Paper Circles

A quick snap of something I've been making... to be revealed closer to Christmas :)It's always nice to make use of my vintage crockery collection, even if it's just as templates for cutting out circles!

365 / 219 - Wips, Beards and a New Challenge

I'm still working on an assortment of odd projects, here are a few of them from yesterday:
I started a pair of felt glasses (soon to be a nerdy glasses disguise), embroidered some labels for my lavender tea bags, and did some work on my big abstract circles piece. I also finished beard disguises in every colour (brown, black, blond and ginger) though forgot to take proper photos before the light went today so the listing is a little sparse looking. Must remember to take some tomorrow...

In other news: I am starting an exciting new challenge next week!!

Excuse the double exclamation marks, but I really am rather excited about this one: through the whole month of April I will be doing a "design a day" challenge, making (at least) one completely new thing every day and blogging about it right here.

I have so many ideas I'm itching to try out, and designs half-sketched on scraps of paper stuck in drawers and folders... and next month I will be taking them out of my brain and turning them into an assortment of felty treats. Even if I just get a prototype made and rework it later, it will be so great to be making new things and seeing my ideas "in the felt", as it were. Here are just a few of the ideas floating round my brain at the moment - as doodled during my "proper job" last week:You can join in the fun, too! If you've got an idea for a brooch design, leave me a blog comment this week letting me know - if I use your idea I'll give you a discount code for use in my shop during April (so make sure there's a way for me to get in touch with you - I can't give you a code if you post anonymously!) ... oh, and if several people suggest the same thing it'll be the first person to suggest it who gets the discount :)

UPDATE: no more suggestions please as the challenge has now begun! :D

365 / 201 - Trying New Things

2008 is my year of trying new things. Thinking "oh, maybe I could try that" and actually doing it instead of just thinking about it... I'm starting up new shops on Dawanda and Pink Doodle, and back in January I submitted my work (after much nagging by friends and family) to a local brick and mortar shop selling locally handcrafted items. I got my rejection letter yesterday, oh well (at least the nagging will stop, haha). This is all part and parcel of trying things... some things will work, others won't, but if you don't try then nothing will happen to you at all!
My latest "new thing"? I'm going to try selling felt squares in the supplies category over on Etsy. It feels rather like when I first set up shop on Etsy - "will anyone want my stuff?" "how do I take a picture of this?" "how do I work out postage" and so on... but with a bit of trial and error I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. If I don't, there'll be very little harm done as felt doesn't have an expiry date and I'm bound to use it all eventually :)

Yesterday's craftiness was devoted to sorting out my felt stash... picking 60 colours, sorting them, labelling them, naming them, making a colour chart, and generally sitting about in my pajamas surrounded by piles of felt for most of the day. Here's the finished chart (click on it to view it larger) ...
I'm going to be selling 9 inch (23cm) squares, and also packs of 60 mini squares, one of each colour. Buying felt online myself I would love to be able to buy a pack like that from the retailers I've shopped with as colours vary so much on monitors and their colour charts sometimes bear very little relation to what you actually receive (I am super-fussy about what colours I use in my work). I also would pretty much have killed for something like that when I was a kid, I'd love to be able to post one back in time to my 10 year old self!

Off the wagon again, and a new project

No craftiness whatsoever yesterday. This is the reason:
I should have taken a photo of the whole room to show the devestation wreaked upon my kitchen by this work, but frankly it is a bit embarrassing and I'm slightly concerned it might give me flashbacks should I see this blog post in the future...

Due to some slightly dodgy fixes we were given the magic of heating and hot water yesterday, most miraculous. I now have a burning desire to clean the whole house from top to bottom and never let anything get dirty ever again (how long will this last, I wonder? haha). Obviously I cannot actually clean until all the work is finished (a day or two yet) so I have been satisfying my desire to clean up by tidying the spare room and having a bit of a clear-out, pushing crafting right off the schedule.

I am generally attempting to buy less stuff (Etsy things sooo do not count!) and also to rid myself of a LOT of my possessions, so I love a good clear-out. We have regular "Free Stuff parties" (friends and neighbours all have a clear-out, and everyone swaps stuff with the leftovers going to charity shops) and I have lots of things like clothes stashed under the bed to test if I ever actually wear them...

But it can be hard sometimes to clear out lots of things at once, so I have started a little project where every day leading up to Christmas (your traditional time for buying lots of things) I will find something to give away - either to a friend or to a charity shop. I started at the end of October and I have been really surprised by how easy it has been so far - finding ONE book or ONE item of clothing or ONE bit of jewellery or whatever has so far been painless, and the pile they make all together is quite marvellous. I would highly recommend it!

Crafting 365 - day seventeen - cards as far as the eye can see...

... well, almost:

I thought it was high time I actually finished making all the sheet music notecards (to match the envelopes I finished the other day) and got them out of my "in progress" pile and into my finished stash. I have basically run out of glue now, haha. Sooo many cards!

Oh, and I got the giftwrap envelopes finished too (destined for my own personal stationery box) and glued together a few map notecards & envelopes. All these cards need to dry and then have my shop details written on the back and then finally they will be parcelled up into neat little sets. And then they will be finished, hurrah! I do love finishing things, it makes me feel all efficient - no matter how long the thing in question has been "in progress" for.

I am going to try not to think about how many other half-finished projects I have lying about the place... Not having a dedicated studio space means I spend my life getting a project out, working on it for a bit and putting it away again. I have developed many elaborate storage systems for all these in-progress bits and pieces but really the whole thing is just a big mess of clutter and the moment things go in a box they get forgotten about and remain half-finished seemingly forever. Ah well. One project down, many many many to go...

Crafting 365 - day thirteen - finishing things and fun with glue

Last night I finished almost all the moustaches I had in-progress (only 2 disguises left to do). Here they all are in a big heap:
My goodness that is a satisfying picture! Later this week I shall take some pictures of the new colours of the pins & the disguises and add them to my etsy listings... it's a bit too overcast now and tomorrow I shall be expending my daylight hours working & then going to the Post Office. I am a bit shattered from work today, actually. Definitely a good evening to do something simple and repetive - like drawing round envelope templates, for example...

I have lots of maps waiting to be turned into notecards:
... after cutting out lots of shapes I shall be wielding my glue stick lots and making a start on putting them all together (those music notecards need finishing too). I will also be getting out the oh-so-useful pot of craft glue and making my first moustache cards ("say it with a moustache", haha). First though I shall be drinking lots of tea!
(detail from a sketch by heidiburton who draws awesome things and understands the importance of TEA).