365 / 97 - tea, poppies, plants and post

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Last night my sewing task was to finish some poppy pins and to make an assortment of tea-themed badges... I got lots of tea embroidery done, and did some poppy stitching but didn't have time to finish anything. Ah well.
Here's a shot of my workspace last night, too. Working on the sofa again...
Most of my creative energies (and, you know, my actual energy!) was expended earlier in the day by doing lots of mucking about with plants. My mother laughed at me for using the word "gardening" in relation to my motley collection of much-neglected potted plants but whatever word you want to use I have been doing that :)

My main task yesterday was setting up some new pots outside my flat - some with winter pansies, some with cyclamen and one with a hebe that I bought ages ago and never potted it up (I am frankly astonished that it still lives!). It's all a bit mucky out there still (we need some rain really) but this is what my outside space looks like now:
I have also been attending to many a neglected pot plant inside my house - so many of them have needed repotting for just months and many others needed cutting back etc... I am working my way round them all rather slowly (there are rather a lot of them!) repotting, tidying and taking a few cuttings. This is what my kitchen windowsill now looks like - three little Christmas Cactus plants (grown from cuttings) coming into bloom (one is out of shot), a repotted cyclamen and a whole assortment of cuttings that I'd cut anyway so I'm seeing if they'll root just for the heck of it:(the cuttings are all in tiny little jars that once held dried herbs etc, the greenery and the light glinting off the clear glass looks really lovely).

This is the momma Christmas Cactus, flowering its heart out at the moment next to some baby spider plants and (just at the edge of shot) a rather sorry-looking peace lily!

In other news, the gift guides are back up on Etsy and only one of my items seems to have disappeared post-maintenance & that was where two of my recycled card sets were on the same page of the same section. Also yesterday was a day for lovely post - my brooches arrived from paperiaarre, causing me to gasp at how beautiful they are in real life. I was very pleased to spot one of her brooches in the gift guides, too! This photo really doesn't do them justice but I did want to show the lovely packaging...
Gorgeous printed thankyou note and freebie gift tags, too. Very stylish stuff indeed.

Gosh and I almost forgot - I sold my 400th item on Etsy yesterday! It was part of my 250th order too, so I will be sending out an extra-special bundle of freebies to my lovely buyer :)

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

365 / day 96 - penguins and poppies

Last night I got totally distracted by Etsy's new gift guides and the reaction to them on the forums, but I did manage to tear myself away from the computer for long enough to do a little bit of sewing! Here's one of my mobiles in the baby girl gift guide... though whether it will still be there when the guides return after "maintenence" is anyone's guess! The guides need a little work for sure, but they will be such a great tool for buyers who get lost amongst so many items, like a fun little sampler or snapshot of assorted Etsy treats. There seems to be a lot of discussion about "fairness" and having spotted several of my own items in various lists (some items in more than one list, or some lists with more than one item) I think my reactions to some of the "not fair!" comments have been a little more emotional than they might ordinarily have been. I will shut up about this now I think :)

Anyway... here's my sewing heap for the evening:
I finished a penguin pin, did some work on a few poppies and cut out a load of pieces to make more poppies, moustache pins & disguises, and an assortment of penguins. I also did lots of tidying up of my work-area (well, the area in which all my stuff is stashed away - I work all over the house!) and have been writing lists of things I need to restock. I really ought to be much more organised about all this stuff than I actually am, and several evenings dedicated sewing is called for. It is much more fun to make new things but little batches have their own relaxing charms and it makes my life sooo much easier knowing I have several of something in stock.

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

365 / 95 - finishing touches and parcels

My craftiness last night was devoted to finishing off a few bits and pieces in order to have them ready for relisting or shipping today. A few moustaches that needed their elastic adding, things like that, and a butterfly brooch that was half-finished and just needed its sequins adding...
(I do rather love airmail stickers!)

In other news, my moth brooch was on the Etsy front page yesterday (hurrah!) in a most stylish list and a couple of my pins got a lovely mention here.

365 / 94 - Spring Cleaning and Scissors

The "spring" cleaning continues... but I'm feeling a lot better about it. For one thing, I'm actually making some progress - parts of my house are both clean and tidy! Getting rid of a lot of the clutter and properly organising things is making me feel better already (so many of our possessions were still in their "that'll do" places from when we first moved in) and I'm pleased with the pile of stuff we now have to give away.

Most importantly though, I did some crafting last night, hurrah! Not the largest or most exciting of crafty tasks, but one I have been meaning to do for ages - cutting up old envelopes to make, er, new envelopes:
Some of the new envelopes will have our address on the inside so I'll keep those for my personal letters etc. but the plain brown ones will be matched up with my new map cards (I do so love the look of the brown paper with the vintage maps) and the blue patterned ones I'll use for sending out zine orders. I've been using my spare map & giftwrap envelopes for sending out zines recently and the difference it makes is just huge. Even the normally stern cashier at the post office was entranced!

In Etsy news, my tea and cake obsession was blogged on I Like, my ornaments got a mention on Funky Finds and my moustache pins were on the Etsy front page early this morning - too early for me but you can see the treasury here. I was also delighted to find sweet mentions of this very blog here, here and also here - so, so nice to read other people's reactions to my witterings :)

In other news, it's lovely and sunny here this morning - even if I had anything crafty to show off yesterday I'd barely have been able to take a photo of it the day was so dark and gloomy and filled with rain. I'm hoping to get some gardening done this afternoon if the weather holds... does gardening count as craftiness, I wonder?