Revamped set of shelves

Following on from my card stand last week here is my new (to me) piece of furniture for Country Living.

Not too bad you say - yeah well look at the close up photographs below :)

It was a very well loved shop fitting! So after a good wash it was ready to be transformed!

Here it is half way through. I decided on washi tape as it's very easy to use (Anya helped out) and if it went wrong then it peels off very easily too. Also washi tape is brightly coloured which is always a bonus in my mind! The next photos are of the finished item which I am very pleased with.

Ta Da! What do you think? I'm really pleased with the transformation and very pleased that I could turn something that was unloved into something useful and pretty :)

P.S. I get my washi tape from here and here - the latter is run by a two friends of mine who are lovely :)

New card stand

I found a wonderful shop last week that supplies second hand shop fittings for sale - a dream to look round and I know where to look when I get my book shop/cafe/craft shop*

So back in the real world I actually went to buy two old stock trolleys (the kind you see with 3 sides in the supermarket/large shops that hold, well, stock!) I figured that as I only have 15mins/half an hour to unload all of my stock/furniture when I go to Country Living, anything that would speed up the process would be good. However, they are very large (duh!) and very heavy so I need to pull all of my jigsaw acumen/inherited Searle packing skills together to get them into Taz along with my large cupboard!

While I was there I also found a couple of pieces of furniture that will look good on my stall - one is undergoing a transformation (more on that later) and one is the card stand you see below.

Ignore the terrible photographs please! This card stand started out life as a book stand for a school book corner and we used to have one exactly like it when I went to school :) It doesn't stand up on it's own and will be going on the wall of my stand.

And here is my artistic director deciding on how to arrange my cards to make sure they look their best - we decided that less is more :) Anya has been super helpful this week and is really enjoying helping me revamp the other piece of furniture I got at the shop fitters :)


*dreaming!

Tagging

Specifically on Etsy and no, not those kind of tags although I won't moan if you decide to buy some! I belong to Team Eco Etsy on Etsy and their blog has some brilliant information on it. I thought I would share this particular post about tagging and how to get more shoppers to your Etsy store as this is something that everyone wants right?

You can find the post here and if you read carefully enough you will see that they included some of my aforementioned gift tags to illustrate the post!

Sharing the love people, sharing the love!

The second skirt :)

So I have been putting my new found skirt skills to the test and made my second skirt yesterday. As soon as I saw the fabric in an antiques shop in Skipton with Chrissie on Wednesday I knew it was destined to become a member of my wardrobe. Want to see?

It's a Rupert Bear skirt!!!!!!!!!!! It was a curtain (I've only used half a curtain and there is another one) and it also came with a duvet cover and pillowcase that the girls have already claimed!

Ta Da!!! I realise it's not to everyone's taste (and I don't think Matt will be coming out with me when I'm wearing it) but it fits quite well into my wardrobe. Now I need to search for some Postman Pat and Star Wars curtains :)

Some new Nana chickens

I've been busy today and have made some new Nana chickens. They are called Nana chickens because I use 'Nana' linens such as tablecloths and tray cloths.

This one here is Betty and I have two made from this fabric. I love the colour!

Chloe is a nice bright chicken who loves the sunshine! I have two of Chloe available for sale.

Chrissie is made from an unusual cross stitched tray cloth. I have two available but they differ slightly in colour as the person who made the original tray cloth wasn't interested in having symmetrical colours!

Freda is made from a large tablecloth which had been embroidered all the way round. Again all the stitches are similar but the placement of them on each chicken may be different from the one shown. I have six Freda's available.

Fabienne above is my favourite and she will be coming to BCTF with me so isn't available for sale yet :) I may be tempted to keep her for myself but I'll see how she goes at BCTF!

These will be available for sale soon but I need to show this post to a valued customer who has first choice :) I'll pop them in my Etsy and Folksy shops and update this post to let you know when they are available. And of course I can take pre-orders and reserve a chicken for you!

New product photographs

I was cursing the snow here this morning (it's 2.45pm and it's been snowing constantly since 7am) but it turns out that with a bit of brightening in Aviary, snow lit skies are great for taking product photographs! I hadn't changed the product photographs of some of my early gift tags since I started selling them so it was high time for a change!

The ever popular chickens :)

And their cousins, the brightly coloured chickens! My original photographs of these were taken in my homemade light box which was actually quite rubbish and gave off lots of weird shadows!

I love how these new photographs of the security envelope tags really 'pop' - the last ones were really wishy washy.

The wool gift tag pictures were fine but I needed to take new ones as I have reduced the number of gift tags available in a set and needed new photographs to show this. I have gone from 10 tags per pack down to 6. I've done this for a number of reasons but the main reason is that most of the tags I make are hand drawn and they do take a long time to make - I just wasn't making enough money for the amount of time I was putting in.

Do let me know if you like the new pictures :)

Tie chickens, not Thai chicken!

Yeah, good one Lynsey :)

As you may have guessed from the title, my long made (August 2011!) tie chickens have finally made it into my shops! They have been to fairs with me, and several have sold so you are seeing the last few available. They all have appropriate 1970's style names as they are indeed made from 1970's ties :)

Randy

Kenneth

Here is Clive

Duncan

Rodney

Simon

Trevor

Trevor and Simon have twins as the ties they were made from were huge - I believe the term is kipper ties :)

I'm on the look out for some gaudy ties so I can add to the tie chicken collection :)

New badge packaging

My old badge packaging looked like this.

They were then wrapped in plastic which protected them a bit but didn't look as good as I would like.

This is the new packaging - the cardboard is the recycled card I bought last month and the fabric is felted jumpers. I may use thicker fabric too as I think that would work. I am also planning to print the information onto the top but I can't be bothered to wrestle with the printer to figure out where I would need to place the card etc!

Do let me know what you think :)

P.S. If you are wondering what all the new products/packaging ideas are for then I am getting ready for BCTF in April - it will be my first trade fair and I am papping myself! I'm also trying to get slowly organised so that everything doesn't get on top of me in the next few months - hahahahahaha!

Another sale!

Phew! My Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale has just finished and the editing of all the shop information has ended too (long job!) I am now offering another sale but this time on (most of) my large envelopes. I haven't been happy with the style of them and have designed some new ones that are more envelope shaped and that are self sealing so no fiddling with sticky tape for you to get them closed!

The above envelopes can be found for half price (£2.50) in my Folksy shop. Along with lots of others!

And these are a couple of the sets in my Etsy shop. There are more in there too!

Ziggy

No, not David Bowie as that Ziggy Stardust! This Ziggy!

The last of this 'ziggy' fabric has been used up - it started life as a vintage knitting bag but it was then abandoned and left to become dusty and torn. Luckily I happened upon it at a jumble sale and revived it into Ziggy :) You still have a chance to get yourself a Ziggy pincushion/paperweight but be quick as there is only one left over in my Etsy shop!

More bunting but this time cute mini bunting!

The new mini upcycled bunting is made from vintage cigarette cards - the artwork is beautiful!

You get 20 flags on each set of bunting and it measures approx 1.5 metres in length and each set is for sale at £5/$8 :)

Do let me know what you think!

Uh oh - I've learnt a new craft!

When I was at the Vintage Fair on Saturday teaching my upcycling workshop Christine was also there teaching people to make toothbrush rugs (so called as they were made years ago using old toothbrushes*) I hovered for a little bit and then asked her to teach me too.

The orange and the blue are the bits I did in the workshop and the mustard, pink and white are old clothes that I have used since Saturday. It's already 37cms! Cool eh?

Once you've got the hang of it, it is very easy - so much so that Anya was helping me with it yesterday. Just look for toothbrush rug on You Tube. And it has come at the perfect time as I was going to start a plaited rug this week which would have been much more time consuming. I'm still getting the hang of it so this will be my practice rug and then I will be making one for the girls from their old clothes!

*the toothbrushes had holes at one end and the bristle end was snapped off and the end filed to resemble a large needle :)

Saturday

I will be at this fabulous looking event on Saturday. I will be browsing later in the afternoon but in the morning I will be running an upcycled workshop where I will teach you how to make gift tags out of things you have lying around the home. Cool huh? I will have blank book pages if you want to doodle some tags but also some old books if you don't fancy drawing. It will cost you 50p (to cover my costs) but you can make as many as you like for that - get stocked up for Christmas! I will be there from 10am until 12.30 so make sure you get there in time :)

And if you don't fancy making tags then pop down anyway to visit the vintage fashion and homewares - just don't buy all the nice things before I get to browse please!

New things in the shop

Yeah - all the chickens I made on Sunday have finally made it up into the shops :) I'm better at making than listing quickly it seems!

Meet Decka the doorstop chicken.

And Decka the pincushion/paperweight.

Meet mother and daughter Gardenia.

And mother and daughter Sweetie. All of the chickens are in both my Etsy and Folksy shops except Sweetie the doorstop as she is a one off :)

And I also listed these two notebooks in my Folksy shop :)