My lovely customers

Last week, one of my customers emailed me some photos of pictures and cards that she needlefelts using the wool roving she buys from my little website. Her work is absolutely beautiful and I asked her whether she sold her work and I was amazed when she said that she just tends to give them away to friends !! So, after admiring one of her pieces in particular I told her that she really must think about charging for her work and not keep giving it away !

Yesterday morning, when I got home from the school run I found a box addressed to me sitting on my doorstep.

Hmmmm - what could it be ? I was pretty sure all of my stock had already arrived for next week's show

Ooooh - how exciting - a beautifully wrapped parcel

A wonderful hand written printed card - hang on, I recognise that seagull

Oh WOW - it's the washing line picture I'd admired !!!

THANK YOU MORVEN - I absolutely love it !! But you really MUST start charging for your wonderful work !!

I LOVE my customers. Thank you to all of you who send me photos of your work - I promise I will try and update the customer gallery page on my website once I'm back from the show and give you all credit for your wonderful work.

Talking of next week's show ... advance warning that all orders received between Monday 5th October and Monday 12th October inclusive will not be processed or dispatched until Tuesday 13th October. All orders will then be processed in turn and I do apologise if you have to wait a little while for your order to be dispatched. Your patience is, however, greatly appreciated.

And one last thing for today - it's my little man's 7th birthday today. 7 years old !! I can't believe it - where has the time gone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM - LOVE YOU xxxx

Felt Frenzy

OK, so now I'm going felt crazy. FINALLY, my shipment of feltiness arrived after having been held in customs for over a week as they'd changed the import rules back in July and no-one told me !

The race is now on to get everything counted and bagged up in time for the show which is now just over a week away : eek

Unpacked yesterday :

• Wool Roving
• Felt Balls - beaded and plain - new colour now available - C2 which is turquoise
• Felt String
• Felt Sheets
• Felt Pebbles
• Felt Hearts

and, introducing (drum roll) ......................................................................................................................

FELT STARS !!!!

These are the new addition to my wet-felted range and match the pebbles and hearts. At the moment, I'm only putting a limited amount on the website because I need to take lots to the show with me, but I've had a number of customers request these particular stars and I have to say they are really lovely. Perfect to use as Christmas decorations either plain as they are, or embellished. These should be on the site within a couple of days.

Earlier this week I actually ran out of felt so was unable to finish the felt stacks. But with new supplies now here, I can finish these off. Sadly, sewing through each stack and finishing off with a button at either end was way too time consuming so after a quick family brain-storming session it was decided that I should use up the ribbon that had been languishing in a box upstairs for far too long and tie up each stack like a little parcel. Much quicker and, I think, quite pretty. Hopefully customers to my stand will think so too !

Child labour is alive and kicking in our house ... Sam & Grace have both been helping me with counting out and bagging up felt balls, stars, pebbles and hearts. They really love helping me with my little business and I have to say that yesterday I couldn't have done without Grace. Fortunately for her (and you !) she only needed to put one of each colour felt star into each bag and she did a brilliant job. We managed to get 80 sets of felt stars bagged up in no time at all !!

Today is Grace's 4th birthday. She's had a lovely day with lots and lots of pressies and a great party with all of her friends this afternoon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACIE - LOVE YOU !!! xxx

Seeing Spots !

Last week, one of my school mum friends came over to help me with getting organised for the Knitting & Stitching Show.

Her job was to count out and bag up buttons. And more buttons. And even more buttons ! If she wasn't seeing spots before, she certainly was by the time she had finished ! Thanks Alison - you did a fab job !!

My job was to stick little felt flowers onto the sample cards. I've decided to take a whole load of these with me to the show, just in case I run out of felt sheets and then people can see what they could have bought .... if they'd have been quicker !!

I've also spent my spare (!) time cutting out felt gift tags, which are now stored in colour order in my lovely baskets and will have the prices embroidered onto the corresponding shaped gift tag, which will hang from the handle of the basket. Hmmm - I think I might be getting a little carried away now ! But, sometimes it pays to give people ideas as to how they might actually use my goodies. Sadly, not everyone has the forsight to think how to use my goodies, so a gentle shove in the right direction usually does the job !

5000 leaflets have been printed (and re-folded by my parents and sister - thanks guys x - as the printers had folded them wrongly) and are sitting in boxes in the playroom (you see, it's starting to take over !) 2000 printed paper carrier bags are on their way to me. The chip & pin machine has been ordered. I'm still waiting for my huge felt delivery which should, fingers crossed, be here next week. Once that arrives I can start to bag up even more grab bags of felt balls, hearts, pebbles and the new addition to that range. Can't tell you what just yet - but watch out for my next blog post. More crochet flowers have been crocheted (thanks Carmen), price lists are done and are waiting to be printed, price tags are waiting to be typed up and printed, label tops are printed and have been cut out by my Father-in-Law whilst they were visiting this weekend - thanks Terry ! x. Felt stacks are cut and stacked and just need threading together with something and finishing off / securing with a button at either end ... you see, I am definitely getting carried away now and feel like I'm actually making more work for myself !!

Oooh, oooh. Another thing I just thought of .... check these out !!

Remember the little 15mm red spotty buttons that I sell (well, when I have them in stock that is. But sadly my supplier has been out of stock of the small red spotties for months ... literally). So how do these grab you instead?

GIANT red and white spotty buttons and GIANT navy and white spotty buttons - measuring a MASSIVE 55mm! £2.50 each - glue a brooch pin on the back - attach them to a lovely snuggly jumper or your winter coat and away you go ! Watch people's faces as they clock your funky new brooch !!

Also back in stock are the BIG ONE purple buttons, along with new BIG ONE lime green buttons and new BIG ONE blue buttons.

All of these buttons are now available on the website

Today was Sam's brithday party - we had all the boys from his class and his best friend Chloe to the party, and went here. It's a fab place and the kids (and their Dads !) all really enjoyed the zip wires, climbing walls and rope courses, followed by lunch in the secret nuclear bunker !!

One party down, one to go - Grace's party is next weekend so I'm off to put together party bags for her party next Saturday and then thread some of the felt stacks together! It's great being a working mum !!!

Sarah x

A little bit of Retail Therapy

Sometimes, just sometimes (not very often though), I get a little fed up with just buying stuff for the website. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of the stuff that I buy to sell in my little webshop and for the most part it does satisfy my shopaholic tendancies .

But when there's a nip in the air (ok - so it's been almost 80 degress here over the last couple of days, but you get what I mean ?!), the leaves start to change colour and I get a little stressed out whenever I look at my TO DO list, I think that there has to be some perks to working so hard . So I hit the internet in search of goodies just for me !!

Etsy is usually my first stop because I love to wear stuff that's a little different. I had this gorgeous necklace in my favourite items list for ages and ages and kept looking at it and deliberating whether I should treat myself or not. The last time I went to look at it, it had been SOLD !! Arghhhh.

Not to worry - I will convo the shopkeeper and ask ever so nicely if she would mind doing me another one. "Of course" came the reply "I'd love to". So, to Gill (if you're reading this blog) - THANK YOU !! I adore it. And to make it even better, the other lovely item I bought from her had a little freebie with it as well. Double THANK YOU !!

Hmmm - what next ? Maybe some new clothes? I'd had in my mind that I wanted a denim pinafore dress that I could wear over leggings but despite searching most of the high street type shoppies on the net, no-one seemed to have any. So I went to that dreaded site Ebay. I know, I know - it's not the ideal place to go clothes shopping, but when you can't find what you want anywhere else, chances are Ebay will have it. And they did !!

I found a BNWT Alexa Chung denim pinafore in my size and a bargain at £2.99. Lovely - thank you very much. And I have to say that when it arrived I was thrilled to bits with it - it fits perfectly (even if it makes me take wonky photos !)

Then, one of my favourite clothes websites sent me an email announcing their Autumn catalogue so I thought I'd have a look and see if they had any nice jeans. Unfortunately not ... BUT look what I did get !!!

The description for this top said "its fun and funky and should never be worn by miserable people!" How true - I'm a happy bunny (or should that be happy owl ?)

This is really fab and I wore it yesterday drawing admiring glances and comments - well, I think they were about the top - I did check that it wasn't tucked in my knickers or anything and am pretty sure it wasn't so the comments must have been about my cool new top ! I'm definitely going to wear this at Ally Pally.

Then - can you tell I was really getting into shopping just for me by now?!! I found a gorgeous tunic dress / top in Next - ok, so everyone else will be wearing it as well, but it's just soooo nice that I couldn't say no !

And finally, with winter on the way I thought I'd treat myself to a new pair of boots. And guess what? They look great with all of my lovely purchases !

SORTED !!