Rain, Rain Go Away ..

I don't know about you, but I'm getting REALLY fed up with all this rain. I know it's good for the garden and that lots of rain hopefully means no hosepipe bans, but I'm getting just a bit bored of it all now.

Of course, the trouble with lots of rain means that I tend to stay indoors and although I should be busy restocking and starting to get my Christmas range organised, I tend to find myself "researching" lots of things on the net, which then means I get totally side-tracked and invariably end up buying lots of lovely things (particularly from fellow crafters and bloggers).

I just couldn't help myself the other day after reading Kim from Ragged Roses blog. She has got a fabulous talent for making "raggy" flowers and accessories and sells her gorgeous work through etsy. So after day-dreaming about how my new studio would look (lots of white to reflect the light) I just had to treat myself

AND I got a free gift too (unfortunately I can't seem to find the photo at the moment though - grrrrr !) Thank you so much Kim - they're both really lovely.

I also received a little note from my good friend Sarah at paper-and-string recently and enclosed was this

What a lovely idea. Thank you Sarah x

It never ceases to amaze me the wonderful talents crafters have and I'm always so jealous whenever I see something I absolutely love and wish that I was as talented as them. The trouble with me is that I can't just stick to one or two different crafts - I always want to try everything out and then think that maybe I could sell some of these different crafts and then I just can't keep up with everything !

I started out with my hand-stitched textile pictures (which is really my first love, but unfortunately not a big seller for some strange reason), and then moved on to making corsages and brooches from felt, then discovered needle-felting and so designed a range of felted accessories, and I have just come across another wonderful craft called Needle Punch. Basically, this involves using a special tool and working from the back of a piece of pre-printed fabric to create loops on the front, thus creating a beautiful picture, just like this

I desperately want to give this a go, but just haven't got the time. My "To Do" list is getting bigger by the minute as I'm thinking of adding a new range of "one off" pictures to my current range of textile pictures as well as a range of hand-stitched greetings cards. Arghhhh, I just wish someone would tell me to stop and concentrate on the one thing that will be the most popular. But it's sooooooooooo difficult.

We're off down to Cornwall on Wednesday to stay with the in-laws for a week and I can't wait to wander around all the lovely crafty shops in St Ives, Fowey, Padstow, Mousehole etc (and probably see lots of new crafts that I'd love to try out !!) I have mailed a few places to introduce myself and included photos of some of my work and asked if it would be possible to meet them with a view to them stocking some of my pieces. Tomorrow morning will be spent calling them up to see if they might be interested - fingers crossed !!!

So, I won't be blogging for a week or so, but when I get back I'll hopefully have lots of photos of the wonderful crafts I've seen down in Cornwall.

Have a good week or so xxxx