Spotty pumps!!

As soon as I spotted these (get it?!) I knew that they had to be mine. I first spotted them on Sunday when the shop wasn't open but it was today when I went into town with my mum (who was visiting)

Aren't they fab?? And yes they are designed to be worn with black tights and no, I'm not too old to wear them :) I do feel a bit like Mr Tumble in them but we love Justin in this house so that is no biggie!

Best bit? They were only £1.99. I'm thinking of going back tomorrow to get a spare pair and maybe also the grey leopard ones........

Mr Beige the chicken

There has been a little bit of tension in the Swirlyarts household recently - not from the human members mind you, but from the chicken fraternity. One little pincushion, named Mr Beige, has been a little disgruntled with the attention some of the newer and fancier chickens have been getting. I have tried explaining to Mr Beige, that because he was one of the first pincushion chickens I made, he will always have a special place in my heart but he refuses to acknowledge that.

 Mr Beige pictured in happier times - he is the one at the front next to Mr Green.



So he has decided that he doesn't want to live in a house full of fancier chickens (his words, not mine) and that he would quite like to live somewhere else where there are less fancy chickens or ideally, none at all. He has also decided that he doesn't like the name Mr Beige any more and that his new owners must give him a new name.

So to win yourself a grumpy fed up lovely little pincushion chicken then all you have to do is suggest a new name for Mr Beige. Mr Beige himself will preside over the name giving and will help to choose (with the aid of a random number generator) his eventual new owners. He has decided that his new owners will be announced on Sunday 3rd October (he is quite bossy too - be warned!) so you have until midnight on Saturday 2nd October to think up a new name. Feel free to tweet about it and tell your friends :)

Some new products

I have been a busy girl listing lots of new products onto Folksy for the September Stars. Here are a few of them :)

 Some cute recycled envelopes featuring Mabel Lucie Attwell.

Some cute gift tags in sets of 5 - just in case you don't need the usual sets of 10 I offer!

Some recycled stickers - there will be lots more listed at some stage.

 Come back tomorrow when there will be a 'clucking' giveaway :)

Someone in disguise!

This little thing came into the front room the other day after school and said she was in disguise. The disguise worked well as Anya and I didn't know who it was! It worked so well that she could blur the photographs I took too ;)

Bless!! It's not as good as the disguise my sister once had but I'll have to find photographic evidence of that first before I can show you :)

Come and see me in Ilkley!

Tomorrow I will be in Ilkley at The Arts Market in Riddings Hall which is just behind the huge church (Christchurch I think) on The Grove in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.

Feel free to come and see me and if you buy something (and tell me that you read my blog) then you will get a free set of gift tags - you choose which ones you want! For free! Even if you buy something of lesser value :) Just tell me you read my blog, buy something and you'll get some free tags!

Books, lovely books!

It's no secret that in our house we love our books - there are piles everywhere. So when I said to Matt that I was going to buy some craft books he just smiled and said ok! I was fairly restrained and only bought 4 - which is very good for me and didn't even top up the order with fiction books :) Here's what I bought.

Martha Stewarts 'new' book although I read a review that said it is a book version of lots of her magazine columns so if you have her magazines then it's not worth buying this one apparently. I don't have any of her magazines so I can't comment! I've only had a quick flick and it  has some good projects in it.

Not a traditional craft book and my 'hobby' is already a business albeit on the small side, but lots of people had raved about this book so I thought I would give it a try. Can't hurt can it?

Again I had read a few reviews of this book and lots of people said it was nice and clean to look at and had some great projects in it. I'm yet to even flick through it but the reviews sounded great.

I love Eithne Farry's first book and I'd already flicked through this one in a bookshop in London so I knew it was for me. I love the way that she doesn't have patterns for making her dresses etc - it won't be suitable for some people but for me, who panics when I get a pattern out of its packet, then this is just the thing I need.

Anya thinks it is suitable too :)

People are so nice!

Or maybe it's just the people I come into contact with :) I got an email from a lovely lady called Elaine last week who asked if she could send me something to cheer me up when I was ill and also as a thank you as I had inspired her to add things to her Folksy shop (check out the circle brooch as it's really pretty!) At first I said no but then she insisted so I relented especially when I saw a a picture of what my gift would be.

A fabulous sewing themed brooch which is just perfect for me really! I love it and I'm going to wear it to the Fuse craft meeting I am attending today.

Thanks Elaine :)

How to make a little girl happy

You simply put her bed on top of her sofa bed! They were like this when Anya was born and she was in a cot in her room - we took them apart when she first went into her bed and decided this weekend that they could go back together again.


So we have a very happy girl and a very happy (apparently) teddy bear :)

On a side note I want to get a little reading light for Anya to either clip onto her bed or to go on the wall - can anyone recommend one that is available in the UK?

I like charity shops

My thrifting buddies couldn't come with me yesterday but several nice people on Twitter suggested that I go by myself - so I did! I will apologise for the quality of the photographs now - the weather was awful last night and it was about 5pm when I took these. Only one item cost more than £3 and I will show that to you last. I got....

A lovely yellow shirt - it is much brighter than this in real life and I loved the lace detail.

A pretty jumper originally from Next - it was the detailing round the top that I liked.

A linen dress with white embroidery detail - this was £1!

Some books for me - I have the first HIVE book and was thrilled to find the next two. I just need to figure out what order they come in!

A pretty patchwork skirt - it looks nicer 'in the flesh'

Another skirt - the contrast in colours isn't as prominent in real life. This will be a great basic skirt to team my more colourful tops with! I also got a plain back skirt too for the same reason but didn't photograph it.

Some pajama's for Anya - brand new with tags on for £1 and the t-shirts in this range retail at £15!

A pillowcase and a machine appliqué book for 10p each.

Some books for Anya - she loves chapter books at the moment!

A nautical top - I couldn't resist that sequinned anchor! This is one of those longer tops designed to be worn with leggings or skinny jeans but seeing as I wear neither of those things I have yet to decide what I will wear it with! It may either become the world's snazziest nightshirt or I may take it up to become a normal top although the thought of sewing this kind of material scares me!

And the piece de resistance for me is this fabulous cardigan! It's all hand knitted and it cost me £3.75. I love it although it looks like it may well be too big for me - it would function as a nice warm coat when it's not raining out there which in this part of the world is probably 6 days!

A close up of the neck detail!

And just look at that wool - fabulous!! I have a thing for knitwear that other people would turn their noses up at - I have a great cardigan with bird houses all over it that I got in America which I love.

Hope you enjoy my bargains - and someone else tell me that they like the cardigan too so I don't look odd :)

A little ray of sunshine!

Despite the nasty rainy dull weather here a little ray of (bright yellow) sunshine entered the Swirlyarts fold this morning in the shape of a cheeky chicken pincushion/paperweight.

He is called Twist (he is named after the fabric that he is made from) and he has brothers and sisters who are blue, green and pink! He is in my shop at the moment and I'm sure his siblings will be following along soon :)

The benefits of sorting and tidying

No trust me - there are some benefits! I have found a great deal more stock than I thought I had and looking through my Flickr photographs I realised that I have photographs of the items but that they just haven't been listed yet! Things like this.

Actually I have just listed this as my September Star listing for today over on Folksy!

I also found a lot of cute little sticker sets that I am yet to list. I sell these online as you can look at the pictures of them and get a good feel for what stickers are in each set. I haven't yet sold them at craft fairs as I store them in some of the mini envelopes I make and they are not conducive to getting good sales if people can't see them! I am loathe to buy new packaging products just so that they can be seen (and you would only be able to see a few anyway) so can anyone else think of a good way to show them off at fairs. I was thinking of making up a selection of 'spares' so that people can handle them and see the size and type of stickers that are available but I'm not sure. And bear in mind that my table is normally full to bursting point anyway!!

Mr Blue Sky

Visited us nearly all day yesterday - yippee!

Although it wasn't too long before the rain clouds started to roll in from the south!

The joys of living in one of the wettest parts of the UK :) I love it really.

Pictures taken out of my craft room window.

How new products are made in Swirlyland!

It normally starts with either day dreaming or some tidying up. This time it was tidying up the new chest of drawers in my craft room and the putting away of all my papers for envelopes.


'It's a pity that the pictures on these knitting patterns are too big to make gift tags out of' thought I. Then I spotted the back of a different pattern poking out (it evidently wanted to be used) and the cartoon light bulb went off in my head.

So out came my trusted tag punch and some papers were punch from knitting patterns.

The waste was put away into the recycling bin too! Aren't I a good girl!

My favourite bit is choosing pretty colours to work with.

Some doodles of balls of wool with needles were drawn onto a spare bit of pattern.

And eventually transferred to some of the actual paper tags (card and string will come later) Once I got to this stage though I wasn't sure - do they still look enough like balls of wool?

I drew one tag with two balls on to see if that made me happier and it did a bit but I'm still not sure - especially after Anya looked at the yellow ones and said I like your new bumble bee tags mummy!

What do you think? You can see the full size photographs on my Flickr if you still can't decide. It's whether enough people at craft fairs will recognise them as balls of wool.

Some treasury love

Did you know that you can now search the treasuries over on Etsy to see if you have been featured? Just pop in your user name and off you go! That''s how I found out that I have been featured in quite a few treasuries recently but I am only showing you a couple as 23 is a fair few to wade through!


Just click on the picture to be taken to the treasury.