The upcycled, refillable notebooks are finally made!

Well I made a prototype a good few months ago and hadn't got round to making any actual ones until I got a wholesale order through that included some! I liked my old notebooks, but I wanted to be able to include more eco-friendly features so I've turned the notebooks into refillable ones and when they are up in the shop you will be able to buy refill packs too! Cool eh?? I'm really pleased with this extra eco-friendliness as it's fits what I am trying to do really well. The rings are easily opened so you can add extra pages and of course, refill paper packs!

All the papers inside are upcycled/reclaimed and I've included pages from the original books.

I've also included some extras such as an envelope (for all those bits of paper) and some tags as extra writing spaces :)

I have also included a helpful reminder of where you can get you refills from :)

The paper band is the only thing I'm not 100% happy with - I want a stamp for it but need to order one and I need to tweak the wording.

As I said earlier these are heading off with some other items to a new cafe (details soon!) as aprt of a wholesale order but if you like what you see, I can always make you one before they hit my shops!

Story Sacks

Up until now, the teachers at the girls school have had an inkling that I run my own business but hadn't really been aware of what I did. Now I've volunteered to make story sacks* for Nursery and Reception, I think they may have guessed!

Here are the first two ready to go and be inspected (for size mainly!) and then next week I can make the other 18 they need!

Joining in with My Creative Space today.

*Story sacks are a cool addition to any classroom (ex teacher voice here!) They contain a story book, lets say Goldilocks and The Three Bears, and props to help the children act out the story like three bowls and spoons, a recipe for porridge, puppets of the characters etc. I *heart* story sacks!

Another sale!

Phew! My Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale has just finished and the editing of all the shop information has ended too (long job!) I am now offering another sale but this time on (most of) my large envelopes. I haven't been happy with the style of them and have designed some new ones that are more envelope shaped and that are self sealing so no fiddling with sticky tape for you to get them closed!

The above envelopes can be found for half price (£2.50) in my Folksy shop. Along with lots of others!

And these are a couple of the sets in my Etsy shop. There are more in there too!

Come and see me!

I will be in Lancaster this weekend at the Green Christmas Fair in Friends Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster (it's right next to the train station!) So pop by if you are in the area - Santa will be making an appearance and there will be a cafe and music too.

I will have my Swirly Specials basket for bargains and all of my large recycled envelopes will be half price (need to crack on with the new designs and I won't do that when some of the old ones are still for sale!) If you can't make the fair then don't forget there is 35% off in my Etsy shop until Monday 26th and after that the large envelopes will be put down to half price in my shops :)

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of those celebrating today :) And if you aren't celebrating then you can still enjoy festive cheer as I am offering a huge 35% off sale in my Etsy shop until the end of play on Monday 26th November! It's a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale and it's 35% off ALL items in my shop including my already reduced sale items!

Little Gardenia's normal price is £8.00 and for this weekend she is reduced to just £5.20!

Maureen, the one of a kind doorstop, is normally £12.00 but she is reduced to £7.80!

My packs of 10 gift tags are reduced from £3.00 to just £1.95 and this means that the sets of 5 gift tags are under a pound at just 98p :)

So go and grab yourself a bargain! Sorry, I mean Christmas presents for those you love :)

P.S. If you are visiting my shop late on Friday night or during Saturday you may notice that I am low on stock. This is because I am attending the Green Party Christmas fair in Lancaster (Friends Meeting House, 10-4, just next to the train station!) on Saturday and I have taken all of my one-off items out of the shop just in case they sell at the fair! If they don't sell then they will be back in the shop late on Saturday. And if you are reading this on Thursday and you spot something, go and buy it now, just in case it goes ;)

Sunday Snippets

Snuggles, shoes, playing Junior Masterchef and tidying - my week in pictures. Joining in with Tinniegirl for Sunday Snippets.

Spin, spin, spin!

Hopefully you will be able to see the little video I made of my bobbin winder in action. Lots of people have been asking me why they would need a bobbin winder when they have a sewing machine that does it for them. I always argue that you do need one as you don't have to unthread your machine just to wind some more bobbins - particularly if you need another bobbin in the middle of a project :)



Am I the only one who can see a face in the bobbin winder? The green button is one eye, the bobbin is the other and the clasp in the middle is the smiley mouth :)

Damn captcha!

I'm having to turn the captcha comments back on for this blog as I was being bombarded with spam comments and even though I have to moderate comments, some of them were sneaking onto posts and I have no idea why! So apologies for that if you find them tricky but for the sake of my sanity, I had to do it. It will hopefully mean I have more time to blog :)

Look at my tidy spool rack :) It's a lot fuller than that now thanks to my trusty sidewinder bobbin winder!

Look - tidy drawers :) The small ones at the top are for bits of paper that have been cut out to be stickers but that are waiting to go through the sticker machine and the bottom drawers are for half finished gift tags and mini envelopes. Now that I have somewhere permanent to put them, it might stop them spreading round the house and living on trays and in boxes!

And see I was clever to show you the tidy bits before I showed you the mess. Feel free to ignore the two pictures below!

I am continuing to tidy the studio today so hopefully next week I will have tidy pictures to show you!

My Creative Space - washi tape fun

I didn't get started on my Creative Space until this evening - 4.30pm to be precise. I have been tidying my studio (it's a tip!) and when putting things away I found the tree template I used to make these cards last year. Combined with the washi tape I'd just put away I had an idea :)

This one is my favourite.

Cool eh? I will be taking them to a fair next weekend and there are 6 in total. I have other plans for the washi tape too :)

Joining in with My Creative Space today.

My kind of post!

It's not very exciting to most people but it is to me!

Some more Swirlyarts labels for my chickens and some new business cards :) The cards don't look very  'Swirlyfied' at the moment but they will do soon. And the best bit? The cards are printed on recycled card so my eco credentials go up (quite important when that is one of the main strands and ethos of your business!)

The only downside is that the punches I use to give the swirl effect are no longer manufactured and the alternatives out there aren't quite right (too angular etc)

So I am using a punch I already have to make circles. They don't look great at the moment but once I can get to my fabric scraps and sew some up then I will have another look. It means that you will be able to see more of the fabric which is nice but I loose the swirl from Swirlyarts which people like when they get it (like they are in on the joke)

I have some of my older business cards to use up and I'm hoping they will last me until Christmas but if not then circles it is!

P.S. The labels are from JJ Cash and the cards are from Vistaprint :)

Knock, knock

Is anyone there? I didn't mean to go away but birthday celebrations and a few time consuming orders kind of took over last week and it's easy not to blog when you have other things to do! So, Anya turned 9 (goodness!), I got some good news about test results, I made lots of upcycled envelopes by hand (RSI anyone?) and drew about a million robins for gift tags :)

What have you all been up to? Anything as exciting as me? :D

Ziggy

No, not David Bowie as that Ziggy Stardust! This Ziggy!

The last of this 'ziggy' fabric has been used up - it started life as a vintage knitting bag but it was then abandoned and left to become dusty and torn. Luckily I happened upon it at a jumble sale and revived it into Ziggy :) You still have a chance to get yourself a Ziggy pincushion/paperweight but be quick as there is only one left over in my Etsy shop!

Sunday Snippets

Snippets of my week via photographs!

A girl in her dinosaur jumper

Meringue skull

Nana and the girls dressed up for a Halloween party

Girls in very old coffins at Ripon Cathedral

Thrifted woolly jumpers - none fit me though

I'm playing Sunday Snippets with Tinniegirl.

More exciting news

Well it kind of follows on from yesterday, but if you don't subscribe to Pretty Nostalgic or won't be able to get a copy then you can check out the British Makers Gift Guide online! Cool eh?

I'm off to check out the other talented folk I have been featured with!

Exciting stuff!

Have you heard of Pretty Nostalgic magazine? It's a lovely magazine published here in the UK and the 4th issue is due out very soon.

It's the Christmas issue and they have a British Makers gift guide.

In the magazine this page has the text 'Take our pledge to support local, independent makers this Christmas with our pick of the best (and most affordable) stocking fillers. So why is this exciting? Well take a look below.

See there on the right? Yep it's one of my Liberty chicken paperweights in the British Makers feature :) The guide that said they'd collected the best gifts for Christmas:) Oh yes!

And it is also very good for you as you can win every single one of these gifts! Everyone who subscribes to the magazine will be entered into the draw to win the prizes and winners will be announced on the 24th December. Just subscribe before the 20th December (there is 25% off at the moment) to make sure you are entered.  If you don't want to take your chances against all the other subscribers then the only other chicken paperweight in that fabric is right here :)