Remebrance Sunday - Crafting for Charity

You may remember that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (here) that I've had a number of different poppy products in my shops specifically created for Remembrance Sunday. I do sell all the poppy goodies all year round, but any that are sold during October and up until Armistice Day are all sold on behalf of the Royal British Legion.

This year I have sold more than I ever hoped to and I'm SO grateful to everyone who's bought one and helped me raise such a wonderful amount for the Legion.

I promised that I would let you know how much money I'll be donating to the Royal British Legion and so as not to disappoint - the grand total this year, after raising £85 last year... this year, my lovely customers have helped raise a whopping £112!!!!

I am so overwhelmed by how many people have generously bought poppies from my shops - it's a tight time for everyone, but to know that we have done something really good for such a worthwhile cause has made me feel fabulous. I will be posting a cheque to the British Legion this week.

We are lucky enough to live in a village that has a wonderful Brass Band and a very active Church and community and the Memorial Hall, where the wreaths are laid each year on Remembrance Sunday is just up the road from our house, so we hear the band starting up for the service which is held almost outside our house. This is the first year we've taken our kids out to the service and they did really well, keeping the 2 minute silence and watching it all with an appropriate level of respect. I feel quite proud to be able to explain to them what today was all about and why we commemorate it.

I'm linking up to Handmade Monday for the first time in ages and I do promise to try and get round everyone this week and leave a message on all the blogs... I'm great at starting and then getting distracted by everyone's wonderful blogs!

Welcome to the world of Uniquely UK

Hello my lovelies :-)

Sorry for being absent for a while... we had a wonderful holiday and came back last weekend, very reluctantly!

Having spent the week trying to get my head back in the game, I am now feeling quite motivated to get things going again!

However I may have mentioned that I'm going to be exhibiting at the Home & Gift Fair in Harrogate this year, so I've decided to keep the majority of my shops shut for another month to give me enough time to prepare for the event.

Buuuuuut.... there is one shop that I won't be closing as it's really new and very exciting and a collaboration with 9 friends... it's called Uniquely UK!

We are all existing and established designers & makers, who sell through Etsy, but we have felt for a while that we wanted to do something as a group to try and bring the unique, high quality and unusual items that we make to the forefront of UK consumers' awareness.

We are working towards running our own website, but in the interim we have opened a Folksy Shop

And here are the lovely Designers that I'm working with:

Aisling Dezines
Damson Tree Pottery

Erika Price
Jane Crick

Purse Poppet
RDR Photography
Rebecca's Emporium
Tatania Rose
The Feminine Touch

I would LOVE it if you guys would check out our collaborative shop and if you've got 5 minutes (although you'll get lost and spend hours ;-p) check out the gang's individual shops!

Now I'm off for a long overdue catch up at Wendy's Handmade Harbour Blog......xxx

PS. I've also got links to two of my cohorts' blog posts about our shop - both blogs are fab and worth reading so I thought I'd add their links in here:

The Feminine Touch's Post
Rebecca's Emporium's Post

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Top O'The Morning To Ye All :-)

Hope you've all had/are having a lovely St Patrick's Day weekend if you celebrate it! What with my husband being Irish (well a Plastic Paddy) we usually manage to celebrate pretty well, but this year there was a distinct lack of planning for a night out and also our babysitter wasn't available, so we decided that we'd stay in last night (Saturday) and maybe go out for a pint of the black stuff at lunch time today with the kids - they like the pub as they know it means crisps to keep them quiet for a bit!

We also both suffered disappointment in the Rugby yesterday - although Ireland didn't win the Wooden Spoon they lost their match to Italy, which somewhat upset my hubby and then England not only lost very badly to Wales but it also meant we didn't get the Grand Slam :-( I spent 80 minutes howling at the TV and ended the evening a rather unhappy bunny!

BUT today is another day, so with all that behind us, we're going to enjoy looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

I found this CUTE image whilst searching for a pot of gold - click here for the shop link

I haven't got much that I can share with you about what I've been working on this week as the main commission I've had is something for one of my lovely customers for another one of my lovely customers! So until it's handed over and ooooh'd and aaahhh'd over I can't show you!

I'll be linking this up to Handmade Monday as usual and will leave you with one final image

How to feel glam at a wedding

Well.... for those of you who also follow me on Facebook, I apologise that you'll already have seen these pics and have heard me getting excited about this earlier in the week, but I am now the proud owner of a one of a kind, handmade fascinator, designed & made by me!

I'm really really pleased with it as I went on a one day course last May and made this one under the one-to-one guidance of the tutor:

And then I made a couple more that same week (they were for Seren and a friend of mine - all for a wedding the following weekend!)

Seren - my ever willing model!

'Scuse the slightly blurry pic - in a rush to get to the wedding!

But since last May I've not made any headwear at all, so to have remembered all the stages and achieved something so profesional looking has absolutely made my week!

Ok, enough blowing my own trumpet! I'm off to see what's been happening on the Handmade Monday blogs :-)

Work In Progress

For this week's Handmade Monday I thought I'd do more of a pictoral post than anything else as I haven't got anything finished to share with you today.

I took a pic of a Work in Progress from my working week - making an R2D2 hat as part of a commission

As you can see there's also a Campervan with 3 wheels half done and there's a couple of other half finished bits hiding in my craft box - I'm terrible for starting more than thing at once!

(Thankfully though they did all get finished in the right order!)

Then this afternoon I was quietly sitting at the dining room table cutting out enormous letters for a commission (I've been asked to make a 5 foot name banner for another craft business so they can use it at craft fairs and it's all in this gorgeous hot pink colour! Not sure how I'm going to show you the finished pics of something so big, but that's a problem for next week) Anyway, I was sitting there quietly on my own when my 4 year old daughter Seren came up and asked if she could do some cutting out too, so on some of the scraps I drew her some flowers and she sat next to me happily cutting for ages:

I love the look of concentration!

And then of course the peace was shattered by my 2.5 year old son, Patrick coming up and asking if he could cut out too. Here he is sitting opposite Seren watching carefully to what she's doing and within 20 seconds of this being taken he was pouting because it was 'too difficult' and back to the telly he went!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend :-) I'm off now to check out the other lovely blogs at Wendy's link up party on the Handmade Harbour website.

Giving up the Day Job...

... Means that I can do all those really exciting things like:

- The laundry
- The weekly shop
- Go to Weight Watchers
- Tidying the house.....

But it also means I can spend more time doing cool things like making these gorgeous baby booties (these are actually for a friend's baby, but they will also get listed as a made to order item in my shop):

 and then embellishing them with rockets and planets :-)

It is SO nice to be able to say 'I LOVE my job'!

Now I've got to get on with my tax return - I've been putting it off!

But in between I'll be catching up with everyone over on the Handmade Monday link up :-)

12 Days of Christmas... Gift Guides

The wonderful team that I am part of on Etsy have some tireless leaders who have been working very hard to provide 12 gift guides for the 12 Days of Christmas and each day focuses on a different topic.

I've been meaning to blog about the wonderful collections that Erika (one of the aforementioned tireless leaders) has been putting together, but first I thought I'd share some of the wonderful jewellery that Erika makes & sells in her lovely shop and the profits for which she very generously gives to charity:

Beaded Leather Wrap Bracelet

Sky Blue Necklace, Handcrafted Lampwork Beads & Sterling Silver

Felt Ball Earrings, Sterling Silver & Merino Wool

All the above are on my wishlist should anyone be after ideas for presents for moi ;-)

The Gift Guides that Erika has been producing are collections of items all handmade by the very talented makers within the team and you will be spoiled for choice no matter who you are buying for!

The 12 Days of Christmas Gift Guides can be found on the official Craft Britannia blog and (so far) they include 

Stocking Fillers

Gifts for Toddlers

Gifts for Little Boys

Gifts for Little Girls

Secret Santa Ideas

Cards & Gift Wrap Ideas

Gifts for Her

Gifts for Him

Decoration Ideas

Baby Presents

Sorry for the lack of pictures from the Team CB blog, but my blog knows it's Friday and wants me to stop working now!

Have a great weekend all 

xxx

PS. Although technically not so much about my handmade makes, this is going to be my post for the last Handmade Monday of the year as I haven't quite got the time to squeeze another post in on time!

So for anyone who doesn't pay us a visit till the next Handmade Monday - I hope you have a wonderful Christmas & New Year!

Handmade Makers Market

Yikes! I've just realised that I've got just over 2 weeks till the Handmade Makers Market in Oxford and I'm in a little bit of a panic about having enough stock!

I haven't done a craft fair or a market since the summer one, but to get the stall looking as full as this:

I had to spend every spare minute of my 2 week holiday in Ireland, with the out-laws (nah, my lovely in-laws!) designing and sewing.... HOWEVER.... for the next 2 and a half weeks I'm working, looking after my kids and going away for a child-free weekend to London! The words 'Oh Bugger' are currently reverberating round my head!

I think I'm going to have to start geeing myself up with lots of coffee and because sewing seems better done in the mornings.... lots of early alarm calls!

Photo: www.etsy.com/shop/HopePhotoArt

Belatedly off to join the Handmade Monday link up and visit all the other lovely blogs (when I should be making!)

Handmade Monday

I've decided to take the plunge and join something I've been reading about for a while - Handmade Monday which takes place, yes you guessed right, every Monday on the fantastic Handmade Harbour blog.

This post is to join in on the 91st Handmade Monday and it was after reading the gorgeous blog post from a fellow Etsian, Natalie from Free Spirit Designs which also featured my Poppy Appeal Brooch that I decided to join in.

Poppy Broch - all proceeds of sales during October & November are going to the Royal British Legion.

But today I wanted to share my newest VW Campervan, which has been designed for a wedding! The lovely customer who's bought it is the sister of the Groom and she was able to sneakily find out what colour Campervan the couple have hired to be their wedding car and so I've been commissioned to match their cuddly camper to it! Such a lovely idea.... what do you think?

Wedding car to hire from Beetles About

My Campervan complete with ribbons

It would seem a lot of people are choosing to incorporate Campervans into their wedding plans, so I'm hoping this will become an integral part of the VW range.... watch this space for more news!