Have you met Laura?

Over a year ago now, Laura decided to arrange a meet up for Folksy sellers in the local area and invited me along as we’d been to fairs and stuff together even though I wasn’t active over there any more. What actually happened is Laura, Zara and I (who had met before at various craft fairs) ended up meeting up regularly, first for dinner and now it’s turned into a Bingo ritual.

Months ago now we were talking about my blog and I said to Laura that I would write a post about her and only now am I getting round to that, sorry Laura! So this is my first of a two part installment about my friends online who became offline friends and who make lovely things. Come back tomorrow to look at Zara’s lovely wares!

Laura makes jewellery under the name Laura’s Jewellery and has done for at least four years now, possibly longer I haven’t asked, but I know she was opposite me at my very first craft fair (blogged about in 2008!). It was a rubbish fair, we shall say no more and just show some pretty things. Honestly I’ve no idea how she does these but aren’t they great?

She has some fab butterflies in this style too, however my dislike of insects with wings (phobia?) dictates them inappropriate for showing here…

And this is my personal favourite item in the whole shop…

She is an active member of the Craft Britannia team on Etsy. her Etsy shop is HERE so make sure you go bookmark it.

She’s also on Twitter.

And Pinterest.

Oh and Facebook– go there too!

And her dog Ellie is from the same place we got Penny, so obviously being a dog lover I had to include a picture of her sweet Alsatian/Husky face! Look at those huge ears!

Advertisement

Sausage Dog Fabric

I’ve got a new design in my Spoonflower fabric shop…

It’s available in two colourways as above, and I have a single FQ available in my patterns/supplies Etsy shop for $6- click here.

I’ve also already whipped up a simple Kindle pouch using it.

Phone case crazy

After my tutorial yesterday on how to make these, I have made quite a few more phone cases (until I ran out of decent wadding scraps) working with stuff I’ve rooted out of my scraps drawer. Basically it was a diversion from patching together the world’s most boring pattern curtains. I have done nearly a whole curtain of two though so I might be able to show you some actual progress later this week.

I’m adding these to my Etsy shop as and when the mood takes me this week, some are there already.

And then I made this one, sewed the pocket on the wrong way round and put the button on back to front. Oops. Hopefully someone will love it if I price it as seconds 🙂

Next I want to make some more cushions because I sold my badger one about a fortnight ago and think the soft furnishing section of my shop looks a bit sorry for itself!

Olympic Procrastination

I have done very little of anything else but watch the Olympics recently. The odd bit of chocolate has been made and I have sewn a couple of hems on trousers but that’s pretty much the full extent of crafts, and don’t get me started on laundry, hoovering, etc, etc.

Anyway I have just about found time since a week last saturday to make these two new items for my shop. A frame purse using some of my seagull fabric and a simple quilt-as-you-go table runner using only my scraps. And I’m still on track with listing something in my Etsy shops every day!

Hopefully I’ll have a new notebook for my shop and get another cushion made before this time next week.

Ooh and please vote for Sullivan, Fletcher and my Art Quilt over on the Pets on Quilts competition. We are 5, 6 and 7, dog on quilt, other pet on quilt and then art quilt categories respectively. Thank you!

Shameless Self Promotion

From now until the end of August I am going to list at least one item on Etsy every day. This motivator has worked well for me, since Tuesday I have listed 14 items in my general shop alone! Here’s some of them…

I’m thinking of hosting a weekly linky party to see what other people have put up for sale that week too and keep us all motivated to keep listing. It’s probably going to be a slow starter, but with your help hopefully we will get lot of people joining in by the end of the year. Would you be interested in doing something like this or do you do too many linky parties already?

Craft Pimp

Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet recently, this week in particular is a strain, but after the fair this weekend, I will have a few days to sew and get Christmas stuff sorted before the mad Christmas chocolates post rush begins, then I am looking forward to lots of me time from my birthday onwards until the New Year which will be heaven! I’m allegedly going dog sledding in early January, so that should be an interesting story to tell.

Anyway, I’ve recently joined the Craft Pimp team on Etsy with trufflepiglet (and if all goes well with rebuilding PennyDog in my relaxing break I may be able to do the same with that shop)- it is for members of the Craft Pimp forum who have well stocked shops and are serious about selling on there, and increasing their presence. here’s a few examples of the team’s work currently available for sale! Because it makes a change not to just talk about me for once and of course Christmas is coming (hint, hint!)…

Betelgeuse Art Glass Picture by Kiln Fired Art

Bring Me Sunshine Bouquet by I Heart Buttons

Blue Topaz Pendant by Anna McDade

She's A Rainbow Glass Bead Set by Kitzbitz Art Beads

 For more, just search “cpteam” on Etsy.

Ch- ch- changes!

I am drastically cutting down the pieces of jewellery I am now selling. I’ve started by giving the Etsy and Folksy shops a good weeding and this will follow onto the main PennyDog site.

Why?

Well it is silly me offering more and more made to order items that I don’t have time to replenish. I really don’t want everything to be made to order. So I have been taking stuff off, even popular items. Then I will list them as I make them…. if I do choose to make them again! It makes life a lot easier, but this doesn’t mean I won’t list new things as I have a few things slowly being made.

The resin supplies section is totally unaffected, and in fact it is growing, along with my Folksy supplies shop! I am also quite happy to do wholesale and custom orders like the doggy necklace above!

The reason I now don’t have very much time is because I am trufflepigletting away in the kitchen as the launch of the site seemed pretty successful! So this is where my energies are focused at the minute and it feels good to be doing something totally different, I’d like to be more relaxed with the resin side of things rather than running around in a manic panic as I have been recently.

Ohh and if you are chocolatey minded, please come and visit my sister blog for the trufflepiglet venture, it’s nothing at the minute but I have plans to make it more interesting, so if you have a blog reader, I’d recommend adding me 😉

Flower Crazy…

After working at the Stitch and Creative Crafts show this weekend, I am now the owner of our demonstration model of the Sizzix Big Shot! I love playing with all of the textures and shapes it can cut and have ordered a crease mat and some box cutting dies, as well as other “useful” shapes so I can integrate felt die cuts into my work, but also creative useful packaging, for instance I haven’t got boxes that will fit bangles. So at the minute I have a pinwheel die and also flower shapes so I made these this morning with some scrap felt!

I also thought I’d share with you a recent purchase at an antiques shop. We went and bought a wine rack to replace our ugly drinks cabinet and I also came away with these lovely paintings for my office for £10 each!

I was also on the Etsy front page on Saturday night with my lace bangle 🙂 I seem to have misplaced the screen grab I took when I saw it, but I do subscribe to Statsy fortunately so you can see it here… http://statsy.org/featurator_view.php?date=2010-09-18+13%3A30

Spotlight on… Recycloanalyst

It’s been a while since a feature wasn’t just all about me, me, me! I found this small, little discovered shop- also from the UK- on Etsy this morning. All of the jewellery is created from old broken jewellery and here are some of my favourites…

Click here for Recycloanalyst’s shop

A few good (wo)men

After my last negative(ish) post about resin crafters that copy, I’ve decided to show some of my favourite designers here who are making marvellous work in the world of resin! I even own a pendant from Serena Kuhl, a ring from Fake ID from the Resin Swap and I’m excitedly waiting for a cuff from Buy My Crap– proving there’s no reason why you shouldn’t buy something you like even if it is in a medium you  are very confident in yourself- in fact it makes you appreciate the skill even more!

 

 

 

Hearts are really big at the minute it seems! Please click on the items to go to the sellers’ shops.