Helloweeeee !!

Hiya !!

We've made it back from Cornwall, wet and bedraggled unfortunately, but we did have a good time :o)

I was rather brave whilst down there and visited a number of shops and galleries with some of my felt accessories. I just want to say a massive THANK YOU to Sara of all-about-eden who had very kindly done some groundwork for me the week before and checked out a number of places that were suitable and then sent me an envelope full of business cards and leaflets and suggested that I visit some of them. Sara - you're a star !! A little thank you will be winging its way to you very shortly.

As a result of visiting some of the places, I managed to secure quite a large order of my loopy felt brooches and also needle-felted brooches with Crafty's Country Store in St Ives. I also spoke to a lovely lady in the most fantastic litle bead shop in St Ives and she gave me a tip off about a few other places I could try and also a couple of websites that might be worth contacting. Of course, it would have been rude not to buy something from her shop after spending so long chatting to her, so I purchased these lovely little seed beads which will be used on my Christmas stock. They also have a website where you can buy beads online - so if any of you beaders out there are interested, the website is http://www.gjbeads.co.uk/

I also dropped leaflets and business cards off at a number of other places and spoke with a lady at the Duke Stret Gallery in Newlyn who also happened to own another gallery in St Ives and she is quite interested in some of my felt corsages. So ... a busy time all in all and added to that, I also received 3 orders through my website whilst I was away, so spent all of last night packaging orders up to be shipped off today.

I really should go away on holiday more often because when I got back I checked the answerphone and there was a message from a lady who is organising a charity christmas shopping event (for "ladies that lunch" !) and wondered whether I would be interested in taking a table. Of course, I said yes and she then gave me 2 fantastic contacts, both local to where I live, who she thought would be interested is stocking my felt accessories, so I shall be contacting them both tomorrow and will let you know how I get on.

Another thing that was REALLY exciting was the fact that I received a phone call (whilst I was sitting in the pouring rain on the little Lappa Valley Railway) from the features editor of Crafts Beautiful magazine. You may recall that last month I placed a joint advert with Sarah from paper-and-string in the magazine? Well, the features editor wants to do an article on me and my needle-felted accessories !!! YAY - fame at last ;0) She wants to me to send her some of my hair bobbles, fridge magnets and hairclips for them to feature and also a piece about how I got into felting and what I like about it. Fingers crossed it will kick start the felting supplies side of my website.

I've just realised that this post sounds a bit like a self-promotional article, which I really didn't intend it to be, but I was just so excited about all of the things that happened whilst I was away - I just had to tell you lovely like-minded crafty people. Apologies if it seems like I'm blowing my own trumpet - I'm really not.

Of course, going on holiday means spending money and I couldn't resist this lovely card for my hubby as it's our wedding anniversay on Sunday (although Paul will be on his way back from Snowden as he's taking part in the 3-Peaks 24 Hour Challenge this weekend). I shall be dismantling the card in the future though because I want to reuse that lovely ceramic button. You can buy the buttons from Stockwell Ceramics

We also splashed out on this beautiful print which will take pride of place in our hallway (apologies for the flash in the middle of the picture !). It's entitled "St Ives on a Foggy Day" and is a little reminder of Paul's roots back in Cornwall.

and these little coat pegs for Grace's room and towel clips for Sam & Grace's towels in the bathroom

And now, it's back down to earth with a bump - sorting the piles of washing and ironing out.

Sarah x