Craft Fair

It turns out that I was a little (teensy, weensy) bit stressed before the Orchard Trust Summer Fayre last weekend... I know this because as soon as it was over I stopped shouting at my nearest and dearest. Oops. The Fayre was a fantastic event though, attended by hundreds of people, far more than I expected (given how worried I was about not doing well at it, it's probably just as well I didn't know it would be that big!) and I had a FANTASTIC afternoon... both in terms of enjoyment & also business!

The day didn't start out too well weather-wise... half an hour before I had to go and set up the rain was coming down in sheets and bouncing up so high it was hitting our windows! But then, glorious sunshine for the rest of the day... and here are some pics of my stall all set up:

It was lovely to see some familiar faces - thank you to everyone who came along & supported both the charity & also little old me :-)

I've got a stall at a charity Fun Day on Sunday 19th August but I think after that I'll give it a break until the Christmas markets get underway.... it's just too stressful whilst also trying to hold down a part time job, look after the sprogs and fulfill orders!

We also had the excitement of Patrick's 2nd Birthday last week and his party on Saturday - great fun was had by all, especially when it came to the eating of the cake:

Prolonged Holiday...

So if everything had gone according to plan I would have been writing this post on Sunday, waiting for my Dad to arrive for a couple of days (to celebrate the little man's 2nd Birthday) as we would have arrived back from holiday on Saturday afternoon... everything would be unpacked & washed and I'd be nicely relaxed. Instead it's Tuesday and none of that is done! Just as we were packing up on Friday night, Brian looked at the tickets and discovered that he'd inadvertently booked us tickets home for Sunday, not Saturday!! Oops! Still an extra day's holiday is all good :-)

We had a wonderful time in Ireland... the weather was, as always, mixed, but the kids enjoyed the rainy days as much as the sunny ones. It was great to catch up with not only Brian's close family, but also some cousins who we often don't get to see, as we headed out West to a friend's wedding and luckily for us it was very close to a number of Brian's cousins and a couple of mine, so we caught up with almost all of them in one weekend - hectic :-)

Seren had her first trip to the cinema while we were away (to see Ice Age 4 - I enjoyed it too!) and she LOVED it :-) It was such a pleasure to take her and spend some quality time as Mummy & Daughter on our own (Patrick is definitely still too young to sit still or quietly for long enough!)


The most popular things though, were the 1st of the 3 birthday cakes to celebrate Patrick's 2nd Birthday, playing at the beach & playing with their big cousins:

  

And while you might think I did nothing except for relaxing I can assure you I was busy busy busy - making this lot:

All of these are for the Summer Fayre that I'm attending this coming Sunday:

We're all going on a summer holiday...

.... Okay, now I'm showing my age with that title aren't I?!?! (Or I could just blame it on my Mum's love of Sir Cliff!)

We're off to Ireland tomorrow to visit my lovely 'out-laws' (don't quite know why my hubby's wonderful parents have always been called that, but it's stuck now!) and I honestly don't know who is more excited... me & Brian or the kids :-)

Brian & his brother Tony braving the sea last summer

Seren & Patrick refusing to leave the blanket!

I've got a ton of sewing to take with me as I'm doing a summer fate when we get back - anyone local to the Forest of Dean if you're around on Sunday 29th July we'd love it if you'd pop in and say hello. I've been so busy with orders that I've not had much chance to build up stock for things like this (which is great in one sense!) so this fortnight is going to be a nice change for me.

The other thing I've been working on this week (and it was a last minute request, so scuppered my chances of blogging for an evening or two!) was a Christmas Wreath which had been asked for by the Etsy UK Publicity team for their 'Christmas in July' event, which is held to promote a select number of UK based Etsy shops to journalists and publicity types in the hope that they will use some of the items in their festive shopping guides!

I was OVER THE MOON to be asked to participate and this morning I sent off my Christmas Wreath:

It is listed in my Etsy shop already because a lovely customer asked me in May (I dream of being that organised!) to put together a wreath for him to send to family in America and I am so pleased now that it was done in time to get into the Christmas marketing timescales.

The other thing that's been quite fun this week has been an order of rainbow VW Campervans:

Lastly I just wanted to finish with an apology... when I started this blog I intended to write a new post at least 2-3 times a week... well I've failed miserably on that score. So my mid-year resolution is to post more often when we get back from holiday (starting with the pre-requisite holiday snaps!)

Hope you have a good couple of weeks with some sunshine!!

Guest Tutorial - How to Make Gift Bags from Upcycled Greetings Cards

I was approached a couple of days ago by a lovely chap who wanted to know if I'd be interested in hosting a guest tutorial written by a friend of his... it was a really nice surprise to find that my blog is starting to get found amongst all the other fantastic craft blogs out there :-)

So, here for your delectation (and I will DEFINITELY be saving all our birthday cards from now on!) is the Tara's great tutorial:

If you’re anything like me you will have stacks of old greeting cards gathering dust in the back of a cupboard or under your bed. And let’s face it you are never going to read them again so why not do something useful with them and create a gift bag? It’s easy so let’s get started.

What you need:

Selection of old greetings cards

Template (I used the one from this site)

Scissors

Holepunch

Cellotape/Stapler/Glue

Ruler

Ribbon/bottons (optional) 

Print the template out on A3 paper or larger depending on the size you want your bag/box to be. If you want to make a box you will need all the tabs but tabs H and G aren’t necessary for a gift bag.

Decide on the theme of you bag/box and discard any cards or sections of a card that can’t be used. 

Cut around the template and lay on a flat surface. Make a note of the measurements for each section and then use those measurements to cut out accurate shapes from the cards. Make the side pieces (D) an extra 1cm wider so you can fold them later on. Choose your designs carefully, particularly for sections B, C and both D’s because these will be visible once the bag/box is finished.

Take both side pieces (D) and fold them in half vertically. This will form the crease in the side of the gift bag. Draw two lines at each end, forming a triangle. Use scissors to score these lines.

 Lay all the card pieces facedown and carefully begin to attach them together using Cellotape. Try not to overlap the pieces. Instead allow several layers of Cellotape to join the sides together. The flexibility of the Cellotape will allow all the pieces to fold easily.

 Once all sections are joined the bag/box will begin to take shape. Put Cellotable or glue on tab A and fold it over, attaching the sides together, forming an open ended box. If you are making a box avoid gluing this end tab because it forms the opening of the box; instead just close both ends instead using tabs E, F, G and H.

Close the bottom (and the top if you are making a box) using Cellotape or glue. You now have your gift bag. Fold the sides to make the bag a better shape.

Use the holepunch to make holes for the handles, which you can make from ribbon. I plaited ribbon but this isn’t necessary. Feed the ribbon through the holes or attach with a stapler. 

Note: If you don’t have any ribbon you can use another greeting card to make beads. Draw vertical lines on an opened card – gradually getting wider. Cut along the lines and then roll from the wider end. Use glue or Cellotape to attach the thin end to the coil. This effect creates a bead like shape and you can feed these onto string.

You can tidy up the bag and hide any Cellotape that might be visible by adding extra detail like ribbon or buttons.

Tag – This part is the easy bit. Find a card with something pretty on, cut out the section you want, hole punch just one hole and make a loop using ribbon or string.

Attach the tag to the bag and then all you need is a present to fill it and a greeting card. You can even buy these without leaving the house – just visit a site like Hallmark and get personalised greeting cards to go with your personalised bags!

                             

 And there you have one gorgeous handmade gift bag! I'm so glad Tara decided to share this fab tutorial with us - I hope it inspires some creative pressies this summer :-)

If you want to get in touch with Tara, you can find her on Twitter - Tara West

Designing Soft Toys

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks... I've been making VW Campervans like there's no tomorrow, which has been fun as I feel like I've pretty much perfected the process now (sod's law says I won't have another one to make for a while now!)

I've also been toying with the idea (you'll get to the pun in a mo!) of trying my hand at designing teddy bears and other cuddly toys (now see it? Sorry!). I started with making a teddy bear from a Funky Friends Factory pattern for my son, who LOVES his 'Bear' as you can see:

Bear now goes everywhere, including to play on Daddy's 'Pooter!

Then a friend asked me to make her one:

And now my daughter wants one... so things are going bear-y well... sorry, I promise to stop with the puns now!

But I've not yet braved designing my own... I will, soon, honest! In the mean time, I'm going to continue to get a feel for how best to get the limbs all together and sewn into the body without an arm & a leg ending up in the wrong place!

Union Jack Swap - Great Minds!

Well, I got home today to find a lovely looking parcel with my name on it:

Inside were these lovely goodies:

What was really funny was that I had sent the following items to Cybele (including a familiar looking brooch!):

Notice anything similar in the two packages??? (Cybele & I had both made each other a Union Jack pincushion, almost exactly the same size!)

The only difference being that because Cybele is Dutch, I put the Dutch flag on the back of her pincushion so she could choose which she wanted to see:

What a well matched pair we were :-)