Crafts 2010 roundup

Just a quick picture of some of the crafts undertaken in 2010!

It's always nice to look back over the past year isn't it? More roundups coming over the next few days :)

They take after me!

In reusing everything they can :) The girls got some new playmobil in the sale the other day and I claimed the box to turn into tags. Not to be outdone, they grabbed the mini catalogues that come with the toys and proceeded to make new catalogues - these are halfway done without the captions :)

 They really do take after me!

Funky dress :)

Ignore the cheesy smiley photographs please and the bad light!

Take one funky but totally impractical 70's crimpoline dress - I mean just look at the length and those sleeves!!

And turn it into a much more wearable dress - gone are those huge sleevs and the length. (It does look better in real life!) I haven't hemmed the bottom of the dress as it won't fray due to being crimpoline. However because it is crimpoline I will have to dig out a slip to wear underneath it as it clings like mad!

See what I mean about the manic smile?? This is what I did with the leftover fabric from the bottom of the dress. Wrapped it round my neck and said it was a scarf! It can become looser too which also looks quite good.

However it does also become a giant scarf for us girls to fit into! Matt was offered the chance to try the scarf on but graciously declined!

And here is a picture of me and Anya while I was trying to take half decent shots on the hall mirror.


I'm now itching to alter the other dresses I have in the mending pile!

Sale items!

I don't know if you know but I have a sales section in my Etsy shop.

It's the last of the sections if you fancy having a look :) There were 10 items in there last night but one of the Less than Half Price chickens sold overnight so there are only 9 things there now. Things like this;

I have also added a sale section to my Folksy shop too so you can pick up a few bargains there too :)

Merry Christmas!

Custom Christmas card - hopefully in my shops in time for Christmas next year!

It says 'At this time of year Cheeky Chicken was glad he wasn't a turkey'. Enjoy your turkeys etc if you celebrate Christmas and I'll see you soon :)

My Artfire shop is no more

I decided to shut my Artfire shop as I wasn't getting anything out of it really. I hadn't had any sales and the views were fairly low too. The main thing that made me decide to shut the shop though was that you have to check in every day as a big notice is shown on the front page of your shop as to when you last checked in. So if you checked in last week then it shows it on your front page. Also if you fail to check in every day your items aren't show as much as those people who do check in everyday. Oh well - I will now save myself $5 a month in fees :)

I still have a few one off items for sale over there but they will be moving over to my Etsy and Folksy shops hopefully by the end of next week :)

Etsy and Folksy shops reopened!

I know it's normal to take a break over Christmas and I did in the run up to Christmas but I've decided to reopen my shops today. Madness you say? Maybe but not everyone celebrates Christmas and maybe those people will want to visit my shops! Also people may be bored over Christmas and any money Santa brought could be burning a hole in their pockets! Well you never know :)

Here are some of the goodies I have added to my Folksy shop - just in case you feel tempted you know :) You can also visit my Etsy shop if you so wish!

Fabric shop :)

People had told me about this fabric shop (details at the end) a few times and said that I would love it in there and it's only recently that I've been in - I'm very glad I did!

This is one half of the room where all fabrics are £1 a metre.

And this is the other half of the £1 a metre room. Small child borrowed for scale :)

This is the dress fabrics section

And this is another aisle! There are many more aisles and they have upholstery fabrics too. There is also a great section of laces and beautiful 'wedding dress' fabrics. In fact there is so much lovely fabric that I could stay in there for hours. I didn't this time though but still managed to get 6 metres of fabric (total cost £6!) See what I bought below.

4 metres of lovely soft jersey fabric - I'm thinking some clothes for the girls from this? The top fabric is navy blue rather than black.

Some pretty Laura Ashley boat fabric - again it was £1 a metre :)

And here is the aforementioned small child  - it seems she approves* of my fabric choices!

So where is this cave of fabric wonders? It's in Burnley, just off Colne Road in Bright Street. You will see it as soon as you turn into Bright Street as it's in an old chapel on the right. If you know the area at all it is very near to Lidl but isn't the street opposite - it's the next one up the road (past Oddies the bakers) It is called Emmanuel Fabrics and its open on Mondays and Thursdays only but it does open on Bank Holidays :) It doesn't take cards but there is a cash point on Cone Road back past Lidl outside KFC. If you like charity shops then there is one as you come out of Emmanuel and turn left onto Colne Road and it is about 4 doors up :) If you ever feel the need to visit and need personal directions then let me know as I'm always on hand when it comes to fabric shops :)

*She came round looking at fabric with me while her mum was looking at oilcloth and as I kept pulling fabrics out she kept telling me to 'put that back - you don't need it!' It was hilarious :)

The week before Christmas

My shops are closed, I have only one possible order for two chickens to go out in time for Christmas (local delivery!) and it's midday on a Sunday and we are all still in our pajamas! I very rarely take time off from the business so some time to relax is very nice indeed! Of course I am still continuing with Cuteable (advertisers want the content to stay fresh!) and I am crafting for the shops but nothing is actaully going into the shops yet.

These are the last items I made before I shut my shops for Christmas (the penultimate item will be shown when I know that the recipient has got it) These are business card envelopes for a lovely customer - at the moment she can only get them from the States so I was keen to help her get some homegrown ones! This was a one off custom order but you will be able to buy your own business card envelopes from me in the new year.

We are slowly thinking about getting dressed as Matt and the girls will be putting the tree up after lunch and I will be sorting the washing mountain in our bedroom! Fun fun!

Teacher gifts

I have been so busy recently that only the girls main teachers are getting a Christmas present! I made them some Christmas tree decorations that are made from felted jumpers with a bit of added sparkle.

This photo is the one that represents the colours best.

Just a little bit of bling!

And I packaged them in some cute angel bags from Ikea with a Swirlyarts gift tag (of course!) Fingers crossed that the teachers will like them!

You got mail!

Image found here

 

 

 

This is how I feel at the moment - like I'm drowning in emails! It is all good though with lots of emails back and forth about exciting ventures but you know how sometimes it just gets too much? That's how I'm feeling at the minute! So normal blooging may take a back seat for a little bit while I sort out all my correspondence!

Me at the Arts Market

Looking busy reading my Folksy Sampler! I had a great day sales wise and chatted to lots of fellow crafters. I even got a commission, possibly two! You can see more photographs from the day here.

Oh and two of the sets of notecards I showed you on Friday sold so I will be making more of those :)

Flower notecard sets

Nothing goes to waste in this house including clothing catalogues that come through the door. They are turned into paper flowers and put onto full size cards. I have had some little notecards in sets of 5 for a while that I got at Sams and they seemed perfect to turn into mini flower notecards.

The flowers themselves are beautifully patterned so I use clear or white buttons in the centre just to add a little something extra.

As you know I also use pages from damaged books for my hand drawn gift tags and sometimes there are pieces left over that aren't large enough for another tag but are too big to be recycled. I turned lots of these scraps into word flowers and thought they would look nice on some cards, with coloured buttons in the middle this time.

These sets of notecards will be going up into my shops soon but will first be coming to an Arts Market tomorrow in Ilkley. If you like them and want them for yourself before I take them with me tomorrow then shout! They measure 9 and a half cm (3 and a half inches) square and cost £4 for the set of 5. If not then as I say they will be going up in my shops soon :)

Special custom chickens

I always get a thrill when I am asked to make some custom chickens but these ones are extra special as they have been asked for by two special little girls :) Yep Anya and Tara want their own chickens! They spent a long time choosing the fabrics and they settled on some striped, shiny fabric.

It's like shiny ribbon that frays incredibly easily so these will be finished pretty quickly so that I'm not just left with a pile of threads! There are 4 chickens because the girls wanted one each for their teddies too :) Oh and these are going to be stuffed with fabric offcuts and not rice so that they can be cuddle in bed.

I've also been making business cards which isn't as exciting as chickens but makes me pleased when I see my scrap pile going down a bit - I've also not got many cards left!

Busy busy

I've been busy today making lots of little changes to my two online shops*.

Collections stickers

I have changed the currency in my Etsy shop to GB pounds. This makes it much easier for me to list things (no more chasing around on XE.com to check the exchange rate!) and it has the double benefit that prices on there have now come down in price slightly - yeah!

Sammy Shunter envelopes

I have also changed the shipping prices in my shops too. On Folksy all items had the same shipping cost regardless of what it cost me to send. In the case of my chicken pincushions they were costing me nearly double the amount I was charging to post! I've changed that now :) I also changed the shipping amounts in my Etsy shop too so they are consistent across the board - much easier now that my Etsy shop is in pounds rather than dollars!

*I do have a third online shop over at Artfire but it has done nothing so I will be closing that one soon and listing the things from it into my other shops. I think I'm going to stick to 2 shops from now on!

My husband is a superstar!

Well he is! I got home from a craft fair* yesterday to find that he had tidied the front room, the dining room and most of the study. And he tidied the stairs up to the craft room/study that were shown in this post the other day. And here is photographic proof that the stairs are clear!

Yeah!!!! Clear stairs :) We will say nothing about the next picture then ok? :D

Well the craft stuff had to go somewhere didn't it?


*The fair was for a well known charity so I don't begrudge the stall fees I paid. It was however not my target audience at all and it was in a marquee with no additional flooring so I was freezing!! I did just about make my stall fees back though. I said before I went to this one that it would either be fantastic or rubbish for sales - unfortunately it was the latter. However I did get to meet a lovely lady called Vera who told me she read my blog so Hi Vera!

Reading

One day last week we all came up to the study so I could do some computer work after school (still haven't sorted the laptop dilemma yet!) and I turned round and saw this.

The girls had spread out a duvet from the spare bed, grabbed loads of the books I had when I was a teacher and were reading to each other. Some of the Mr Men books they are reading were the ones from when I was a child :)

We like books in this house :)

Not so tidy really!

After yesterdays post I was told by many people that my space wasn't quite so bad. However I didn't show you the rest of the room - ahem!

This is what you see when you turn the chair round from my sewing table - the other desk which really is a big dumping ground. The chairs there also act as a dumping ground too :)

And this is the floor between the two desks. It's actually a little bit tidier than that now but not much!

And these are the stairs that lead up to the craft room and study - piled high with stuff! I can't actually tidy these though until the craft room is tidy as I would have no where to put all the stuff!

So not as tidy as you all thought :)

My (not so) creative space

I am trying to tidy the craft room (yet again - why can't I work tidily?) so I thought I would show you my desk. Well the desk I use as a sewing table/dump everything on table!

This is the overview and it's actually organised although you probably can't believe it! I'll show you......

The ink pad and stamp are out because I was making more thank you paper (I wrap my chickens up in it) and just need to be put away. The flower punch is out as I had some booklets of pretty wallpaper that needed to be turned into flowers. The stack of white card is waiting to be punched into tag shapes for my alien gift tags and the brown card is waiting to be turned into backs for my other gift tags.

Here you can see the same card again plus some tree card waiting to be turned into tags. There is a pile of scrap offcuts of fabric that need to be put into a bag to be saved for softie stuffing but I can't find the bag!

In the front we have a pile of squares waiting for the Swirly magic to turn them into chickens, the plastic box is full of badge making bits and bobs - I haven't put them away from a custom badge order yet! The blue card is the outer part from the girls playmobil advent calendar which again needs to be punched into tag shapes and the round blue tin is full of tag shaped pieces of paper that I use for my chicken, robin and robot tags.

Here are 3 peg bags that didn't quite work out - they are waiting to be unpicked so that I can re-use the fabric for something else and on top of those is a huge pile of cardboard waiting to be turned into gift tag backs. I have lots of card waiting to be turned into tags as the tag punches I use aren't very good (but the only ones that do that size) and I have dodgy wrists. Lots of punching of card with rubbish wrists = lots of pain for Lynsey :( I often use my foot on the punch but can't do it too often as the motion of bending down to move the card along then standing back up to punch and then bending down again makes me feel dizzy!

So you see it is quite an organised space albeit with lots to do in it! No wonder my to do list is ludicrously long!

Pop along to Kirstys where it is the last Creative Space of 2010!


agea

Hahahahahaha - it's the muppet!

Linkwithin is great and I love using it on this blog (see bottom of the post to see what I'm talking about) but it can be a bit distracting. I spent the entire morning going through old posts and having a look at what I did this time last year etc. I have to laugh though as I came across these pictures of me with a fringe and I knew I had to share them again. Aren't I nice to let myself be ridiculed (again) for your enjoyment!

Yes I do look like a muppet and yes it has outgrown - thanks goodness! Enjoy :)