Ready for Etsy?

We've just had hailstones here in the Outer Hebrides. Brrrrrr .... it seemed like the middle of winter all of a sudden. Anyway, as promised here's the completed little teddies which I was working on during my October break. The plan is to get them up and listed in my Etsy shop in the next couple of days, to get the ball rolling, and hopefully then gradually add a few more items. I enjoy making handmade cards, so I hope they will feature amongst other items. These are some which I designed in the summer to accompany my seaside-tweedies collection.

I really enjoyed making these and used a nice quality felt with a high wool content which was a dream to use. (I think it came from E-bay and was orignally from Japan). Harris Tweed background of course!

I was working on some 'freebies' yesterday, so I hope to get it together and do a giveaway by the end of the week, or at least over the weekend. I've been looking forward to doing this as I love the idea of my little tweedie 'creations' winging their way across the world somewhere, or maybe even across the Minch (that's the strip of sea that separates the Isle of Lewis from mainland Scotland!). But I don't mind if they end up in the Outer Hebrides either!

Well, my kids are still on their school holidays so I'd better go and do some 'mummy' things with them ..... like feeding them!! Bye for now.

P.S. I've figured out why my images were appearing half the size on my last post so hopefully back to better, bigger images now!

Dress a Doll Project?

I've been making little souvenir Harris Tweed dressed dolls for a while now. The only problem with them is that the body of the doll is quite time consuming to make and the entire product is difficult to price for that reason. I removed them from my original shop a while ago. I've always been interested in making soft toy kits of some kind or another, however.

I stripped some of my souvenir dolls of their little Harris Tweed outfits and though it would be fun to make a kit and enclose enough tweed to make a simple outfit. A couple of felt circles would serve as buttons, and I'm thinking of some other trims to add such as ribbon, etc to encourage a bit of creativity! Simple enough for a young child to put together with some adult supervision.

I had some fun today designing some packaging for them and composing a little blurb on the reverse on how to dress your doll. Unfortunately it was so late in the afternoon, I had lost the time to take a good photograph, as you can see! I think they would be fun to either sell on my Etsy shop or at local craft fairs, or maybe I should try them out on my nieces first!

I'll post a little message here if I get it together to put some in my Etsy shop - once I figure out how to do it!! The five teddies I set myself to make over the October break are now ready so I'll post a picture of them next week. Maybe a giveaway is in order to celebrate - yikes!!

(You can click on any of the images to see a larger view)

You can see a better pic with some of my doodles here!

More Cake Anyone?

I know - blogging about chocolate cake two weeks in a row seems a bit excessive, scraping the barrel, or just plain piggy! But I do have good reason for posting this pic as it's not just any old chocolate cake but my oldest son's birthday cake. Today my son is now a TEENAGER - Aaaargh!

Little did I imagine during the gloom of my own teenage years that I would become a forty-something, married woman, with a teenage son of my own! It's a funny old world - and I feel that today is a real milestone for me as a mother and for my son entering a whole new phase of life. Happy Birthday Son!

One down .....

Well, I'm a little embarrassed to be featuring this little ted on my blog today ... but he's all I've got! I set myself the task of completing five little teddies this week, at my leisure! This is the first complete one and there's four more stuffed ones ready to have features embroidered. Hardly ground-breaking design, as I've been making them for quite some time. I hand-stitched a little felt heart onto these ones - Aaaawww! They'll hopefully make it to my Etsy shop.

I've been frantically designing and photographing my work for the last two years now, so playing catch-up on my blog is a bit of a pointless activity - it would take weeks of posting previous designs, inspirations, etc. I hope my best work isn't behind me!! Anyway, I find these little fellows quite relaxing to make and once they're sewn and stuffed, they're like a blank little canvas waiting to be embellished! They were a realistic target for this week.

Here's some nice pics of sea and sand (in the Hebrides!)to pass the time until I get back to full-time crafting!

Cheerio an drasda!

Flickr faves (cos I'm still on my hols!)

Here's a selection of my favourites from my Flickr travels, so far. (It took me long enough to figure out how to do this!!). And I must say that "Toasty Cat" by Marjji must be my all time favourite - what a photo, what a pose .... what a cat!!

1. Genau Von Stimmt, 2. ermelinda e florinda, 3. Fish, 4. Mabel and Melinda, 5. Felted Wool Pear, 6. eenie :), 7. Flame Skimmer, 8. Undies!, 9. Gang of Kindie-Garden Plush Dolls5, 10. Halloween Kitties, 11. my bat minions, 12. Doll outside, 13. Toasty Cat, 14. Rex, 15. ...(by matilde beldroega), 16. Ingrid

I used "fd's flickr toys" to create this mosaic, and inserted the html for each photo individually as I had numerous other attempts using my entire "favourites" selection - some images appeared blank for some reason. (If anyone else has problems doing this I'd be happy to assist because it really drove me nuts!!)

Bye for Now
Oidhche Mhath!

I've Cracked ...

I had to concede defeat eventually to my own self-inflicted crafting-break this week and gave in to cutting out some little teddies, ready to sew at my own leisure - (which is unlikely this week, being the school holidays!)but at least I know I can pick them up anytime. Pheewww, must have been getting withdrawal symptoms! I hope to put these into my Etsy shop, and perhaps add a little extra detail/finishing, to them. I'll show them off when they're done.

This week, my big sisters and my nieces are up on holiday from the big smoke (Glasgow, that is!). Its great to get some family support for my crafting endeavours, which I really appreciate. My blogging habits have taken things to another dimension again, while my Other Half looks on bemusedly while I "chat" to the rest of the planet, comments like: "Moms talking to the world again" or "Shouldn't you be making the tea now?" are more common than not. However, now that I've grasped the fundamentals of blogging, I hope to be able to whip up a post in a jiffy! (while juggling making the tea, of course!!).

Cake, Dinosaurs, Blogging and Me!

My son came home from school today with a beautiful, yummy chocolate cake he had made in Home Economics so I took a picture of it. Cake seems to be a popular blogging shot and as I like eating it, it seemed like a good shot for my blog! (It was extremely yummy, by the way!)

My digital camera has been one battery short of a full load for the past few days (I used the fourth one in my wireless mouse - decisions had to be made! - laptop or camera). Apart from this, my blogging, flickr and Etsy research doesn't generate too many great pics as that's what I've been doing the last few days! I'm still on my crafting break but the old wheels are starting to turn, and on a trip to the library today some books on celtic symbols caught my eye - an idea in progress maybe! Anyway, instead of crafting pics I've decided to blog some 'lifestyle??!/personal*' pics.

I've had these vintage dinosaur patterns sitting on pride of place beside my laptop now for a few months. I bid for them on E-bay, not expecting to get them, but I did and here they are. I love them! More for inspiration and some pattern construction details, than anything else - I think I should put them in a glass case!

... and since I seem to have been posting a lot of interior shots, here's a pic I took today at the back of our house - it's been a beautiful, sunny, autumn day here so everything looks shiny and glistening - the sea especially:

and here's a picture of me taking pictures for my blog!:

These frown lines are a bit worrying! - the apron (William Morris design, don't you know!) is what I wear when I'm supposed to be doing something domesticated to put me in 'work' mode - it doesn't always work!