addictive

I can't stop making drawing pin flowers.

I don't think I should enjoy making them because they are so time consuming and I'm sure if I sat down and worked out the cost of them (including a fair hourly rate to pay myself) it would make them amazingly expensive to buy.

Instead I will not do the sums.

I shall make them & sell them because I love them.

catch up

phew I have had a busy few days!

at the day job the Big Boss has left, meaning lots of work to get done before his last day + lots of work to do for the newbie boss too. On top of all the extra work the shop itself was super busy so I was knackered!

John and I took the decision to take yesterday off. We don't often do that, we both work for ourselves (in between the day jobs) so days off normally mean extra time to work on sewing & cars.

So yesterday we drove into the countryside & found a nice pub that did breakfast and (lots of )coffee and sat and chatted and ate and chatted some more, it was raining hard so we couldn't go for a walk or anything but it was very relaxing anyway :-)

In the afternoon we watched some TV (Columbo of course!) John napped, I did a little sewing of flower drawing pins & a notebook, and made some more Thank You cards (I'm not very good at having a day off!) ... we cooked a lovely dinner and all in all it was a fantastic day!

Today? John is busy with cars, and I'm busy with sewing :-)

birthday cake

today is my sister's birthday...Happy Birthday Sisterini :-)

there's no real cake I'm afraid....but how about a felt-y cupcake?

more making and getting technical

I've got a batch of cupcakes on the tray, waiting to be cut and sewn....

...and a much more hi-tech item has arrived, my new MrSite website, which will be the new home for all my wholesale items...it's all planned and on paper looks great, hopefully it'll start taking shape tomorrow :-)

finished

I'm finished! the last stitches have been stitched....

and the product labels ironed into position

I printed loads of packaging and, whilst watching Columbo, attached all the brooches to it.

it was very satisfying to finish each one off and put it in the 'finished' box!

John took me out for a meal to celebrate, isn't he lovely?

tray update

a very similar photo BUT with a million* more stitches made

Cupcake brooches are all finished....only a few dozen mushroom, flowers & birds to go....

*not actually a million....but there are quite a lot!

kit factory

I was up bright and early today working on a wholesale order for a new customer...lots of kits this time...

...I really enjoy laying them all out and adding each component until they are finished...

...choosing which buttons to include is one of the best bits :-)

Here they are all finished, and after a mad dash to the Post Office are now on their way!

getting organised

I have had a very organised day today...I caught up on lots of jobs I had to do...boring things like paperwork & paying bills, food shopping & laundry and fun things like buying a new website, filing my photos so I can find them (always helps!), making the swatch card for my iron ons and finally getting a few more items listed on Folksy...I did find listing on Folksy quite clumsy and clunky but now I've listed 10 items in a row I feel like a pro Folksy user...watch out Folksy, I'm coming to fill your shelves!

proof of progress

I'm currently stitching my way through a large wholesale order for brooches...this is my work try on Saturday ::

and this morning it looked like this ::

definitely some progress being made!

On another subject...I have awful trouble replying to the lovely comments that are made on my blog so from today I am going to try responding in the comments section, so before I post I will answer any comments/questions etc which are made on the previous post.

Hopefully that'll work much better!

a giveaway

My sister has just launched a new range of necklaces and to celebrate she's having a giveaway on her blog...

aren't they a lovely start to a Monday morning?

stitches

On Friday I finished a lot of goodies that have been in the making for quite a while and today I photographed and listed them on my website

lots of birdie brooches ::

tortoise embellishments ::

and more!

I'm working on a big wholesale order at the moment so expect lots more photos soon!

a birthday day

yesterday was John's birthday....we both had a day off from the day job and started the day with a leisurely breakfast at a great cafe overlooking the sea.....we did a little work in the afternoon & paid a visit to the Post Office....then spent the evening at our local pub with friends and neighbours...it was a good day and the birthday boy enjoyed it all :-)

what I was doing today

picking, counting and measuring orders before work ::

wrapping and writing thank you cards after work ...

...and then going to the Post Office before they shut ::

on the tray today

today I am making flower brooches ::

I love choosing the colours and laying them all out, ready to sew ::

yesterday I spent a good few hours on the computer and have re-jigged my etsy shop

... I also listed all my new felt colour groups on my website ::

AND I listed a GIANT felt rainbow too ... 24" square, 45 different colours....a felt fans idea of heaven!

shameless advertising

My favourite fabric shop, Fabric Rehab, started stocking my Make-Your-Own kits a little while ago and SewHip have done a feature on them!

I knew it was due so went to WhSmiths and very calmly stood in the queue & bought it but the minute I was outside I was flicking through the pages desperate to see it! I wanted to skip down the road telling everyone but I managed to keep myself quiet until I got home!

So if you fancy a little fabric shopping you can now add a little bit of felt craft to your basket at the same time :-)

back to work with a bump

I'm back to the normal routine of the day job...always a blah feeling after spending so many lovely days full of paper-and-string things...I've been trying for days to take a photo of the curtain I made for the workshop and it seems that taking photos of curtains is REALLY hard! so I decided to show the best photos I have ....

it's held up with a net curtain rod which was £2.49 from Wilkinson's and the fabric is from the stash....the drop of the curtain is the width of the fabric so it was a super quick curtain to make-less than an hour from start to finish!

winners announced

The freebie draw is now closed and I used the random number generator to pick 2 winners.

comments 78 & 69 were picked...

78 :: jazzalblue said...
I love the egg cosies and thanks for the tutorial. Happy Easter, Joy

69 :: Cyndy said...
OMGosh these are sooooo cute. Lots of work in them too!! Thank you for having a giveaway. Hugs, Cyndy***mingb***hems@ronan.net

I shall be emailing both the winners shortly.

Thanks again to everyone who took part....I hope you all had a great Easter break :-)

bank holiday fun

John and I are enjoying a very relaxing Bank Holiday...John spent a few hours in the garage whilst I did a spot of Spring Cleaning, closely followed by a lovely lunch and a few chapters of my book....

I've just added these fabric flowers to the website....they were all ready to be listed yesterday but the re-vamp took longer than expected!

ironing IS fun!

I managed to tick two big things off my to-do list today...the first was finishing the packaging & photographing my new iron-on appliques ::

Inspiration struck last night for the packaging and I have to admit I really enjoyed packing these up.

I've designed GIANT & standard size letters & numbers and you get to pick which of the 7 fabrics you'd like them made from! I bought the fabric for these back in January and I've been moving them on and off the to-do list ever since!

putting them on the website took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. but I think it was worth the hard work :-)

whilst I was stumbling through the inside workings of my website (always a dangerous thing...something always goes wonky when I do that!) I also listed my drawing pins (again, that's been on the to-do list for ages!)

I made a display of them on my pin board....

...which has found a new home near my stock unit.

All in all a very satisfying day...