Lots of Free Tutorials!

Today I managed to get a page added to my website that I've been meaning to put together for just ages... a collection of all the free tutorials and projects I've posted on my blog:

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed I've also added a quick links list of my tutorials in my blog sidebar... but oooh it is nice to have them all together on their own page, and with lots of pictures! Simple things, eh? :)

A page of my Christmas tutorials will be appearing at some point, but it's far too hot to be thinking about things like that at the moment!

This Time Two Years Ago

One of the great pleasures of regular crafty blogging is that occasionally I can look back over my creative ups and downs and see how my style has gradually developed, spot things I talked about doing but never got round to (this happens quite frequently!), remember things I no longer make, ... and see how some things don't seem to change at all:

I still work on vintage trays, and have an overflowing work-in-progress box...I'm still a sucker for lovely buttons...I'm still sewing lots of flower brooches, and birds - though the designs have changed quite a bit!And I'm still making abstract mobiles after being commissioned to make the very first one over two years ago with the very loose and slightly unnerving brief to make a mobile that was "awesome" ... Do you ever look back at what you used to make? How has your work changed, and how has it stayed the same?

Chit Chat

No pictures today, but for those of you who like reading... there's a nice little interview with me over at Paper* Cakes Finds this week. You can find it here. Many thanks to Chelsea for asking the questions! :)

Discover some bargains...

I've been pretty busy recently, getting lots of my usual sewing done but also working on a top secret project... (shhh!)

This has been lots of fun but also extra work & extra deadlines, and after finishing it I need a bit of a rest! So I've gone away for a bit to stay with my parents and swap piles of work and trips to the Post Office for home cooking and lazing around in the sunshine.

All orders from my shops will (of course) be posted as soon as possible after I get back ... and I'll still be blogging. Though I have rather foolishly forgotten to pack my camera (oops).

Even though I'm away, I'm having a sale over in my DaWanda shop this week! There's a site-wide "discovery sale" going on in loads of DaWanda shops until Sunday where you can get a fantastic 15% off if you've never made a purchase from that shop before. You can find my shop HERE.

New(ish) Wild Roses

Sometimes when I come to re-make an older design I think of ways I should have made it differently.

In some cases this leads me to think up completely new pieces, but in others it's just nice to refresh the design a little... as with these wild roses:
They're pretty much the same design as before, just with small changes to the stitched details which I'm sure most people wouldn't care about (or even notice) but which I feel is a vast improvement!

The last white rose in the old style is now on sale at a bargain price over in my Etsy shop, by the way :)

I've made some wild rose headbands, too. I just can't resist sewing things onto headbands these days...
They can be found in my Etsy shop and on my website and hopefully in my other shops soon, once I find the spare time to get them all listed.

Adventures with Beads

I got a lovely parcel of seed beads in the post yesterday, and immediately threw aside my 'to do' list for the day and started work on a new version of one of my flower designs instead:All the corsages were made from pieces of an old wool jumper I shrunk & turned into felt ages and ages ago. It's been sitting unloved in an old suitcase under the bed... and now it's got a new life as some brooches. Hurrah!I want to try making these in other kinds of felt as well - and am looking forward to trying out lots of different colours- but I'm delighted with how lovely and thick and almost velvety the recycled felt is and how pleasingly chunky it makes the corsages. The beading takes a while but I think it's totally worth it (though I do now have a strange urge to eat blackberries...)
In very out of character bit of efficiency, I've even managed to get these listed over on Etsy already. You can find the smaller one here and the large one here.

Thanks to the same flurry of efficiency, several new designs have been added over on my website and I've added a new custom listing to my Etsy shop: a custom version of my poppy headbands, where you can pick whatever colour you fancy.

Felt, Glorious Felt

I've been making up lots of bundles of felt squares today and taking the opportunity to do a bit of stock-taking while I'm at it... so my house has been covered with colourful felt all day! (starting to look a bit tidier now, but only just).

No time for sewing today, so instead some snaps of an order I finished a little while ago which has just arrived at its destination - a custom mobile in bright modern colours.

Each custom mobile order starts out with my customer & I working together to pick colours, and these were the yummy ones we went with:Then I got to work cutting out lots and lots of shapes, leaving lots of colourful scraps left over. I never use a pattern, just mix shapes and colours freehand to make each mobile unique.

After much sewing, eventually all the discs were finished:Then I arranged them into strands and stitched them all onto their ribbons ready for hanging in their new home:Finally I took lots of snaps to record the piece before I put it in the post to its new owner!

Vintage Button Shopping

As every good crafter knows, supplies shopping is the BEST kind of shopping.

I stumbled across a charity shop with an overflowing button box yesterday and after a good rummage bought myself these lovelies:

With more eco flowers in my wip pile I've got a reason to stock up on pretty vintage buttons, but really who needs a reason to buy such nice things?

Surprise Sweetness

I got a lovely surprise parcel in the post yesterday - a sweet thankyou from Dianna, who won my birthday giveway:Lovely fabric covered in teacups! Such a nice thing to get in the post and very cheering on a Monday morning :)

I'm Running a Flower Shop

Well, not really but it definitely seems like that at the moment - I've been listing so many flower brooches!

I got the chance to do a big Etsy shop update today, and have added some cheerful "bloom" brooches and headbands that have been languishing shamefully in my wip box for almost a year...I've also started listing my new eco felt flowers, which I actually designed after playing around with the leaf shapes from those bloom pieces. Funny how one thing leads to another, isn't it?

As planned, the larger flowers are chunky brooches...... and the smaller ones (still quite large at 4 inches across!) have a plastic comb sewn on so you can wear them in your hair:As usual, all the designs will be listed gradually in my Etsy shop over the coming days. All the eco flowers are one of a kind, so - please excuse cheeky sales pitch! - if there's one you particularly want let me know (I'm always happy to reserve things).

Eco Flowers

I finally made something with the "ecospun" felt I ordered a couple of months ago...
... lots and lots of flowers! I'm really pleased about being able to offer an eco-friendly product (the felt is made from recycled plastic bottles) and the colours are very yummy, which I think makes for some very yummy flowers :)

Each flower is made up of lots of individual petals and topped with a vintage button from my stash, making each finished piece one of a kind. I was just choosing the buttons when I took these photosThe larger flowers are 12 cms / 4 and a half inches across and will become big statement brooches, and the smaller ones will be fascinators thanks to a pack of little plastic combs I bought last week.

Rainbow Scraps

Things are very busy here! Lots of projects to finish and parcels to post and deadlines to meet.

Just time for a snapshot from my workbox - colourful scraps leftover from one of this week's projects:
EDIT: don't worry, I don't throw my scraps away! I use the larger pieces to make covered buttons and to make spotty pincushions, and the smallest bits become pincushion stuffing :)

New Supplies!

I'm adding lots of fun new things to my supplies shop this week.

My house is a big mess of ribbon and buttons and it's rather wonderful!

I've listed a new mix of pretty red and white ribbons - polkadots, gingham, hearts and ric rac:Giant plastic buttons (5cms/2inches wide!) in bright candy colours:Plus some super cute ladybird buttons:

Flowers and Frogs

This is what my workspace (aka our coffee table) looked like yesterday:
I've been working on frog masks, wild rose brooches and a new mask design which has been in my sketchbook for months. It's always so great to finally get round to trying out an idea, and though it isn't quite right yet it's getting there...

Today I'm putting in some hours on a custom mobile, lots of lovely bright colours to help cheer me up on a rather grey and miserable day. There's nothing quite like a bit of felt crafting for some instant colour therapy.

Felt Flowers Galore... plus: a winner!

After a mammoth photo-editing and listing session this morning, there are lots of new floral treats over in my Etsy shop...

New cherry blossom headbands, one with my usual cherry blossom design and the other bigger and bolder:I wear my own cherry blossom brooch all the time (it seems to go with half the things in my wardrobe) so I'm definitely keeping one of those hairbands for myself! A matching large cherry blossom brooch will be popping up in my shop soon, too.

I've also listed a prototype brooch from some of my flower experiments, it's not quite perfect but it's a one off and listed at a bargain price!And I've finally listed the pretty butterfly flowers - brooches and headbands in a choice of colours:Even more flowery things coming soon, but I need a little break from photo editing for the moment! :)

In other news, it's time to announce the winner of this month's special birthday giveaway.
The number picked from the random-number-generator hat was number 23 ... Dianna, who said "Happy Birthday! What a lovely way to celebrate it. Hope you have a fantastic day." Many congrats to Dianna and thanks to everyone who entered - it has been lovely sharing the birthday fun with you all this week!

Summer Blooms

At this time of year my brain (rather predictably) becomes filled with ideas for flowery things.

I'm working on a couple of new designs but I've also been digging out unfinished floral things from my in-progress box and playing around with some old designs. I've amassed quite a few pieces over the last couple of weeks:After taking lots of pics of those this afternoon (more photos coming soon!) I took a few snaps of my neighbours' roses in the name of design "research" (helping me think about shapes and colours) but really just to try and capture how amazing some of the big fat blooms are before they vanish for another year:

Time for a nice bit of cake...

Bit of a quiet day today after the fun of yesterday, as I've been feeling a bit under the weather. In true go-getting style I even fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon! Classy.

Being asleep during the decent light rather nixed my plans to take snaps of some new pieces, so instead I'd like to take the chance to mention someone else's work... the awesome felt food creations of Ouissi aka British Cream Tea, whose cake obsession seems rather appropriate for my week of birthday treats!Working with felt myself and having made the odd felt biscuit and cake in my time I know just how much work goes into getting the details looking just right and I bow down to Ouissi's skill and patience... She's just launched some cute postcard sets featuring her work, including a cake-themed trio which would make for fab tea party invitations:You can find her work in her Etsy shop, or peek behind the scenes over at her blog.

10% off today! Hurrah!

My birthday week is going well - this sunshine feels almost like it has been laid on specially, all the sundresses being dug from the back of my wardrobe feel like the party dresses you wore on your birthdays as a kid, and there has been lots & lots of cake (my birthday cake this year = carrot cake muffins, yum yum).

And today, of course, I'm offering a special discount in all my shops (my website, Etsy, Folksy and DaWanda) for anyone who says HAPPY BIRTHDAY during checkout. This offer runs for today only, all qualifying orders will receive a 10% refund (excluding shipping) via Paypal and a free gift.

PS I have been playing Lisa Hannigan's album on repeat since Monday. It is quite lovely and deliciously summery. I think my boyfriend may be slightly regretting buying it for me now though, haha!

Birthday Giveaway: lots of lovely free things!

As it's my birthday this week, I thought it would be nice to have a super-special giveaway. So there's a whole bundle of felty goodness up for grabs for one lucky person...... a pink "I love tea" badge, a star rosette brooch, a lilac flower brooch, a fun necklace and a black moustache disguise (because everyone needs a moustache).

As always, I'm happy to ship internationally, so anyone can enter. Just leave a comment before midnight BST (British Summer Time) on Saturday 6th June on this post and I'll pick a winner at random on Sunday (7th June).

Please make sure you leave a name or pseudonym (no anonymous comments please!) and be sure to come back on Sunday to see if you got picked :)

Also TOMORROW I'm offering a special birthday discount in in all my shops! 10% off any order for 24 hours only! PLUS: a free gift will be sent with every discounted order.

The offer runs for the whole of tomorrow (June 3rd) - to qualify for the discount place an order in any of my shops and wish me Happy Birthday during Etsy or Paypal checkout and pay as normal, and I'll refund 10% of your order via Paypal (excludes shipping) and include a special gift in your parcel.

Birthday Treats

It's my birthday this week - hurrah!

I'm feeling a bit old, but looking forward to treating myself to a few nice things (I feel an Etsy-shopping spree coming on!) and generally enjoying some specialness and celebration. I've had some lovely presents already and the boyfriend has particularly excelled himself this year, buying me my favourite chocolates, some fab audiobooks and Lisa Hannigan's album Sea Sew.
If you've not heard of Lisa Hannigan her videos are well worth a watch simply for their fantastic crafty themes: amazing pop-up books in Lille and an entire cut-paper room in I Don't Know. I forced the boyfriend to watch these, having just watched them myself with my jaw open at their loveliness, and though he rolled his eyes a little he was clearly paying attention!

I do like to give as well as receive though, so I'll be having a special birthday giveaway and a birthday sale this week. More details tomorrow...