Hearts and Hiort

I have been having a bit of a mad day today! Decided to experiment with an idea put forward to me as a possible custom order, way out of my usual comfort zone of 'softies' etc. It's 5 o'clock and I've finally managed to list these spangly hearts in my Etsy 'plush' shop!

Saturday, seemingly was St Kilda Day! You can read all about it here - I didn't manage to go to any of the events but some day I would love to visit St Kilda (Hiort in Gaelic) - fantastic, atmospheric place to go and see . . .

I've had a busy weekend of recreational crafting - more embroidery! I'll tell you about it later when I catch my breath!

Bye for Now :)

Colours of the Weekend . . .

Some of the colours around my home this Saturday morning:

(1) pretty flowers across the road
(2) sunny but windy view of the sea around the back
(3) some yummy lemon curd on white bread - 'Little S' declared "it's better without the bread!"

I'm only showing you the pretty colours! I thought they'd make nicer pics than my laundry pile!

Happy Weekend :)

P.S. It's now 'chucking it', cats and dogs outside - the beauty of the Hebridean weather!

my creative space . . .

Creative thoughts is as far as I'll be getting today, as I have soooooo much other 'stuff' to do. First full week of school for the boys and we're getting back into the swing of things. Teenage Son seems to be well settled into his new school which I'm really pleased about it as I personally did not enjoy my own time there, so it's a big relief that he seems quite happy with it all so far.

Wondering what on earth to post about today, I picked this little posy of wild flowers beside the road today as 'Little S' cycled off to school (which is a mere 5 minutes walk from our house). Well, that's creative isn't it, hehe!! I'm scraping the barrel here, but I do love wildflowers, and I took a pic of them after tying them together with raffia, beside this bundle of linen patchwork pieces.

I bought the patchwork pieces a couple of weeks a go and I'm still thinking about what I'll do with them - I've scribbled 'use for fabric buttons' on the label to give me a hint of one idea, in case I forget!

. . . and a little snapshot of my redundant 'creative space' today. My Big Sis bought me these lovely fabric tapes for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I've been looking at them ever since - they're almost too pretty to use! I'm thinking they would look nice as a trim on some 'tweedie' fabric hearts when I get the time to experiment.

Also in the pic, my tartan ribbon which gets used quite a lot, a little bit of bling (sequins) appearing on a tweedie bauble, some fabric buttons (my bumblebee embroidered one which I was quite pleased with), and to the left, a little box which my youngest made in school (made from mathcboxes), which gets used for storing little things that would otherwise get lost in my 'creative jungle'.

Ah well, better get on with the job in hand, which unfortunately means a heap of housework today - maybe, if I'm good, I'll squeeze some crafting in . . . much later! More creative peeps over here :)

Flower Power

I think it has taken me a couple of days to unwind from the craft fair - even although it was quite relaxing once I got there, it's always a bit of work actually to arrive with stock in tow!

On Sunday, to unwind!, I decided to make one of my little 'tweedie' bears which I have been making for some time for my own website and for selling locally. When I started my 'embroidery' crash-course, I had it in mind that I would like to customize my little bears with some fun embroidery.

At the end of a busy day yesterday, I decided to pick up the little 'blank' bear and go mad with some embroidery - I really enjoyed using different colours and stitches. Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but I had fun making him and have a few more ideas jotted down for embellished teddy bears. I added this one to my Etsy 'plush' shop, which is very much becoming my 'creative space' where I will be listing one-off designs and generally fun stuff!

For some time I've had it in mind to make a lavender bag or pouch or something similar as a gift idea for an older person perhaps. I decided to have a go yesterday and came up with this little pouch:

Very Scottish! It just seemed to turn out that way, and after looking at the tweed I'd chosen, I realized the colours tied in really well with the wild heather which is in bloom just over the road from my home at the moment. Hey, you just couldn't buy that kind of marketing, could you! Call me an opportunist but I can't help living in the middle of nowhere beside wild expanses of open moorland! (there has to be some advantages to my 'sometimes bleak' geographical position!)

I ended up packaging the little pouch up in the same way I package my 'tiny-tweedies', on a hessian bag (which I purchase from a small local company, I'm pleased to say) and wrapped in cellophane. I had the brainwave of including an extra little refill of dried lavender - I had purchased these little bags for something completely different but they just seemed to fit the bill perfectly for this gift idea. I'm quite pleased with it as an end product - they may well end up on my own website, but I can always add one to Etsy if anyone wants one there! A nice Christmas gift idea, I think. Sorry, I did NOT really mention Christmas, did I???

You can see, my embroidery is coming into force here! The lovely Gretchen has been a huge inspiration too me as far as embroidery is concerned and she has a fab tutorial for a drawstring bag at the moment (I cheated a little with mine - it's called the magic of Harris Tweed, hehe!).

Cheerio an Drasda!

Back from the Gig!

While it's still fresh in my mind a brief summary of today's music festival craft market:

Ooooh, I've always fancied having a 'booth' at a craft market and here they all are, lined up neatly in a row - aren't they cute?

A close up shot of my stall - I made the spangly hearts especially for the fair, although I promised myself I didn't have time to make any more stock.

A nice day out, a few sales and some good music. I can't ask for more than that and I'm giving myself extra 'brownie' points for effort, considering that it was the week the kids went back to school and I was feeling shattered! It was a really well organised musical event and the stewards were attentive in looking out for the stall holders and that everything was OK for us - I even got sprayed with midge repellent by a kind steward!!

Quite a fun venue and nice to chat to a few folk about my 'tweedie' wares and to sell a few bits and pieces. Let's face it people don't go to a music festival to buy crafts so making the few sales I did was quite appreciated. Next year I'll have to wear my flowery wellies as my feet got a bit soggy in the boggy ground - seasoned festival go-er I ain't!!

Have a lovely weekend :)

my creative space(s) . . .

This old raggedy ruck-sack is the one I've used in the past to pack my 'essentials' for craft-fairs, and the 'tweedie' ball is embroidered with the musical event I'm attending with my 'tweedie' wares this weekend. The timing of this event is not the best - 2 days after the kids start school and not having allowed myself a huge amount of time to prepare, but what the heck, if nothing else there might be some good music to listen to and a good variety of customers to boot!

Other Half is taking the boys along, so 'muggins' is going along with her wares - who knows, I might even sell something!

Here's my 'embroidery lesson' creative space from the beginning of the week: (yes, that's an embroidered button you can just about see - with a bumblebee on it - I got really carried away!)

. . . and another more detailed pic:

I had a ball learning all the embroidery stitches and I'm really glad I took some time out to learn them -mission complete! (my sun is not yet finished, hence the gaps at the base)

Today, the boys are back in school and I'm going to chill out a bit from crafting (I'm all packed up and ready for the fair) and try not to worry too much about 'teenage son' in his new school - yikes, he'll be fine I keep telling him and myself! 'Little S' is going back to the same classroom, school, school teacher - so no worries there.

Wish me luck for my craft-fair - I might need it! I'm told that the 'seating arrangements' involve bales of straw! - Oh, by heck, what have I let myself in for!! :)

Cheery Bye!

Added 5 minutes later: well I might be tempted to make just one little 'tweedie' teddy or two - ooops, Craft Addict! There's more of us lurking over here!

The Early Bird . . .

Just as my 'Other Half' was about to leave for work this morning, I spotted a flock of wild geese across the way from our house. I tried to creep up on them in a 'David Attenborough' kind of way to get a really good wildlife shot but alas . . .

. . . the sight of me, first thing in the morning was obviously a bit too scary!

. . . off to sunnier climes, perhaps, or just a quieter spot where they won't be disturbed by scary-looking, amateur wildlife photographers! Sorry geese - come back soon :)

My New Hobby!

No, not photography, bees or wildflowers - but I do like them all too! After spending quite a large part of the weekend browsing my new books (I told you I would!), embroidery has taken a hold on me. The great thing about is that I was really looking for something to enjoy for myself and not necessarily for any other reason (although it will definitely come in handy for decorating my sofites!)

The photo above which I took at the weekend gave me the idea for practicing some of my newly acquired embroidery stitches. I had an oddment of linen (part of a bundle of off-cuts) which I'd decided to use (I love this fabric, pricewise it seems to be on a par with Harris Tweed though - ouch!)

Here's a little piece of the design - I used a fabric marker to transfer my doodles onto the linen, but being air soluble they had disappeared within an hour! Perhaps the marker was a little too effective - I wanted it to stay long enough for me to finish my design! I had to go 'free form' then and just make it up as I went along.

I grappled a bit with the embroidery hoop - we are not 'best of friends'! But it keeps the fabric taut which is required for quite a lot of the stitches. My kids thought it was very funny to see me demurely stitching away. I'm usually to be found stuffing some pure creature with toy stuffing or scrabbling about on the floor cutting out a new pattern. Perhaps I'm getting a bit refined in my old age!

But I still like scrabbling about on the floor, so the embroidery will have to fit in somewhere when I'm looking for a bit of quiet time : )

My boys will be going back to school this week, so I'll be getting them all sorted and kitted out. If I'm not here, I'll be counting school pencils, straightening school-ties or hunting down abandoned school books!

Cheerio an Drasda :)

Weekend Reading

I'm going to be good to myself this weekend. A bit of the old domestic chores this morning, kids bedrooms sorted (after the chaos, otherwise known as 'school holidays'!), a bit of the old laundry duties, perhaps some de-cluttering here and there, and then . . .

. . . I'm going to put my feet up and browse through this lovely collection of embroidery books I purchased with an Amazon token I received for my birthday (sorry Bro - yet more craft books!!).

I've been thinking quite a lot about embroidery/'surface decoration' recently and it definitely must have been on my mind when I purchased not one, but three books on the subject! The first one at the top is by Aimee Ray and is absolutely fantastic - it's called Doodle-Stitching and has some fantastic ideas, beautifully illustrated and I'm absolutely delighted with it!

The middle one is called Woolly Embroidery and is a translated Japanese craft book - not quite such good value for money but almost worth it for the fabulous embroidery on the front cover. It's all about embroidering with wool - "crewel work, stump work, canvas work and more". When I figure out what they all are, I'll get back to you!

The last one is called 'the new crewel' by Katherine Shaugnessy - a beautifully illustrated book focusing entirely on 'crewel' embroidery which is all new to me, but it looks pretty good!

Woe betide the person (or child) who dares to challenge my plans for the weekend - sorry, did that sound a little threatening, hehe!! (that was an evil laugh by the way).

Hope you're going to be good to yourself this weekend - go on, you deserve it!

Bye for now :)

My Creative Space . . . and a Winner!

Back to work this week, both in my 'Other Job' and my crafty business too. All that's left to remind me of our long summer break is this sweet little trinket box I bought in the Continental street market which brought our local town to life for the last week! Who needs to go abroad when you can buy fabulous gifts from all over Europe on your doorstep, well I do actually! Maybe next summer - *sigh* : /

It sits atop my notebooks with my 'To Do' list - note all the little boxes waiting to be ticked! Check crafting supplies, check packaging supplies - I swear I spend more time ticking off lists than I do crafting sometimes!

For more creative addicts hop on over to kootoyoo's lovely blog :)

P.S. Please check this post for my Giveaway winner - Teddy is dying to tell you!

And the Winner is . . . !

Go on teddy, don't keep us in suspense! Teddy has been sitting on the settee for the last couple of days, I've no idea why, but I thought he could do the honours and draw the winning entry for the Giveaway from this old straw hat. I had to give him a little help with these big paws!

And the winner of the 'tweedie' cushion is entry number (4) who is FLORCITA (Marian) (I will be in touch shortly by e-mail Marian to get contact details).

Teddy sends you HUGE congratulations and me too! Your prize will be in the post very shortly and I will add a little something just for extra 'tweedieness'!

Thank you all for the lovely comments on my 'tweedie' cushion and the great suggestions for its use - they were all fabulous and some ideas I would never have thought of! If you didn't win and you really, really, really, loved it, I will be popping another one into my shop very soon (I know it's a poor consolation but . . . )

A big bear hug to you all for entering my Giveaway :)

Cheerio an Drasda!

P.S. I published this post after midnight but it's still showing up as Wednesday - don't know why!!

Eek-a-Boo!

Ever get the feeling you're being watched? Three 'tweedie' ladybugs/ladybirds destined for the Gallery shop - I hope they'll all look after each other over there!

That's pretty much the end of my Gallery 'order', apart from a dinosaur or two, which will now have to wait a bit. It's great to get a request for some of my tweedie creations - this time I was asked for a wider variety of my products which was more fun to work on. Also a lot of hard work though!! Sale or Return method of selling my items works out quite well as the shop is local and I can call in from time to time to see how things are selling.

A word of warning though - be sure to package your goods as they can get well thumbed when on display, especially if they are for children. I have an item in the shop at the moment which I may have to retrieve - I didn't package it and it was looking slightly shop-soiled the last time I called in. It wasn't really suitable to have on dispay in a busy shop, without any protective packaging - you live and learn!

Back on Thursday with the winner of the Giveaway - it will close on Wednesday at midnight, so you still have a chance to win a cute 'tweedie' cushion!

Bye for Now :)

P.S. My 'tweedie' ladybirds are available in my own shop to order too.

Spotless!

No, not my house, unfortunately - I wish!! Just these 3 little butterflies and ladybugs, which are pretty much the last of the order I've been working on, on and off, over the last two weeks. Just the spots to add and a little decorative work on the features. These are really hard work to make, but they look nice when they're all finished and packaged up.

It's a crafter's dilemma, I think, reproducing designs. It's always great fun to come up with the idea, do the little doodles in your notebook, do a prototype and Voila! Then you get asked to make 5 of each design - which is great, and at the same time a hard slog. My 'tweedies' seem to have sold quite well over the Summer in the Gallery shop which makes me think it's an aspect of my business I shouldn't neglect. I just keep getting side-stepped into creating new designs and generally having too much fun crafting - eeek!

My 'Other Half' is at this very minute cutting out a toy gun from plywood in the Garage for 'Little S' - I know, it's not very PC! At least it will be made from wood and there's a bit of creativity involved. Boys will be boys!

(Please don't send me hate-mail 'cos my kids play with toy-guns, they're very nice boys - honest!!)

Bye for Now :)

Getting Back to Work - Yippee!

I declare this weekend as 'Getting Back to Work'! Well, if you can call 'crafting' work, I find it a pretty inviting prospect myself, but in terms of putting my own website back to accepting orders (Whoa! Don't all rush at once - hehe!!) and generally getting back to thinking where I'm going with it all. I've kept my Etsy shops open as I was really wanting to concentrate on filling them up a bit.

I've spent the last couple of days playing around with the new camera which is pretty much an exact replacement for the one we had. But why do they make them so 'tiddly', that's what I want to know? Perhaps we'll all slowly evolve into tiny little people in order to comfortably use all these tiny little gadgets!! I don't know - anyway, it seems to have all the features, tweaks and knobs that the old one had, which I never used!, but it did take good photos so hopefully this one will too.

Been giving my little business a bit of thought and streamlining things a bit - down to concentrating on my original website, my two Etsy shops and putting occasional stock into my local Art Gallery shop. I think that's quite enough for 'little old me', thank you very much!!

Here's to creativity and having fun - 'cos' if it ain't fun it ain't worth it! That's my pearl of wisdom for today!

Finally, a fond farewell to my old Canon Powershot - we loved you - RIP! Hubby can use you for his fishing trips and the like, hehe!

Off to dig out my crafting tools to finish off the last of my Gallery order (on a 'Sale or Return' basis by the way) and to doing lots of lovely uninspiring domestic chores!

Have a fun, relaxing weekend :)

looking at . . . my creative space

I thought I'd pop in today after my little blogging break to join in the weekly 'my creative space' spot. I've had lots of things I could have blogged about in the last week, but decided that with all the family around it was best to draw a halt for a few days at least!

This is a little test shot for our new camera which I decided to treat myself with for my birthday last weekend. I'm sitting at the opposite side of the room having a cup of tea and toast and looking at my creative space, which I love. With the light streaming in the window, it's looking very inviting to me this morning! It's not much, but I like it :)

More lovely spaces over at Kootoyoo's fab place!