Folksy shop front

If you have a Folksy shop you may have noticed that some peoples shop fronts are changing. I'd known about the changes for a while but hadn't got round to changing my own until I researched a Cuteable post and saw just how fabulous the new shop fronts looked!

I saved a photo of my old Folksy shop front before I replaced it with the new but then I stupidly managed to delete it and all of my deletes from this computer are hard deletes rather than sending to the rubbish bin. Ooopps! So the picture above is an old image of my Folksy shop from 2012 (thank goodness for blogs eh?) but you get the general idea!

And above is my new shop layout which I am really pleased with. I think the new banner helps a lot but I love the fact that you can now add links to all of your social media and the fact that it is nice and bright and white with added colour from me! There are a couple of niggles but I'm going to fill out the feedback form and let them know about it :) You can check it out in person here too!

Do you have a Folksy shop? Have you changed your shop front yet? What do you think of the changes?

New stickers....

....for packaging!

When I am at fairs I can explain to people why my chickens are flat packed (saves the customer money on postage if it's a gift and on the actual cost of the item) but when my chicken doorstops are in stockists, the owner of the shop/gallery doesn't want to have to follow every potential customer around the shop explaining my products! Hence the stickers :)

I have to say thanks to Matt for these as he managed to sort them all out so that they would print the right size for me in about 10 minutes the other day. It would have taken me about 4 hours and countless swear words!

Sophie and The Snozzcumber

So this week has been book week at school and what is the point of a book week if you don't get to dress up as book characters! Tara immediately decided that she wanted to go as a Snozzcumber which is the icky-poo vegetable that the BFG is forced to eat as there is nothing else to eat where he lives. I did a quick google search (other search engines are available!) but I couldn't find a picture of anyone dressed up as a Snozzcumber (some birthday cakes and food ideas but no costumes!) Luckily after a 'help me' shout out on Facebook the lovely, lovely Sarah from Ditsy Bird came to my rescue and drew out some ideas :) Did I mention she is lovely?

Mine looks nothing like this but I took some ideas from it!

It's basically a tube with a drawstring at the top but hey it works and Tara is very pleased with it! She will have to take it off at playtime though as she can only do a shuffle run in it!

Anya decided to go as Sophie from The BFG (thank goodness she changed her mind from going as the Golden Ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!) This was an easy costume - long sleeved white top underneath a nightie type dress (charity shop many years ago) some old glasses (frames only) of mine and a blanket that was made by my sister :)

And here they are together :) Matt came up with the idea for the next few photographs and I have to say it was a brilliant idea :) I introduce Sophie trying a bite of the Snozzcumber for the first time and her reaction to eating it!

Funny girls :)

Chickie in der boxie :)

You will only understand this title if you know about the Swedish chef :) And I am, of course, referring to my new chicken boxes!

If you order a chicken pincushion or paperweight from me from now on it will come in a lovely recycled box which can be used as a gift box and due to it's colour, any ribbon will look good! Of course it would look great with some gift tags added to it too ;)

Wholesale customers - if you already have some of my chickens and would like boxes then do get in touch :)

Ooooooh - win some of my things :)

Look! You can win these 5 sets of gift tags made by me :) There are also a whole host of other prizes up for grabs over at Retrash. There are 6 weeks of giveaways organised ahead of the Kickstarter book launch (I'm going to be in the book too!) so keep visiting to try and win lots of upcycled goodness from people around the world!

52 books, 52 weeks - part nine

So I was a big slacker in September and only managed to read one proper book! Shocking I know :)

This is the book I read - I grabbed it in the supermarket in their 2 for whatever deals and I enjoyed it. However I think I have read too many thrillers/horror books for the horror within this one to be truly horrid. It's more hinted at that described too so that didn't help but well worth a read.

I did read about 300,000 words of fanfiction last month but this challenge is for books and while fanfiction is brilliant, it's not in book format so I'm not counting it!

Good news though as I've finished my first book for October and I'm onto the second chapter of my second. Hopefully I'll get back on track this month :)

43/52

Spinning gift tag rack

I promised you a picture of the spinning gift tag rack and here it is!

Ta da!! It looks better in real life and when there isn't so much stuff piled up around it! Oh but that is not all - I even took a video of the rack spinning! Don't say I don't spoil you :)

Whovian's unite!

I've been drawing lots and lots of gift tags for the past couple of weeks and Dr Who watching is compulsory while doing so :) I think I've found the newest Whovian!

He sat watching for a good 20 minutes before he decided that he needed a snooze. Well it is tiring watching Matt Smith be gorgeous!

Church news

So, what's been happening with the church? Well the sad news is that our family circumstances have changed and we are having to sell the church :( I'm not going to go into the details here but as you might well imagine there have been many hours of discussions and many tears. The church is up for sale with Pugh Auctions and you can see the details here. Just in case you want to buy a partially converted church in Todmorden :)

There are also more pictures of the inside here if you want to take a peek.

Some thrifty finds

On the way to the dentist (which is where I was this morning) I pass a fabulous charity shop called Emmaus and I always pop in! It's a huge building (it was a former school) and it's packed full of all sorts of good things.

The tea towel and the squirrel bowl are from there and were 50p each. The two books are from the smaller hospice charity shop across the road and were also 50p each. And thank goodness for changing rooms in charity shops. I spied a nice looking gold coloured skirt (nice gold not nasty gold) and when held up against me it looked like it would come to just above my knees. It was a grown up version of a ra-ra skirt and was much nicer than it sounds! However when I tried it on, my bum, hips and stomach made it stop at mid thigh level and while I'm a big believer in wearing what the hell you like and not pandering to 'dressing for your body shape' (I hate that phrase!), it didn't suit me and I would have felt self concious wearing it. Phew, long sentence there!

To sum up my hatred of that phrase here are two of my pins from Pinterest - one a bit rude (pixelation not mine) and one not so rude.

Are you on Pinterest? Do you pin brilliant stuff? Let me know so I can take a look :)