Hornsea Pottery card & stamped festive cards

Just starting to get back on track following a bad cold and it's time to think about Christmas cards.


Firstly: A couple of months ago I was asked to design the Christmas card for the Hornsea Pottery Collectors' & Research Society which I did using a cat cruet as the main feature. Here is the result, all printed now and sent to members with the Christmas newsletter.

I then started to make myself a few cards.
Something fun and quick. I'm a big fan of recycling newsprint so I dug out some festive rubber stamps, stained some newspapers with tea and a hint of green paint and set about stamping.

Next time to make a design, I've cut some simple tree and star shapes and stitched them onto cards.

The one below is simply a folded 3D tree I wanted to try, however not practical for posting.

Finally with the left over stamped bits of newsprint I made some tags to use up my scraps.

And the winners are.....

It's been a cold and miserable day so this afternoon I put all the names on bits of paper ready to be pulled from a garlic bag later.

I had one final entry late afternoon which made it in the bag with the others.

And then it was time for the draw, just after 7pm. It was quite exciting!

Are you sitting down?!!!!

First out was ...

Well done Anne.

And second out was.....

Well done Green Rabbit.

I'll be in touch ladies to sort out your prizes.

Thanks to all who have entered and taken time to visit me and leave comments it's great to have found some new blogging buddies in the process.

Festive Blog Giveaway Time!

At last I hear you cry, Santa has been and deposited his sack of goodies for my Festive Blog Giveaway.

This is a first for me so the festive season seemed a great time for me to sprinkle my own bit of seasonal stardust out there in Blogland. It marks a bit of a landmark too as I'm approaching the 3rd year end of sticking with a blog.

Anyway onto the gifts and if you've read my previous posts you'll know that I can only do the giveaway amongst my UK readers, unfortunately due to high postal costs I have not been able to offer the giveaway to any overseas readers on this occasion.

I have a dozen gifts for you to choose from and I will randomly pick 2 people to win. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before Sunday 11th, 7pm in order to take part. If you can't think of a comment how about just telling me what arty or crafty things you'd like to find in your Christmas stocking.

Have a look at the gifts below, you'll see a number on each picture, if you can give me a first and second choice number, that way if I get 2 winners with the same number I can go to a second choice option.

Good luck folks!

Here are the gifts:

1. Here's one of my fabric heart brooches.

2. My Nutcracker Man cut and sew kit

3. I made this wallet as a test piece, the inside fabric sections are all vintage fabric

4. This is a selection of my own art cards, mostly Christmas ones

5. Here are 2 of my mini journals and appropriately a pencil brooch with real pencils!

6. A recycled fabric corsage brooch

7. This is a pack of fabric scraps, about half of them are vintage fabrics, I may pop a couple of samples of my own design fabric in too, plus you get the little embroidered tray cover at the front of the photo.

8. Bean There - Vegetarian Cookbook. My friends used to own Bean There the veggie cafe in Bridlington and they produced this book with some of their most popular dishes. The book is brand new, they gave me a couple because the stitching down the spine is not brilliant and they are prone to pages loosening. It has some fab recipes.

9. This is one of my mini cupcake creations, it is a ring pincushion and allows both hands to be free when sewing.

10. A handmade pouch purse in natural cotton with a cat embellished on front and back.

11. I can't really knit but I make these little rabbits from squares so here is a little lady rabbit with a cute dress and hair slide, plus I've chucked in one of my fabric coasters.

12. Finally, you get 3 things here, a Fabric Mountain pincushion, a lavender heart and a page marker for bookmarking your craft books!

Feel free to tell any of your friends who might like to join in the giveaway to make it a bit more competitive.

FESTIVE GIVEAWAY - announcing later today

What better way to embrace the festive season than in the spirit of giving. I don't know about you but part of the joy is wrapping things up, I just love to get the paper, string, cellotape and tissue out!


As this is my first blog Giveaway and as the festive season is upon us I wanted to make it a bit special and offer a variety of gifts to choose from. I have been looking through my stock of handmade items and supplies and later today I will be photographing a selection of goodies. I'm going to give away 2 gifts so you will be able to state your first and second choice item, I will do a reminder of that later.


Also, as I have mentioned before, I am only able to do the Giveaway with my UK bloggers due to postal costs overseas.


More later!

Nutcracker men in new colours

I took delivery of some more Nutcracker fabric this morning, hot off the press and with some new colours for the kits.
Just need to cut them up and find time to list some on Folksy, along with some surplus stock from the craft fair.

The new colours are coffee and marshmallow pink.

Lime and tangerine, plus a new purple (just visible below).

And finally a camp sugary pink and turquoise.

Liebster blog award

This is new to me, the Liebster Blog Award, but I have an idea what it is now that Sally from the lovely Lavender Attic blog has presented me with it, so thank you very much Sally.
http://lavenderattic.blogspot.com/


It is kind of a hug and lots of encouragement from other bloggers for bloggers with less than 200 followers, interesting eh!

The Rules

• Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
• Reveal your top 5 blogs and let them know by leaving a comment at their blog.
• Post the Award on your blog (proudly! yay!)

Hopefully the 5 blogs you nominate will continue to spread the blog love.


It's difficult to just mention 5 blogs but here we go with my 5 blogs that deserve the Liebster Blog Award:


No.1 
http://greenrabbitdesigns.wordpress.com/

Vivienne is a lovely lady, a blogger with whom I share a few similarities so I love to read what she is up to. I can't knit like Vivienne but we share a love of cats, vegetarianism, crochet, fabric and gardening (although I currently don't have much I can call a garden)!

Viviennes blog takes you through the seasons of the year with plants, crafts, food and cats!

No.2

http://www.foodforfriendsyeah.co.uk/

Matt is editor of the food for friends blog. It's a brilliant recipe resource. You can source recipes A - Z style and submit your own favourites. It's like exchanging recipes with good friends. They also do restaurant, book & product reviews and show you things you might like for your kitchen wish list and they have the odd competition thrown in for good measure.

No. 3

http://larabrehm.blogspot.com/

Lara is a German illustrator and graphic artist. Her blog is in English so well worth a look. She does lots of wonderful surface pattern designs, I love her illustration style and use of colour. Her designs are used on stationery, textiles etc.

No. 4

http://poppytalk.blogspot.com/

Poppytalk is a Canadian based blog run by a husband and wife team who use the blog to promote emerging design talent. You'll find great photos, some inspirational tutorials, projects and recipes.

No. 5

http://tugbakop.blogspot.com/

Tugbakop is an artist who combines an illustrative style using textiles. I find the work on this blog most inspiring and only wish I had found it as a reference point when doing my textile course a couple of years ago. Have a look at the amazing stitched portraits.

What a great invention blogging is, thanks to all my readers and thanks to all those whose blogs I get pleasure from reading.

Recovering from Craft Fair!

Yesterday I felt like I was coming down with a cold (still not sure, sneezing a bit tonight) but I fought it off as best I could as I was really looking forward to the craft fair today.


I was there in good time this morning but because I maybe only do 1 or 2 craft fairs a year, I'm not as slick setting up as the others. I also ran out of time yesterday with preparations so nothing had been priced up, I took lots of labels and tags and was trying to do it all as I set up.
Consequently it was a bit of a mess, stuff everywhere and never enough room on your table. I had also taken work to do, about 11 brooches to finish stitching!


Anyway, I finally had the stall set up, half an hour after it started but no problem as they weren't exactly queueing to get in!

It was a bit of a slow start but I'd covered my stall cost by lunch time and then there was quite a flurry over lunch and into the afternoon so I actually did better than expected.
It's interesting what I sold, or didn't sell. None of my specifically festive things sold, I'd done christmas fabric favour cones, fabric sweetie bags with a choc coin in (bargain at 80p), christmas cards, the nutcracker kits, and the felt ice skate decorations, these just didn't seem to attract people. Also unsuccessful were all those mini handmade journals I knocked up.
I did sell lots of pincushions, some lavender bags and brooches, plus a couple of knitted rabbits, packs of recycled labels and then odds and sods, most interesting.


All was quiet again by 4.30 but it was a lovely afternoon and I knew most of the other artists and makers so nice to catch up with folk.
I also managed a few purchases myself so it's all been worthwhile.

Above is a brooch I bought from Selina.

Next we have some lovely new card designs by Peter Schoeonecker. Peter is a great artist and illustrator and does fab cards and lino prints.


http://www.schoenecker.co.uk/

Finally, I bought a cat mosaic kit for an xmas pressie. Sally who owns the Wolds Village has started doing mosaics and was selling her kits. The pieces she had done using black grout (above) looked great.


An early night to recover I think!
Details of my festive giveaway coming next week.

Me & my fabric featured on Mollie Makes

One final word about today and how crazy it has been. I sent some details to the fabulous Mollie Makes magazine a couple of weeks ago about my Nutcracker man kit, I thought I was probably too late for any interest this Christmas.
However, they contacted me at lunchtime today and asked to feature my work in their Fabric Friday on their blog. This was so exciting and not the usual thing to happen to me so despite being knee deep in fabric, paper and other stuff I quickly answered some questions about what inspires me.


If you fancy a look here is the link


http://molliemakes.themakingspot.com/blog/fabric-friday-qa-with-fabric-mountain

New heart brooches & last nights auction

The East Riding Artists social was a lovely evening and a wonderful selection of creative donations were offered at the auction. Some people had been very generous with their time and gifts, I felt my recycled festive decorations were a wee bit meagre compared to some. Buy anyway it's the thought that counts and my offerings did sell for good prices.


Here are some of the gifts, paintings, ceramics, sugar craft, papier mache, textiles, decorated biscuits, glasswork.

Today has been a little frantic, I am still making things which are half started and really I should be labeling and pricing this evening before tomorrows craft fair. A late night I think!
These heart brooches are nearly done, I will probably be stitching the pins on the back when I have set my stall up tomorrow.

Best result in Spoonflower fabric of the week contest

Just before I went out last night the results came in for Spoonflower fabric of the week and I was over joyed to have my best result yet.
I came 4th in the kite contest with 394 votes so thank you to anyone who voted for me, I was just 56 votes away from the winning entry.


Spoonflower have printed the fabric and uploaded some pictures which I have below. The great news is, overnight a couple of people in the US have already bought some from the marketplace and I've just ordered a fat quarter as today is the last day to order 2 fat quarters for the price of one.

http://blog.spoonflower.com/2011/11/2-for-1-fat-quarter-sale-coming-november-28-december-2nd.html