365 / 89 - Maps Maps Maps

Yesterday evening I faffed about on the computer a fair bit and spent a goodly amount of time enjoying the pleasures of home cooking, etc. Crafting-wise I turned my attention to a bundle of map pieces I cut out just aaages ago (way back on day 18!), finally sticking them to card blanks to become real live cards. Lovely old maps, one of the Thames Valley (my home turf) and one really beautiful map of London from the 1940s. I'd originally planned to display the latter but it was badly marked, so I cut all the damaged bits off and the remainder has made for some lush cards. They still need handmade envelopes to go with them (I'm making recycled brown paper envelopes which I think sets off the maps really nicely) and then I shall attend to sorting them into sets etc and taking photographs but it's still nice to have them "finished".

365 / 88 - Poppies and Packing

First up I have to mention that there will be no photos for a few days as I am away and unable to upload them (I have gone off to visit my mother for a few days, leaving the boyfriend to fend for himself and rearrange his book collection to his heart's content). I am still taking my crafty photos and shall still be blogging the project so all of a sudden these posts will have photos and this bit will look a little strange :)

Yesterday was a day for poppies. My little poppy pin was in a beautiful Remembrance Day treasury over on Etsy, and it sold super-quick when the treasury appeared on the front page. Most pleasing (always nice when people like your work enough to pay real money for it) but also slightly disappointing as I was denied my front page happy dance! Ah well. Then in the evening I sat down to make a few more of the poppies and managed to throw a whole box of seed beads all over the sofa! Not good. I got most of them after much scrabbling around, but lord what a mess. Note to self: balancing a small box of tiny beads on your knee is Not A Good Idea.

Then late last night I had to do some packing, preparing a kit-box of my works in progress, the custom patterns I'm working on and my packing supplies so I can keep busy (and keep up with things) while I'm away. There will be a photo of said box crammed with little bags of wips, lots of felt, my accounts books, some jiffy mailers and assorted other oddments once I am able to upload it but for the moment you will just have to paint a picture with your mind :D

UPDATE: here's the picture...

365 / 87 - stock control and mess control

Yes, you guessed it, I spent yesterday organising things. I did a little bit of sewing and cutting out of pattern pieces but mostly I spent my "crafty" time reorganising my systems as the more stuff I make the harder it is to keep it all tidied away neatly (the woes of not having my own workroom).

I reorganised the boxes and tins I use to store my finished items, and packed everything away into little plastic bags which I swiped from work last month when they were just going to be thrown away. I used to have two boxs which were full of "currently listed" stuff and then another which was for as-yet-unlisted items or excess stock (spare stuff, basically). I was forever forgetting whether or not I had another of x in stock or rummaging around trying to find the purple version of y ... so now everything is neatly stored together. All the tea cup pins together, all the cloud pins together, and so forth. Really not the most exciting thing to be reporting, but I think it is a good step towards me becoming more efficient and making less mess.

I've also decided to use the little bags to organise my small works in progress - so when I cut out lots of pieces to make a batch of brooches I can tuck them all in a bag together and they won't get lost or dusty or whatever. I have so many odd little wips they start to take over the place after a while, and now they can go in a box, hurrah! Similarly, I have so many different thread colours on the go at once - and my main thread storage drawers are in another part of the house - I end up with reels of thread on every available surface and I tend to lose the colour I need. So now my "current" threads are all in a drawer pinched from the main unit (the ever popular IKEA drawers, beloved of crafters everywhere). Here are some of the bags (with works in progress and also pattern pieces) and the lovely drawer of thread:
So, yes, very dull stuff but gosh it feels good to see it all tidy. I am not anywhere near having my workspace(s) and supplies organised how I want them, but a few more little steps like this and I may be there soon.

365 / 86 - lots of brown and green stuff

I seem to be going through a phase of making things out of brown and green felt. This is what I made yesterday (all started from scratch yesterday evening except for the tea pins which I took from my wip pile) ...
... brown and green all the way! I did do a slightly more colourful sketch for a custom ornament, but there's still some green in there:
The new conker pins are part of my autumn-inspired range for my shop, except the boyfriend has shotgunned one of the conkers so I shall have to make another one straight away! I also made a little tree stump which I think looks quite cute. Here are the new brooches along with all my autumnal and leafy things:
Meanwhile, we are still working on cleaning the house after the heating-related chaos and one of my poppy brooches was briefly on the Etsy front page last night (hurrah!) in a red-themed Christmassy selection - many thanks to the lovely memake (maker of awesome pinnies and other great stuff) for letting me know and sending a shot of it which I can now send to my mother, she will be very proud :)
Here's a shot of the whole selection, chosen by benconservato
Oh, and I have also been tending to my "garden" better known as the few pots outside our front door. I made a huge mess yesterday and also ran out of compost, but now the boyfriend has bought me more compost so I am looking forward to making even more mess today!

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