A quiter week

Been a quieter week and less productive for me, mainly because met up with a friend for coffee for a lovely chat. Had a new cupboard delivery which then meant moving things around ie books into the new cupboard etc. Very tidy now and we have cleared the DVD cabinet of the books now have room for more DVD's, that and cleaning not a lot of crafting to show for the past week. 

Did have a play with a new in the hoop design, a cover for sticky notes, ideal for your handbag

Forgot to mention last week, those that know me know I love stationery and notebooks, went to M & S Food and found this wonderful daily journal, just right for some extra planning in the business front. That and my bullet journal think will have to behave and not buy any more.

On saying that did buy some journal cards, they are so pretty and plan to write on them and add to the journals. A sort of product brain storming session.

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Hope to be more productive next week but having a big declutter of my sewing room. This seems to be taking ages and keep getting distracted with found goodies that I could not remember buying or where I had put them. Think this is going to be a long task and not sure when I will resurface.

That is it from me this week, stay safe, warm and dry

A year of change

A moment of revelation, after being turned down for some events and having grown tired of 'Craft Fairs' in general got a bit down, then stood up and dusted myself off and thought all things happen for a reason. The whole point of my business was to work from home online. That is now what I am doing and working hard to make my site more visible plus reopening my Etsy store. This will save me rentals, petrol, attending time and travel time. Just think what I could be doing with all those hours lost? CREATING which is what I love doing.

On a positive note a lady through my sister bought a pair of my Swarovski elements Christmas tree earrings and when she gave to her daughter she was so thrilled with them. Another lady shopping in Tesco in Aldershot saw the cashier wearing a pair of lace embroidered tree earrings, recognised and yes they were mine she had bought them from an event I attended last year. As her sewing ladies do get asked where they got their earrings from plan to send them some business cards to hand out. All good marketing and promotion.

Not done so much on the making front this week as have had a migraine most of the week but did complete a pink Swarovski Elements necklace, got this idea from a design worn on 'Murdoch Mysteries', so pretty and delicate.

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That is it for me this week, have fun and stay warm as sooooo cold in Hampshire atm.

Teacups, roses and more

Well January is flying past and making as fast as I can. Saw these rose teacups on ebay, a set of 3 no saucers but what I had planned that did not matter, adding lace, Elizabethan potpourri, roses, diamantes and pearl diamantes. So pretty and smell delicious.

Earring cards (a card and gift in one) with Swarovski elements heart earrings, come in a matt gold box

Decorated spoons

Image printed onto fabric and embellished with ribbon, beads, flowers and German glass glitter

Altered alarm clock

Embroidered image of Jane Austen writing in the back, embellished with flowers 

Baby fox and Bunny pictures

Found these shabby chic style frames and felt this new design fitted them well.

Fairy wishes bottle

Not to waste anything this tiny bottle held Anbesol, adding glitter, roses and a fairy

Bluebird image box

Again another recycled project, this 4 section box had wood ornaments of snowflakes and reindeer. Painted in cream chalk paint beautiful images of bluebirds, diamantes and flowers with ribbon for hanging.

Think that is all for this week but on a roll and now nothing is safe as if I think could be upcycled will be used.

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Have a good week, stay warm, safe and dry

Working Hard

Started off the week well on the making front, then decided that my sewing room was a tip. On Friday started the big tidy up, using the Julie Morgenstern's method, which is very logical and works, once you start and that for me is the biggest problem, finding the energy and enthusiasm to start. On this occasion it has all got a bit overwhelming and needed to do something, namely wanted to move a desk from my workroom to the sewing room for the embroidery machine to be in a permanent location, so something had to be done.

Sort: Going through everything in a given room and grouping it according to categories that make sense to you — which is why the previous point about identifying your own preferences is so important. Resist the urge to return items that you think belong in another room straight away; put them in a dedicated box and return them at the end of the process, or you'll be endlessly distracted.

Purge: Getting rid of items in each category that are broken, useless, superseded or otherwise irrelevant. Morgenstern is a firm advocate of the "if you haven't used recently, ditch it" school of thought, but this is another area where your own personal judgement becomes important. That said, if you fail to purge anything during a cleanup, you'll probably find it harder to keep everything organised.

Assign: With purged and sorted groups of items, you can assign each group a permanent home (which won't necessarily be in the room where you've done the sorting) — again making use of your own preferences and existing habits, and bearing in mind any space restrictions. Ideally, this should involve saying "this goes in this item of furniture/area", rather than just in a particular room.

Containerise: Minimising clutter means having somewhere to put stuff away, and that's where storage containers (whether that's a new bookshelf or a container to keep batteries in) become important. However, it's always better to hold off on buying (or recycling from what you've already got) until you've done the first three stages, reinforcing the point we made recently that you shouldn't shop for organising gear until you know what's there to organise. Having dedicated locations for everything also makes it easier to put everything away, which is the next critical stage.

Equalise: The final key to staying clutter-free is dedicating time every day (or every week for less frequently used rooms) to equalise: returning everything to its home. If you've been thorough with the previous stages, this shouldn't be time consuming. Morgenstern advocates revisiting the clutter-clearing process every six to 12 months to make sure that equalising doesn't take too long.

Makes for this week

A good friend sent me some lovely gifts and wrapped around them was this linen ribbon, not wanting to waste it as so pretty, have made up into some flower pins

Another vintage style card, bit concerned as these take so long to do but could also be framed and kept.

Finally finished the 4 scarves, love this yarn reminds me a bit of the pencil shavings, when you kept on and on sharpening to produce a curl as long as possible. Shows what I got up to at school, little things.....

That is it for me this week, have a god one and if you do not hear from me next Handmade Monday, please send out a search party as could be buried under a ton of fabric.

Vintage style and a New Year

First things first

Happy New Year

Now for the business stuff......

I love Vintage. Making in the vintage style, altering items to give the vintage twist. 2017 for me is going to be more of the same and a new style of using vintage items to turn into unusual gifts such as silver spoons (you will have to wait and see what comes of that later in the year).

In the meantime my first makes for 2017 vintage style embroidered cards, these are for special occasions and could be bought with a frame to become a keepsake gift.

Vintage girl and puppy an 8 X 8" card stitched onto white cotton, gingham mount and pearlised flowers.

Another sample next week....

Getting Organised

Okay don't all fall about laughing but I do try every year, just does not always seem to work. My hardest bit is remembering to put all my ideas down into a notebook, not scraps of paper that then got lost or eaten by the DOG!!!! Been looking at the bullet journals for some time and settled on a Leuchtturm1917 Medium A5 Notebook 

 with squares rather than dots, as think will be easier to split up.

Arrived on Saturday and excited to start. Think this system with an index at the front and numbered pages is ideal as all my other notebooks I spend ages going through them to try to remember where I noted something down, hence the bits of paper everywhere.

Pricing Projects

Okay this is another new idea, although always done pricing never had a proper record of what I have used etc. Found these downloadable sheets online, don;t ask where as cannot remember but they are proving brilliant and being able to add a picture is even better. One thing I forgot to do was note the suppliers but as only started can go back an add those details onto the sheet.

Okay scrap the bit about not knowing where I got it from as has the link on the form, stupid me. http://tolmema.com/go/download-free-product-pricing-worksheet/

Treated myself to a wonderful album as well to keep in alphabetical order

Now to tackle the sewing room, Lee is dreading this as want him to move a desk from my workroom upstairs into the sewing room, this means I would not have to keep moving the embroidery machine, which weighs a ton. The workroom is so cold and can only be used in the summer. The fault is because the house is so well insulated and we converted the upper end of the garage for my workroom, not heated either. Do keep thinking of having a night storage heater put in there, maybe in 2017, this would at least take the chill off. Good in the height of the summer when scorching though as lovely and cool. A smaller table in the sewing room can then be moved downstairs and may be able to get another shelf unit for stock storage.

I hope you have all recovered from last nights revelling and hope we all have a prosperous New Year.

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See you all next week