Cake Tins filled with Felt (C365, day 325)

For my birthday this year, I asked for some lovely cake tins from the yummy range Ella Doran designed for John Lewis. Cake tins with lots of tiny teacups on them? How could I resist? At the moment though they're not being used for cake (or even biscuits) but instead are helping me in my quest to keep my ever growing stash of felt creations under control...
... that's the large size, filled with things "ready to photograph" (photographing things being one of my crafty tasks yesterday, along with finishing off a few odds and ends of sewing). The medium size is currently "photographed and ready to list" and then the small one contains all the designs that I'm about to run out of & need to restock asap (this tin is far too full for my liking at the moment!).

I'm off to do a bit of restocking now, actually, but first a couple of quick shout-outs. A big thankyou! to the lovely Jenny who gave me an Inspiring Blog award this week (*blushes*), and thankyous also to Tumus and GirlIndustries for snapping screenshots of my green circles artwork on the Etsy front page today. Tumus also pointed me in the direction of a handy new tool - a fully searchable group on Flickr for Etsy front pages. The FP changes so quickly these days it's easier than ever to miss them so it's great to have a resource like that available - and if nothing else, the front pages are a lovely way to browse the delights of Etsy: such pretty themes! I always go to my own Etsy shop via the front page instead of direct to my own shop, as I find a lot of new favourite sellers that way.

Christmas in July?

Yesterday I got a rush-job custom order for some ivory poppy bracelets, so starting those was top priority last night...
... but as you can see, I also started a couple of other things too! The bracelets turned out really nice (and got posted in such a rush that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of them, oops), a much softer look than my white poppies. As for the other stuff... the pink and yellow is the start of a new pincushion design that I've been wanting to try for just ages (no prizes for guessing what it will be!) and the ginger is my first bit of Christmas sewing.

- Well, technically I think the robins were the first bit (see them here and their original sketches here, from many months earlier) but shhh no-one will know -

Again, no prizes for guessing what the gingerbread-coloured felt is meant to be! It does feel a bit weird working on Christmas in July (especially during a heatwave) but I did feel very underprepared for the "holiday season" last year and I think I only started to get ideas for Christmas-themed items at the end of November. I'd like to have a nice little "collection" of designs ready for this year, stuff that looks nice together and will be deserving of its own little section in my shop come wintertime. As with many (most? of my schemes, this may well never happen but hopefully I will be a little more prepared than last time round!


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

I Made Tea (but nothing crafty)

I didn't make a single crafty thing yesterday: another day of my 365 missed! Bah. I did place an order for some felt that arrived this morning, meaning the mini packs are back in stock with two yummy new colours that I'm calling slate and moss green...
... but really I spent my whole day being a bit stressed and faffing about on the internet.

Not time totally wasted though as I got a chance to catch up with lots of my favourite blogs and I discovered the most utterly charming little webpage (nice enough in itself but also all about tea: hurrah!). It reminded me somehow of Miranda July's website written on a fridge which turns out to have been sweetly updated since I last saw it (lovely). Stuff like that makes me grin from ear to ear.

Back tomorrow with some actual, you know, crafting.

Feeling Frazzled, plus: a Fire

Today I have been sitting open-jawed and staring at images of the fire ravaging the pier at Weston-super-Mare. Just awful. This time last year (literally a year ago this week) here in Gloucestershire we were in the midst of serious flooding, power cuts, and 10 days without running water that had a huge impact on our local economy (tourism in particular) & I really feel for the business owners in Weston. The boyfriend and I had been thinking about a trip to the English seaside this summer anyway, so a visit there may be in order later in the summer...

Aside from thinking about fires and flooding, I've also been feeling a bit frazzled today thanks to not sleeping very well (seagulls having a party on our roof last night), getting up early (working a different shift today) and the crazy weather. Most of the day it was roasting hot - gorgeously, luxuriously, meltingly hot - and then this afternoon the heavens opened and we had a proper summer rainstorm, with thunder aplenty.

Yesterday though I was quite efficient: tidying up lots of stuff, making lots of lists, and beading lots and lots of poppies ready to make hairbands like this one In other news, I recently found the most fantastic poster for the days you just don't feel like keeping calm and carrying on:
Entitled "Keep Calm My Butt", these posters are the creation of Etsy seller Pearliemae. The Keep Calm phenomenon is an interesting one, I do love the original poster design dearly but it has become such a decorating cliche - especially now you can buy them all over Etsy and the rest of the internet and in colours to match any decor scheme, and attached to t-shirts, bags, mugs, hats, etc. Part of me was clearly longing for a poster commanding me to "panic and run away" so Perliemae's poster really made me smile. She's even got those modern ElleDecor-ish colours spot on. I think they'd make for a fab notecard set...

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