A Day in My Life

Phew! I feel like I am still catching my breath after a super busy couple of days at the Festival of Quilts. I'll be sharing some pics sometime soon, I promise :)

While I was off ooohing over lovely quilts and spending too much money on fabric, I was (delightfully) featured on some fab crafty blogs.

Over at While She Naps you'll find a post about how a couple of bloggers (including me!) think up ideas for what to blog about next.

And over at Made By Mrs M you can read all about how I spend my working days... well, one of them, at any rate!

Back to Work (Sort Of)

Ugh, I am finding it so hard to get back into this whole "work" thing. Taking lots of time off over Christmas & New Year was great but it has done terrible things to my work ethic, haha :)

I am breaking myself back in gently (I am putting off my Tax Return until next week!) and have been pottering about drinking tea, organising paperwork, replying to emails, planning blog posts... and packing up & posting all my shop orders from the past couple of weeks.

It's lovely to see people buying copies of my books in my sale!

 

Remember, you can get 20% off everything in my shop until 10th Jan with the discount code NEWYEAR ... I've also extended the sale to my ad shop, so you can use the discount code NEWYEAR to get 20% off a large or small ad here on my blog.

Catching Up

I'm slowly catching up on some work - gradually replying to emails from the past week, sending out all my shop orders, and writing some blog posts with "help" from this little lady!

I'm also working on a whole bunch of tutorials (for a couple of projects I, alas, can't talk about yet). I find it helpful when I'm working on lots of tutorials at once to make a chart instead of writing lots of to do lists. It works pretty well even if the tutorials are all for very different things as they all involve the same basic steps to get from idea to finished tutorial. Ticking each small task off as I work through them I can see the progress I'm making and can see at a glance what tasks still need doing. 

This is my current chart. Lots done, but quite a bit still to do! 

I made a gigantic "to do chart" when I was working on my new book and it really helped keep me organised during a very hectic time.

For each design I worked on I needed to sketch it, design the templates, (maybe) sew a prototype, write notes on how to make it, sew it, take step by step photos, edit the photos, resize and label the photos, take final reference photos of the finished piece, type up my notes, draft the tutorial, proofread it, make final changes, draw the templates out neatly, make copies of the templates, pack up the project, and then post the project & templates and email the tutorial & accompanying photos. 

Multiply that by all the different projects that make up a book and, well, you can see why the chart was so useful! :)

Thinking about Work

I've been thinking lots of big thoughts lately about money and work and happiness... about my plans for my business (and my life!) for the next few years ... and about how I can make as much of my working life fit into the middle of this Venn diagram as possible :)

Looking Back

One of the very best things about blogging, and taking pictures of all my crafty projects is being able to look back over the months gone by and see just what I've been doing with my time!

Here's 2008 in pictures (two photos per month) .... click on it to view it larger, or follow the links to the individual photos:1. Crafting 365, day 140 - finishing some brooches and starting some others, 2. Crafting 365, day 160 - Violets, 3. Crafting 365, day 173 - pink teacups, 4. Crafting 365, day 184 - Tasty Cakes, 5. C365, day 207 - Rainclouds, 6. 365 / 212 - 320 pieces of Felt, 7. C365, day 233 - little felt rainbows, 8. C365, day 234 - Catching Up, 9. Floral Hairbands (Crafting 365 day 260), 10. Catching up: days 238-242 : a field of poppies, 11. Corsages (Crafting 365, day 269), 12. Masks (C365/275), 13. Secret Swap: sent, 14. Flower-y Hair, 15. Tiny Trees and Crafty Cakes (C365, day 326), 16. Needlework (C365, days 332-5), 17. Snowy Owl!, 18. Birds! - Crafting 365, day 365, 19. Ornithology, 20. Ribbon Heaven!, 21. British Vogue..., 22. Pompom Parcels, 23. Snowflake Curtain, 24. First Batch Finished...

2008 has had its ups and downs for me - over a month without the internet, meeting Doctor Who, totally failing at my Design A Day project (partly due to internet troubles but mostly just due to life getting in the way ... very inspiring while it lasted though and I will definitely be revisiting the suggestions in the new year!), completing my Crafting 365 project (albeit a little late), all sorts of lovely features (including my first appearance in real live magazines) making lots and lots and lots of stuff (see above!) plus all the other things that've gone on inbetween.

I am incredibly pleased with the progress of my little business and this blog during 2008. Looking back at what I was making and selling a year ago, I feel like my crafty universe has completely transformed - and taken over the house in the process, as my boyfriend would no doubt point out!

2008 has been a year of huge inspiration, so many crafty projects & schemes, and more felt than you can shake a stick at. The support of the crafting community (my lovely fellow Etsy sellers, all my lovely blog readers and Flickr friends, plus all my wonderful customers of course!) has been invaluable in giving me feedback, confidence-boosts and good advice. Basically you make it possible for me to carry on doing this and I love you all.

I will stop gushing now, but basically: hurrah for 2008, and here's to a super-crafty 2009!

Snaps from The Small Gallery

I don't get over to Hereford as often as I'd like to, but thanks to some excellent networking done by my mother-in-law (who always wears one of my brooches on her coat) I currently have some of my work on sale there in a lovely little gallery called The Small Gallery.

The gallery is "a textile and artisan yarn gallery, showing small scale textile work and selling yarns for artists and knitters", located next to bead and fabric shops and a lovely vegetarian cafe 5 minutes from Hereford Cathedral.

My long-suffering boyfriend borrowed my camera when visiting his mother this weekend and took a few snaps for me of my work in-situ in the shop...
... and in the window alongside some yummy knitted cakes:

Better Late Than Never... Right?

I have fallen behind with so many projects this autumn thanks to a string of winter bugs and the general chaos of Christmas, and there are many neglected things sitting in my workbox which I'd hoped to have in my shops a month ago. One of these neglected projects got finished yesterday evening when I was out babysitting for a friend: gingerbread men!

They have now been listed over on Etsy and on Folksy too, but I'm not really expecting to sell any at this late date...

They will make cute additions to our tree though, plus I'm planning on adding unsold Christmas ornaments to my own gifts - tied on to the ribbons with the tag, as a sweet little extra for my friends.

Best Hugs in Show?

Here's a quick and slightly grainy snap of the rosette brooches I made last night...
... available on Etsy and now on Folksy, too. All that pink is very much cheering me up during these grey and wintery days and I've also been greatly entertained thinking of things you'd have to win to get awarded one of these...

The Joys of Autumn

Crisp misty mornings! Kicking up leaves! Shiny conkers! Stripey scarves!

I am totally in love with autumn at the moment, and have been choosing my projects to match... including finishing a couple of conker brooches for my Etsy shop...
... and working on some fun crafting ideas inspired by autumn leaves (coming soon!)

Poppies

Rather appropriately, today I've been beading lots of poppies...
... though not quite as many as that...

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

Cute Skulls?

Can skulls be cute? I don't know, but I think these are getting close...
... all those little fellas are going to be eyepatches, as modelled in my previous post. Perfect for adding a pirate-y flavour to any and all occasions!

Zines

I've sold some zines as well, so it seemed a good idea to put some pics up here. Bugs and Fishes is my long-running zine filled with the bits and pieces that are in my brain and My Library Project is about my obsession with the graffiti people leave in university library books.

My first sold item

I make my own envelopes out of old magazines and great pictures in the newspaper, it's such a great way to make all my post exciting & fun for people to receive even if I am just sending them dull everyday things or a boring letter. I put some of my "magelopes" up on Etsy and these were the first things to sell.