers full of crafty bits and bobs ::

 and BIG shelves/cubby holes for other crafty bits and bobs ::

and I have another one round the corner, next to my Ikea Billy CD racks, for all my findings and bells

they all need labels (I can't find my Dymo's plug!) but first I need to unpack that little pile of boxes in the background (that is supposed to be my making area!!....)
quick links ::
printed felt is here
crafty bits and bobs are here

a colourful day

 John and I are getting used to our new daily routine - we've still got some unpacking to do but so far it's all working really well :-)

 Loads of you (here and on Facebook) have asked where we now live - well, we now live even closer to the seaside than we did before!! I have borrowed these photos from a google search (Broadchurch was filmed where we now live so there were loads to pick from) gorgeous gorgeous West Bay

right at the bottom of the cliff (not the bungalows half way up the hill) is a small row of houses and we live in one of those!  we still need to put our Worthing flat up for sale so we decided to rent for a bit, I'm pretty sure we could never afford to buy a house in this position so we decided to go for it and live somewhere that feels like a holiday home for the next six months!! It's only a short drive to the barn or a short drive or bus ride into Bridport, so we're right in the middle of things and we can explore and find out all about our new town.

open sesame!

all the shops are open again
NotOnTheHighStreet shop :: here
Etsy shop :: here
Ebay shop :: here
website shop :: here

the last orders placed whilst we were closed will go out today, then we'll be starting on all the new orders - we're going as fast as we possibly can and will get your new felt and other goodies to you as soon as possible :-)

thanks for all your orders - you are the best customers ever!

kit making in the new barn

 Last Friday (whilst we were packing in Worthing) we received an order from John Lewis for some top-up stock and today we got it all made and it's sitting here ready to be sent tomorrow (it's due on Tuesday) phew! 
Eagle eyed readers will see my new table (in the foreground) is a bit weird...I managed to order two sets of trestle legs and two table tops that are too narrow to join on to them  *sigh* ... me thinks another Ikea order may need to be placed soon ;-)

 the other bits of the order were more successful - I've started filling the cubes and once they are completely full of felt they will look AmazInG!

these new shelves were recommended by my sister (thanks sisterini, they are ace!) they will be full of fabric and there will be button bags in the drawers .... soon-ish ;-)
I've printed off all your orders and we will be making a start on them bright and early tomorrow - hopefully we'll get them all out tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest...

ouch

today is day 10 of packing-moving-unpacking-and re-arranging...we both ache from head to toe, and just looking at this pile of flat packs that Ikea delivered today nearly finished us off ;-)

But 7 hours later and it's looking like it'll be pretty great in here....I'll show you when we are done*
* well, I'll show you tomorrow when we've moved the rubbish...it will takes weeks until we are completely happy with it all and can say we are done!!

unpacking

the office is a teeny bit more organised - Ikea are delivering on Saturday so I'm waiting till then to make this look lovely - but I've found all the useful things that I need immediately :-)

 The packing corner is ready for action::

 and all the ingredients for the kit bags have a new home (just ignore all the still-to-be-unpacked boxes!)

 I've started unpacking all the boxes of stock and it's starting to look a lot more colourful round here ::

 this is the last pile of unopened stock boxes, hopefully it will all be gone by 5pm today :-)

I've *nearly* got my Royal Mail collection sorted - it will be confirmed tomorrow and I *think* they will be coming at 4.30pm everyday, which is very similar to when they picked up in Worthing so nothing much will change re delivery times....they did think they would only be able to collect at 1pm but I *think* I have changed their minds!
BT have told us the work phone will be working on March 27th, and the house phone (and broadband) will be on next Thursday - which is all rather slow....
Tonight we are have a strictly NO unpacking evening - we're going to try and get the TV to work, light a fire and have a cosy evening in, with some yummy home cooked food - we've been having takeaways and sandwiches a bit too much recently!