Christmas Markets at Abney Hall / Part One (and Two!)

Well that's the first one done and dusted.  It was a great show with some really good stalls, friendly people and some super shoppers!  Christmas is looming so sales were definitely up.  I'd struggled with getting anything done last week in terms of new makes, so my decision to lug a few lamps and shades down there and have a mini sale of some old stock paid off.  I also had, hot off the press, some new tube lights that I'd had made up.  I was really pleased with them, got some good feedback and sold a couple too.  So all in all a very good day.

They'll be more to come next Saturday, so anyone in the area fancy some bargain lamps, which make fab Christmas presents @£35, then please come and find me here!

Just to add to this, the following week went really well too, but Christmas things kind of took over and my blog has fallen by the wayside!  Back in the New Year......

Christmas Markets at Abney Hall

I will be just down the road, here for the next two Saturdays, having a little sale of my stuff!

These little chaps will be up for grabs as I'm clearing out some stock I've had them hanging around for a while and since I don't have a lot of time to make new stuff, I thought it might be a good idea to make some space for the New Year.
Normally RRP is £62 but they'll be on sale for just £35!!!! Depending on how that goes, I'll be adding a few more.
So if you have any friends or family who you can't think what to buy for Christmas, these might just be the answer!?
They aren't in any of my shops at this price, so it's for the local shoppers at the moment, but there's always the January sales so, watch this space......
I'll also have some ABC cushions, purses, mini bags, whatever I can cram into the car really.  Having said that, I crashed my lovely red polo the other day so unless I can get it fixed, I'm not sure about the transport part!

It's all gone a bit quiet!

I'm fed up of seeing the old post about our open studios so this is just a quick update!
I've just been too busy to blog! Well I guess it's that time of year.
So here's just a few photos to change my page! All a bit blurry but never mind.  Hopefully get back to it soon.

Three sisters do a work shop in my studio and go camera crazy!

Advent Calender fun thanks to links and ideas from Kids Craft Weekly

which led me to this brilliant mum's blog, Filth Wizardry which is packed with some great kids stuff to make!  I found it again recently when I was looking for 'how to make a toy car wash' as Stanley seems to have a mystery obsession about them! This was the brilliant example I found here


Happy Christmas madness month to everyone!

The Chocolate Factory Open Studios - Winter is here!

It catches me out every time!  We start planning maybe 6-8 weeks beforehand with rumblings of emails between us all, sort out the date...get the flyer/poster ready (thanks to our in house graphics offiicionado Sarah from With Relish) and bam, it's only just over a week to go!

More info can be found here on the Facebook Chocolate Factory Fan Page!

And what have I been doing today?
Dropped a pile of packages off at the Post Office, had my first tour of a local primary school for next September intake (panic! school! applications!) Wasted about 2 hours with Facebook as it drives me up the wall and now off to pick up my boy.  Where oh where did the day go?

Last Giveaway Before Christmas!

I haven't been feeling too well the last couple of weeks so I'm rather behind on everything!
The Papernstitch Exhibition is still up and it has brought me some great sales and contacts.  One very energetic, super fashion, house and home lady who got in touch with me is Rachelle from Kenziepoo.  Here's the giveaway which ends this Friday, with lots of nice goodies up for grabs.  I've even entered the latest one myself from BirdinFlightBoutique!
I particularly like her Turn This Outfit into a Room posts.  Fellow Papernstitch exhibitor Mee a Bee has also had a great mention and makes supercute bags for littleones.
All in all a very jolly site, unlike how I'm feeling right now!

Christmas Build Up!

As always, I'm totally unprepared for the next mad month and a half!
Not much time for blogging but these are a few things I've done recently....

Miffy gets an outing with ABC in Blue.  In my Etsy Shop now.

Comes in threes, just added a few stocking filler 3 packs too.

A little customer order for Eryn.  These machine stitched fabric, collages are 60 pounds each framed.  

Giveaway ready to go to New York!

True Random Number Generator Min: 1 Max: 24 Result: 5 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

OK so having done my random pick of 1 to 24 (sorry Janil, but you were a bit too late, nice comment though!)

The winner is.. Anne from Pretty in Paper 
I've sent you a convo on Etsy having found you via your blog.
Congratulations! Goodies coming your way.


Thank you so much everyone for commenting.  You got me up to second place over at Papernstitch, which was a real suprise.  So I've won a free month on Brittni's lovely exhibition space, amongst so many fab shops I daren't look! 
This now means that one lucky commenter over at Papernstitch will also receive an item of mine, this time chosen by Brittni, so watch out for it! x
  

Workshops for Kids

Well I've just had another exhilarating afternoon at Stanley's Nursery.  This time I was invited back to do a Workshop for the Holiday Club during half term.  The age range was from 5 to 11 so it was a pretty varied bunch, but they all did a brilliant job.  I'd already done a day there with Stanley's group.  That time it was kept very simple and we based it on Autumn leaves.  I did a bit of prep work beforehand and photocopied loads of leaves of varying shapes and sizes.  The days leading up to it, the key workers got the children involved with cutting out the leaf shapes so that when I came in there was a nice selection box of leaves.  They all chose their own and made a little collage on their bags, then one by one I got them all to print.  We had a red, blue and green team and amazingly we managed to print 20 bags in one morning session.  Stanley, 'the pro', was first in line to print of course, but then disappeared off to play, which was good news.

 

This time we chose Halloween as it seemed the most appropriate subject matter for kids of all ages in the lead up to the 31st.  Plus you could get a very similar effect to hollowing out and carving a pumpkin face with cutting out a 2D stencil for a bag.  As before, I did some photocopying and drawing of the most obvious themes and had a couple of 'mood boards' up from images I'd grabbed off the internet.  This was really just to get the kids inspired to do their own drawings.  Even though there's a signature with everyone's cutting out skills anyway, I hoped that they could expand on my initial ideas.  They really went for it!  Quite a bit of cutting out was done before I arrived so we could get straight at the printing.

I was in the main room this time, which was pretty full on, with kids flying here there and everywhere, tons of questions and a bit of juggling with turn taking, but it was just nice to be in such a lively enthusiastic atmosphere. The staff were so helpful and supportive and I felt like a very welcome guest as well as immediately being part of the team. Thanks to Kim and Marie Anna, all the prep work was brilliant and gave the whole thing an instant take off.  Loads of boys joined in as well as the girls and all the 'watch this it's magic' and 'wow look at that' responses, really made me smile.

I have an aching back and twinging knees, but it was well worth it!

Happy Halloween!

 See more on flickr

Wakey Wakey!

I love the idea of Pip from Meet me at Mike's My place and yours idea, so I've decided to join in.
This weeks theme is Bedside by Pottymouthmama . I'm not sure what a meme is, so if anyone can enlighten me, I'd be grateful!
Reluctant to show you exactly how it normally is, I did do a bit of tidying up. Well we had friends coming over, so it had to be done anyway. Not that I was intending to wheel them into my bedroom, but it was a good excuse to tidy up. It's not a great photo, but I did like the light coming in from the window.
The pictures are meant to be on walls, I just haven't got round to putting them back up yet after we did some painting.
I did leave my cup from my morning tea there as it's one of my favourites. I got a set of 4 from After Noah a few years back.
An Ella Doran coaster, again from way back and a newish cute quilty one from Lucie Summers.
My trusty ripple lampshade is hiding the wireless, stuck to the wall with cellotape, from our tinpot clock radio. Sat on a lovely wooden box of my mum's.
The tins and old cigar box underneath are full of bits and bots which I haven't opened in ages and ages.
The Welsh blanket I bought off Ebay and is so warm, now it's starting to get a bit chilly.
Oh and the little woodcut on the wall I think I got from Shelf, either that or it was a present.
We adopted the wall colour from previous owners and it's all a bit of a jumble of hues in this space, but I guess that's quite normal in our house!

Christmas Project in the Making!

I blogged this a while ago and am now giving it an airing!
A little review of some playtime......
I had a great morning during the summer hols with Stanley and his little friend Elodie. We were doing a play day swap so that both mums could catch up on some work.
For my turn, I offered to do a tee shirt printing workshop with Elodie and she was a top rate student!
First we did some drawings together, then I photocopied them and we cut them out. Next was laying them on the tee and finally a big pull of the screen with a little help from me and voila! I was so pleased with the outcome and the big wow that followed after we lifted up the screen. Even Stanley had a pull on it, with not a smudge in sight.
It was hard to leave it drying in the studio while we went home for more fun but it was safely delivered the next day, ironed and ready to wear. I even got her mum to model the bag I made for her. Both gorgeous but shy girls so they've been dutifully cropped!Since it all went so well, I've decided to do a mini bag printing workshop leading up to Christmas. Mums / Dads / carers / friends are in charge of organising drawings by their little ones, with a view to posting / dropping / emailing them off to me. I then turn them into a printed bag for Christmas, hopefully stuffed with goodies, I'm not offering that part though! All for the small sum of fifteen pounds! (plus postage) I may do an impromptu print session at some point but the logistics and legalities of having kids in my studio is a bit of a problem
Tee shirts are too complicated as children tend to come in all shapes and sizes, so I'm sticking with bags.
Anyone interested please get in touch. I think it will be a fun project and a nice surprise at Christmas for all! I'll be helping kids along and getting them started at our Open Studio Weekend, now set for the 28/29th November.
There will be more postings about this on the run up to the weekend I'm sure.
I must be mad!
Adding to this.... the results of Stanley's nursery print workshop to follow soon.

My Secret Life!

I seem to be leading a double life at the moment. One is attempting to promote my work, which, thankfully is slowly starting to pay off. The other is having a sneaky holiday in Benidorm! For the last four days I've been soaking up the son with my little boy, his dad, his Granny and his Uncle.
It was a bit of a last minute thing and a lovely gift from Granny June.
It wouldn't be my first choice of holiday destinations, but having said that, the weather was fantastic, sea gorgeous and Stanley seemed to survive being one of only about a handful of small people in our 11 story hotel, full of holiday makers of the much older variety. My weak Yorkshire accent, from living in London for nearly 20 years has now been rejuvenated. An extremely friendly place and a great little break. We left Uncle Paul out there with Granny June and we've been receiving regular updates of bingo, dancin', entertainments and such. I think she's being well looked after!
Stanley's favourite place by far was the beach and preferably with his head down a hole!
Time to get back to work.....

Giveaway ends 26th October

Just a quickie to say that my Papernstitch showcase ends on the 26th October and so will my giveaway. With just 3 entries so far, I have to admit I'm a bit dissapointed, but not put off as I have had some great comments and made lots of sales!
Brittni the super, friendly lady behind Papernstitch has blogged me up on her daily favourites today, which is all very exciting!

To enter the giveaway, just sign up to Papernstitch (takes just a few clicks) , leave a comment under one of the items you like in the exhibition, then leave a comment here on my giveaway post and that's it.
What you will get......A little goodie bag, a hand printed tea towel, a bundle of printed squares, lavender key ring and maybe more, depends how much I can cram in the bag!

One more thing, I'll be switching back to my regular shipping fees tonight, so be quick to look in my Etsy Shop if you want a good deal.

Re Picture: The big flower cushion never made it to my shop, instead it ended up in France, lounging on a red leather sofa. Wish I was there now!

Papernstitch and my first Giveaway!

Thank you to Brittni from Papernstitch for including me in her showcase this month. I also got a very nice slot on her blog yesterday which you can see here I've only just spotted it as I've had a two day spell of total 4 year old indulgence! Yep, Stanley is now 4! We celebrated with a trip to the brilliantly mad Anish Kapoor Exhibition, then a quick dash back home for a mini tea party. Today I've been printing all day with Stanley and his pals, as I did a print workshop at their nursery. The results were fantastic, it's pure joy to work with such an enthusiastic bunch! I'll blog about this more when I get a chance. Having said that, 20 printed bags later, my back is killing me!
Anyway, back to what I'm meant to be blogging about.......

The Papernstitch contest, join in and you could win a prize....oh and one for me too!

......and just to add to the hype, I'll try a mini giveaway:
Leave a comment on any of my products on the papernstitch site, then leave a comment here saying something supernice about my work and what would you like to see more of. I'll do a random pick from all the comments here and the lucky winner will get one of my party bags with a few surprises inside!
Here's the blurb from papernstitch

October marks our one year anniversary for the papernstitch exhibition site! It is hard to believe its already been a year for the site, and well over a year for the blog. To celebrate we'll be running a contest from now through October 25th on the pns site.

Some of you may know that each individual product in a pns shop can be commented on by anyone who is logged in to their account. The exhibitor who receives the most votes in their shop will win a prize and you can win too! Win your favorite product on papernstitch!

How do you enter?

Simple. Visit the papernstitch site, browse your favorite shops and comment on any product that you would like to win. Why do you love that item or that shop? Tell us in the comments section. Just don't forget you have to be logged in to comment. You may enter an unlimited number of times, but can only comment on each product one time. Each comment is an entry.

I will select three winners total from the comments pool for the entire site and those three commenters will win the product they commented on! Pretty cool, huh? Visit the site now to enter the contest. Don't have a free account yet? Get one here (it takes 5 seconds, literally).

Just Made!

Yesterday's Makes.

Square Day

I had a great time today chopping up some of my printed panels. I have a romantic vision of making a big quilt for our bedroom, but whether I'll ever get round to it is another matter. I'd like to think that someone else might want to buy some of my fabrics and show me how it can be done!!!! I'm not quite sure how I'm going to market that one though, I may offer small groups of nine like the one below or a discount mix pack of the 4 piece panels to cut up yourself. It's easy to spend hours enjoyable messing around with the juxtaposition, I'd probably go mad.
I did get round to making some more lavender squares and a mini patchwork cushion, but the light was so rubbish by the time I'd finished, I'll leave that until tomorrow.
More fabrics are being listed in my Etsy shop as I write, I'm just waiting for the photos to load up. There's a neat little trick on Etsyhacks if you download Greasemonkey you can load up all your photos in one go! It takes a while to load, but at least you're not sitting and waiting to do them one by one.
look out for the new prints in my shop and here's a peek of the squares I chose for my little cushion.....
Pebble, Petal and Cirlces

Cut Flower in Buttercup Yellow

Circles in Zingy Lime Green

Circles in Light Mushroom