How to find a truly personalised gift

We have a friend who's 40th Birthday is coming up and I asked my husband yesterday what we should get him for his birthday, to which my husband replied "What do you get the man who has everything?"

A very good point. We quite often have presents to get for people who have a high disposable income (lucky things!) and who buy the things they want as they see them... makes for a difficult pursuit looking for the ideal present.

Well I've had some customers who have tackled that by having something truly personalised created for their loved ones:

This Supreme Dalek Figure was made for one lovely customer's 40th Birthday as he's a real Dr Who fan!

The Supreme Dalek Toy my version was based on.

Another customer wanted a large Subaru Impreza Car Cushion to give to her son as he was having to sell his beloved pride & joy due to an expanding family!

Felt Subaru Impreza Car Cushion (Complete with personalised number plates)

Having seen the Personalised London Bus that I sell a great number of, asked if I could make a New York City Bus, with personalised plates:

New York City Bus, based on the photos sent by the customer

A completely lovely, but puppy-crazy friend and wonderful customer asked me to replicate her two Chinese Crested Powder Puff dogs in cushion form:

Holly & Noodle - the gorgeous puppies who got their own cushions... they were supposed to be for their owner, but they both claimed their cushion and refused to be parted!!

Finally, the first real custom item I was asked to create, was this enhanced VW Beetle, known as a Baja Bug and used for off-roading, requested by a customer in Germany for her brother, who had once owned this car:

Hope you enjoyed that little round up and feel free to contact me if there is something wild and wacky that you'd like to see immortalised in felt!

Fairies and Elves

Hey lovelies,

I've been having a bit of a blogging writers block recently, mainly I think because I wanted to up my blogging game this year... so immediately my mind goes blank!!

But I did want to share these gorgeous Fairies and Elves doors that a friend of ours made for the kids.

I'm so chuffed with them and the kids adore them. Simon (the lovely friend who made them) is hoping to set up an Etsy shop, so watch this space if you like the look of them.

Post-Halloween Post

I know it's a bit late and sadly things have been so crazy round here that I've been neglecting you guys.... but better late than never, right?!

Now, I love Halloween - I did a couple of fun tutorials last year and I was all set to do another one this year, but I kinda ran out of time... you'll see why below!

So for Halloween I had a request (the DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN - DURING HALF TERM!!) for my gorgeous boy to be an Owl. Eeek! Cue a panicked Mummy frantically sewing into the night and.... Ta Da!

Excuse the photos taken on my phone, early in the morning in my messy workshop!

Patrick had a friend over for Halloween Tea and we made them Bloody Fingers and Nasty Gnashers:

Apples, Peanut Butter and mini Marshmallows

Frankfurters, lots of ketchup & hot dog buns

 Whilst I decided to have a go at carving a VW Campervan into my pumpkin this year:

And Seren went to a party dressed as a Witch (thankfully no Mummy-help required with her costume!):

All in all a very happy and silly Halloween! Hope you had fun too - what did your little ones dress up as? I'd love to see some pics... especially if they had handmade elements to their costumes!

The Fascinating World of Fascinators

For those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter you'll probably be aware that I decided to spend my birthday money on a Fascinator workshop, which finally arrived (seemed like forever, though in reality was less than a month after my birthday!) on Monday this week. My tutor was a lovely lady named Lenette Isko, who began making couture hats and fascinators 6 years ago when she was faced with the prospect of 4 weddings in one summer!

My day with Lenette started at 10am, at her home in Longhope, Forest of Dean (so a nice easy 10 minute drive from my house!) and immediately I felt at ease in her company and knew I was going to really enjoy my day.

Lenette showed me a huge range of fascinators that she had made and after working out which ones I preferred  we got to work on the basics of rolling. Rolling means to roll the edges of the sinamay (the material fascinators are most often made from) rather like rolling a cigarette or a joint - I knew all that practice when I was younger would come in handy ;-)

Having decided that I didn't actually want to make my fascinator with the rolled flower petals, I'm very glad that she showed me how to because my 1st commission (later that same day!) was from a friend who is going to the same wedding I am this Saturday and who needed a fascinator fast, so I put my new-found skill to the test and have made her a black and pale blue effort:

I'm really quite proud of this as it was without any help, but I am totally in love with the one I made at the workshop... it's exactly the kind of thing I've recently seen other people wearing and that I've, quite frankly, lusted after! (I know, I'm odd!!) so here is my lovely creation (which obviously I made with quite a lot of help on the day!):

My one is made from the same material, but the two round base layers are stitched together with a bais trim on each layer and then the thick loops are made from a long piece of bias with the edges ironed in (this stuff sticks to itself - so clever!) and the thinner loops are made from a piece of bias with wire sewn into it, to keep it in place, then all artfully arranged (ahem, more luck than judgement!) and sewn together. Et voila!

Sorry for the rather long post... I'll spare you the details of Seren's headband (my 3 year old) until next week (after the wedding) and once I've got stuff to say about things other than hair embellishments!

5 Reasons I Love Etsy

I had never even heard of Etsy until I started designing and making things last autumn. A friend of mine who went to Uni in America (and is therefore far more clued up about transatlantic trends than I am!) told me about it when she saw my photos going up on Facebook. For those of you out there who have also not heard of it, Etsy is a website that allows people to set up their own web-based shop, selling either handmade or vintage goodies world wide, from one safe site. You don't need to have your own website or any experience to use Etsy, they make it really straightforward for you (which was a relief for me as a total novice at online selling!)

The 5 things I really really like about Etsy are:

1. Shop Stats
This means you can see how many people have viewed items in your shop over different time periods, what search criteria they've used to find your items, which items they have 'favourited' (sort of like bookmarking them, so they can find them easily again) and where they have originally come from - i.e. the number of people who read this and then click through from the blog to my Etsy shop. All these things really help a shop owner to know which areas to focus on, how best to label their items and what is popular at the moment.

2. The Teams
I'm part of three Etsy teams, all of which give me something slightly different. The Etsy's UK & Ireland Seller Support Team is brilliant for being friendly and helpful when you have a question, an idea you need sounding out or just need some confidence boosting! The other two teams I'm part of Seller Opportunity Tools and UK Felt Obsessors are both fun & useful, but I don't participate in them nearly as much as the first one.

3. Tagging
Etsy help make it easy for sellers to tag their items as they allow you 13 different tags for each item you list. You can also see the tags that other sellers have used to get ideas for yours. It makes a big difference from my point of view as the majority of sellers & buyers are based in the US, there are some terms that are used differently there, which would result in a lack of sales if you didn't take advantage of the tagging opportunities. For example, the word 'personalised' is spelled differently in America, so by just using one tag to repeat your item title but spelling it the American way (or the English way if you've used the American spelling in your title) means you hit that wider audience.

4. The amazing range of beautiful handmade items
There are SO many absolutely wonderful designers & creators who sell through Etsy, you could spend days lost on the site! My Father-in-Law and my Grandfather are both into golf, so for Christmas I came across a wonderful shop called Tiny Love Treasures who made them both a golf ball marker with my kids names on. So lovely & something I would never have found had I been out shopping on the high street - they'd both have ended up with yet more tees and a new book full of golfing jokes!

5. You can see how much the postage is going to be before you add an item to your cart.
One of the the other things I love is that when you are shopping on Etsy you can see how much the postage is going to be from the word go. Quite often if you are based in England and trying to buy off an American site, either you get to the payment section only to find that they don't deliver outside of the US or that the postage is going to be prohibitively expensive, so you end up starting all over again... with Etsy, you can see straight away if you can afford the postage (and more importantly if they will post overseas) which saves a lot of time & frustration!


To have a browse on Etsy either follow the link to my shop or have a look at just a couple of the other lovely shops that I have come across:

Great Bottles of Fire

Tiny Love Treasures 

Belle Cards And Gifts 

Happy shopping xxx