Christmas Presents To Myself

Did you get anything nice for Christmas? I got some lovely gifts, but I also decided to treat myself...

Most of the money I got paid to write Super-Cute Felt Animals is earmarked for boring but important stuff like paying bills (the joys of being a grown-up, eh?) but I wanted to buy myself something nice as a little celebration / pat on the back for getting all that work done this time last year.

I thought what could be more appropriate than using some of the money I earned writing a book to buy some books?

It was tricky deciding what to buy, but in the end I mostly plumped for books by makers, artists and bloggers whose whose work I've been admiring / blogs I've been reading for years and years.  

Decorate by Holly Becker & Joanna Copestick

Embroidery Companion by Alicia Paulson

Quilt Improv by Lucie Summers

Design Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney

Making an Impression by Geninne D. Zlatkis

Make Hey! While the Sun Shines by Pip Lincolne (regular readers may remember that I bought this a few months ago, but I've been saving it for the holidays!)

and Scandinavian Stitches by Kajsa Wikman.

I also bought a copy of Homeward Bound by Emily Matchar. I've read soooo many blog posts and articles discussing this book since it came out in the spring, I thought it was high time I actually read it for myself!

The Return of the Blogroll, Plus a Trip to Reading

Thanks so much for all your blog recommendations the other day - it's been great to have some new blogs to check out on my tea breaks.

I used to subscribe to a lot of different blogs via Google Reader, then I found the list of unread posts got really overwhelming so I started unsubscribing to a lot of them... until when Google Reader went away earlier this year I only had a few blogs left on my list. I was following a lot of the bloggers on Twitter or Facebook anyway so I thought, why bother finding a new Reader?

But actually although I don't miss the feeling that I need to "catch up" with all the unread posts that build up when I'm busy doing other things, I do miss having a big list of stuff to read when I'm in the mood for a bit of craft / design / pretty picture inspiration. So I'm going old school and have added a blogroll to the sidebar of my blog (down on the bottom left). It's very much a work in progress - I keep remembering blogs I love that I've not included in the list, and I'm bound to discover lots of new-to-me blogs I want to add to the list. It'll be great for me to have a list I can dip into when the mood takes me, and I hope it'll help you guys discover some new favourites too.

In other news... for last week's Nice Day Out I spent the day in Reading. I pretty much grew up in Reading (I went to school there for 8 years) so this wasn't the most adventurous of days out, but it was nice to visit with a tourist-y eye instead of just working my way round the shops which is the usual reason I visit these days... well, that or to get the train to somewhere else! (When we had to describe where we lived for our French & German GCSEs we all learned how to say "Reading is a town near London in the South of England. It has excellent transport links").

The weather was lovely so I went for a walk round town...

 

 ... then had lunch at Picnic and popped into Jacksons, an independent (and delightfully old fashioned) department store that's sadly closing at the end of this year.
 

 

Then I went to Reading Museum and visited a couple of my favourite exhibits - the Victorian replica of the Bayeux Tapestry and the Huntley & Palmers gallery which is all about the (now closed) local biscuit factory. I love looking at all the different tins, and the little films about biscuit production throughout the 20th Century are really interesting (you can see a couple of them here and here). The only "problem" is that you come away with a strong desire to eat (or bake and then eat) some tasty biscuits!

What are your Favourite Craft Blogs?

So, I need some new crafty blogs to read on my teabreaks...

I'd love to know what blogs you guys recommend - please leave a comment on this post and let me know your favourites! Oh, and if you have a blog of your own do include the link to that too :)

Blog Love: LovePaperFish

My crafty chum Kirsty of LovePaperFish had her email hacked last month by some very nasty people, and lost all access to her blog as a result! Eek! Such a horrid thing to happen :(

(Here's a pic of Kirsty & me -with the lovely Lu Summers in the middle- at the Festival of Quilts last summer)

 

If you're a fan of all things crafty and felt-y you may well have visited Kirsty's blog before or bought something from her website or from one of her Etsy shops (I always recommend her as a supplier of awesome felt balls & colourful buttons). 

Please do check out her brand new blog & show her some love by leaving her a comment, following her blog, linking to her new blog in your blog sidebar, etc, anything you can do to help kickstart her new blogging adventure :)

(All photos in this post have been borrowed from Kirsty's blog).

My First Granny Square

I know it's a bit wonky, but I'm so proud of this:


A whole granny square, stitched by me. Hurrah!

Whether I can manage a second one unsupervised has yet to be seen, haha.

In the meantime - I need your help! I really want to start following a few crochet-related blogs / crafty blogs with a bit of crochet in the mix, and would love to hear your recommendations for some good blogs to try.

New blogs on my radar...

A couple of times a week I like to sit with a cuppa and browse a few of my favourite craft and design blogs - and to click a few links and discover new sites & lots of awesome people making amazing things. Apart from the occasional day when I end up feeling a bit talentless by comparison (a feeling perfectly captured by Gemma Correll in her drawing "the perils of being an illustrator with access to the internet") I love these blog-browsing sessions, and it's so exciting discovering a new blog you want to bookmark and come back to again and again. As well as following the personal blogs of various artists and crafters I'm really enjoying reading about crafting in general. Three of my recent faves are: 1) Crafting an MBA - described as "business thinking for designers and makers" this blog is a new project from Megan Auman whose personal blog is always a great, honest read about her crafty business and creative life. Worth a read: this post about "Etsy and the culture of cheap" has kicked off a really interesting discussion about Etsy, handmade and shoppers' ideas about how much things "should" cost. 2) Make & Meaning - I'm not sure if this technically counts as a blog but it's worth a mention anyway. Loads of bloggers are contributing articles to this site, all about issues to do with making stuff and the ins and outs and ups and downs of the creative life. Worth a read: I've enjoyed most of the articles so far but I really love the ones with lots of comments, some of the discussions being prompted make for great reading! 3) Craftypod - this is one of those sites I can't believe I've never stumbled upon before. Great craft book reviews and other crafty stuff, plus fortnightly podcasts which I mentioned briefly earlier this week. Podcasts! About crafting! Great stuff. Worth a listen: I though this podcast about a former Etsy top-seller selling her business and downsizing after self-confessed "burn out" was really interesting. Sometimes though it's just nice to look at pictures... I'm loving Lisa Congdon's A Collection a Day blog documenting real and imaginary collections, and Lu Summers' project to make a mixed media "sketch" every day for a year. Rather predictably my favourite piece of Lu's so far is one with a teapot in it: Have you discovered any great blogs lately? Do share! :)

A Nice Cup of Tea and a Good Blog

Are you running a creative business? Or dreaming of running one? Then check out the great new project from Jena of Modish: the Modish Biz Tips blog.

I've already lost count of the amount of times things mentioned on this blog have rung bells with me, and it seems I'm not alone: the comments are filled with crafters and other creative types sharing their experiences, all of which make for a great extra read and suggests this might turn into an amazing community space as well as a useful resource of articles and interviews.

Highly recommended reading for your teabreak!
PS It's official: tea tastes better drunk from your favourite mug!

I Love My Customers

All my customers are awesome. Truly. But some make me smile more than others, and the ones who send photos of my items in use make me grin for whole days! The latest wonderful, grin-inducing photo comes from Jessica who is so lovely that she blogged it too:
You may notice that I've added quite a few links to my "interviews and features" section down on the right there in the last few days, as I've been busy compiling a proper scrapbook record of them all. It's taken me a while having lost lots of links etc during our last batch of internet browser issues but I'm getting there... As well as having guilt at using up all the ink in my dad's printer making said scrapbook, I'm embarrased to discover that there are so many kind people whom I neglected to give a shout-out too! Please accept a belated THANKYOU! for your sweetness, one and all. I will try harder in future I promise :)

I Heart Tea (Crafting 365 day 343)

I drink a lot of tea. Many many mugs of the lovely stuff. I am totally addicted and totally obsessed with all the paraphernalia that goes along with it: teacups, teapots, teacosies, even nice teaspoons! So it seemed only right and proper that I got back into sewing after my recent break with a batch of "I love tea" badges:
Sooo many tiny letters to cut out and sew on! Very satisfying finishing that lot, but there are even more to come as I'm finally going to be restocking the other four colours over the next few weeks as well...

Thinking of tea (and you know I often am), did you know that everyday when Eastenders finishes so many British people put the kettle on for a cuppa that it almost overwhelms the National Grid? I learnt this fun little fact from the shopping blog Wee Birdy, which kindly featured some of my tea-themed brooches this month. Hurrah!

Other recent features of my work include a sweet post on I Love Hokey, my "tea taste" pin in a lovely tea-themed Etsy montage on Mon Petit Lapin (I drink plain old builders tea - Fairtrade, of course - black no sugar in case you're wondering) and in a tea themed "treasury" selection by SassaLynne, a mention of my badger brooch by Miss Frugality, kind words on Hazelnut Studio's blog ... and also a little feature on Crafty Crafty.

Any mention of my work always makes me smile, be it on shopping blogs or little mentions of my felty things on the blogs of fellow crafters (apologies to anyone I forget to mention - I love you all, I'm just forgetful!) but I have to admit to having a little giggle at CraftyCrafty's description that "These fantastic felted goodies are part of the felt 365 project, a spinoff from crafting 365." Felt 365! Heehee! I love how my Crafting 365 group is starting to get mentioned places and take on a life of its own away from me but it did make me laugh all the same :)

Absence Makes the Heart...

I'm taking a small break from my 365photo updates to go away for a few days (leaving my totally non-green-fingered boyfriend in charge of my plants... doom!) so instead this week I'll be blogging about a few crafty people who inspire me.

In the meantime though check out Crafty Synergy, a blog filled with interviews with all sorts of awesome crafters like Inleaf Design who make the most charming items by printing with real leaves (I love leaves) and quite a few lovely people I recognise from my Etsy travels.

Disguise Yourself

There's a bit of a disguise theme going on with my crafting this week, first finishing a batch of moustache disguises on Sunday...
... and then cutting out pieces for making masks on Monday evening:
I was just planning on starting a few "spares" of the masks I've currently got listed on Etsy, but when I went looking for the appropriate felt colours in my stash I discovered some much neglected patterned felt sheets and decided to put them to use! I'm trying out a camouflage version of the bandit and a leopard-print version of the cat mask. The camouflage felt was originally bought to make this little guy:
A couple of sweet mentions to, er, mention today: one of my circles pincushions was featured on a nice-looking blog called One Part Whimsy; and my newly-established Folksy shop got a lovely mention on the always awesome I Like. Hurrah!

Packing Up

Yesterday and today I have been working on a list of crafty projects (and the necessary supplies for said projects) to take away with me on holiday this week. My actual packing (clothes, useful equipment etc) will be done at the last minute - I figure I can always wear clashing clothes for a day or two with no bad consequences, or buy a tube of toothpaste when I get there, but not having remembered that certain shade of felt I need? Disaster! :)

I'm just going to visit my folks, leaving the boyfriend in charge of watering the plants (poor plants!) ... and there will be plenty of relaxing time to sew (not least because they have a television, and the wonder of digital channels, so I will probably be glued to the box for the first 24 hours and need something to keep my hands busy!). Last time I went away I got stuck with no internet at the same time, so I was seriously productive, making lots of batches of brooches - see them here and here. This time I'm concentrating on bigger projects that have been stuck in my WIP box for ages because I'm forever being distracted by other things. Like taking a serious novel on your hols, I'm hoping the absence of lighter crafting will force me to get stuck in and get them finished.

In other news: I have been doing a most egotistical bit of google-searching this week, tracking down mentions of my blog, shop and flickr in preparation for a shout out to various lovely people who've given my work a mention over the past couple of months. The most recent of these is Craftershock, who featured my work today & gave my Crafting 365 group a mention (though I don't think they guessed that it's actually my group! hehe). Looking back, I remember starting my own project in frustration at having done nothing crafty for a whole month and then tentatively setting up the group on Flickr in the hope that one or two people might join in... I googled "crafting 365" to check if it was being used already somewhere and hardly anything came up. Today google gave me 21,300 results (okay so it's only about 200 when google removes the "similar results" but still...), and our group has 653 members. So much crafting!

Nice Things

Last night's craftiness? Sewing more layered flowers: It's so relaxing cutting out lots of petals, layering them and seeing what they turn into...

In other news:

I am really behind in shout-outs to the sweet people who have mentioned my work on their blogs etc... I will try to do a proper post about this sometime soon (even the smallest mention really makes me smile), but for the moment I must mention that my pansy brooch was a "Sunday Indie Find" over at BlommaFinds and my moth brooch got a mention today on Cuteable in a selection of fun "Dawanda Finds". Yay.

Lovely though it is to have people mention my work, nothing (and I mean nothing) beats the thrill of seeing people actually wearing it! My most recent customer appreciation photo comes from Clothcat, who has kindly agreed to be an official moustache disguise model for my Etsy listings... how great is this picture?

In the meantime...

I'm still stuck without the internet for 99% of my day (sob!) but I just wanted to mention that there's an interview with me over on IndieFixx today, hurrah!

I am rather pining for the pretty colours and fantastic inspiration offered by lovely design blogs like IndieFixx... particularly Poppytalk (and so many of the great blogs linked to on there) and (my current favourite) Print & Pattern - always so much lush stuff to look at, and so much colour! I may have to go out and buy a glossy magazine to tide me over, but it just won't be the same...

365 / 212 - 320 Pieces of Felt

As I was feeling a bit under the weather last night (better now, hurrah), I decided to sit and watch some Poirot dvds and cut out some felt for new projects...
... rather a lot of felt, in fact! 160 pieces for one mobile, another 160 for another mobile, and a few more pieces ready for other projects. Every single piece was cut out freehand, no patterns and no fancy cutting machines, just me and my eyes and a pair of scissors. I had meant to only cut out 96 pieces for the second mobile (making it one-sided only) but I was rather half-asleep and kept accidentally cutting out two of all the pieces so I just went with it :)

Some fun and happy news:
I hit my 700th item sold over on Etsy last night - such a huge number. I keep thinking about it and grinning... and then thinking about the amount of hours I must have spent in the post office over the past year, and grinning slightly less! My little poppy was apparently on the Etsy front page yesterday morning - thanks so much to Saysie for letting me know, and also for this sweet mention of my Felt Fancy pincushions. My bluetit is proving popular over on the French version of Dawanda, even showing up on their little front page widget for most popular items...
... and a couple of my flower brooches were picked for Dawanda's (English) spring accessories feature. I was also dead chuffed this morning to see that my ribbon brooch get a mention over on the Craft blog. A few other sweet people have mentioned my work recently, but I have temporarily misplaced the list I wrote! It's probably buried under pile of felt. Oh well, I'm sure it'll turn up. All these nice features and it's sunny today. Wonderful stuff.

365 / 203 & 204 - Getting Better, plus: Buttons Galore!

Thanks to much rest, and many a cup of soothing tea I am starting to feel better. It is most marvellous. While I've been feeling under the weather, my crafty pace slowed rather a lot... all I've managed to get done is sewing the backs onto the teacup brooches:
(Two one day, the rest the next) It's not much, but it's great to see them all finished. As I started the teacups when I needed a "poorly" project, it just goes to show what you can get done even when you're not up to doing much and how a little bit of daily crafting can go a long way! I still haven't decided which brooch to keep for myself, but I've narrowed it down to these two:
While I've been taking time off from chores and work and tiring things like that, I've been enjoying lots of cups of tea whilst reading round a few lovely blogs and catching up on my Flickr contacts' latest photos. The theme this week in the crafty universe seems to be buttons, as they seemed to pop up everywhere I looked! RaspberryFairy blogged about lovely buttons, as did TheBlackApple ... Ladyfort enjoyed some "button therapy" with these lovely glass buttons...
... Memake washed some buttons ...
... Seaurchin made some buttons... and LilfishStudios was working on a gorgeous vintage button bouquet...... such a charming idea for a wedding bouquet, and the thought of that big bowl of buttons makes my brain almost explode with buttony delight! Yum yum.

365 / 158 - A Blue Thread Crisis

Yesterday evening was rather blissful: a pile of old films to watch, and my work-in-progress pile to attend to. Lots of spring flowers to finish, and more to begin, but I also wanted to make some blue teapots - or at least one so I could take photos of it today. Unfortunately, I don't have the right sort of blue thread...
All those blues, but not the one I want! A trip to the habedashers is called for I think...

In other news, I found a great little quote about Etsy in this article on the BBC:
"I think there's generally a resurgence in hand-made, home-made stuff in response to globalised, generic goods," she said. "The Primark Effect, if you like: the equal and opposite reaction to that physical law would be The Etsy Effect."

Oh, and I have been blogged a few times... First up, I was completely delighted to see that my little blog has been added to the daily reads list on the ever-awesome Cuteable. My tea addict pin got a lovely mention over on the 16sparrows blog, various 365 members have been blogging the project and giving me a mention in the process (thankyou all!), Cindy bought some of those great tea buttons I got off Etsy a few weeks ago, my moustaches showed up on the (new and rather interesting) Autonomous Artisans blog, and my abstract mobiles were featured on Craft&Found. Hurrah!

365 / 146 - Framing, Sewing and being Blogged

It's sunny! Wonderful, wonderful. Thanks to the wonders of sunshine, here is a photo of what I've been up to these past two crafty days:
Lots of moustaches finished on day 145, some of the pictures (mostly acquired on etsy) framed yesterday afternoon, and apple pins (finished) & oak leaves (embroidered) last night whilst watching yet more episodes of Doctor Who.

Ah, how satisfying it is to have finished all of that lot... I am also dead chuffed to report that I have been blogged a delightful four times this week.
1) My deer pin showed up on Cuteable
2) My mobiles are featured on the Craft zine blog today (thanks to paperbluebird for the heads up!)
3) One of my customers posted a lovely photo of one of my bird ornaments on their Christmas tree! I cannot tell you how much I smiled seeing that photo, it is so great to think of my work as part of someone's Christmas.
and 4) The lucky buyer of my 500th item - the super-talented Heidi Burton - has blogged her gift parcel in just the sweetest way.

On the little scribbley note I wrote to myself as a reminder to mention these things I have also written "heidi cards!!" in a somewhat frantically underlined fashion because I keep forgetting to mention that Heidi Burton has Valentine's Day cards in her shop and they are awesome. You should buy some, and if you do she offers to write your greeting for free and post it in time for Valentine's. My favourite card? The tea-themed one, obviously...

365 / 76 & 77 - back on the wagon with pips and pins and more moustaches

Okay so yesterday afternoon I got so engrossed in my craftiness that I never got around to blogging day 76... so here it is:
A whole bowl full of moustaches! I don't really know why I took a photo of the moustaches inside a piece of vintage crockery, but after the biscuits on the saucer it somehow seemed like a good idea. Endless photos of moustaches can get a little dull, I feel. Now at least you have some crockery to look at.

I cut out LOTS of moustache pieces in preparation for many an hour's patient stitchery (they are marvellously relaxing things to make, particularly at the embroidery stage) and completed seven of the little fellows ready to package up and take to the post office yesterday. The women in the post office continue to be delighted by the stickers I put on my parcels (I'm sure they recognise me by my stickers alone), I can only hope that my customers are similarly charmed. Decorated packages are so much more fun to receive, I reckon. When the stickers run out I am planning to buy a permanent marker or two and do some doodles :)

Thinking of post offices (not the most exciting topic this world has to offer but please bear with me), it never ceases to amaze me the wide variety of service you get depending on which post office you go to and (in many cases) which window is free when it's your turn... Some seem never to have sent anything airmail before, while another couple are the very soul of efficiency (one even commenting how pleased she was to get an organised customer!). Some write "small packet" on the parcels, some don't. Some believe in "printed papers" as a category, some ignore it. I have even been told off by one assistant for doing things another told me I had to do! Craziness. My personal favourite was the assistant who was totally foxed by the proof of posting I handed her - it was proof of posting for three items, with three names and addresses clearly written on it (as per usual with my parcels) and she wrote "one" in the number of items! So annoying.

That really wasn't an interesting digression, was it? Ah well.

On to day 77 (yesterday) ...
Yesterday I cut out lots of pieces for a batch of apple pins, stitched their white insides and their brooch backs and then sewed on half the required little brown pips. I also cut out pieces for green and purple "I love tea" pins and dug out the bird brooches from my wip pile and finally gave them brooch backs and their little beady eyes. Not particularly satisfying work as nothing got finished but lots of things progressing nicely. One of the apple pins will have to get listed as an "oops" though as I made the pips just ridiculously large. Here is last night's work table:
In other news, I have been spotting my stuff in lots of nice places. One of my peacock-esque mobiles was on the Etsy front page as part of a peacock-themed treasury. Yay.

My moustache pins (and also the UK Etsy blog which I am still shamefully behind on updating) got a lovely mention on The Monobrow, and someone posting a comment yesterday pointed out this charming review over at Roadside Scholar - I particularly love the mention of my English vocabulary, "great words like “chuffed” and “witter”!" :)

Oh, and I totally forgot to mention before, but in a recent Storque interview with the awesome guys behind Circa Ceramics my mobile was featured as one of their "top Etsy picks", which just made me smile hugely as I adore Circa Ceramics, their colour palette is just so zingy and delicious.

365 / 75 - a saucer of biscuits

I spent a fair bit of time yesterday tidying the house and doing odd little chores like filing this and cleaning that... I rather wore myself out, and come the evening I was super-sleepy. I curled up on the sofa and listened to the radio for a while, and finished off the batch of biscuit brooches I've been working on:
(the saucer they're on used to belong to my grandmother, each cup and saucer in the set is a different soft pastel colour, so cute).

In other news, I am dead annoyed today cos I had planned to bake scones and when I got the flour out of the cupboard I found that the horrid bugs had returned. So icky and so annoying (especially as I'd just restocked that cupboard after the last time!). Bah.

To cheer myself up a little, I feel it is time for some ego-boosing links... My work has recently shown up on an assortment of fun little blogs. My moustache cards were featured on Found it on Etsy, my moustache pins on The Crafty Devils blog, and my library project zine and the moustaches themselves got a mention on ScribbleSisters (the blog world seems to like moustaches!). Also one of my bird mobiles was featured on a great little blog about kids stuff and the lovely jen1kanobi wrote some very sweet things about my shop following my featured seller "fame" (haha what a joke that is!)

Right, I still don't feel completely cheered up so I am going to go and eat some jaffa cakes (mmm, jaffa cakes...) and drink a nice soothing cup of tea...