Treacle Toffee

The Sensible Thing To Do

2012-02-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

Ahem.
*Sensible Public Announcement*

In these times of economic doom and gloom, it seems only right for a small business such as mine to sell things which can only enrich lives, enliven spirits and generally en-Sensible (why yes of course it's a word...) the day-to-day goings about that we all do. But I do think there is a difference between being Sensible and being serious. It is very Sensible, for instance, to have a zip-up pouch to contain your spools of thread, your pencils or biscuits or what-have-you. But that doesn't mean the pouch has to have a serious design, does it?

And so I give you...the Sensible Survival Kit...

And we also have the coin purse dedicated to your very sensible and restrained spending (there's a recession on, don't-you-know), in prussian blue...

I'm also pleased to announce the return of Mr Squirrel. He was quite a popular fellow back in 2009, having appeared on 4 (very) limited edition wristlets/pouches.

Those were applique design ones (in other words, I cut out the pieces to my own pattern in felt and stitched them onto a cotton base) but applique takes quite a lot of time, and I knew I wanted to offer something similar but at a lower price point. And at last, here it is! It's a screenprinted version, without the acorn, minus the wrist strap and the dimensions are a little different. But it's still a good size for all your squirrelling needs!

The new 'Sensible' range is a collaboration with my good friend Debbie Greenaway, who has done the screenprinting of these designs for me. They went from my brain, to my pen and paper, to the scanner, to Debbie's computer, to her magic screenprinting apparatus, and back to me printed on lovely calico sent by the good old Royal Mail. I did the sewing, but Debbie deserves a lot of credit for getting the printing so nice and the colours just as I wanted (with only my descriptions via messenger to guide her) Please do check out her blog here

The new Sensible range things are popping up in my Etsy shop Scatterbox Originals as and when I have them ready for you...so watch that space! :)

No more scaredy Cat

2012-01-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

After pretty much a lifetime of being a pyrophobe (I am yet to be able to light a match or lighter myself!), I managed to happily spend quite some time on New Year's Day watching this from a safe distance:

As the sky darkened, the sparks from the fire became more apparent, each one trailing behind it a little streamer of golden-orange light which made them look like fireworks or like hundreds of swimming tadpoles (or something similar!)

I'm aiming to be braver this year...possibly I will post on my other varied phobias later in the year.

Walking backwards - on the brink of 2012.

2011-12-31T15:35:00.000-08:00

Hello hello, I hope you all had a lovely festive period, whatever you celebrate.

A year in which some things happened ...and failed to happen sometimes too...is about to end. I'm writing this post in the last hours of 2011, fireworks going off outside (a little prematurely?) and the occasional sound of a 'merry' person shouting in the street. I'm about to change into my pyjamas and watch a film, after a long 3 days in the Day Job, rather than partying tonight (I'm too tired, too shy, too broke...)

It's that funny looking-forward / looking-back time of year, isn't it? I heard somewhere recently (probably on QI) that a different culture to mine considers the future to be 'behind' you, because it cannot be seen (whereas the western metaphor tends to be the past being behind you because you've already moved through it) I think about this; the future behind me, the past stretching out before me with its landscape of memories, successes, failures, disappointments and joys. As I step both forwards and backwards into 2012...I get a little dizzy!

I'm approaching 2012 with a strange blend of optimism, pessimism, hopefulness, worriedness and thoughtfulness. 2012 has been hanging around in my mind as a year for Big Things, not least because it's the year my age will get a big round zero at the end of it. I want to get back on track with my career, figure out what to do, where to live, how to survive. I'm thinking I might get back into painting more. I have some ideas for the Etsy and Folksy shops (see links on the right) that I mean to try out. But the financial situation puts pressure on these things, and I think 2012 may be make-or-break time for my self employment. To be totally honest, I'm pretty nervous.

So, kind blog readers, I have decided to make a special offer for you (and also for my followers on Twitter). If you would like to buy from me and so help give me a good boost into 2012, (boosting funds for the business as well as helping me move towards paying myself a modest pay packet before the end of the tax year in April, and perhaps more importantly boosting my confidence for the coming year of work) then here is a little code you can enter into checkout on Etsy from either JumpUp or scatterboxoriginals, which will give you free shipping on any order - I will keep this valid until the end of Twelfth Night (EDIT due to some variation in how people figure these things out, I'm going to make that Friday afternoon (UK time) that the offer ends) What you do is put what you want into your cart on Etsy from either of my shops (JumpUp or Scatterboxoriginals). Then in your 'cart' page, there's an underlined bit on the right saying 'enter coupon code' - click that and write in capital letters the following word:

GOODYEAR

And that should make your shipping (or P&P as we Brits like to call it) totally free to anywhere in the world. So please, dear blog readers, dear fans of JumpUp and Scatterbox Originals, dear random people who stumbled across my blog looking for a recipe for treacle toffee*, do feel free to treat yourselves to something I have made, and in turn help to make 2012 my good year.

Oh and here, these are some videos I took on the train journey home from my Christmas visitings. Very aptly, they are of travelling backwards (my seat faced the rear of the train)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

*(sorry! I seem to be more google-able for that than for 'nice people who sell their handmade items' so one resolution for next year is to actually try making some treacle toffee and blogging about it)

Feets too big?

2011-12-16T03:23:00.000-08:00

My footprints are pretty big for a girl. Well, as I've mentioned, I take a UK size 8 (a 7 in more sensibly cut shoes) which I believe equates to a 10 in the USA or a 41 in Europe. It's not like I'm that tall either, coming in at about 5'5". My sister made Harry and the Hendersons jokes when I was a kid (see title of this post)

As you probably know by now (or not, if you're new to this little blog of mine), I'm trying to be more eco friendly. Have you spotted the corny segue? Ah yes, well done. Carbon footprints.

Firstly, since this is a blog about me and my work and should really be the truth, I'm going to lay my cards right on the table and say I'm no eco-angel. I'm not quite as 'green' as Kermit, and as he himself did say, it's not easy being green.

Things I DO do, to help reduce the proverbial carbon footprint I'm making.

* I don't drive. Not 100% for ecological reasons, mind you - my instructor gave up on me when I was 17. He wasn't the best teacher, and certainly not suited to the nervous driver type, but there you go. Maybe I will gain the confidence to drive again one day (and when I do, it will be something as eco friendly as is viable to have where I live) I walk to the shops, I catch public transport. Occasionally, a friend will give me a lift somewhere. If I get my groceries delivered, I try to go for the slots where they say the driver is going to be in my area anyway.
This is a nice place to be walking everywhere.

* I don't travel a lot. Last time I went on a long-haul flight was 2005 (ah, Manhattan, I loved you, and would have more so if it weren't for being ill and on a stressful Uni trip to tote my illustration portfolio around your many marble-foyer-ed publishing houses) I'd like to see more of our lovely planet while it and myself are still going strong, but so far in my nearly 3 decades of life, I've been abroad something like 12 times, which for a European is actually quite little, really. And I might have counted the 2 hours I spent in Calais one very rainy, dull day (we were on the ferry there and back for more time than we spent in the town. I would have liked Calais better if it weren't for being so taken over by British people making the most of the tax-free booze opportunity. Sorry, Calais.)

* I use recycled materials quite a lot. In JumpUp, this is the whole idea of the shop. Scatterbox Originals doesn't have so much eco-friendly materials yet, but I use recycled card for the note cards (I found the loveliest UK supplier for those) and the paper from the writing sets I used to sell was made with pulp from ethically managed forests. For the new ideas for Scatterbox (which sadly I've had to put on hold until after my xmas break) I'm looking at using some nice organic, fairtrade cotton. This is one of the first things I bought to salvage for JumpUp, a luxurious, but sadly boil-washed-and-partially-shrunk-by-accident (by whoever owned it before me) scarf.

This scarf became a couple of purses, Bert the plush doll and more recently, some Mountain brooches.

* I use recycled and eco friendly packaging as much as possible. In Scatterbox, I tend to still use jiffy mailers that I've bought, because I'm a bit tentative about how people will feel about the recycled packaging and because the shop isn't so overtly "I Am Eco Friendly" as JumpUp is, I'm not as confident doing that yet. I think I will shift over to using the same packaging for both though, especially since the lady in the post office yesterday was full of praise for my homemade eco friendly envelopes. I do try to make them pretty - they're pages saved from old books (usually ones with damaged covers that charities find harder to sell), taped at the edges with decorative gum tape and sewn on my sewing machine to form an envelope.

* I use energy saving bulbs at home wherever possible (my living room is fitted with halogen bulbs set into the ceiling, but I can't change that. I tend to use my lamp in the evenings anyway, which does take an energy saving bulb)

I think this is a pretty good start. There are things to build on; using eco friendly washing powder etc more consistently, avoiding those occasional times of 'what the heck, the clothes are filthy so I'll do them on a hot wash just to be sanitary', and reducing my use of the tumble dryer at the laundrette (I don't have a garden here or an airing cupboard, and not a lot of space for airing clothes, so in the cold and wet months it is tricky). I've also got plans to try to reduce my electricity consumption (partly for money reasons) somehow.

Anyway, so that's how I try to make my (metaphorical) footprints smaller. It's not easy being green...but then, in many ways it doesn't take that much effort, really.

Oh by the way...I have decided that instead of going into invisibility mode during my Christmas break, I'm going to keep the shops open and do a special offer to compensate for delayed dispatch times (I'll be back from visiting family a bit after Christmas but I have to work in the day job, so orders after Sunday won't be mailed until 3rd January) That special arrangement will start on Monday, so if you want to browse and shop while this Cat's away, and don't mind receiving your order in January, go ahead and play next week! Up until then I'm still taking orders to send within two working days (today being the last day that I feel orders posted are likely to arrive in time for Christmas) Any orders over the weekend are going to come with me on the train to see my family, and be posted from there on Tuesday (possibly time to arrive for Christmas but it would be pushing it)

The Glamorous Life of a Crafter

2011-12-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

Today featured:
* Rain and coldness
* Photographing another El Bandido cat burglar purse for Scatterbox Originals
* Photographing another recycled wool purse for JumpUp
* Editing the photos
* Listing the purses
* Realising the colours were a bit off. Editing again. And again.

* Procrastinating over my Etsy shop stats. I like how the graphs make patterns like a little landscape. (this screenshot is from a while ago, as you can see...)

Or in some cases, a little gnome...oh, please tell me you can see a gnome here...maybe it's just me...he's peeking up...(there's little green eyes from the markers Etsy puts when you've listed or renewed an item in your shop or shared a link on Twitter)

* A trip to the post office to mail a couple of sales from the weekend (poor post office workers, the computer system had gone offline repeatedly - a national thing apparently - for some reason, and it was a busy day for them with so many people rushing to get their Christmas cards and gifts mailed off...the assistant was still pleasant to me though. Generally, the staff at Falmouth post office are nice)
* A trip to the shops to buy myself some warm socks and clothes, as it appears I didn't quite have enough yet.
* A trip to the metro supermarket to buy food to last me until my Christmas break.
* A trip back to the clothes shop because they'd forgotten to give me back my reloadable gift card (I could write a whole rant of a post on here about how shops have all gone onto these plastic cards which are meant to be reusable but which most people seem to throw away, or not get back from the shop once they've used their balance...grmph!)

And then...walking home in the rain, my arms laden down with shopping, feeling soggy, putting my fan heater on (because the central heating is only on here for an hour in the evening...brr...) and then a cup of tea, my satchel unceremoniously flung on the floor...the new socks put on over my tights...slippers on...and a dvd (All Dogs Go To Heaven...classic!) and some sewing. This is how glam I am, are you ready for it?

So on my very glamorous lap you can see a new type of cotton pouch I'm trying out for JumpUp, and by my side you can see some little fabric embroidered badges that are another new idea. I hope you will all like them when they are complete!

Oh, Make Me Over...

2011-12-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

On the advice of a kind critique giver on the Etsy forums, I have had a really good go at re-doing all my photos for JumpUp with the lighter backdrop. It took some courage to go onto the Etsy forums and ask for help, (even though it wasn't the first time I've done so) but I think I've taken on board what was said and I'm pretty happy with the new pictures.

This one, for instance:

I think it captures the colours so much better and also the texture of my embroidery. I'd really liked the blackboard backdrop because it meant I could doodle something for each item and keep a consistent look but a bit of variety as well. But I discovered that the blackboard was the reason why my photos kept coming out overexposed on the light coloured areas - something to do with how camera light metering works.

I've got around the loss of my doodle-able background by sticking cut-outs onto the board here - I'm starting with clouds, though I think I might try out some other shapes in future. A little house, some stars or little paper hearts maybe?

Please do click on the images if you'd like to see the listings pages!

Just to let you know, I'm going to be putting my shop onto vacation mode for the Christmas period - starting on the 17th December I think. This means my listings won't be viewable on Etsy during that time via my shop homepage, but if you click on a direct link (eg in a treasury or in your favourites list - or indeed the pictures in this blog which I usually link directly to their listing pages) then you will still be able to look at that item and have a browse.

Oh, and a note on last posting dates...the official last Christmas posting date for the USA, Canada and Eastern Europe is today* (Friday December the 9th 2011) - I'll be happy to continue sending orders to those destinations after today, but please note that I can't assure you of delivery in time for Christmas after today. If there are any extreme weather conditions where you live (for example my lovely kins-people of Scotland) then I recommend allowing as much time as possible for your order to arrive, in case transport links are effected.

I have more details on my last delivery dates in my shop homepage announcement.

*(this of course means it is a little too late now to order in time for the first days of Hannukah, if you celebrate that holiday and live in north America or eastern Europe)

How Things Look From Here

2011-12-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

I've been working on re-doing some of my photos for JumpUp and Scatterbox Originals, because I know how important it is for online sellers to have good photography and for Etsy especially since a huge part of getting your work seen is having your items featured in treasuries that make the front page of Etsy and also getting chosen for the hallowed Etsy Finds emails. (I was once! I made a sale from it and got lots of views, it was lovely - I wish I'd had more listed at the time...that's something I'm still working on)

I love photography, and I considered it as a career when I was growing up although I didn't have a 'proper' camera but a basic old thing from my mum. I don't think my photos are to a professional standard, but I think my new digital camera is helping and I'm slowly learning new techniques. A lot of it seems to be in the 'staging' of photos - good use of props and backdrops.

For JumpUp, I had been using this blackboard as a backdrop:

(taken with my old camera, before it lost the ability to focus)

I really like the effect and the versatility. But then one day recently, I foolishly stood on my blackboard, which was lying on the floor after a photo shoot, me absent mindedly stepping across the room to get a pair of scissors. I put too much weight on it, and felt it buckle beneath my body. So it now has a dent the size of my foot (that would be a UK ladies size 7 to 8, USA size 10, European 41 - so a pretty big ungainly foot-sized dent!) at the side. It's still usable, but I decided to unscrew the two sides (it's an A-frame style / easel blackboard) and try to make use of the other side. The other side has a whiteboard for writing on with wipable pen, but the underside of *that* has this unusual mottled metal. I was going to try and get some blackboard paint and paint this non-dented half of the easel. But then I thought better of it...

I got the blackboard/whiteboard from my charity shop. Whoever owned it before me did a little doodle on the underside - I quite like it, so I've kept it in shot here. I think the mottled grey background works well for the photos - it gives a more natural colour and feels lighter. I still like the blackboard though, so I want to keep a mixture of the two backdrops.

It's very versatile to have the easel blackboard because I can doodle on it with chalk, use the mottled grey side for darker items that need a lighter background to show them off, and because of the height being right for setting up my little foldaway table in front, I can create little 'scenes' with various props, like the vintage skipping rope.
EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that the blackboard backdrop is a little dark and effects the exposure on my camera, causing pictures to be overexposed. I'm sad to say goodbye to the blackboard but I think I will try changing all my photos to the new approach now...what do you think?

I think it's great that I can create these little scenes for my items even in my very unglamorous flat. Would you know the pictures above were taken in my bathroom? I suppose it helps living in an attic with a skylight in every room - I can chase the daylight!

I used the same board for a couple of new photos for Scatterbox Originals too, this time blu-tacking a sheet of graph paper to the board:

As you can see, I used that same spool of thread to show scale in the photo, and this time also my Pentel mechanical pencil which I use for some of my drawings.

I'm working hard on some new products for both shops. The new designs I mentioned for Scatterbox may have to partially go on hold for a while as I'm collaborating with a good friend who has kindly offered to do some screenprinting of my designs onto fabric for me, but she is swamped with work (quite understandably, she's a fab illustrator and crafty lady) so some of that new stuff is going on hold.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my new camera which was an early Christmas gift. Here's a few photos I took with it the evening after it had arrived, out of two of my skylight windows (closed and open)

There is still time for posting sales out in time for Christmas (just about time even to get things to the USA) so I am still hoping for sales to pick up. I have some new ideas for JumpUp which I hope to share with you soon, involving cotton versions of my wool purses and some variations on the theme of chunky embroidered stitched designs...

I'd love to hear your comments on my new photo set-up!

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

2011-11-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry, sorry, the title was inevitable. I've had the song in my head whilst sewing these new mountain brooches for JumpUp. They are made from wool salvaged from a jumper that had been used and abused by its previous owner and then callously thrown into a boil wash. When you wash wool too hot, it shrinks. This jumper didn't shrink as much as a fully wool one would have - it had 20% nylon in it which seems to be the case increasingly these days (supposedly for durability).

I mentioned the making of these in an earlier post (about three posts down from here).

I was going to have a rule of only using pure wool things to upcycle, but
a) the jumper had the most gorgeous grey marl flecked with blue
b) I didn't notice at first that it had nylon in it
and c) I realised that salvaging synthetic materials is actually more eco friendly as they won't biodegrade in the way that wool would if it ended up in landfill.

For scale, I took a little self-portrait (um, minus my face) shot of the brooch on my lovely red jumper.

OH! And I took these photos with my new camera. It came yesterday. I think it's pretty good, what do you think? - I had a few rubbish photos from it but I'm still getting to grips with all the settings and bells and whistles so to speak.

The brooches are available in my shop on Etsy.com now.

A Whole New Cat?

2011-11-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

I thought you might like to know that I'm working on a little re-vamp for Scatterbox Originals. This blog doesn't often talk about that shop, I suppose. I felt it was time for a little change in the shop and a bit of a boost back into life (a re-mojo-ification, I like to call it) and since I've been thinking today about how my business has evolved, I thought I would share the story of my progress so far with you.

The Scatterbox Originals shop has been open on Etsy.com since 2006 (technically I started business selling handmade Christmas decorations on Ebay at the start of November 2005, so I have been going for 6 years this month!) and since then there have been many changes in what I sell.

I'm going to take a deep breath here and show you a photo of the first thing I sold on Etsy.

This is a small notebook which I cut, bound and stitched the cover for all by hand. It's a little cat design as you can see, which I drew and cut out of felt. It took me a pretty long time to make and I was quite proud of it, though I think my sewing skills have improved a fair bit since then! (I think my photography is a little better too maybe...) It sold to someone I know, someone who started out being my penpal in America when I was 15 or so, who I've stayed in touch with over the years. Thank you Sonia, for being my first Etsy customer! Most of my customers thereafter were total strangers, which is a strange feeling but kind of a nice one too.

After that I sold a couple of sets of clothes peg magnets (or clothespin if you use the American lingo) which I very painstakingly stamped with hand-cut star stamps made out of an eraser, and letter stamps put together with a kit, some tweezers, and more patience than I knew I had...

And then various bags and purses and iPod cozies with felt appliqué...I did all the stitching for the felt by hand, they took SO long to make... (It was a long while before I dared to try making appliqués with my sewing machine and discovered it went much better than I thought it would. I felt like using my machine was cheating, too, which was absurd, really!)

In my 'Seedlings Beneath the Moon' bag, you can see the beginnings of my fondness for using big stitches to create pattern and texture, which later transferred into my Tree Stump Brooches for Treacle Toffee (the second Etsy shop) and then evolved into what I do for my JumpUp range.

And not forgetting The Attic Shelter For Troubled Felt Animals section, where I sold plush dolls made out of felt and cotton, all with a (heart wrenching!) back story. The Three Myopic Mice were a favourite.

I didn't feel I could compete on Etsy.com with all the other plush makers, so I moved away from making critters for a while (though anyone who follows JumpUp will know that there is a little selection of plush dolls in that shop now, of a different style)

There were other approaches I explored too, like the lino printing onto fabric:

The small number of items I made with the lino printing really were the products of blood, sweat and tears - literally, I cut myself a couple of times trying to cut the lino using the sharp tools, and shed a few tears when blocks I had spent over an hour trying to cut, went wrong at the last minute. I have so much respect for anyone who can accomplish lino printing with any degree of success - it is hard work and can be slow going. For the sake of my sanity, I had to give it up!

There have also been mobiles, writing sets and scarves:

I love those appliquéd kids scarves - perhaps one of my most favourite things I have made. I made them using brushed cotton flannelette (fabric used for pyjamas) so they were very soft and like being able to take a little bit of that cozy duvet day feeling out into the cold air. Sadly I realised that there are many laws governing selling things for children, with the new-ish law in America prohibiting the sale of things for under-13s (or things that could be construed as being for under-13s) that haven't been incredibly (and expensively) thoroughly tested for lead and phthalates, and then looking into the regulations here in Europe also, it all overwhelmed me. Doubt hit and I lost my motivation, my belief in my business and the things I was making. My trusty printer started to malfunction just enough to make it impossible to print any more writing sets without ink smudges. Suddenly, it all felt a bit impossible.

Even with excellent feedback under my belt and a pretty good number of people adding my shop to their favourites, I got into a slump. When I felt like creating again, I began experimenting with Gocco (the Japanese printing method that's sort of a hybrid of screenprinting and stamping) My character El Bandido got a good response and I sold several Gocco-ed notebooks with that cartoon on them.

So somehow I sort of came full circle - from one kind of cat notebook to another! El Bandido is quite different to that original fuzzy felt applique. He has been quite popular I think, judging by the 'hearts' on Etsy, the sales of various 'El B' notebooks, purses etc. So why have I stopped making El Bandido notebooks? Well, partly because I had to sell my Gocco printer (it sold to a lovely illustrator I happen to know named Emma) because I was struggling to get into a good groove with getting consistently good prints out of Gloria (um, yes, I named my Gocco. All inanimate tools and appliances tend to get a name here sooner or later, as Jan the Janome sewing machine would gladly tell you if she could speak) and also because I needed to free-up some funds so that I could afford to keep going with the business through the recession. (Cue Dickensian tale of woe featuring greedy bankers, clueless politicians, loss of consumer confidence etc, all beating down on the finances and spirit of this here artist, sitting in her cold little attic flat, eating Tesco Value Noodles and resting a hot water bottle against her stomach as she sews. She might even be wearing fingerless gloves and/or singing "Where Is Love?"...)

So what now? What's next for my little business? Well, I've had some new ideas. It's not a total change I don't think - hopefully there will be a logic to my progression and at least some of my lovely past customers will still be interested in the work that I'm making. While I am continuing with JumpUp (shop number 3) as well, I am planning on giving Scatterbox Originals another blast. You may have noticed the shop has a new banner...

Here is a little preview of what I'm working on - these are my images in progress on the way to becoming Things. Can you guess what they're going to be yet?

I will give you a small clue on what one of the images is for...my cameo pin badges have had a good response in the past...

The Artist smiles inscrutably and perhaps ever so slightly annoyingly...and skips away to refresh her hot water bottle, and then to do some work on both her Etsy shops...please stay tuned! :)

Chase the dark away

2011-11-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I went to see Truro City of Lights. For those not in the know, this is a parade of paper lanterns. Really elaborate lanterns in the shape of animals, as well as some smaller simpler ones. It's held annually in Truro, which is the nearest city to where I live. By most people's standards, it's not really a city but a moderately sized town. But going to this parade I realised just how many people there are in and around Truro. The streets were packed (and we apparently went to 'the quiet bit')

As I said in my previous post, my camera is dying. I couldn't take as good pictures as I'd like to, they were really very fuzzy and blurred (partly due to it being after dark and me not having the steadiest hands but I'm sure an element of it was the loss of focussing ability in my camera) The peacock pictured above had a tail that fanned open and closed - it was spectacular.

Anyway, I did at least succeed in taking a couple of short videos of the parade.

You can see some lanterns made by schoolchildren - they were pretty impressive, I think they were jumping fish in the first video but there were quite a lot of penguins too tonight - and also a larger lantern which had fairy lights (or something like that) inside rather than a candle. I have to admit, my favourites were the larger lanterns with the fairy lights inside - I think because these lit up the paper more than the natural light of the candles, and showed off the beautiful work the makers had done with the structure of the lanterns.

And there's also the fact that they MOVED! My friend John compared it to the stage show of Northern Lights, which deplorably I hadn't even heard about until today (oh how I want to see that!)

There was a very effective portion of the parade with people dressed in black playing eerie music, led in front by someone dressed as a sort of raven - or possibly it was meant to be a Cornish Chough, which is the county's symbolic bird and I believe extinct or no longer in the area.

Supposedly the parade kicks off the late night shopping/Christmas shopping season in the city. I'm hoping all the small independent businesses do well this year.

A triangular kind of day

2011-11-16T07:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I was working on some new mountain brooches. It got dark early, so I worked by the light of my lamp. It's only an energy saving bulb (I say 'only' - some people think that energy saving bulbs are too dim but I like the softness of them), but it gives off a lovely glow inside the lampshade I think. Here's a couple of snapshots of my work station. Note the all important set-up of sofa, radiator and glamorous roll of toilet paper for if I get a runny nose.

You may notice a cardboard triangle there on my little table. It's the end of a Toblerone tube - I've been naughtily snacking on Toblerone lately and only realised half way through sewing the mountain brooches that there's a bit of a triangular theme going on here! Even my lamp is bordering on being triangular.

Sorry the picture is a little blurry. I'm on the hunt for a good (cheapish) new digital camera as I think my old Olympus has lost the ability to focus. I may have dropped it a couple of times...ahem.

Here on the table you can see:
* My tape measure
* My red kitchen timer (I use the 'pomodoro' method where you work solidly for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break, then another 25 minutes and so on)
* New mountain brooches! Note that they're a little different to my first batch, with the stitching running vertically. You can't see in this picture, but the wool base is two shades, with a lighter grey at the top cut to an angle from the stripe that was on the jumper's sleeve. It's a different wool to the one in the other mountain brooches.
* White wool yarn skein
* Grey thread for sewing brooches up
* My amazing Fiskars scissors specially for fabric (rather sharp)
* End of a Toblerone tube. I am considering using it as a template for some smaller triangle brooches.
* Wool jumper (sorry, that would be 'sweater' in American English) that I'm using for the brooches (the last owner shrank it in the wash) It has a little bit of nylon in it, but you can't really tell.
* Scraps of the aforementioned jumper for sandwiching inside the brooches to pad them out
* My notepad. Perhaps I'm the only one that does this, but I work out how much each item I make costs in materials, for reference when I do my stocktake (which again, some handmade sellers might not bother doing) where I calculate how much the value of all my stock and materials are. I do this in April for the benefit of those lovely people at the HMRC tax office. The biggest cost in making these brooches is going to be the time spent. Making, photographing and listing this batch will probably equate to a full working day.
* My chenille needles - these are sharp needles with big eyes. They are essential for sewing thick yarn embroideries - I am so glad I discovered them!

Anyway, I hope you folks enjoyed a little peek into the very glamorous JumpUp studio! I wish I had one of those lovely bright, insanely tidy flats you see featured on Apartment Therapy and such. Maybe if I got rid of the toilet roll?

In formation

2011-11-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

I discovered this amazing video of a flock of starlings:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

The video is by Sophie Windsor Clive and titled Murmuration (who knew there was such a brilliant name for a flock of starlings?)

I got a bit hooked on finding similar things - this one is lovely too:

Advice to sink in slowly

2011-10-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

Here I am, putting on my "Illustrator hat" to share a bit of news with you. A few years ago I created an image for the wonderful Advice To Sink In Slowly project - graduates submit poster designs with a theme of advice for those beginning a course at university. The aim of the project is to give free advice posters to as many first year students as possible, and it is all funded by the sale of posters and sponsored items (Howies, the clothing brand, have kindly sponsored a special edition poster and T-shirt design by Lizzy Stewart)
You can see my poster design "It Will Be Worth It" on the Guardian website here!

Anyone can help support the project by buying a poster - designs available to buy at the moment are on the ATSIS website.
My poster isn't available to buy at the moment but you can see a larger version of it on the website.

Life, still.

2011-07-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

I spent most of today doing housework. I'd let the chores pile up a bit and the mess was starting to get really oppressive, so I tackled my bathroom and bedroom. Part way between cleaning the sink and turning my mattress over, I stopped and made this sort of still life kind of thing.

It's a lightweight wooden thing that was given away free by a gift shop (it had been packaging a customer didn't want or something...I got two of them), which I stuck to the wall with blu-tack; some pebbles from various beaches, shells from Ireland (one looks like a wing up close), the four-leaf clover given to me by a friend of my parents, and the ampersand brooch I bought from madebyanna on Etsy. To the right, I stuck a couple of interesting strips of paper leftover from when I cut up an old book to recycle the pages.

Got my work cut out

2011-06-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

It's a fairly cool, breezy June day here in Cornwall and over the past few weekends at the Day Job I've found myself apologising to tourists for the disappointing weather. Of course, I shouldn't really apologise because I don't make the weather...

...but I do make (har har...like that neat little corny segue?) I DO make Things. I think it's been a while since I put any work in progress on here...so here's what I've got on the go right now:

This is a few purses at the halfway stage (all the hand sewing bit done, or pretty much) including a couple more butterscotch and grey purses, plus an embroidery I'm working on (one of the sediment series I blogged about recently) - I'm still deciding on the colours for the last layer for that one.

I've also been busy making some more fish ornaments. Unlike the first one, these don't have loops for hanging - I thought folks might want to choose to add a loop if they want and if not, they can rest up against something. They are available in the shop now (only £18 for the three! They took a few hours to make in the end, mainly the handstitching and the stuffing...I'm still perfecting my fishes so this is a kind of prototype price) I'm trying out something new with my photos - incorporating wool yarn and buttons...what do you think?

I'm working on something special to do with the fish soon I hope...watch this space for more info!

Seeing the wood for the trees

2011-06-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

Hello. I just wanted to make a quick post update to say that I'm still here! I'm sorry I don't have much to share with you kind folks at the moment...I seem to have lost my mojo a bit. But I'm taking a long hard look at my work and what I want to achieve, and I hope to have some good news for you in the near future.

Anyway, I finally got hold of my dad's photos from the Ireland trip, and there was one of me with my mum, with a silly smile on my face...I'm aiming to replicate the silly smile every day.

Or maybe just a small, normal smile would be better?

(I got a fringe by the way, as you may have noticed...and one month later I decided to grow it out. Bobby pins galore! At least my hair grows quickly...)

Anybody else ever feel overwhelmed by decisions to be made in life?

Lay of the land

2011-05-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hello folks. I just want to let you know that I have created a survey about my Etsy shop JumpUp. I'm trying to make the shop as good as it can be so your answers are much appreciated! If you enter your email at the end of the survey I will send you a code for free shipping (P&P in Brit-speak) valid until the end of 2011!

You can fill in the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DX5RS35

Also thought I'd share with you a rough sketch I did a while ago for some potential embroideries for the shop. Are my vague pencil sketches an interesting insight into my creative process...or are they as incoherent as the mumbling sounds I make in my sleep, I wonder?

They'll look better in colour, I think...

Ireland weaves a spell.

2011-04-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hello folks, I'm back from my springtime holiday at last! It was a visit up north to stay with my family for a few days, see a couple of friends, and then went with my parents to spend a week in Ireland.

I've never been to Ireland before but always wanted to go - I had ancestors from there it seems, which makes me feel a little proud because all the people we met there were lovely. I'd heard that Ireland was very green (they call it the Emerald Isle of course) and it is - probably more so in summertime but I think it's the sheer amount of open space that makes the impact.

One of the places we visited was a village called Avoca, which was the filming location for the lighthearted 90s drama Ballykissangel - Avoca is very nice, with some gorgeous scenery nearby, but also has an attraction we didn't expect - a hand-weaving mill and shop. Apparently the mill is the oldest one in Ireland, dating back to the 18th century.

For a colour-addict like me, the shop was like a sweetshop full of goodies. Everything was a little outside of my budget sadly, but I got some nice photos of the looms inside the mill to share with you. I learnt a fair bit about weaving at school, as I grew up in Lancashire which was at the heart of the cotton industry in the 19th century (Etsy has an interesting blog post about one of the few remaining Lancashire cotton mills here) but seeing such a colourful weaving process really made me appreciate the intricacy and artistry of it. It is such a shame there aren't more mills like this remaining in Britain.

We also saw the beautiful Slieve Bloom Mountains, which I think may provide some arty inspiration for me in the future:

(Dad taking photos with his first digital camera, which is better than mine by far...I have camera-envy in a bad way)

I'll be getting back to the stitching and making soon, but this week I'm determined to finish my accounts for the year...it's not a fun task for me, which is why I want to get it out of the way. Then, I can get back to the extensive list of Things To Make...

Wrapping it up

2011-03-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the pics of my homemade envelopes. Made from recycled sheet music and pages from a book on the English countryside. I used this gorgeous decorative gummed paper tape from Japan to help secure the edges and prevent paper cuts, then sewed the edges together on my sewing machine.

I also made an extra large envelope. This one is made from an old map of the Scilly Isles, and inside is my embroidery Fields of Yellow and Green, which sold before I blogged about it!

Check out the embroideries section in my shop for more like this. I really enjoy creating these so there are more on the way.

Also a quick sneak peek at my latest purse design to go in the shop (I'm listing it in a bit) I made three of these all pretty much the same. In the past I've just done one of a thing and then moved onto another but I'm trying out small runs of one design so I can work on them consecutively. I've got some other purses in progress as well in some gorgeous colours that I'm really pleased with.

I'm hoping for some more sales before the end of the month. April is the end of my tax year, and so I need to do the dreaded stocktake (ie count all my stuff and value it, in a very big spreadsheet). I'm also going to be away from running my shop for two weeks in April, for a special holiday. So, if you're wanting anything by mid April, now is the time to snap it up!

It's like Gym, but not as we know it...

2011-02-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that I joined the gym?
It's part of the same leisure centre as the pool that I go to, and realising that I was only a one-off registration fee away from getting gym membership included in my pool membership, I decided to go for it. To anyone who knows me very well, this may seem...unlikely, out of character...even a little bit amusing, maybe. You see, when I was in school, I was That Kid. That Kid that got picked last in PE, That Kid that could only catch a ball with her face, That Kid that almost asked someone to break her arm for her so she wouldn't have to have a PE lesson.
In short...I'm not generally sporty. But the swimming was going quite well, and I hadn't been able to go swimming every day due to the constraints of the timetable etc. Now I'd always kind of liked the idea of exercise bikes. There was one PE lesson, circa 1995 I believe, when we were allowed to use the school's small array of exercise equipment including an exercise bike. Each person in the class got about 5 minutes on each thing, as I recall. Despite not being a sporty girl, the bike was fun, felt like real exercise and had the added bonus of not throwing me off and into the air the way my actual bike as a kid had done.

I heart bicycle hand-screenprinted poster by NellSmith on Etsy.com

A few years later we got a second hand exercise bike at home (from a neighbour I think). It sat in the attic room, and I had grand plans of using it and somehow going from weedy teenager to becoming Amazingly Fit (cue montage complete with Aretha Franklin) but it was a rusty old bike and it made a terrible squeaking noise through the floorboards...it wasn't long before I gave up on it.
The exercise bike idea remained appealing (I think mainly due to the being indoors, and being able to watch tv whilst exercising) but the thought of joining a gym always terrified me. Somehow the thought of having an induction with a super-fit gym employee always cast my mind back to the horrors of PE lessons, the humiliation of being a clumsy, borderline dyspraxic kid getting scornful looks and terse comments from PE teachers, their patience stretched to maximum. The thought of communal changing rooms almost broke me out in a cold sweat. I had sworn 'never again'.
Fast forward to early January this year, and having regained quite a lot of the weight I'd lost the previous year, over the Christmas period, I was determined to keep up the exercise to get me feeling healthier.

Wooden Margot Exercising Pin Up Tattoo Necklace by lucie0ellen on Etsy.com

So I bit the bullet and joined the gym...and you know what? The instructor was kind and helpful. None of the gym regulars pointed and laughed at me. Even when I almost slid off the treadmill backwards! It was like PE, only without the feeling of humiliation. What a revelation! I've even found ways of dealing with the communal changing room (namely, go when its quiet, or get changed in the toilet cubicle)
And you know what, even when I'm shattered from an hour of exercising (not to mention the walk to and from the gym), I still feel like doing work. It's actually helping to motivate me. I'm making progress with a few ideas...can't wait to show you once everything is done!

Gymnastics. 7x9 Print of an Original Collage by VioletMay on Etsy.com

I don't quite have anything new of my own to show you kind folks yet as I have several projects on the go at once, but hopefully I'll have an update for you soon.
The exercise-themed finds featured in this post are all from UK sellers on Etsy, found courtesy of Etsy's new item-location search option.

Anyway, now on to some more cutting out bits of paper...hup two three four...

In this world where we live, there should be more happiness...

2011-02-14T11:31:00.000-08:00

Because it's Valentine's Day...
Because it's a time for loving and giving...
Because even single people deserve to feel as happy today as any other day...
Because we all need a little sunshine...
Because I like making up coupon codes...
And because Morecambe and Wise make me nostalgic...

I bring you a cheesy, corny, lovely performance by the aforementioned Northern comedians of old, and a special blog-readers-and-twitter-followers discount code...

To claim 10% off your order, enter BRINGMESUNSHINE in the coupon code box on the right hand side during checkout on Etsy.com
Valid in www.etsy.com/shop/jumpup and www.etsy.com/shop/scatterboxoriginals until 14th March 2011.

Jumping into a new start

2011-02-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

Well my Etsy shop treacletoffee is now closed down...it was a hard decision to make and it took me a while to say goodbye for good...after about 3 years of selling from that shop, I'll miss treacletoffee. But it is time for a fresh start...and so I've renamed the blog (url still the same, at least for now) and given it a bit of a makeover...do you like it?

The last remaining treacletoffee items are going to be salvaged and/or gifted as much as possible.

I'm quite excited with a few new things in the pipeline for JumpUp which I hope to share with you soon.

Happy February

Planes and boats and pains

2011-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

I recently read an article on Etsy's blog (here) about delivery delays for parcels going to the USA from the UK...eek! Due to security issues, some mail going across the Atlantic is going what my mum refers to as 'the pretty way' (i.e. the slower way) - by steam boat, instead of by plane. Steam boat! Much as this brings images to my mind of glamorous old-time steam voyages, it means some things may take longer to get to USA buyers. What a pain!
Obviously, the security measures are important, but I can't control them.
That said, I haven't been notified of any delays from buyers in the States - which is why I had assumed the issue was already resolved.
EDIT: To the best of my knowledge, only heavier parcels are being effected and most mail to the USA should arrive within the normal time-frame of 10 to 12 days.

Thank you to everyone who helped make my last month with my Etsy shop Treacle Toffee a success. I've now deactivated the last few items. For the time being, my original Etsy shop scatterboxoriginals will continue trading, while I review my options.
A shop update for JumpUp should be coming soon!

Resolutions resolved

2011-01-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
I can barely believe it's 2011 already. Christmas always seem to fly by when it finally arrives. Thankfully the snow let up enough for me to get to see my family for Christmas, and there was just enough lying on the ground for me to feel like I was arriving in Christmas Land as my train travelled further north, the whiteness in the landscape increasing. I took a few photos through the train window - I love trying to capture those perfect moments of composition, those temporary scenes you only see while travelling. It's hard to capture the compositions before they fly by, but I'm pleased with these ones:

Anyway, it's time for the annual new year's resolutions post (a tradition dating back to, oh, two thousand and ten...) Last year I resolved to go for a walk every day, take a step towards moving into a nicer home, to eat more healthily and to be braver.
I didn't keep up the daily walks, unfortunately - illness and procrastination eventually chipped away at that until the daily walks became more like weekly walks. BUT, I did get fitter, increasing my walks to about 5 miles at a time, without much struggle.
Resolution number two is officially achieved - I am now in a nicer, bigger place. I love my new flat (aside from those little annoying things that come with pretty much any home)
Am I eating more healthily...hmm, hard to say. I've lost weight, so that's something (although I regained about a third of the 16lbs that I lost over one week of lazy snacking at my sister's house over Christmas!) I think that resolution is semi-achieved.
Am I braver? Hmm I knew this would be a toughie because it's vague, but I think I'm slowly getting braver at making choices in what I want to do...

Which brings me to 2011. This year, I resolve...
1) To keep up my swimming and make the most out of it, hopefully with a view to increasing my fitness as well as losing my holiday weight, if not a little more. I think a target of at least three swims a week is reasonable.
2) Work some more on my Illustration portfolio until I have 20 strong images (it's what I did my degree in, after all, and I let that fizzle out on the backburner these past few years which I have been regretting)
3) Put more energy into my JumpUp shop - I'm really pleased to have been on Etsy's homepage twice in December and also featured in the Etsy Finds email, it has been a bit of a boost for me and I think it's a sign that JumpUp is worth working on more. I aim to make enough from JumpUp to cover my business bank account fees for the full year by the time I turn 29 in May.

So that's the plan for 2011. What's yours?

I'm not dreaming of a White Christmas...

2010-12-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

Well, the UK has been hit by blizzards in many areas (not here though, at least not yet) and having heard of many people struggling with postal delays I decided the time had come to take my Christmas break. My shop Treacle Toffee is now lying dormant - I might revive it for one last clearout sale in January. The other two shops (JumpUp and Scatterbox Originals) are going to remain active with a 10% discount applied to the usual prices - this will be running until January 4th when I'll be able to post out orders again - my way of making up for delayed delivery for anyone eager to buy but patient to receive. :) Check out the links on the right!

I'm setting off tomorrow...all being well. Travelling at this time of year is always stressful, and now that the weather might effect the UK's already pretty unreliable railways...let's just say I'm practising my calm breathing technique...

So, I'm feeling like a bit of a Grinch. Because I'm really hoping it doesn't keep on snowing until Christmas. I've been looking at the Met Office website's map of the UK charting reports of snow and gulping at the size of the snowflake icons...the reports on that part of the site aren't moderated so it COULD be that the report of 100cm (that's 3 feet) of snow in the area I'm needing to pass through tomorrow are either someone's typo or a prank. Or meant to be in millimetres.

Of course, White Christmases are lovely. We had one up north last year and for the UK it was quite a treat as we do rarely get snow on Christmas (somewhere in my archive you can see my snowy photos from last year). But last year I was very lucky and got a plane up north, fortunately on the one day when there was enough of a lull in the snow for the airports to be operating. This year, I face a 7 hour journey by train. If it all runs on time. Eeek.

So...I'm hoping for a brief thaw please (I hope you're paying attention, Jack Frost) and then a little festive dusting of snow maybe...and then another little thaw for my return journey...

Other than that...the weather outside is frightful, and though my little fan heater is delightful, heck can it eat up my electricity allowance! Please don't let it snow, please don't let it snow, please don't let it snow...

By the way...

2010-12-09T08:36:00.001-08:00

...the Treacle Toffee 30% off sale continues!
www.etsy.com/shop/treacletoffee
Friday 10th December at 11am Eastern Standard Time is the cut off for orders to arrive in the USA, Canada and Europe in time for Christmas.
UK buyers wishing for arrival by Christmas need to order by the 17th of December.
The shops will go into vacation mode after that, until the new year, so I can have a little break.
:-)

Sink or swim

2010-12-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

Last week I signed up as a member of the local swimming pool. I had never been there before - in fact, I hadn't attempted to swim since I was about 21 (that was a very brief attempt in the sea in Crete) and before that, a very brief attempt at 18 in Tenerife..considering I've lived with this on my doorstep for 8 years, pretty shocking lack of swimming!

We had a short stint of group swimming lessons in primary school (aged about 8 I guess) and the first year of secondary school (age 11) but I was never a strong swimmer, always very much....'freestyle' would be the polite way of putting it, 'doggy paddling' would be a little less kind...'drowning in a direction' might be most accurate! Hmm jellyfish do it with so much more style...

There were a few trips to the swimming baths with my older sister and friend when I was about 13, but I was never confident to go out of my depth and so I was often left behind, splashing about in the shallow end of the pool while the others swam into the deep end and gossiped about boys.

In short, swimming has been something that held me back literally in terms of socialising, and my inability to swim kind of became a metaphor in my life. Too lacking in confidence and strength to dive into the deep end of life...like the first half of Laura Marling's song:

So, I decided to learn to swim. Last week, the plan was to organise going to the adult lessons that the pool run on a Tuesday night...but the weather intervened. We don't often get snow in Cornwall, and we never seem to prepare for the possibility, so when we had a shower of hail-snow hybrid stuff overnight, the town came to a standstill for a day, and slipped and slid slowly through routine activities the rest of the week.

I'm a northerner (well, kinda) and so I was perhaps a little more intrepid than most in going out in the cold. I battled (skidding like Bambi) up the hill to the local pool, which sits out on the peaceful peninsula. Having made it all the way there to organise my membership, I realised it wouldn't be too safe to go after dark while the road was so icy (the road is unlit part of the way, too) But I managed a quiet afternoon session in the week, just remembering how to swim, staying in my depth.

Feeling more confident, I went again on Friday evening, thinking the ice must surely have melted by then (ha, my thoughts on the dangerousness of the dark, icy path were proven right on my way home) but I'm glad I went after dark. The pool has a sloping wall/ceiling comprising many large windows, so effectively if you lie on your back in the pool, there is just the dark sky above you in the evening, reflecting the ripples and light and people in the pool below. Strangely soothing, and definitely good exercise, even if you only doggy paddle ;-)

Clap if you believe in crafters

2010-11-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of information out there on being self employed in the handmade arena, that really pushes the idea of branding not just your work, but yourself...a whole package deal to sell to your customers. I can understand why this is - the whole handmade movement is about buying from an individual person who spent time and effort on the product, and the feeling that the thing you've bought has a story behind it, other than just being another mass produced thing from a factory.
But the idea of branding myself, selling myself as some kind of concept, has always been a little uncomfortable for me. I live a fairly ordinary, unglamorous life. What magical spell can I possibly weave to inspire a stranger across the country or across the ocean to buy into Brand Catherine? I try to let my products speak for themselves, and I try to sell things that I feel are good quality, that people will like. Is that enough, in this cut-throat, super competitive handmade world?
Yesterday, I went for a bracing walk with a friend in the cold and the wind, and this friend very patiently listened to a lot of talk from me about my recent feelings about my work and the whole branding issue. Like a lot of creative types, I'm not that outgoing. I don't often go out to gallery private views. I'm not a party person. I don't have a very active social life. I don't wear beautiful clothes, or live in an especially beautiful home. There isn't always much to say about my day to day life that really differs from many other single peoples. And sometimes, I have doubts about my work. Even saying this feels like I'm breaking a taboo...
"NOoooooo!" cries a voice in my head. "If you don't stay positive about yourself and your products, your customers will walk away!" And maybe in some cases this will be true.
I talked to my friend about this difficulty of feeling that I had to develop some kind of fascinating ultra-positive persona to generate excitement in my brand. And he said something that really struck me, about how honesty is sometimes more respected, and that its important not to try to separate your real self from your work. I realised he was right...if Brand Catherine is going to have any real meaning, it should be the real deal.
So, yes. Sometimes I make something, or sketch out an idea, and later I think...was that the best I could do? Will anyone like this? Does the design work? Whenever I feel that the answer might be no, I tend to hold off on listing the product, or at least I'll try and sell the item at a discount and be upfront about it if I don't feel confident that it's my best work.
I have just set up a discount sale in one of my shops, Treacle Toffee. Everything listed there is a product I still have faith in, but I want to be honest that I plan to close up that shop in the near future, at least temporarily but probably permanently. I think the products are good, they're well made with good materials. But my ideas, style, taste and creative drive are taking me in a different direction now, and the honest truth is I think I can do better. So this is the time to buy from Treacle Toffee! The 30% off sale will be on for the rest of November.
In normal employment, performance is pretty clear cut. If you're not doing as well as you could or should, chances are your boss will tell you. Goals and expectations are clearly defined. When you work for yourself, its a different story. My customers are my bosses, and I rely on feedback and sales figures to gauge if things are going right, as well as for the income that sales generates. Especially during this recession, with the flow of money slowing down and listings so easily lost in the sea of competitors, that feedback about my work is all the more difficult to come by. I still check my shops on Etsy for 'hearts' on a regular basis and feel a little buzz when I see that someone's taken the time to add something of mine to their favourites list.
There are many sellers of handmade goods, like me, who love their craft and really want to make a living out of their creativity, or at least a supplementary income. And I think a lot of us have our moments of doubt, mired in the need to perfect our products and our brand. It is so easy to lose morale, ever hiding behind that shopkeeper smile. And then the creative flow gets blocked, the fear of not getting it right holding you back from keeping on with your work.
There are a lot of great products out there, by sellers who aren't that well known, who don't get featured on Etsy's homepage. Some of us don't get found that easily, because Etsy's search results are limited to the most recently listed 50,000 items. That sounds like a lot, but in some categories this is just the tip of the iceberg of what's actually available on the site. Small sellers who don't have a lot of financial backing to invest in paying the listing fee again and again to go back to the top of the search results can very easily lose their search visibility now. But if you delve into the later pages of the search results, or type in a more specific search term, you may uncover one of Etsy's best kept secret products.
So, dear blog reader. If you can, next time you find a handmade product you really love, especially if its by a seller who isn't raking in multiple sales each day, please let it show. Vote with your wallet if you can and you feel moved to, or just vote with your mouse and click that 'favourite' button. Tell a friend, or write a blog post. Tweet about it, if you're that way inclined. Chances are you'll put a genuine smile on someone's face, and it might just be enough to help them keep believing in themselves.
Clap if you believe in crafters...

The Dance of the Blackberries

2010-09-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hello you!
I know, I know, its been a while. Time appears to have been sucked into the vacuum cleaner of life and somehow I haven't posted since July. For any regular readers, I apologise for my absence...for any new readers, I apologise for starting this post with apologies!

I look outside my window today to see the sycamore tree waving about in the breeze, looking like a green, frizzy haired head-banger...the tips of those leaves are turning brown, and that isn't the only sign of autumn. Last week, on one of my Big Long Walks (I've taken to calling them that...5 miles is a long walk to me!) I found an abundance of blackberries on the coastal path.

I'd been thinking about picking blackberries for a while, having spotted many ripe ones on my walks over the past couple of weeks. But I'd been advised not to pick ones by the roadside (car fumes, you see) so I made a mental note to look for some on the coastal path, which is away from roads and has nothing but fresh sea air nearby.

I managed to collect a good fistful of berries, but I hadn't brought a container with me for them, so I had to improvise with an envelope from my handbag (carrying my junkmail around with me is not always a bad idea!) The best blackberries seem to be away from the path, higher up, where fewer animals and people have got at them...unfortunately this also means you need to stand on tiptoe and weave your hand through a maze of sharp brambles and lurking spiders to get at the fruit. There's a knack to doing this without injury, I think...

Anyway, after half an hour of foraging for the best berries, picking them from the brambles and popping them into my envelope, the occasional passer by either giving me a strange look or happily announcing that they knew what I was having for my dinner, I took my envelope of berries home for a good soaking (just to be sure they were clean)

Before I made the berries into a delicious apple and blackberry crumble, I took this short video of the berries soaking:

Aside from being an autumnal home-body and heartless blog neglector, lately I have been having a large clearout of craft supplies...I have realised I have a lot of stuff that I'm not likely to use, and because I am shifting my creative focus lately, I think it will do me good to clear out and start (fairly) afresh.

Happy September!

Can you see the sea?

2010-07-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

Family holiday, visiting my mum's old school friend in Brighton, circa 1989...

"I can see the seeeeeeeeeeeeea!"
"Oh yes, me too, I can see the sea!"
"I can see the seeeea...oh hang on, are you sure that's not the sky?"
"Um..."

It's a game our family always played, competing to be the first person to say they can see the sea (when they really can) as we drove closer to the coastline in our old red Ford Escort. We lived surrounded by land then, as my parents still do, so the sight of the sea was a once-a-year novelty.

There would often be a dispute, as one of us saw a hazy blue line on the horizon, whether what we could see was the sea, or actually part of the sky. It's especially tricky to tell on those days when the sky is almost full of cloud (oh Mr Barnes, my old geography teacher, would roll his eyes at me forgetting the names of the types of cloud) and there is just a sliver of blue sky visible on the horizon. Sometimes the sea and the sky would be almost exactly the same colour, barely distinguishable from one another.

Memories of this, as well as my walks along the local coastline now that I live near the sea, have inspired my first art embroidery for JumpUp. I used part of a gorgeously soft wool jumper for the base (poor jumper, it had stains on the front as well as a hole - obviously had been worn and loved a lot during it's life!)

I really enjoyed watching this come together...it's been a while since I created something totally by hand (ie no sewing machine) and I have found it quite addictive, so I've already begun sewing my second embroidery, this time inspired by the hills I grew up around.

I have a friend visiting from Bristol soon, looking forward to playing the 'see the sea' game again!

Healthy, right?

2010-07-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today, I perfected homemade falafels. These are one of my favourite things to eat in summer, and they feel really virtuous (though they're fried, they contain healthy chickpeas and lots of leafy herbs, and they go well with salad) I've tried to make my own a couple of times before, but always got stuck when it came to making them stick together and hold their shape.
This time, I took a recipe from my favourite veggie cookbook (Vegetarian Cooking by Roz Denny and Christine Ingram) and adapted it - the recipe calls for mint, which I didn't have so had to skip that, but I also added one beaten egg and dipped the finished falafels in breadcrumbs. Fried in a little oil saved from a jar of sundried tomatoes (I think it's a mix of olive oil and vegetable oil), they came out beautifully even with the missing mint!

I thought I would share the recipe here. This made me 14 falafels roughly an inch wide.

You need:
A 400 to 425g tin of chickpeas, drained
1 garlic clove, crushed or chopped finely
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaf
1 tbsp fresh mint
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 large egg, beaten
One or two slices of bread made into breadcrumbs (2 tbsp for the falafel mix, the rest for dipping the falafels into)
Salt and pepper
Oil for frying

Use a food processor to whizz the chickpeas into a smooth paste, then add the rest of the ingredients apart from the oil and the leftover breadcrumbs. Whizz again (that's the technical term for it, right? :) ) until everything is mixed well. Make the falafel mix into bitesized balls, roll between your hands and roll in breadcrumbs to cover slightly. Heat the oil in a pan - ideally you'll need about a quarter inch deep of oil (half a cm) Fry the falafels gently for about 8 minutes, turning over once.
Serve in warm pitta bread or tortilla wraps with salad and hummous.
Apparently they freeze well (reheat for 15 mins in the oven) so if you have a big food processor, it's probably a good idea to make a big batch at once and save some. Buying a pack of 8 similar sized falafels in my supermarket costs £2, but making them at home is a snip of that (especially now I'm growing my own coriander!) so I recommend giving the recipe a go. :)

I also have been enjoying some homemade icecream...but the recipe isn't quite perfect yet, so I'll save the details until it's just right.
I like to tell myself homemade icecream is much healthier (and I suppose it probably is in that you can minimize the additives in there) so I think I'll be making lots of different flavours this summer. This first attempt was chocolate and peanut butter icecream...made more healthy by having low fat crème fraîche in it, but sadly this does seem to make the iciness a little much and the creaminess a little lacking...

The Salt Ghost aka When Life Gives you Lemons... buy your own lemonade

2010-07-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

Reading this lovely blog here (link) I was reminded that I've been meaning to write a post about my Salt Ghost...
At the charity shop I work at, we had a donation last week of a set of salt and pepper shakers. I've seen these around before (I think designed by Alberto Manteilla...can anyone tell me?) really cute pairs of shakers that are in the form of little figures that fit together in a sweet 'hug'. The set we had donated featured a white figure and a purple one, but sadly the purple one was too chipped to sell. I noticed that the white one, separate from his partner, looked like a curious ghost.

I like the quirkiness of it (sort of creepy but cute), so I bought the shaker and he stands on top of my little set of drawers in my kitchen. Perhaps next time I have a guest over, and they ask for the salt, I will tell them it is inside the ghost... :)

Here in the second picture you'll notice 4 lemons sitting on my lemon squeezer. In the unusual heat of last week, I got it into my head that I was going to try and make my own traditional lemonade (that is, the still kind, not the fizzy sort) I very earnestly took photos of the freshly-washed lemons before I started and then I used a recipe found on the internet.
It took me ages to zest the lemons, as I don't have a proper zester...I tried using a cheese grater (no luck) then a vegetable peeler (even less luck than no luck!) and then finally resorted to peeling the skin off by hand. I do NOT recommend this, especially if you have sensitive skin and a paper cut (I'm really prone to both) Ouch! I even managed to get a bit of lemon rind down under my thumbnail, which then pressed back the sensitive 'quick' behind the nail and...well, I've heard there's a type of torture not unlike this, and I can well believe it...VERY painful!

After over an hour of peeling the lemons, then carefully removing as much of the pith as possible, steeping the lemon peel in hot water for an hour and then juicing the lemons and preparing the sugary lemon water, then straining it all to get rid of the peel and 'bits', I put my jug into the fridge content in the knowledge that it would all have been worth the effort.

A while later, a glass of cool iced lemonade in my hand, I took my first eager sip...and oh, how I regretted it! Sour as can be, and not sweet at all (despite 100g of caster sugar having gone into the 750ml of water), the lemonade was as painful to drink as it had been to make, making my gums and lips sting. I added some more sugar, and watered it down repeatedly until it was drinkable...having spent so much time on it and not wishing to waste the lemons and sugar I'd used, I forced myself to drink it over the next two days.
The moral of the story, I think, is don't use any old recipe you find on the internet. Usually, I'm lucky and find a good recipe...but sometimes, not so much.
In future, I think I'll cross reference a few recipes to compare ingredients, and use trusted sources wherever possible - such as dear Nigella, who has a brilliant recipe for chocolate banana cake on her website that came out totally delicious when I tried it (did I remember photos that time? Nope...I ate it too fast...oink)
Or perhaps one of my dear readers knows of a less painful recipe for traditional lemonade?

Hey Presto!

2010-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that my new Etsy shop, JumpUp, will be launching (finally!) tomorrow, the 1st of July 2010.

I am making recycled envelopes to mail some things in, out of unwanted sheet music...this music was rescued from the 'rag' box at my favourite charity shop after it had gone unsold in the shop for weeks. The charity gets a small amount for each book that is sold to the rag merchants, but I gave them a little extra than their usual price for the music book. I can't actually read music, but I love the look of it.
It has often bugged me that bubble mailers are hard to recycle and the eco friendly padded envelopes that you can get now are really quite heavy (adding to the cost of posting more than an envelope should!) I have folded over the edges and stitched the paper together in such a way to try avoid paper cuts for anyone handling them (I have a paper cut on my right index finger at the moment from a few days ago and ouch, why do such tiny cuts sting so much?!)
I didn't notice until I finished the first one that it said 'Presto' at the top of one sheet. Apparently, presto means 'soon' (as well as 'quickly', in the case of music) so it seems very apt!
The 1st of July also happens to be the birthday of a friend, who has been listening to me ramble on about my new Etsy shop for some time now...and who, as it happens, lives in a house full of people who can read music very well indeed (professional musicians!) so even more appropriate, perhaps.
I hope you like the new shop! I'll be adding things bit by bit, so please do take a look.
www.etsy.com/shop/jumpup

Talk about moving...

2010-06-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hello!
Since I last blogged, a few things have happened. I had a hospital appointment to investigate the cause of my persistent sinus pain, which lead to another hospital referral - this time for allergies. I've long suspected an allergy to dust and I will find out for sure on Wednesday with a skin allergy test. I am a little anxious about it, but mainly because I fear I'll be told I'm allergic to one of my favourite foods! I'm hopeful that the doctors can finally help me cure the problem though. This is something I have put up with for years (I definitely had the sinus problem as a teenager, possibly even before then) so its a strange feeling that I might be close to a solution.
(EDIT: I've been for my allergy testing today, and it all came back negative - so the plot thickens! I think the next thing will be an investigation of my sinuses, in August - fun!)
Secondly, the main reason for my absence from blogging, was that I moved home. This was a really sudden, unexpected thing which unfolded over the space of less than 3 weeks. I had been wanting to move to a new place for a long time and had been on my landlord's waiting list for a bigger flat for 3 years. He visited me at the end of May to tell me he'd had an unexpected vacancy (a student who was going to stay here for the summer and changed her mind apparently) A few days later I viewed the flat, and then I had two days to decide if I was going to move or not.
I'm the sort of person who finds change difficult, even when I know it's a good change, so I had lengthy discussions with family and friends about the possible move. Pro and con lists were made. Then I made my choice - I was going to go for it! Here I am 3 weeks later, in my new home...early June was a blur of box packing (it is amazing how much Stuff you can accumulate...) and making notes for various people and companies to notify of my new address.

I have been in the new flat for a little over a week now, and it finally feels like home. I have found places for everything and put pictures on the walls. One thing I really love about this place is the light - it's an attic flat, with plenty of windows. My work desk is placed so I get a view of the tree outside and the street below...in my old place, the desk was in a dark corner. I still want to improve my craft supplies storage (as you can see, I have a random collection of shoe boxes, laundry bin and plastic tubs under the desk!)

The process of 'nesting' finally complete, I have got back into my Etsy work. I'm at the stage of photographing the first items for JumpUp, so I thought I would share with you (at last!) a sneak preview of what is to come...

Watch this space for more news!

Too darn hot

2010-05-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

For the past few days here, we have had some very sunny weather...by British standards, anyway! Summer here is unpredictable and shortlived, usually. So, when the weather warms up here, we've got to make the most of it.

This week, in between licks of homemade ice lollies - you might call them ice-pops? - and sighs of 'ohhh it's too warm' (even though it's actually only been about 22 degrees celsius here at most, this is too much heat for someone with Celtic blood and a northern upbringing!) I have been sewing. Fan pointed at me, 'hot' water bottle filled with cold water and chilled in the fridge overnight resting on my knees, I have been making progress on the new things for JumpUp and recently completed a custom order for Treacle Toffee. I have really wanted to get some more Gocco printing done for Scatterbox Originals too, but the weather is too warm for printing (the inks dry out a bit in the warm) - soon, I hope.

I'm waiting for a blackboard to come in the mail before I take my JumpUp photos. I have my heart on creating a kind of 'set' for the new shop's photos...the blackboard is going to be a backdrop, if all goes according to plan. So as yet, I still have no photos to share with you of my latest work.

Instead, I will show you a picture of my lunch from today. Me, obsessed with food?! However did you get that idea?

This was pasta salad - mayo, sweetcorn, vegetarian 'chicken' - grilled style - and some of my homegrown lettuce leaves - very soft and tender. The background is a silk scarf from a charity shop - normally this hangs over my window as a makeshift curtain, attached to the boring metal grille that my landlord presumably put there for safety reasons - today, it was taken out of the window to let the light in.

I'm trying to photograph my meals more often...partly as an artistic thing, partly to encourage myself to make more of an effort with my eating. When you're cooking for one, it's not always easy to motivate yourself to cook good meals. Also, presentation-wise...I don't know why but I think if food is laid out nicely, it's more encouraging to eat carefully and think more about what you're eating. Maybe it's just me?!

Where I've been, where I'm going...

2010-04-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Hello hello, it's been a while! For any regular visitors who've been wondering what happened to me, I've been immersed in a few things, some more exciting than others. The most notable happening lately was a short visit to Bristol.
Bristol, for those not in the know, is a fine city in the south west of England. It's where many of the graduates from my art college have ended up, including good friend Paula Bowles, children's illustrator extraordinaire (see her blog by clicking this word....here!) When she's not drawing or painting, Paula can often be found practising the ukulele...

We enjoyed fine weather, which allowed for a picnic in the park and a tour of the city (nice!) and we also went to see the lovely Laura Marling at Colston Hall, supported by equally great Alessi's Ark (check out beautiful music video for Alessi's The Horse here) and Boy and Bear
I've been back home for a few days now and find myself left with that feeling (I wonder if everyone gets it?) of being glad to be sleeping in my own bed again, but my mind still where I was...ahhh holidays!
But I have been snatching my mind away from holiday mode for long enough to make some progress on JumpUp. Doll number Two has been made! I'm still perfecting a few ideas but I think things are shaping up well.
Not quite ready to show pictures yet as I have a plan in mind for how I'm going to do that, involving getting a suitable blackboard and arranging a kind of little 'set' for my photos...
Next week, I'm going to be a little distracted by my parents visiting me, the UK General Election and the small matter of turning 28...but the shops will remain active, if a little quiet...like caterpillars waiting to emerge from chrysalises...and I'll keep to my usual standard of dispatching sales within two business days.
:-)

When I am a grown up, I will know what I want...

2010-04-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I remember really struggling to choose what I wanted. We'd go to a restaurant as a rare treat and I'd annoy everyone by frowning at the menu for 20 minutes. At home, Mum would ask me if I wanted cake or ice cream for pudding and I'd grin and say 'both!'. I'd get a cheque from my granddad for my birthday and then not know what to spend it on.

I'd like to be able to say that now I'm older, I know exactly what I want...I'm certainly more decisive than I was, but here I am about 3 weeks before my 28th birthday, and though I can think of several things that I'd like...I can't quite narrow it down to just one!

So here we have a sampling of things on Etsy that have me a little bit smitten...some of them are within my budget, some of them alas are not...(my mum reads this blog and I don't want her to think I'm demanding that she spend more on me than I know she can afford!) But I had these things sitting together in a 'poster sketch' on Etsy, and I thought they all sat together quite nicely...
Nice photo of some thread bobbins by auxpetitsoiseaux
Poppy red ballet flat shoes by lunashoesuk
Chopin recycled cassette tape wallet by sallyannk
Cuff bracelet by LaTouchables
Today dress by THIMBLEandACORN
Monty Fox lambswool plush by saracarr
Suitcase cushion/pillow/plush by Olive
Ruby Slippers gocco printed cards by FlowerPress
Gocco printed Button badges by askingfortrouble
Pillow man doll by mck254
Large sunflower clock by krtwood

Just a heads up - I'm going to be taking a break from my Etsy shops for a week, from April 19th, so I can do some proper catching up with an old friend and do some (gasp!) socialising...but soon I hope to have an update for you kind folks on JumpUp (aka Shop Number Three)...

Sewing and Growing

2010-03-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

Recently, just when I was thinking about sewing and worrying about whether I'd have enough space to grow all the vegetables that I want to grow this year, I saw this on Etsy:

I had to smile, it fitted my mood and thoughts so perfectly at the time! This print is available to buy from knitalatte / Resurrection Fern - check out the shop for more charming, unique 'still life' photos.

While my seedlings continue to grow (and I continue to be amazed at how they know to lean towards the light!*) I'm planning new things to sew. It's been a long while since I used my sewing machine, and it's become yet another flat surface for pots of pens and pencils, thread bobbins and bizarrely, my glasses cleaning cloth. Soon, I will tidy, dust it off and get to work on New Things...soon.

* My coriander seedlings have got their first proper leaves now...when they first developed they looked a little bit like tiny green hands. In a cute way, not in a freaky alien way...They reach towards the light as if they're trying to grab hold of it)

So much to do...

2010-03-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

After over a month of living in the land of 'destashing', trying to clear out and rejuvenate my supplies boxes, this week I have finally been getting back into just crafting again. It's been a while, so I thought you kind folks might like to see a little sneak peek on some of what's coming for Scatterbox Originals (the other shops haven't been abandoned, I will post about what's to come for Treacle Toffee and JumpUp soon as well)

I have had some interest in some more El Bandido products, namely notecards and moleskines, and this week I finally had both the time and the supplies to get started on these. El Bandido has been a popular fellow, but I'm also interested in developing other 'cat characters'. This week I made two new screens for gocco printing - a new El Bandido one because the old one has given up the ghost, and one with a new character.

Sadly, the El Bandido screen didn't develop properly - I made a misjudgement on how much carbon there was in the photocopy, which meant parts of the image didn't 'burn' completely, leaving a patchy image. I printed several notecards with the patchy screen, since the first few prints often are patchy and it was hard to tell at first that the image just wasn't going to print completely on the cardstock. The notecards I have printed are ok...but they aren't as crisp as I'd like (the edges of the lines look 'nibbled at'), So I think I will list these ones at a discount price...

Very soon, I will make another new El Bandido screen (which can be done no problem but I'll need to get a good photocopy done at the print shop in town) but my other screen luckily came out well, so I got printing...

So here is a first view of my new character, Queen Felicity. Printed in gold ink on black, blue and red notebooks. These will be available to buy in the shop soon, so watch that space!

I'm pleased with how these notebooks turned out - I think the gold ink works well. A very regal way to keep track of all those 'to do' lists, don't you think?

And the winners are...

2010-03-10T13:20:00.001-08:00

A warm thank you to everyone who entered my recent giveaway draw - I had a wonderful response and got lots of tips on spring cleaning, from the practical (Dust from top to bottom! I'm always forgetting that one), and the sensible (Don't wait for spring!), to the sneaky (get the kids to do it!), to the sympathetic (just be messy!), to the inventive and ecological (use vinegar in place of fabric softener! That one has me intrigued...)
All comments were appreciated very much. Entrants, please scroll down the post to see if you won!

Picture I took a while after closing my skylight window after letting in lots of fresh air whilst hoovering (another good tip!) The hand-print looked a little eerie just appearing there in the evening mist...certainly until I realised it was my hand-print!

My big spring clean is going well so far. My own personal tip for spring cleaning is...when you need to clean the wire racks from inside your oven, sit them in the sink or a large tray, cover with hot water and then sprinkle on bicarbonate of soda. It loosens the grease really well, and it's much more eco friendly and economical than buying a specialist spray for the job. Bicarb does so much around the house, from neutralising odours in the fridge, to cleaning and you can of course use it as a raising agent in baking. I've recently discovered that toothpaste is really good for getting a lot of stains off those hard kitchen surfaces, and I'm convinced it's the bicarb in that that does it!

Now...for the winners of my draw...

I printed out and cut up the name of each of the 24 commenters, then put the little pieces of paper into my red beret. I held the hat tight, gave it a shake and then swirled the papers around inside with my hand for a minute or two. Then, with my eyes closed, I picked out Winner number one:
icitea (aka Clare)
and then...
Winner number two:
Kim

To those who didn't win, commiserations! Thank you for entering anyway - better luck next time...hmm, yes I think there will be a next time someday ;-)

I published all comments on the blog (aside from accidental duplicates from the same person) so any of the folks who kindly included their email addresses in their posts, you are free to delete your post now if you wish to keep that data off the blog.

I will have new cameo pin brooches available for sale at Scatterbox Originals on Etsy in the near future, so if any of you would like to 'RSS' feed my shop to see my shop's updates more easily, please click here for the page to sign up for the feed.

Thanks all!

Slowly springing up...

2010-03-09T10:42:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning, feelin' fine...

Had homemade luncheon on my mind...

Went to the window, to check on my seedlings and stood...

Wow, they've grown much faster than I thought they would...

Something tells me I'm into growing food

(Something tells me I'm into growing...)

Yeah, something tells me I'm into growing food!

Random bursting into song aside, I thought you kind folks would like to see my little set of seedlings. I sowed these 8 days ago, and some are doing very well, some are taking their time a little bit. The tall ones you see here are spring onions - scallions to my American friends - the two-leafed ones (in a nifty container I made by cutting an old plastic milk bottle in half lengthways) are lettuce, the smallest seedling you see is an aubergine seed (again, translation for American readers - eggplant)

I'm also going to try my hand at growing potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, mini carrots, coriander, chives and basil (some are sown already but nothing interesting to photograph yet, some I can't plant until I get more soil) Next week a kind friend is going to help me out with getting compost from the DIY shop (as I can't drive) and also some spawn for button mushrooms, which I am going to grow under my sink. Can't wait!

It's been a long time since I tried gardening, having so little space here I thought I wouldn't manage much...but it's amazing what you can actually grow in a small space. I'm hoping this will be a more eco friendly, healthy and economical way to feed myself.

The bowl of soup above is made with frozen veggies and a small chopped potato, boiled in stock and then made smooth with my hand-blender. I garnished my soup with seeded bread that had started to go stale - I spritzed it with some olive oil 'low calorie' spray, before toasting, and it came out delicious. I don't know if this is peculiar to the UK, but I call these strips of toasted bread for dunking 'soldiers'...an odd expression, but one I've grown up with!

Like my slower growing seedlings, I am very slowly making progress with my latest handmade things. The Great Ebay Clearout is gradually getting done, and I'm itching to spend more of my time creating. Tonight's job is to get some black and white images ready for use in my gocco printer, and then I think I'll do some hand-sewing for the new Etsy shop...

Things are coming together for 'JumpUp' aka Etsy Shop Number Three. I have found some great materials to recycle and I hope I will have some things ready to show you all soon. In the meantime, I just have to show off these:

They're going to play a starring role as props in my new shop's photos!

Thanks to all who've entered my blog giveaway so far - the spring cleaning tips are all very useful - and the Messy Person Syndrome sympathies are much appreciated too! I'm going to close the giveaway for entries tomorrow, Wednesday 10th March, at around 9pm UK time. If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning one of the two Apple Cameo brooches, click here to see the post and info on how to enter - one entry per person (with two chances to win per entry) and remember, this is open to entrants worldwide!

Cameo appearance - and a Scatterbox giveaway!

2010-03-04T07:20:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have been having a big clearout - a sort of 'Spring clean'. I've been selling off a lot of my older craft supplies on Ebay (check them out, UK folks!) to try to make more space, and it has felt like I haven't actually made anything in a long time! Yesterday, I took some time out from the measuring, counting, photographing and listing on Ebay, to make a start on a new batch of cameo brooches. I'm part-way through making some El Bandido, Blush Bear and Bluebird pins...

At the stage right now of cutting out the felt pieces and the cotton that I printed my artwork onto. Please ignore the errant hair among the bluebirds...I seem to be moulting, it really must be Spring!

It will be a while before these are all done, since the Great Big Clearout must be finished...but right here I have two completed Apple cameo brooches...and they're up for grabs, in my first ever Spring Has Sprung Hip Hip Hooray Giveaway!

Oh yes indeedy, one of these apple pins can be yours - free of charge, wherever you may be in the world. All you need to do is post a comment on this blog, telling me your name and your favourite tip for 'Spring Cleaning' (or tell me how messy you are if you like, make me feel better!) Once I have a fair few entries (I think I'll leave this open for entries until Wednesday March 10th, my sister's birthday as it happens! EDIT - entries are now closed) I will draw two names and tips, and post these on the blog after the closing date - the winning entries will need to contact me and provide me with their address for posting the brooch - don't worry, I will keep your details private!

These pins are roughly the same as this one here (link) - but the felt is a brighter green and the brooches are slightly smaller as I over-trimmed the felt a tad in my 'yay I'm sewing again!' fervour.

If you want to comment on this post, but don't want to enter the giveaway, let me know in the post.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm going to keep this at one entry per person, sorry I forgot to say this earlier!
I'm moderating comments on this blog so they won't show up right away. If you don't want to post your email address in the comment, that's ok, my contact details will be available in my blogger profile for the two winners.

Good luck!

Traversing Pastyland - Drowned Cat

2010-02-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, I took my camera out and after my errands in town, I went for another long walk through the town, up around Pendennis peninsula and down to Gylly beach.

It was lovely to get out in the slight drizzle, because I always find it clears the air. Especially by the water, I think the salty air and the right amount of dampness has helped my sinuses a lot (now I understand why the Victorians placed so much medicinal value in a holiday by the sea!) Before I lived by the sea, as well as my sinus problems, I used to get terrible headaches linked to atmospheric pressure when there's a storm coming. Apparently, by the sea the ions in the air are different, and less likely to cause the pressure.

It began as a pleasantly 'fresh' walk to the headland, where I took some pictures of the view...looking out at the little outpost of Pendennis Castle there, to the left as you reach the point of the peninsula (coming up from the 'docks' side). The white 'arrow' of an old sign spoils the shot a bit I think!

A bike left waiting for a ride home...I think there's a scientific law that dictates if you see a bike with a basket, artistically leaning against a railing...you physically have to take a photo of it!

...I headed down the other side of the peninsula from here, then eventually came to the long straight road that leads past the little strip called Castle Beach. Looking down at the thinning patch of sand, I saw a figure in black with a black dog, walking on the beach...I wonder if she knew how striking she looked down there, on that deary, drizzly day... a dark shape moving against the pale sand?

She probably had her mind on a hot cup of tea, like I did! On the road, I saw the cars switch on their headlights...

As you can see here, it's a long, straight stretch down to Gyllyngvase, which is just around the bend in the distance. On a clearer day, by this time there'd have been the beginnings of a striking sunset over the sea ahead to the left.

I had planned on going as far as the next beach along and then back home via the nature reserve...it was not to be - by the time I got to Gylly, what had begun as a light spattering of drizzle-rain had become what we Northerners call 'Chooking it down'! The problem with wearing glasses, is that when it rains, you can't see. I had to take my glasses off to cross the road - I'm only mildly short-sighted, enough to need glasses, but I can cope without my glasses for short lengths of time as long as I don't need to see detailed signs etc.

By the time I headed up the hill to my home, my hair was soaked through, my glasses covered in raindrops, my coat soggy and a good couple of inches at the bottom of my jeans were wet through. I got home, turned on the heater, changed into my pjs and set about making a lasagne for dinner...the perfect, cosy end to my walk!

I went for another, longer walk the next day - the same route but with Swanpool beach included as the weather was much better...naturally, on this beautiful day for photos...I didn't have my camera with me! But then, photos of Cornwall in wet weather are probably more representative of what it's often like here...

If you enjoyed this little dose of armchair tourism (or should that be computer desk chair tourism?) please do take a look at the rest of the pictures I took, in my flickr album here.

Birds V Butterflies

2010-02-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

I can never decide which I like best, birds or butterflies...but I know I want ALL of these!

Butterfly necklace by gossimarwings
Butterfly mobile by zsazsa32
Bird necklace by sophiehillartist
Natural History pillow/cushion by norajane
Owl brooch by jennymccabe
Blue nest pillow/cushion by willywaw
Bird brooch by arcticcircles
Butterfly cuff by julishland
'Flight' pillow/cushion by modernradar

All available to buy direct from the makers on Etsy.com!

Gonna go for a walk in the rain...

2010-02-22T05:03:00.000-08:00

Last week, I was pretty lucky with my daily walks always being during a dry (or relatively dry) spell of weather. I don't mind the rain (I grew up in Lancashire, which is kind of Britain's equivalent of Seattle!) and I do love the beautiful patterns falling droplets make in puddles, hence the inspiration for these brooches:

But if I went walking in pouring rain for 2 hours, I know that would be pretty miserable. I've been thinking about saving up for some waterproof trousers, and definitely on the hunt for a good raincoat. I know just what I want - a knee length mac with a hood, in a fitted shape, ideally either blue or a nice red.

I stumbled across this video on youtube that has made me a little more eager to be out in the rain, though: here, we have the fascinating (to me, anyway!) science of water droplets. If you're not interested in science-talk, you can watch this without sound to appreciate the close-up shots (starting 20 seconds into the video)

12 virgins

2010-02-19T07:42:00.000-08:00

Playing around on Etsy's Pounce Undiscovered tool yesterday, I found 12 great items from shops that were amazingly yet to have a sale on Etsy. In the spirit of newness that this time of year has filled me with...I present to you 12 (Etsy) virgins!

Check out the treasury list I made here
(it expires on Sunday February 21st)
These sellers are: rocketweeddesigns, JennDiggs, eloriamarie, WornTornandReborn, DayView, nintajewellery, CasaDiAries, RevolutionaryWoolens, ohsoquiet83, alicesbeads, thesoapaddict and JaninaGrigore

Small, green and split three ways

2010-02-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

Over time, a lot of people have asked me where I get my ideas from, and I used to be a bit stumped to answer. I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say this - not at all - but the ideas pretty much come to me. Even when I don't ask them to...they're a bit like dreams in that respect. When you close your eyes at night, you don't think "tonight I'll have a dream that I'm about to catch a train with my mum who is Lauren Graham in this dream, and we'll be carrying old shoes and keep dropping them" (and yet I really did dream that once)

Dreams are very rarely intentional - the dream comes, out of the dark little pockets of your mind that have been quietly collecting the jigsaw pieces of the day - things you've thought about, snippets of conversation, fleetingly seen oddments, clips from films and songs. The little pockets collect these pieces and while you're asleep, they try to put the pieces together, mixing them with older pieces, in the dark. And sometimes, unexpectedly, two mismatched jigsaw pieces will fit somehow and become a story. I believe that ideas come the same way. The main difference being that some people can access those dark pockets full of jigsaw pieces whilst they're wide awake and doing something boring like chopping an onion. Sometimes the jigsaw pieces spill out to the front of your mind without you asking for them.

I often wish that J.K. Rowling's 'pensieve' idea was a real life gadget. The ability to take thoughts and memories out of your mind for a bit, to relieve yourself for a while, is very appealing to me. I think it is both a blessing and a curse for creatively minded people - the sudden inspirations, that leave your mind running at a mile a minute. Notepad and pen in hand, trying to scribble down and keep up with an unexpected flow of 'jigsaw piece' ideas.

I have found that sketching out thoughts and noting down ideas is a good thing - an essential thing when I find myself awake at 2am, unable to switch off the flow of jigsaw pieces until I've 'got it all out'. I have ideas for the Treacle Toffee shop, for Scatterbox Originals, my oldest shop...and now I find a new and different thing has been born in my mind...and after a while, I gave it a name that I liked, and quietly snaffled up the domain on Etsy. The third shop is, I suppose, my way of having another table to put my interesting new jigsaw onto...as close as I can get to a pensieve.

The New Idea is different...it involves recycling as a main feature, and there are a few potential types of items I'd like to make, but there's a theme, running through all the designs, of woollen stitches. I had a discussion recently with a good friend (the kind of friend who wisely always tells you the absolute truth) and she said to me "why have three shops on Etsy?" She raised a good point - promoting three shops is, basically, thrice the work. I currently have two blogs - this one and also www.scatterboxtwo.blogspot.com for my original Etsy shop. I thought that I should promote each shop separately, which meant separate blogs.

Now I have given it a lot of thought, on my long walks. For now, yes...I will have three shops. I feel it will help me to keep track of how each type of idea that I have goes down with buyers. But as for the blogs, I think I need to be more cohesive. Keeping up two blogs has been tricky. It's all very well when it comes to talking specifically about designs and ideas for one shop, but I often want to blog about Other Things (like my walking post, below, or my recipies posts) I may have three shops on Etsy, and they may have different styles and likely different audiences, but I am one woman. The same woman who came up with El Bandido also came up with organic cotton feathery patterned handbags. The same woman finished a degree in Illustration five years ago, ate the same breakfast this morning (peanut butter on toast followed by homemade banana cake and a mug of tea), the same woman is wearing the same pair of socks right now. Actually she's wearing two pairs of socks at once, because they're getting thin and she needs more cushioning for all the 5 mile walks she's doing...but you get the point!

So, folks, what I intend to do is focus myself on one blog for all three Etsy shops (I will most likely keep my less-known, quieter blog for my Illustration endeavours separate for now). This blog is my youngest one, but for the rather dull reason of it being easiest to type, this will be my main blog now. For anyone wishing to only see posts relating to a particular shop, I'm going to try to tag each post with it's relevant shop name, if it relates to one in particular, or 'all shops' if it is a more general post. The 'scatterbox blog' will remain up and viewable, if anyone wants to see it.

I want to do all three shops justice, which means that I am going to become more focussed in what I do within each shop, more specific in terms of items. For Treacle Toffee, and Scatterbox Originals, this means I am gradually going to try to streamline what I make, focusing on popular designs.

As far as the New Shop goes, the name is JumpUp and I'm hoping to have it up and running by early Spring.

This is a brief preview of some of the jigsaw pieces that are beginning to make up JumpUp (very rough sketches here are all for plush dolls, but you can see the shop's main page: www.jumpup.etsy.com for the current 'sections' I intend to have)

I hope that you, dear blog readers, will support these changes. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Catherine.

Traversing Pastyland

2010-02-17T05:37:00.000-08:00

Since my last post about my new year's resolutions, I thought it was about time for a progress report. The resolution to go for a walk every day has been going really well. I had one day when I was too much ill with a cold to venture outside, but other than that I have been outside for a walk of some kind, every single day since January the first.

I began slowly, not wishing to give my muscles the shock of their lives...little quick walks around the block and back inside for a cup of tea. It would take me less than 5 minutes, the 'block' being pretty small. Now, for a daily walk, this was obviously unimpressive in the extreme. I vowed to myself that I'd slowly increase the length of my walks, increase my fitness and hopefully shift some of my 'Christmas weight'.

Confession: I used to hate Walkers. Not people who walk in general (after all, walking is pretty handy in getting from A to B, especially when like me, you don't drive) but people who Walk, capital wuh, kitted out in proper walking gear, grasping waterproof maps, be-anoraked, be-compassed, be-noculared... frankly, I found all the accessories a little absurd. I'd pass by groups of Ramblers in the town centre and puzzle at them clutching onto hiking sticks (which are like walking sticks for people who don't have a bad back and want to burn more calories walking, apparently)

And then it happened.
It began with a particularly energetic walk around the block. I came to the turning to head home and glanced down the road...this was a route I knew very well. It's my route to work, my route to the local mini-supermarket, the way down to the shops. I looked at my watch and set off down the hill. Before I knew it, I'd gathered momentum. I walked through the town centre, passed the closed shops and Falmouth's many bakeries (this county is famous for pasties, and we have approximately 10 to 12 bakeries and dedicated pasty shops at my last estimate - I'll write more about pasties another time...), passed the National Maritime Museum (worth a visit) and up along a residential area that took me to the road the local art college (where I got my Illustration degree) is on, then headed up a slight hill and I was home. I mapped the route on a map of the town that I have at home, and calculated that I'd walked about 3 miles in a little under an hour. I felt encouraged knowing that 3 miles had actually been quite easy.

Since then, I've gradually been challenging myself more and more. I now have a regular 5 mile route through town that takes me on a scenic route through both the town centre and the rural headland of Pendennis peninsular. Plugged in to my MP3 player, I power through the uphill parts with something upbeat - Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles does the trick, Trains to Brazil by the Guillemots is best - and soothe myself along the flat parts listening to Einaudi as the sun sets ahead of me. I find the long walks are good for me in terms of fitness but also in terms of having time to think. I can let myself ponder a new idea or a thing I need to do, and when I get home I feel invigorated. It's enough to make me want to buy a waterproof and a compass!

Yesterday, I decided to take some photos to show you. I've realised that I live in a popular tourist destination, a lovely part of the world, and yet I never really blog about it. The plan was to take a picture every mile or so...but my camera's batteries didn't have as much energy in them as I did! But here is a bit of the scenery I managed to capture.

This is a view from the South West Coastal Path, 20 minutes in to my walk route yesterday. This is the part that runs between Swanpool Beach and Gyllyngvase Beach (that's a lotta consonants for anyone unfamiliar with Cornish placenames - you say it 'gill-ing-vayz' - with a hard 'g' - most locals refer to it as 'Gylly') This path meanders along the coast line, views of the sea visible between the bushes to the right. You can just about make out Pendennis castle in the distance there.

Heading further along, Gylly comes into view. It isn't a very sandy beach, it's partly shingle (in places, it resembles cat litter!) but it's a popular spot even in winter. Here you can see the large houses along the seafront. One thing that struck me when I first moved here was that although this is a tourist destination, Brighton it ain't. Note the absence of neon lights, hot dog stands and donkey rides. Cornwall's coast, at least for most of the year, is 'au natural', and for my part I like it that way. Even in high summer the tacky plastic souvenirs are pretty minimal. There's a nice cafe that overlooks the beach, with a veranda. One of these days I'll walk there earlier in the afternoon and stop for a cup of tea, I think.

From this point just before Gylly, there's a nice panorama of the Pendennis headland that I was about to walk around. The camera may make it look a little further away than it is, but that castle on the far right was my halfway point for the walk. That is Pendennis Castle, built by Henry VIII (well, ordered-to-be-built by him, in any case) - Falmouth has been an important part of England's defences for a long time!

I think I've probably rambled on enough now (har har) but I plan on making this a regular topic for the blog. Next time, I will make sure I have enough battery-power to show you the rest of the route!

Resolved

2010-01-05T09:05:00.001-08:00

A belated Happy New Year!

I am now back from my Christmas hiatus in the (very) cold north-west of England, where there was much snow in my parents' village. The 'rec' (recreation ground), just at the top of our street had a good 8 inches of snow on top of the grass:

The walled graveyard at the top of the rec gained a strange kind of fairytale feel with the dusting of icing-sugar-like snow on top of the tombstones.

For a couple of days, we didn't get out of the house at all (much to my regret) but stayed inside instead, drinking tea and eating chocolate-gingerbread macaroons. Oh, torture! But I did try to get out for a walk a couple of times - the first time I took these photos (which I think was maybe three days or so before Christmas) and the second time, I went for a short walk and built a snowman that looked like a Moomin - a 'Snoomin'! Photo here by Mum. (If you don't remember the Moomins, you can find clips on Youtube and marvel at my...ahem...accuracy...)

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to get out of the next year; how I'd like things to stand 365 days from now.
I always find resolutions difficult...because I always want to achieve so much and yet there's that fear of demanding too much from myself, finding it too daunting and ultimately not achieving anything much! (this has happened in the past)
This year I am trying to strike a balance between what's achievable and stretching myself, and since I have a tendency to forget my resolutions after a whole year has gone by, I am going to put them here, for posterity.
I resolve:
1) To get outside of the house and go for a walk, even if it's just a short one, every single day (unless I am incapacitated - ie broken leg etc) This is to help me exercise and get some daylight every day. So far, I have managed this.
2) To make enough money that I can move out of my small place and get a bigger (but probably still relatively small...) place.
3) To eat more healthily. Last year I gave up chocolate, cakes and biscuits for lent but then quickly lapsed back into eating unhealthy amounts of sugary food. I want to cut back again on these kinds of things and get more proper, healthy foods into me instead.
4) To be braver. This is kind of a vague one and as such may be harder to achieve really, but I know that I want to overcome at least some of my fearful tendencies and do more of the things in life that I want to. This covers trying out new ideas for products as well as more personal things, like travel.

In terms of the handmade ventures of mine, I have a lot of ideas. Some in the past have not made it further than my sketch pages, some have been made and then rejected by me in a fit of self-criticism...some have made it all the way to the Etsy shops and beyond, into the hands of new owners. Much as the creative process can be a struggle at times, it's that that makes it worth it I think - knowing that someone else appreciates what's come from my head.

This year, I think my focus might shift a little...hopefully in a good way! And so, on with the new year...

Most wonderful time of the year...

2009-12-17T17:56:00.000-08:00

...that time of the year when I sit down for a proper meal for the first time in over a week and feel my eyelids involuntarily start to drift closed...
...that time of the year when I really must get those presents wrapped, those cards written, that big ol' pile of laundry cleaned, that suitcase packed...
...that time of the year when it becomes impossible to carry on fulfilling orders to the standard I like to keep up...

...and so I draw the curtains closed on my Etsy shops for the Christmas period. My shops are going into vacation mode until early January 2010 but in the meantime, should you feel the urge to have a browse around some of the items that will be available again after the holidays, here are a few sneak peeks behind that curtain. Click on any of the images below and you should be taken to the relevant item listing on Etsy - the 'add to cart' button will be greyed out until I reopen but though these items aren't cartable, they are still heartable!

The html know-how for this was kindly provided by this kindly Canadian: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheMossGarden - thank you Victoria!

"To face unafraid the plans that we made..."

2009-12-08T16:32:00.000-08:00

The other night I caught myself feeling Christmassy. Very early in December for me, but there I was, smearing this ghostly pale special face mask across my forehead, singing quietly to myself without realising at first..."in the meadow we can build a snoooowman..."

I've been dividing my time into making new clutches for Treacle Toffee (like this Snow Day clutch), setting up my facebook fan page for the shop, sorting out my stocks of crafting supplies for an end-of-year clearout, making things for my Scatterbox Originals shop, planning a new shop that I hope to launch next year (scary but exciting) and sorting out my Christmas gifts for friends and family. Not very long to go now!

The elusive "Christmassy feeling" has been waxing and waning for the past couple of days. I think I'll kickstart it again soon with some hot chocolate, It's A Wonderful Life and my snowflake pyjamas...

"Walking in a winter wonderlaaaaaaand!"

Thanksgiving, Black Friday on Etsy...and Discounts (oh my!)

2009-11-25T15:17:00.001-08:00

Etsy recently announced that over the 'Black Friday' weekend, they would be promoting items with free shipping (P&P as I used to call it until my language became necessarily Americanised for the sake of those nice folks across the sea actually understanding my listings!) and other special deals.

I gave a lot of thought about whether to offer any promotions over the weekend. I know some people feel strongly that handmade items are too undervalued anyway - for the most part, I do agree with that. But on the other hand, it is good business practice (I think) to try and price your items so that you can give a little discount when the time is right. I don't very often do sales (almost never in fact) since my profit margins aren't huge, but finances are hard for a lot of people right now and it seems fitting at this time of year to do something more for buyers.

So...I sat down and had a good long think...and I decided that I could afford to offer free shipping (worldwide, even) on some of my smaller and lightweight items. I'm lucky that Royal Mail isn't really very expensive for small and light things, having seen some of the prices on American mail companies...eek! I've already tagged the items I'm going to give free shipping on in my shop so anyone wanting to peruse those items can go to my shop homepage and search in the Etsy search bar within my shop for "EtsyFreeShipping" (minus the quotemarks) That deal is going to be on from about late on Thursday night until early on Tuesday (UK time). I hope some people will take advantage of this rare opportunity!

One of the many things I didn't know about until I started selling on Etsy was that traditionally in America, the day after Thanksgiving is the big day for retail markdowns. Over here, Boxing Day and New Year's Day are the big sale days. Obviously, we don't have Thanksgiving in England. I've always been a little jealous of America having that big extra holiday. I'd like to say it's the ethos of it that I like (being thankful is no bad thing) or the opportunity to see family (mine are far away after all) but to be really honest...I think mostly I'm jealous of the food! (Big surprise for someone who named her shop and blog after a type of confectionery, haha.)

I don't eat turkey, having given up poultry and red meat back in oh, 2004 I think...but I've always been intrigued by the other treats Thanksgiving has to offer that I've never had a chance to sample. I have never seen yams for sale here in this small town, nor seen a recipe for them that didn't use the (baffling to me) 'cups' measurement system. But tomorrow, I think I might take some time out to be thankful and make some hearty autumn food.

One thing I think I might make is a kind of nut-roast that I invented a recipe for months ago and haven't had in a long time. I like making up recipes for things and unless I'm baking a cake/biscuits, I generally don't feel the need to measure things very precisely. I tend to work on a kind of ratio basis and a lot of it is done by 'that looks about right' methodology. I'm going to try and share the recipe here, and I'm hoping the lack of exact weights and measures will make the recipe easier to follow for those who use international measurements, rather than just plain confusing! Here goes...

Catherine's Nut Roast.
You will need a food processor or be good at chopping things up with a big knife (I use the former since it is much quicker and less prone to getting my fingers cut...)
Ingredients for two people (for more, just multiply quantities and make individual roasts per person or put all into a small loaf tin and cook for a bit longer) :
About one large handful of nuts. Last time I used a mix of hazelnuts and walnuts but any nuts should do the trick.
Seeds (pumpkin or sunflower, or a mix) - optional, but I include three large pinches of them for the nutrients.
Breadcrumbs - one handful or two thin slices-worth. This is a good way of using up bread that has gone a bit dry. Brown/wholemeal bread has a nicer flavour for this I find.
Herbs/spices. This will depend on personal preference but I like a good tablespoonful of either chives plus mixed 'English' herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme - Art Garfunkel eat your heart out!) OR make a more exotic version with cumin, coriander (spice) and turmeric - I put a sprinkling in until it looks right, but I would guess that it equates to about a teaspoonful of each, maybe a touch more with the cumin.
Oil - basic standard olive oil is fine, as is sunflower oil. You'll need this to bind the ingredients together a little bit but shouldn't need more than a tablespoonful.
A generous splash of cold water.
A little bit of salt and pepper if you're so inclined.

Chop the nuts and seeds up, mix with everything else (if you use a food processor you can do it all in one go) and then pop it into an ovenable dish (a ramekin or suchlike) and press it in firmly so it all packs together. Bake in the oven at about 180 degrees C (sorry I don't know the international equivalent but basically the same heat you would bake cookies at) for 20 mins.

I like to serve this with boiled peas, carrots, mashed potatoes and veggie gravy with yeast extract (Marmite or similar) added (just half a teaspoon) for extra oomph.

Happy Thanksgiving, American readers. Happy drizzly nondescript Thursday, British (and probably other northern hemisphere) readers! Stay cosy.

Such a cold finger...

2009-11-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I saw yet another mention of how Etsy tends to feature a lot of fingerless gloves and wristwarmers. They certainly are in vogue! Much as I like these inventions, it got me wondering if there are many nice fully-fingered handmade gloves on Etsy, for those of us in colder climes that really need warm fingers in the winter months. After much searching and much rummaging through mistagged items, I think I found some real gems:

Featured here are gloves and mittens by:
cholosoy, artycousinjenny, dollyknits, woolyrosie
montyandmarwood, knitwhimsies, plainjanecollection, thejoyofcrochet
verabelle, flowerpot, ingucite, maisondelucille
kukaramba, petitekrottcreations, thesittingtree, goldenhind

Astronomical

2009-11-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been suffering from a cold that decided to settle in my head and throat, and I have found myself very sluggish. Lots of hot drinks and huge bowls of home made soup, drunk with my slippers on, tucked up in bed. This is the reason for my recent quietness, blog-wise.

Yesterday, though, I managed to muster the energy to tidy up a little. I sorted out the recycling, hung up the jumpers that were hung on the back of my chair, changed the bed sheet and duvet cover, hoovered and cleaned the bathroom sink. I felt so much better for it, as I knew I would.

Later, I got back under the covers, popped on the telly. A cheesy Mel Gibson rom-com was on, one I've seen before - I find it easier to be creative when there's some background noise and this film was just familiar enough to stop me from getting too distracted from my work whilst being just entertaining enough to keep me sitting still. I stitched away with my bedside lamp on, the sky outside pitch black already.

I made something I've had in my head for some time, that I kept putting off making in the past. I find I do this with new ideas, I get excited about them and then feel afraid to go ahead with them in case they turn out to disappoint. Now I've finally gone and taken the plunge - and I am pleased to say the end result wasn't far off the idea in my head. Here it is...

The Astronomy pendant - number one (of hopefully several). Inspired by pictures of galaxies from afar and textbook astronomical diagrams. Made with layered pieces of silk in deep, midnight blue and one small white piece in the middle.

:-)

Do the stars gaze back?

2009-10-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Now THAT'S a question...

Pondering whether to make real-constellation versions of these brooches and also some pendants with the same theme:
And pondering whether to watch this film again this weekend:

metalology, shaylamaddox, aliette, thenebulouskingdom
christinetillman, lolariera, larimeloom, ara133photography
beckytomato, cookoorikoo, StankwytchBailey, lunaticart
Dreamsandjewelry, VieModerne, ReluctantDamsel, organikx

Ahhhh Etsy creators and Mr Gaiman, you bring me happiness! Thanks for the kind words from the last post, folks.

Bad things happen / Good things happen

2009-10-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks, I have been forced to shift my focus temporarily away from making handmade goodies. The shift in focus was thanks to various dramas which you can read about in depth on my other blog and in the post below.

It has been an emotionally exhausting time, but now things are mainly resolved, I think I'm getting my handmade groove back. Today, I printed out some new business cards that I designed a while ago:
I have done some in a couple of different colours and I think they're pretty effective, plus printing them at home saves me money so I can save more towards delicious new fabrics. I'm working on coordinating my packaging with these...plans for some nice rubber stamps for decorating the gift boxes and some stickers too. The stickers will be for holding down the tissue paper I put around purses etc and holding gift boxes closed (so much nicer than cellotape, and a bit more eco-friendly)

In the midst of all the stress over the past two weeks or so, I've tried to keep reminding myself of good things in life. It's tough I think, when things go wrong and especially when there is a constant backdrop of financial difficulty (which I think everyone can relate to right now), not to feel gloomy and embittered. So, without wishing to seem overly Pollyanna-esque, here is my Happy Thing of the Week:

Visiting St Ives with my parents recently, we were lucky enough to witness two seals swimming in the sea not far from one of the little coves. We watched them for quite a while, trying to capture a decent photo of their heads whenever they surfaced for air. They seemed so peaceful and at ease. Every time we thought they'd swum away, I'd turn my camera off and like magic they would re-appear.

Here are the pictures I managed to get...I think you can just about make them out, about half way up the picture (click for larger versions).

I also took a few pictures of the sea from up on the cliff. It was an unusually warm late-September day, and the sea was the most stunning colour. So St Ives and seals have fortified me for a while, at least. What keeps your spirits up in these troubled times?

Oh for Ochre...

2009-09-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

I go through phases with colours that I'm drawn to. Lately, it's yellow ochre and similarly autumnal colours. Saffron...mustard...burnt orange. I recently got a gorgeous mustard-gold, small square suitcase from work at a bargain price. I've been needing a sturdier travel case than my hold-all, and this one is lockable and has a comfortable strap. It also goes very well with my saffron belt and yellow cardigans I think (is two cardigans of the same colour too many? They were charity shop bargains too so it's all for a good cause).
It's evidently quite old, though how old I'm not sure. The rounded corners have a kind of seventies/early eighties look I think, but maybe it's older than that? In any case, I'm looking forward to using it on my next travels.

At the moment, I'm waiting on some yellow ochre fabric to become available from my fair trade supplier. It will hopefully be available soon and once I can get it, I can start making golden yellow versions of my feathers cushion and tote bags. But having saved up a little money for fabric, I unfortunately have to wait longer still...

Recently, my bank account was targeted by a fraudster. I discovered the fraudulent purchase (a mobile phone top up for a company I don't have a phone with) late on a Friday afternoon and, not being able to find the right phone number to call and fix the situation, I had to put on my nearest pair of shoes, run a brush through my hair and dash down the hill to the bank before closing time.

Once I got there, I was passed from a polite, if clueless, cashier, to a service phone where I was put on hold for ten minutes before being told I had pressed the wrong department button and then having to wait on hold another five minutes, all the while my heart thumping and up-beat and erratic jazz playing on the phone (is that really a wise choice for your fraud department?).

I began to consider changing to a new bank. Then I was finally connected and given yet another series of 'options'...all in Bank-speak ("if your card has an R4 status...press 4...") - none of which made sense to me. Exasperated, I hung up on the automated service and sought out an advisor.

After begging for assistance from someone in person, she kindly set aside her end of day paperwork and phoned through for help for me, staying on hold past closing time. The bank emptied, the latch was put on the door, and still the advisor sat with me and arranged with the call centre to send me the relevant paperwork to get my money back etc.

It will take time for me to be able to reclaim the little money I had that they have squandered - it appears my bank's system for dealing with such things is absurdly convoluted. It's a horrible feeling, to know that someone out there has done such a thing so easily and putting it right is so hard.

Though I'm fairly confident now that I've calmed down from the panicked visit to my bank, that I will indeed be able to get my money back and in time to pay my bank fees etc, it's still a stressful situation to be in. Still, I'm lucky, in a weird way, that I didn't have much money for the scoundrel (my polite word for it...) to steal!

In any case, the lovely ochre fabric will have to wait a while. In the meantime, I shall content myself with looking at lovely things on Etsy. Here's a snapshot of a treasury list I made recently, complete with alternates:

Top row: TickledPinkKnits, hitree, NannasKnitting, grimm
Second row: uncommon, thejunebride, sleeks, InmostLight
Third row: prettygoodthings, underabluesky, peaseblossomstudio, greenchairpress
Fourth row: margotbianca, linkeldesigns, JillPopowichDesigns, DuetPhotography

Click on the image to see a bigger version. Each shop name above is linked to the relevant Etsy shop. :-)

Soil Association

2009-09-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've managed to get a treasury list on Etsy, yay! This one is inspired by the different colours in layers of soil, in celebration of my archaeologist sister's getting her work contract renewed for another 6 months (again, yay!)

Featured here are:
thecyclingartist, GollyBard, Studio155, labokoff
MarcoLaGrenouille, yarnahoy, Crafterall, galeriedeilluminata
simplytwisted, ShopJessBecause, red2white, Ottoman
mysticfibers, Tuesdaymoon, LethaColleen, prettypanda

Clicking each name will take you to the relevant Etsy shop.

In other news, I have decided to list the tote bag (see previous post) at a special 'prototype' price. You can find it on Etsy here

:-)

Volare, cantare

2009-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

Craft-love has given me wings...

...not literally of course, but in an 'appliquéing white cotton feather shapes onto things like there's not tomorrow' sort of way. This idea for a bag has been in my head for some time now, even before the feathery cushion design and the clutch. I spent oh so much time figuring out the perfect layout for the shapes...then adding an extra 'layer' after my original pattern was fused down...then learning how to put a zip-up pocket into a bag...

...and finally, while Spotify played my favourite 60s tunes, it all became this tote bag. I'm tempted to keep this one for myself.

Unfortunately this was my first attempt at making a tote using a new (to me) method...and as is often the case with new things, it didn't quite go perfectly. The bag has some small flaws, like a slightly askew base, tiny pin-holes at the side where I have had to unpick stitching, the slightest mark where I foolishly tried to iron just above where the magnetic fastener lies inside the bag...and a wobble in the stitching around the top, where I underestimated how thick the layers of fabric were and my poor Janome did the sewing machine equivalent of a hiccup or two.

This is the downside to completely creating your patterns yourself. (I never use shop-bought patterns to make anything, it is all from my head!) If I do find it in me to surrender this bag for someone else to buy, I think I'll offer it at a special price, since it does have those small flaws, even though they are probably only very apparent to me...

What do you think, folks? Should I part with the tote?

Despite the flaws, I love this bag. Partly because I think the 'wing' design will look so sweet if you twist the bag around to rest across your back...partly because aside from the essential interfacing, the zip and metal closure, it is all organic, fair trade cotton and upcycled material (linen viscose blend salvaged from a pair of trousers). The upcycled fabric isn't fused down like the cotton, but left to flutter at the sides, which I have left untreated so they will fray a little and look ever-so feathery.

About upcycling...

As you may know, my 'day job' is working in a charity shop. It happens all the time that someone will donate an item that, due to a small flaw, sadly can't be sold. A broken zip, a bolognese sauce stain, a torn hem...that kind of thing that makes an item unappealing enough to customers that it just can't go out on sale. Charity shops generally have a 'rag bin' where these unsellable items end up, bagged and stored for collection from a recycling company. We get paid by weight of fabric and then the bags are taken away to either be sent on to poorer countries, or cut up and made into new fabric.

Sometimes, I can't bear to let an item 'go to rag' though. Sometimes I know just what I can do with the item. So I pay a donation to the charity (more than they would have got for that one item from the recycling company) and take it home, wash it and then make it into something new. Crafters call this 'upcycling' as opposed to 'recycling', because it is being transformed into something new, not made into another version of what it was before - for example a glass bottle could be melted down and made into another glass bottle, or it could be transformed into a spoon rest.

This here is the latest item I have rescued - a turquoise camisole in pure silk and lace that has sadly got a streak of permanent marker on the front. I'm thinking of making this into a new 'shoal' necklace or two. :-)

Already up in the shop is a large money purse / mini clutch bag with a similar design to the tote bag (this one doesn't feature the upcycled linen, it is completely made with the organic cotton). I'm looking forward to making more totes and matching purses to go with them, now I do have the ultimate (hiccup-free) tote-making method in my head. It's just a matter of getting more fabric and supplies now, so I'll have to see how much of my budget I can spend this month.

Fields of Gold

2009-08-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year now, when my mind is turning to thoughts of autumn, which is quite possibly my favourite season. You can tell when autumn is just around the corner here, by the following signs:

1. I start looking longingly at knee high boots. I had a lovely pair from Clarks that lasted me five winters of almost daily use before giving up the ghost, and I now find myself bootless and brooding for some new ones.
2. I start thinking about making apple crumble. I was going to do a blog post about my recipe for apple crumble, having purchased two of the biggest Bramley apples you ever saw, but then I remembered another thing I've been meaning to make but never yet attempted - Tarte Tatin. So if I summon the courage (and the ingredients!) to make that, I'll try and post instructions and piccies here. I have a feeling there will be cinnamon...
3. I get obsessed with making harvest themed items. This week I have made these:

A couple of weeks ago, thinking prematurely of the end of summer and hearing Eva Cassidy in my mind's ear, I made a Fields of Gold treasury list.

Having been lucky enough to nab one whilst having a fully formed one in Poster Sketch (how I love that tool!) I merrily filled up my new treasury list in the space of a minute. Choosing which things to put in the alternates section is tough, I think during the course of the treasury being up on Etsy I must have switched and changed the items around half a dozen times! I included my own barley themed item in the 'alternates' just to see how it would look up next to my favourite items...I think it sat quite nicely.

Click on the image to see names and details. :)

Wild about...

2009-07-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I did a 'currently coveting' post, so I thought I'd share just a few of my current favourite nature inspired items available on Etsy.

Row one:
Hedgehog brooch by katebroughton
Fox on Sunday art print by krisblues
Spring is coming I promise soft sculpture wall art by MelissaSue

Row two:
Red Squirrel Standoff Changepurse by bonspielcreation
Tree Friends - Bamboo Mobile by petitcollage
Flower Deer art print by jacksonswift

Row three:
Sneaky Fox original dry-point etch print by ladysnail
Wooden Butterfly necklace by fawnandforest
Tree and Leaf pillow by alisontauber

I myself have been making some woodlandsy items...and went and forgot to blog about them before I posted them in my Etsy shop, doh! They are the fifth Tree Rings brooch and the first Tree Rings coin purse/pouch:

When I can get more of the organic cotton, I plan to order some in colours for making Tree Rings Pillows. :-)

Feathery feathery

2009-07-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned making another item with a similar pattern to the golden and green leafy clutch...this was no other than the pillow/cushion I sketched way back in April as seen in this image. My original idea was to use a pale buttery yellow background and golden and ochre appliqué but since I don't have the right colour for the background just yet, I decided to use some of the lovely organic cotton I bought in May.

I re-worked the layout a little from my clutch, because I wanted to make a certain shape on the cushion that would look 'right' whichever way up you had it. It's nice to have a cushion you can just throw onto your sofa or favourite armchair and not worry about which way is up.

Getting the shapes in just the right position took some time. In the end I devised a simple way of doing it that meant I didn't have to constantly be measuring and marking. Each silk shape here is fused onto the cotton but some edges came loose due to patchy bondaweb...I quite like the effect though and the shapes are all on securely due to the line of stitching down each middle.

I have filled this with my last feather cushion insert, so I will call it a feather pillow anyway...but I also think of this pattern of shapes as being inspired by feathers...even though it is using the same shape as the 'leafy' clutch.

I guess it's the difference in colour that makes the difference between leaf and feather. Some screens may show the cushion to be a darker colour than it is - it's what I think of as 'dove grey'. The silk I've used here is the same dupion silk I used in my Shoal jewellery - I love how it shimmers in the light and the hues shift slightly.

This will be up in the shop soon, and if it proves popular I may try out some other colour-ways.
:-)

Golden and Green leafy clutch - Part 2

2009-07-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

I had the very best of intentions to take photos at regular intervals as I continued making this clutch. I really did. But...well, I got carried away with the excitement and momentum and didn't manage another picture until the clutch was basically complete. Here it is:

Making something for the first time always takes a little longer, I find, as you work your way through and familiarize yourself with a new process. For a first ever attempt at a clutch purse using a purse frame, I think this looks pretty smart :-)

Small things I will do differently next time are to make sure I put the purse into the frame with the little loops (for attaching a chain or strap) at the back, rather than the front as they are here (can you see them?) - I think this is important in terms of having a bag on your shoulder with only one side patterned...you want the pattern facing out but then you also want to keep the strap on your shoulder when you reach in to get your pocket mirror/lipbalm/tissues etc out. Silly me for not realising this at the time...blame it on the giddy rush of a new craft project almost completed!

Secondly the stitching on the leaf shapes, which I think worked well, unfortunately took quite a long time - about 2 hours or so, since I did it all by hand. I've made something similar since this, using my sewing machine for the lines running through the shapes, and I think it looks just as good and took me less time to do. The tricky part is making sure the stitching goes in a straight line, without marking the fabric permanently. This time I did it by scoring lightly down each shape with the tip of a needle against a ruler.

More textile treats coming soon!

Plain greedy

2009-06-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to leave a quick post here to say thanks to everyone for the supportive comments about my first clutch in progress. I'll be continuing on it in the near future but I am now away for a little while (until early July). I know, it's not that long since my last holiday, but this trip is of a different kind - it's a friends-seeing trip - and it has been booked for some time. I'm not just being greedy, honest!

Bye for now, folks

Work in progress - Golden and Green leafy clutch

2009-06-12T05:32:00.001-07:00

This is how I've been developing the appliqué pattern for my first clutch purse. After sketching out possible layouts (which you can see in this earlier post's image) I then drew lots of possible 'leaf'/'feather' shapes out on graph paper...

Using graph paper helps me to keep my designs symmetrical when I want them to be. In this case I drew half of the shape I wanted, then cut it out, drew around the half, then flipped it over and drew around it again next to the first half, to give me a shape. I tried out lots of different sizes and shapes before I settled on these ones, which I then drew out again on card, for a more durable template...

I decided to make different sizes of the same shape, so I could use the same pattern on different-sized products. In the end I also adapted one shape to make another size (I drew around the shape and then trimmed off an even amount all around) to give me 5 different sizes to use on various sized coin purses, clutches, and possibly bags and pillow covers in the future.

Then I used the shape templates to cut out my silk pieces in two colours and spent time figuring out just how I wanted them arranged.

After about an hour of fiddling with the layout, I took the plunge and fixed all the shapes down with fusible webbing. Eeep! It was kinda scary, committing to a design layout after all that planning, but I think it went pretty well - certainly for a first go. One or two silk pieces didn't quite fix on precisely where I wanted them to (I think it's something that will come with practice and learning how to ensure things are in place whilst also hidden under a protective tea towel!) but all in all it's looking pretty much how I envisioned it.

There will be more photos later as I progress through making this...wish me luck!

It's not that easy, going green...

2009-06-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

A belated "Hello, I'm back from my holiday!"
Devon was beautiful and inspiring. I took a lot of holiday snaps of the boats on the river, but I think this picture is my favourite. I took it looking up at the trees, on the walk to Dartmouth Castle, which is a lovely walk with lush greenness on one side and the river Dart in all its glory on the other.

Now, about the 'going green'...

A while ago, I posted on this blog about trying to change over to more ethical fabrics. It is surprisingly tricky, in this modern eco-conscious world, to be a 'green' crafter. Companies selling goods that are organic may not also sell goods that are fair trade, or vice versa...and when you do find a company that sells things that fit both criteria, they have an unfortunate tendency to be companies based in far flung places. This gives more problems, with the cost of freight and import duties, not to mention the amount of distance the goods will have to travel, thereby adding to the air pollution of our poor, hapless mother earth!

Shifting my products over to ethical, eco friendly materials is important to me. I've been made aware of the environmental effects of non-organic cotton and as an independent businessperson, trying to make a difference in the world, it does play on my conscience that I have hoards of fabric that are just not organic. I'm working on ways to make the best use of them as I can until I get through them and can make my products significantly more eco.

Fair trade is important to me too. I feel that its a little counteractive to be an independant crafter, promoting the handmade movement against a wave of consumerism, to use materials that themselves promote mass production and the exploitation of others.

Not long ago, I discovered a wonderful company that not only sells organic cotton by the metre, but that that cotton is fairtrade, imported directly to England from the happy producers, with outlets reasonably local to me. You know what the absolute bestest part is? The fabric is, as we say in the south west, absolutely lush! Gorgeous colours and texture, just the right weight for what I want to do with it. Here's a sneaky peeky:

It's not always possible to find the exact colour you want...but I've also tracked down some eco friendly dyes that could help with that, and in a way being limited by colour is really good...because it means I can let the fabric guide the design. So far, I have off-white, raspberry red-ish pink, soft grey and heathery purplish blue cottons. These are going to be the base colours for my first few Treacle Toffee clutches, coin purses and cushion covers (pillow covers if you use American English, but I couldn't resist the alliteration there!)

I'm excited about this change, and I hope you folks are too. :-) Watch this space for a post about other eco friendly practices I'm using in the shop.

Real gone kid

2009-05-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I'm about to close down my Etsy shops for a short break - I'm going to be spending some quality time with my folks and will have no internet access but fear not, I will return around the 9th of May and the shop will be back in full swing.

Here's a little snapshot of some of the things that will be back up online when I return:

Happy May everyone!

And it was all yellow...

2009-04-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

It started with fresh spring daffodils

Which then led on to daisy inspired bracelets...

Which led on to buying a new cardigan in buttery saffron yellow...

Which led onto a lot of new ideas for the shop. Click on the image to see a bigger version if you can't make out my annotations and doodlings. There have been a lot of ideas lately...I'm quite determined to have these ones done by the summer.

You may notice the cushion/pillow cover design...housewares have been on the agenda pretty much from the get go and for various reasons delayed and generally ummed and ahhed about. Now, I've decided on a UK supplier for nice cotton that has the added bonus of being both organic and fairtrade! I still haven't found a similarly ethical source for silk, unfortunately.

I'm planning on gradually increasing the proportion of my product materials that are as eco friendly and ethical as possible. It is going to take time - naturally, these kinds of supplies always come at a higher price, which means a greater risk of investment and also makes it harder to stockpile a lot of fabric at once - but it is important to me, so I'm going to persevere. :-)

Have a mellow weekend, folks!

Hello, Doily

2009-04-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

Loving this trend...

Featuring
TOP ROW: Nuka, AllThingsPretty, Gajettes, BlossomStamps,
SECOND: andfurthermore, littlepapercrane, raquelmasri, TrackandFieldDesigns,
THIRD: raeburnink, lilyslegacy, parallelbotany, DonnaCDesigns,
FOURTH: Ottoman, overlap, coquelicot, ancientfuture

Grey is the new grey

2009-02-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, for the first time in a few years I think, Falmouth got snow. We very rarely get snow (I've heard it's to do with the seaside having salty air) and normally when we do it doesn't settle on the ground. This was bona fide snow.

This was the scene from my skylight window, which I had to open to see the snow falling as when closed, it looked like this:

And then it quickly looked like this:

Before being covered over completely.

The snow didn't stay around for long, but the cold certainly has. What with the sudden drop in temperature, ( and the meteorological knowledge of a groundhog in Pennsylvania ) I have decided to keep the scarves up in the shop for a little longer, but not to make any more until later in the year (at least not heavyweight ones) unless I get a request.

While thinking wintry thoughts, I decided to have a play with Etsy's Poster Sketch tool and some of my favourite greys and cold blues. This is designed to help treasury curators lay out their selected items, but as I very rarely manage to nab a treasury spot, I thought I'd share it here (complete with the 'alternative' slots filled as I think the layout looks prettier in a wider grid)

Featured here are tiinateaspoon, lucyplayer, sugarspot, gypsyrabbit, yorktownroad, sheredesign, thenebulouskingdom, elizandaxel, nfall2art, clevergirl, moocowhandknits, joom, joannarutter, aliette, lilarubyking and larimeloom

I'm going to blog again soon about my new Constellations series, but for now it's hot water bottle time. :-)

Looking back, looking forward

2009-01-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

Hello,
The shop is now open again as I am back from my jaunt in the freezing north of England! Having recovered from the lengthy journeys up north and back down south, I've now got the usual retrospective feeling of early January.

2008 was quite an eventful year. A quiet battle with the local council to get the financial support I am entitled to. Two family members made redundant. One family member hospitalized with a serious illness prolonged by foolish blunders made by doctors who should have known better. Months of stress in my Day Job while I struggled to run an understaffed shop, compounded by the worry that my creative ventures might all be for nothing...

...and yet...

...2008 was a pretty good year. The battle with the council was won. One redundancy resolved with a happy career change. The sick relative is better. I got a new helper in my job that has left my life far less stressful. But most importantly of all, I have had some small vindication that I am on the right track with my artistic endeavours. Last year I tentatively wrote down a target for sales of the things that I make. I honestly didn't think I'd reach it, but I did! It is truly wonderful to know that there are people out there who like what I do.

I'm looking forward to a good year ahead - I hope you all are too. :-)

Boxed up

2008-12-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Having listed another Midnight Blizzard cuff yesterday, I decided not to rush making another brooch or cuff to get it listed in time for my North America Christmas deadline. I could have managed something I think but it would have been a rushed job and being the persnickety thing that I am, I don't want to list anything that I've not taken a reasonable amount of time making.

Having told myself that there was little sense in hurrying to get anything more listed (for the sake of my sanity as well as quality control!) I spent the evening watching my old video of Love Actually. It was the first time in a long while that I've sat down and not been thinking about making things or doing my accounts, and I think I needed it. This film always makes me feel festive and recall the day I met Richard Curtis, outside Somerset House, filming a snippet of a skating rink for the opening sequence!

I was woken from my peaceful post-relaxing-evening sleep by a very early (8.30 am) visit from the postman delivering a parcel I've been anxiously awaiting. At last, I have my new jewellery boxes!

I'm really pleased with them, though a little disappointed that Royal Mail managed to take a week to deliver them. Any earrings or necklaces sold now will come packaged like so:

Plus a little raffia ribbon or suchlike to finish it off. The great thing about the boxes is not only are they a more practical way for me to package jewellery, they're also made with recycled card and covered with paper from sustainable forests.

I'm going to slow down production for the next week while I get ready to go away for Christmas. Lots of exciting new plans for the new year though, so watch this space for more of my scribblings and ramblings!

Decembrrrrr!

2008-12-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

Winter is well and truly here and I'm feeling the temptation to build myself a nest out of fabric and hibernate until the swallows come back. This isn't a good time to be sleeping though, and I'm full of plans and ideas so I get the feeling if I were to huddle down under the duvet for the next three months, at the very least I'd have to take my sketchbook with me, and a torch!

Alternatives to hibernation are:
Good food (gallons of spicy parsnip soup!) ... check
Hot water bottle ... check
Fluffy slipper socks ... check
Official designated 'making things' hat (see pic in previous post) ... check

There are many things I'd like to get completed and listed on Etsy before Wednesday's Christmas shipping for North America deadline. I'm back in work at my day job at the weekend, so realistically I don't think I'll get absolutely everything on my list done. I'm determined though to have at least one more cuff made and hopefully a brooch or two.

I've ordered some lovely eco-friendly boxes for my jewellery which will hopefully arrive early next week, as well as a new (to me) crafting product that I'm really excited about. Its silk habotai that you can put through an inkjet printer - like the cotton I use for my care labels. Since my lack of space at home means I can't try my hand at screenprinting yet, this is going to be a simple alternative. I'm going to design some abstract line-drawn patterns that will work cut up for my brooches, earrings etc.

Some of the patterns will be based around the sorts of shapes I already use in things like my 'shoal' designs. I'm also really inspired by Indian patterns, like those used in Mehndi designs painted onto hands. Check out these stunning ones:
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/11/22/the-colorful-art-of-mehndi

I don't want a lot for Christmas...

2008-11-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

...there are just a few things I need...
So - friends, relatives, mysterious wealthy benefactors (I can dream, can't I?) - if you're reading this, I'd like...

An obi belt from loobyloucrafts - she's right here in Cornwall and you can't get better than handmade AND local now can you?
Pretty much anything from PrinceDesignUK - gorgeous ceramics there
Again, almost anything by the wonderfully talented AnneJulie
Snuggly wuggly armwarmers by Overcast (dark blue maybe?)
Pretty print of a bird and a nest by Geninne - aren't the colours gorgeous?
I love the brooches and tea sets by EstherCoombs - she buys crockery from charity shops and draws onto them with special ink - such a wonderful way of reinvigorating old china!
I've been wanting a kimono wrap from MeandD for soooo long. Charcoal blue sounds especially lovely.
Anything by Rob Ryan. He's my all time hero.
Beautiful legwarmers from adventuresofjr
One of ellembee's pretty t-shirts
A posey ring from KathrynRiechert - I love the hand stamped lettering, though I can't choose the best word... 'dream' maybe or 'create'
A steampunk bee from tinyminds - I love the idea of clockwork insects!
Umbrella earrings by clevergirl - I've been eyeing those for a long time too. Of course there's the small matter of me not having pierced ears anymore...but that can be remedied. Especially considering I'd also love some bird earrings from Tillybloom. I wonder if my shipping coupon from her is still valid...
These applique rabbit maryjanes from Anda at stopsandstarts - if they were only in my size (curses, large feet!)
And this lovely artwork from HidenSeek.

That's the top most items on my etsy wishlist (I could have added more, trust me!) Other things I want for Christmas are boring-to-look-at-on-a-blog non-handmade things (Stardust on DVD, for instance...) and of course I want to see friends and family for Christmas. One friend who I won't get to see over Christmas has just been to stay - so that was like a mini Christmas present in itself :D
This is Paula - banana cake baker and illustrator extraordinaire.

And, since I managed to persuade Paula to take a picture of me, I thought I'd finally bite the bullet and show the world my face...
After many attempts that had unfortunate blinking, strange facial expressions etc, I settled on this one of me in my stylish burnt orange hat (with inevitable seagull flying out of my head, seemingly!)

In other news, I am planning on adding a couple of pendant necklaces to the shop on Friday :)

In the works and in the oven

2008-11-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I started gathering supplies for some new things for the shop. Hopefully coming in the next couple of days will be some lovely navy blue cotton jersey - thicker than the cotton lycra jersey I've been using for scarves and ideal for chillier weather and snow themed scarves. :) Its a new supplier for me so I've hedged my bets and only ordered enough for two scarves - which puts me in a quandry. If this fabric proves to be as ideal as I hope, at first I will only be able to make two of my three designs. Ohhhhhh which to make first?! The blizzard scarf is a definite, since my blizzard cuffs have proven to be popular. But peacock feathers or dusky petals? Hmmm.

In addition to the assorted scarves in the works, I'm developing another exciting new product for the shop that I think will make great gifts...

Pendant necklaces, made in a similar way to my fabric earrings. I'm just waiting on some sterling silver bails, which are the part that connects a pendant to a necklace, and then after I've made some scarves I'll start on the pendants.

I'm adapting my 'fish' design, originally for earrings, into a pendant design and a brooch design. The name has always niggled at me - the idea of adorning yourself with sealife is obviously not too appealing! For my necklace featuring lots of 'fish', I decided on the name Shoal - I like the sound of the word, and it's relevant without sounding too mundane. For the earrings I had felt that 'Shoal' sounded odd, since there weren't so many 'fish'. But I'm veering towards it as a name for all my fish inspired jewellery. If you have time to vote on my poll on the right, I'd love to know what you guys think of the new names I have in mind.

Feeling a little bit like hibernating today, I treated myself to one of my favourite cold weather dinners. Since people liked my apple toddy 'recipe', I thought I'd share the recipe for my Savoury Crumble here. I got the idea from a pub restaurant that I frequent with my parents when they're visiting, and I adapted it for my own storecupboard.

Ingredients to make two generous portions
Filling:
One large sweet potato
Two carrots
Half an onion
One garlic clove
1 pint of stock
A little olive oil or sunflower oil.

Topping:
100g flour
80g butter or margarine
A handful of porridge or rolled oats (optional)
A handful of sunflower seeds (optional)
Herbs (rosemary and coriander are both nice with this)
Ground black pepper

Method:
Set your oven to about 190 degrees celsius.
Chop garlic and onion.
Peel and chop the potato and carrots into cubes. Put them on to boil with the stock.
Put the flour and butter/margarine into a bowl and make into 'breadcrumbs'. You need to use the tips of your fingers to rub the butter into the flour so it forms little breadcrumb-like pieces. Next, add the oats, seeds and seasoning and mix together.
Fry the garlic and onion until soft.
By now, your vegetables should have boiled for about 15 minutes and be almost cooked.
Put the onion, garlic and vegetables into an ovenproof dish. You should have enough stock for the mixture to be quite moist, but not swimming in stock. Then, put your crumble topping onto the vegetables in a thick, even layer.
Bake in the oven for about half an hour to 40 minutes.
Serve as a side dish or as a filling vegetarian main course with broccoli or peas.

Cosiness

2008-11-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Brrrrrrrr it's cold!

You can really feel the nights drawing in for winter here. I went to the post office this afternoon to send a scarf on its way and it was so dark outside, I asked the postmistress if she was closing soon - it felt much later than it was. Luckily she wasn't about to close and the recipient of the first ever Treacle Toffee scarf should have their parcel soon.

I'm going to be adding more scarves soon (likely next week) - another Shoal one methinks, another Tree Rings one definitely...and I think I may have found the perfect dark blue cotton jersey for these...

The 'Dusky Petals' design will be the first thing in my shop in quite a while to feature a colour other than blue, grey, brown or green! It will be layered circles of a gorgeous dusky raspberry linen I got a while ago, along with some nice rose silk. I was going to make the scarf base with a shade of raspberry pink jersey (and I may make a version with that as well at some point) but I think the colours I have would look rather striking against navy blue. What do you think?

Cold weather accessories are definitely going to take priority for a while - scarves for necks and cuffs for wrists (jewellery that helps keep you warm!) I really wanted to make some bags (the initial sketches for which I posted on the other blog many moons ago) but I am going to need to dedicate some time to making the design as good as it can be - hopefully I'll have more on that in early 2009.

Stay cosy, folks!

Results Day

2008-11-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

I tend to stick to the rule of never mixing business with either politics or religion - you never know who you might offend.

But, contentious as it may be, Wednesday is a big day. Even Brits like me (and no doubt people of many other nations) are following this election with interest, since it will have an impact of some kind on all of us. On Wednesday, all this waiting and wondering will be over, the results will be in and America will have chosen a new president.

For now, nothing about Wednesday is certain.

Well...one small thing, actually. You can be certain that on Wednesday, Treacle Toffee will have a lovely shop update*. Sure, it's not going to change the world. But maybe it'll change your wardrobe ;-) I hope it puts a smile on your faces, whether you're happy with the vote count or not.

Happy November!

* The size of this update is slightly dependant on my back injury (see other blog) not worsening drastically, but I'm confident I'll have something new for you.

Soon...

2008-10-28T08:39:00.001-07:00

Opulence

2008-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I went to a zoo, and while sitting in the outdoor cafe with a lemonade, this fellow nonchalantly walked by, two metres away from where I sat. He kindly posed while I took his photograph, before strutting on.

Peacocks have always been one of my favourite birds - such wonderful colours. I'm always a little amazed when I see them flying and can't help feeling a little envious of those who live in warmer climes where you can find these creatures in the wild. It's a treat to see one in the zoo (especially if he shows off his tail for you) but to have them out and about in everyday life from time to time must make life feel that little bit more special, more glamorous...

Inspired by the opulence of peacocks, I'm working on some brooches based on the 'eyes' of their tail feathers. We all need a little glamour sometimes don't we?

Fall for you

2008-10-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sigh.
I've had one of those frustrating days of doing errands, where all the errand-locations are far apart and require scurrying in drizzly rain for hours on end. It's been a grey weather day, but it's also that lovely time of year when all the leaves fall off the trees. So, my scurryings were brightened up by carpets of golden yellow, rich brown and vibrant red. Nothing better to get me in the mood for making more autumn leaf brooches!

I'm pleased to say I've also completed my tree rings scarf. Stitching the semi-circles on by hand took quite a long time but I'm pleased with the effect - I know it wouldn't have been the same with machine stitching.

Home at last after my errands, I made my favourite autumn drink to give me a little boost. I call it a hot apple toddy - though since it doesn't have any alcohol in it I'm not sure toddy is the right word! It is very warming and comforting all the same.

Take one big mug...fill to about half way with chilled apple juice (the real kind is best, though this time I had to settle for 'from concentrate') ... sprinkle on a teaspoon of ground cinnamon... and fill to the top of the mug with hot (not quite boiling) water. Oooh lovely :D

Carrying the storm

2008-10-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

Coming soon...

Wishing for the cloths of heaven

2008-09-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

-- William Butler Yeats

These were good trees

2008-09-24T15:53:00.001-07:00

Hello,
I'm going to start this brand new blog with a fancy word...

Dendrochronology. This is the big long fancy name for the study of tree rings (aka growth rings) - the concentric circles you see on the top of tree stumps.

Ever since I was a kid I've found tree stumps simultaneously sad and beautiful. Sad of course because the tree is gone, but beautiful in the way each one is unique, like a thumbprint. There's something intriguing about how you can tell not just how long the tree grew for but what the weather was like each year...in a way, what kind of life the tree had. Looking at a cross section of a tree, there's a sense of looking backwards through time...kind of the opposite of a crystal ball. I find it sort of comforting when I see a tree stump, to count the rings to reassure myself that it had a chance to grow and think to myself "this was a good tree".

Tree rings are one of several themes for the shop this autumn. The original idea was for a scarf (which I plan to make very soon)

...and then I thought oooh they'd be good as brooches too...

So I cut out circles in textured cream and chocolate brown silk and very carefully stitched lots of circles on to the top layer...

Stitched the pin back and labels onto the backs of the brown circles, then sewed them together...ta-da!

These are more delicate than some of my previous brooches, and being smaller and lighter makes them great for pinning to clothes (my bulkier brooches are more suited to coat lapels, bags and suchlike). I think they'd look sweet on my tree rings scarves too :)

They should be up in the shop quite soon, plus some more new things, so keep watching!