The new website is here !

Hurrah !!!

After a very loooooooooong time, our new website is finally here. Well, I say "new website" - to everyone at Blooming Felt Shedquarters it is a "new website". To our customers, it probably looks exactly the same, but look closely felt fans and you'll see some fantastic new features have appeared !

New features like "Create an Account".

"What will happen if I create an account?" I hear you ask. Well, if you create an account with us then you'll be eligible to receive Loyalty Points on all of your Blooming Felt purchases ! And what do Loyalty Points make? They make a nice little stash of money that can be redeemed against future purchases with us ! It's just our way of saying THANK YOU for shopping with us. We really do appreciate it ! Full details of our Loyalty Scheme can be found here

We'll be giving away BONUS Loyalty Points for different occasions. The first will be to anyone who leaves a Product Review for any of our products, and that we publish. Don't forget though, you need to Create an Account to be eligible for Loyalty Points. We cannot, unfortunately, award Loyalty Points retrospectively. You have been warned !

So, "What else is new?" I hear you cry !

Oh, where to start ?!!!

Create an Account with us and you can set up a "Wish List" of all of your favourite Blooming Felt goodies. Store your favs in your wishlist and then, when it's Christmas or birthday or anniversary, or "I'm having a bad day and need to treat myself" or "I'm sorry I'm such a mean person" time, you can give people the link to our website, along with your email address and they can see exactly what's on your wishlist and then buy it for you !!!!! How cool is that ?!!

And if, for whatever reason, they don't look at your wishlist (some men are like that I know), they can always buy you a GIFT VOUCHER !!!!!!!! Or, you can buy someone else a Gift Voucher if you fancy ! We can email you the voucher for you to print out and give in person to the lucky recipient or, you can have it emailed directly to that lucky person by inputting all of their email details, along with a lovely little note from yourself.

If, heaven forbid, something that you want to buy is out of stock (I know, sometimes it happens) then you can click on the "email me when back in stock" link and that's just what we'll do ! You'll get a jaunty little email from us and then you can go spend your hard-earned pennies on the stuff you've been patiently waiting for, and of course, earn LOYALTY POINTS on it.

Now, at Blooming Felt Shedquarters we luuuuurve Craft Books. The problem we have is that there are so many craft books that we love, we just don't have the space to stock them all. The other thing is that Amazon likes to sell all of our favourite craft books at way below the RRP, and at way below what we would be able to sell them for. So, in order to combine our love of craft books with Amazon's super-cheap prices, we have created a Blooming Felt Bookstore !!

Go to the Craft Books section on our website and you'll see all of the recommendations from the Girls here at Blooming Felt. If you want to buy any of those fantastic recommendations, just add them to your shopping cart. NOTE: These books will be added to your AMAZON shopping cart and not your Blooming Felt shopping cart. You can then purchase and pay for your selected books through Amazon, take advantage of their low prices and, in most cases, free shipping direct from Amazon. The other thing you need to be aware of is that sadly, you cannot collect Loyalty Points on Craft Books purchased through Amazon. I mean, come on ... you're getting cheap prices and free shipping !!

More new features will be added to our site on a fairly regular basis and we'll keep you updated as to when these happen. In the meantime, we hope the new features mentioned above will make shopping with us even more exciting ! There might be a few blips in the system to begin with so please bear with us - we'll be keeping a very close eye on the website for any problems and would appreciate your feedback with regards to any problems you do experience, any also any feedback about how the site looks / feels / works.

And finally, something you might want to double check. If you've got us, or any of our products saved in your favourites or bookmarks, please delete them and resave them from our new website. Even though we look pretty much the same, we aren't ! Behind the scenes, elves have been working away and this means that links that were saved previously ie. before 20th January 2012, won't work. So do please clear your caches, browsers, temporary internet files, favourites & bookmarks, of any links to us and then resave them from the new site.

So, I think we've taken up enough of your time reading this - hopefully you're itching to get onto the new site and see what all the excitement is about.

Off you go then .........

www.bloomingfelt.co.uk

It's all happening here

Hello, hello, hello my lovely readers.

Things have finally quietened down just a little bit and I've been able to take a breath and regroup myself ! Sadly, it will probably only last for a little while as the builders are back next week, this time removing the bathroom ! Honestly, why can't we just leave things alone ?

After the fiasco last year with the kitchen, you'd have thought that we'd have had enough of living in a mess for much longer than we were told, but no. Less than a year later we have decided that it is time for the bathroom to be refitted and that beautiful old roll-top bath that we bought last June and that has been residing in the garage ever since, to finally be installed.

So, I've spent yesterday (as Wednesdays are officially my day off and the day when Alison is charge) scouring the internet for wall-mounted taps and then chasing around what felt like the whole of Essex, looking at floor and wall tiles.

Added to that, the outside of the house will be painted next week and I can't decide on a colour ! Who knew there were so many shades of cream and that none of them are what I'm looking for ?

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So, to calm my nerves I decided to partake in a little crafting (almost unheard of these days as I just don't have the time), and make a felt ball necklace. A while ago I made this one for a certain magazine ...

and loved it so much that I decided that I needed another one ... this time in blues.

These necklaces are just so quick and easy to make up. And with all the colours of felt balls that we have available, you could make one to go with every single outfit !

Have you seen the new look Home Page of our website ? We've had a bit of a jig about and I have to say, I'm really pleased with it ! We've received lots of compliments since it went live and are excited that we now have a "hot products" section down the left hand side. This will be updated on a weekly basis (after careful analysis) so that you can see exactly what's popular and what you should be indulging in ! The newsletter sign up has been shifted to the bottom of the page, along with a funky link to this little old blog.

We've also got LOTS of new products on order and I'm hoping to be able to show these to you very soon - sadly, it takes a long time to get them all photographed and uploaded onto the site.

I also received a VERY exciting phonecall earlier in the week. I don't want to tell you about it at the moment in case it doesn't come off, but if it does .... believe me, you'll be the first to know !

So, I think that's it for today folks.

I'll be back again very soon with details of all those lovely new products.

Byeeeeee

xx

Christmas Shop now OPEN !!

Just a real quickie because I'm drowning in stuff to get done (and Corrie is on in a mo and I need to see who dies in the tram crash !!)

The Blooming Felt Christmas Shop is now OPEN !!

If you're looking for ribbon to tie up your pressies

little gift tags

Christmassy stickers

felt brooches

hot water bottle covers

mobiles

bags

and more ..........

then get yourself over to the Christmas Shop section on our website. Things are selling fast and once they're gone .... they're gone, so you'll need to be quick.

One other thing whilst I think about it - my latest felt delivery is finally on its way to me and I'm keeping everything crossed that it will be here on Friday, which means I can get it all sorted out and loaded onto the website at the weekend ...... so watch this space !

Keep warm xx

Needles !

After nearly a year (yes, a whole year !!!) of searching, I have finally managed to source needles that are sharp enough and have a large enough eye to take beading elastic, and are therefore absolutely perfect for threading felt balls.

I'm hoping this will make a LOT of my customers happy :o)

AND, if you want your little ones to learn the fantastic art of sewing, I've also got plastic needles now on the website.

xx

Take time to relax

After our recent sad news and various other troubles that we have had to deal with recently (surely we've had our lot by now !), it was lovely to be able to take some time out with the kids last Thursday to visit my friend's new beach hut (yay - they accepted her offer !) And with a mini heatwave in the South East, it was perfect weather for a day on the beach.

Uncle Albert still needs a little bit of TLC, but it was fantastic to be able to sit and drink tea in the beach hut whilst watching the children build sandcastles on the beach and not have to be actually sitting on the beach myself. I am one of those strange people that has a bit of an aversion to sand, so it was lovely to have a very civilised lunch in the hut with sand-free sarnies ! Thank you Amanda for a fantastic day. Maybe next time we should take some Pimms and your funky new picnic basket ?!

Of course, the lovely weather also makes the garden grow and at the moment it is looking particularly green. This is the view I have from my studio

and I do spend rather a lot of time looking out of the window when I should be doing up orders. We are still waiting for our roses to bloom - they're normally in full swing by now but I think with the terrible winter we had, they have decided to bide their time. Never mind, I'm sure they will be worth waiting for.

Unfortunately, not a lot of crafty stuff this time (it has been half-term), just a couple of new additions to the website to tell you about:

3 new designs of embroidered ribbon - scary monsters, dinosaurs and sky rockets

And I am now offering the 4mm thick felt in metre squares. Priced at £18 per metre (fantastic value for money especially as they're all handmade from 100% wool felt), you can find them in the 4mm thick felt section - just select the size you require from the drop down box on each colour. Limited supplies at the moment, but if they prove popular (and they are selling well) they will be stocked in larger quantities.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave comments on my last post about baby Freya. You are all extremely kind and all of my family are touched by your kind words - thank you xxx

Soooooo busy !

Hellooo !!

I'm so sorry I've been away for so long !! I've been trying to get this blog post done for almost 2 weeks, but it has been very busy here at BF these last couple of weeks. Half term got in the way a little bit (I'm not complaining, but when you've got orders coming out of your ears and 2 children wanting lots of attention it's not easy). I was also horribly sick last Monday with "the winter vomitting bug" - erghh, and we also laid my lovely Grandad to rest on Friday - thank goodness the sun came out and cheered us all up !

So, when none of the above were being dealt with, I was receiving lots of lovely deliveries, doing lots of website updating and chatting rather a lot on the phone and emailing backwards and forwards to a particular company. I don't want to tell you name of the company at the moment (it's not a very revealing name), but then you might go and Google them and find out why I have been speaking to them ! So, for the time being, my lips are sealed (probably for another couple of blog posts, but then all will be revealed in glorious technicolour (I hope !)

So, - first up are the deliveries:

3 fantastic new books !

The first is a lovely new book by Danish author Anne Cool. Entitled "Falling for Felt", this book features a whole host of felt projects, complete with beautiful step by step colour photos. Available exclusively at Blooming Felt !

Next is a just released book entitled "Button and Stitch". If you love your buttons (and let's face it, who doesn't ?!) but are bored with keeping them in their button stash tin looking pretty, then this book is for you. Lots of lovely projects to use your buttons on

And finally a new needle felting book featuring lots of great projects from bracelets and cards to figures and even a cup and saucer !

Next up are some tools ! If you liked the heart and flower shaped yo-yo makers, then you'll love the butterfly shaped yo-yo makers that are now available (available in 2 sizes).

Also, pom-pom makers. I've gone pom pom mad since I got these tools - save yourself the job of cutting out cardboard rings all the time and use these plastic templates, specifically designed to be reused over and over again to produce perfect pom-poms ! And finally on the tools front, I've added some rose molds to help you make perfect needle felted roses.

A couple of items for Easter now - polystyrene / styrofoam eggs available in 2 sizes. Perfect for needle felting directly on to so that you can make the most beautiful decorated eggs for your Easter tree. And also available are polystyrene / styrofoam wreaths - great for covering in ribbons, felt balls, paint, buttons, wool .... the list goes on. Send me your photos so that I can add them to my customer's gallery.

And finally, some new children's sewing kits. Produced by Stitch Club, these lovely kits will introduce children to sewing (suitable from age 7) and feature 2 projects - Cute Cupcakes and Love Hearts.

All of the new items above can be found in the "Just Arrived" section and also their own particular sections.

Remember me telling you about the new "Tutorials" section last time ? Well, it's up and running - the very first Blooming Felt tutorial is now available for you to print off ! We're aiming to add a new tutorial every month and the next one is already done, so keep an eye out in March for another lovely project. Photos of new tutorials will appear in the Tutorials section over on the right of this page.

Whilst you're checking out the new items, you might notice my all new singing and dancing website ! I'd love to know what you think !!

Last Sunday I braved the snow and did a quick (!) trip up to Birmingham for the annual craft trade fair that I always attend. I have to say that I didn't think it was quite as good (or as big) as in previous years, but that certainly didn't stop me finding 2 fantastic new suppliers - more news about them next time ! I also visited a few of my regular suppliers and checked out their new ranges .... oh wow - you are SO going to love the new stuff.

That's it for now - I'll be back next week with more exciting news (hopefully !)

Sarah xx

Ribbon Crazy

First up I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to leave lovely comments on my last post.

I was a bit concerned about "blowing my own trumpet" but you've all been really kind about it - so thank you all ! It's lovely to know that other people get as excited as me about the little things in life.

This weekend I have sadly been struck down with the dreaded lurgy. So whilst my head feels like its going to burst, my throat is so sore that I can barely swallow and if I do manage to get any food inside me, my stomach goes in to horrible spasams and cramps, I thought it was about time I updated my little old blog and introduced you to the new little additions to the Blooming Felt website.

RIBBONS, RIBBONS and more RIBBONS !!

I absolutely adore these new designs of embroidered ribbons and even though they are a little bit pricey they are SO worth it.

There's "Little Red Riding Hood", some cheeky pixies, some big fat birdies, some rather elegant bluebirds, some little robots, some cars, some pirates, some pink flowery ribbon, a little hedgehog family, some butterflies and some owls. There is also some gorgeous reversible spotty grosgrain ribbon. They're all loaded up and waiting for you to give them a nice new home. Each ribbon is priced per metre and you just need to type in the number of metres you require before adding it to your basket.

I've also finally managed to get the new colours of spotty and checked 1cm buttons onto the website. Available in lime green, zingy orange and teal, these buttons are available to buy individually, in sets of 20 and as part of the party packs which now contain 100 buttons !!

Now, I am off to a trade fair in London on Tuesday (presuming I'm feeling better) and I can't wait !! I've never been to this particular fair before so I am very excited about what I will find there, as well as very concerned that I will come away having to cut up my credit card !!

I also have some other very exciting news to tell you about, but think I will leave you in suspense until next time with that one !

Now, off you go and buy some of that there ribbon !!

Sarah x

Busy, Busy, Busy !!!

Oh my word !! Where did the last couple of weeks go?? I've been so busy I just don't seem to have time to do anything that needs doing at the moment !

The website has been manic and I'm trying to take a bit of a step back from my etsy, folksy and dawanda shops. It's almost impossible for me to keep all of these shops stocked up and to keep my stock under control when I'm selling through so many different channels. But, have no fear, the Blooming Felt website will always come first so take a look at the latest additions to the site :

Pastel Pick Button Bags

How yummy are these ?!

Wool Felt Easter Kits

I just adore these kits !! You get very comprehensive instructions and all of the wool felt that you need to complete each project - all you need to supply is the needle, thread and your wonderful sewing skills !! Welcome your Easter visitors by hanging the wreath on your front door and then make them smile even more by placing the egg basket on your table as a stunning centrepiece!

I'm on countdown now to the Easter holidays and boy do I need a rest ! As I think I said before, the website will still be taking orders, but nothing will be processed or dispatched after Friday 27th March until Tuesday 22nd April - so if you're wanting to stock up for your Easter projects you need to start doing it now !!

I've had a delivery of new designs of ceramic buttons, but have yet to add them to the site ... sorry. The needle felting sponges / pads are finally back in stock, as are the mirrored felt balls, embroidered felt balls and a fantastic new colour range of crocheted balls (new photos will be on the site soon !)

More wool roving is on its way to me as we speak, so if you're waiting for this, it should hopefully be here sometime next week.

Right - that's it for now. I'm off out into the garden to enjoy the sunshine, admire the daffodils and plant a few more plants !

Sarah x

1 year old today !!!

I can't believe that it is exactly a year to the day that I first started boring you all with my ramblings !

So much has happened in the past year and I'm sure if you were to go back over all my old posts you would see what I mean (I won't bother recapping it all now !) But thank you for sticking with me and allowing me to ramble on at you - it's lovely to know I have so many readers from all around the world !

Anyways, back to the present !! My embellisher arrived earlier in the week and I could barely contain my excitement. Unfortunately I wasn't able to have a play about with it until the following day because it became apparent that my website wasn't playing nicely and a very very lovely lady by the name of Nadine came to my rescue and offered to fiddle about with it a bit. Well, I say a bit ... really I mean a LOT ! And boy did she do a good job ! It had been pointed out to me that I didn't have a "view cart" button on my website so when people were adding stuff to their baskets it was very difficult for them to get to the checkout (not very helpful) and I wonder how many sales I lost because of this. Fortunately Nadine came to my rescue and while she was at it made a few tweaks to my website which has resulted in a much more streamlined look. Thank you Nadine !! Nadine has her own website(s) hosted through EKM - why don't you take a look?

www.icegems.co.uk

www.identify-me.co.uk

So, because of all this the embellisher had to wait. However, the following day I managed to spend approximately 10 minutes on it before Grace decided she wanted to have a go and all hell broke loose ! So it's now back in its box, waiting for a child-free day when I can have a real good play about with it. A couple of my friends came up with some fab uses/ideas for using it and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

My next shipment from Nepal won't unfortunately be here until sometime next week (DHL charge way too much for shipping so we've had to resort to standard airmail). So if you're waiting for felt balls, I really do apologise for the delay ... but they'll be worth the wait, I promise.

I've been contacted about doing a charity shopping event in one of Chelmsford's shopping malls in April and am seriously considering it. It would be a great venue with lots of general shoppers and would really get my name out there, so I'll let you know my decision soon.

Unfortunately my camera is playing up so I can't post any of my own pics but I just wanted to wish all you Mums out there a very Happy Mother's Day for Sunday and hope you all get pampered !

Also, Happy Birthday to my sister for today as well !!!

IT'S LIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo hoooooooooooooooo !!!

At last - my new website is LIVE !!! And all of the new goodies have been loaded on (with more to come). The only thing I would say is that some of the felt balls are showing as out of stock :o( This is because I had a rather large order for felt balls last night that almost wiped me out !! Not that I'm complaining of course - but it would have been nice to launch the new site with everything in stock. However, I am mainly out of stock of plain / unbeaded balls rather than the beaded ones, but due to the way the website is set up, it shows the particular colour as being out of stock, rather than whether it's the plain or beaded balls. So - if you are interested in purchasing any beaded balls that are showing as out of stock, just email me or contact me through the website and I can send you a paypal invoice.

I've got an order of, ooooooh let me see ......... approximately 11,000 balls in with Nepal. They are going to be busy !! I'll let you know when they're all back in stock.

And to add to my excitement, I had my very first Etsy sale today ! A set of the pink felt balls.

I'm a happy bunny !!

Have a great weekend
Sarah x

They came !!!!

At last ..... look what came yesterday ! I was soooooo excited and have to say that I am very pleased with all of it. I felt like a child at Christmas - I couldn't contain my excitment and ripped open the box like a mad thing, to find numerous amounts of these gorgeous, gorgeous items .. along with lots of other stuff like lovely felt beads, felt mats (more about these at a later date), pencil cases & purses (shown in previous posts).

Pen / pencil covers

Coasters - to be sold in sets of 4

More coasters ... I'm also hoping to have both of these designs made up into place mats

Spotty pink heart garlands

Rocket pencil cases, to go with the caterpillar pencil cases I already have

A rather lovely bag, in gorgeous shades of brown

This is a felted doorstop which just needs to be filled with a bag of rice or sand - I have to say I'm rather proud of how this one turned out.

A redesign of the felted money box - the coin slot is on the roof, as you can see, and you can get your pennies out through a small velcro opening just beneath the roof.

This evening will be spent uploading it all to the website ready for sale to all of you lovely people ! And then I'll be spending evening after evening sewing on my little Blooming Felt woven labels that I purchased from etsy a few weeks ago.


I'm hoping the new site will go live tomorrow or Friday, so you should be able to buy from then. There are still a few items outstanding that will be added within the next couple of weeks and I am then hoping to add new designs / products on a regular basis, so do please keep checking the website and this blog regularly for updates - you can always join the mailing list on my website as well to be kept up to date.


And of course, I'm hoping to get some new suppliers at the trade fair on Sunday so will be adding a number of different items to the site after that. And don't forget, all of these items are in addition to the numerous other products that I've shown you in previous posts.

Do let me know what you think - I'd love to hear your comments.


My next post will be to inform you that the site is live.

Until then ...

Sarah x

I've had my fair share

Hiya

First off, thank you to all of you lovely people that sent me your good wishes on my last post - I really appreciate them and sincerely apologise for not emailing each of you individually to say thanks.

Well, they say things come in 3's and I think I've had 4 because following on from my last post, some kind soul decided to hit my car in Sainsbury's carpark and then very kindly drove off without leaving any details whatsoever. So THANK YOU VERY MUCH you coward !

Right, now that's off my chest I've decided that life's too short to keep moaning (and I am very aware of the fact that my last few posts do seem to have been very moany posts - so I am extremely sorry) - it won't happen again !

I'm still waiting for my Nepalise order to arrive but have been assured that it will be with me by Monday, so at last I'll have something interesting and exciting to show you !! Thanks for hanging in there guys - I really appreciate it.

Yesterday the sun finally shone - HOORAY !!! And I managed to take some photos of my felt stash

These photos are going on my new website and will be offered as colour choices for the new "Create your own Loopy Corsage" option that I've decided to offer. Yes - for the princely sum of £8 (including postage), you will be able to create your own loopy corsage from whatever colours you like and each corsage will be finished off with a colour co-ordinated hand painted ceramic button. Nice idea?

Talking of my "new" website, I think I might have inadvertantly mislead some of you. Once the new site goes live, it will look exactly the same as my current site (with a few very minor differences), but will have lots and lots more lovely goodies available to purchase. I didn't want to go making announcements about my new site and to have you all disappointed when you look at the site and see that it seems to look exactly the same. I have to admit I do love the look of my website, which is why I didn't want to change it, but it will be sooooooo much better goodies-wise and if you can't find something you want to buy on there, I shall want to know why ??!!!

I shall leave you with this amusing picture of my gorgeous daughter who "wants to look clever like Mummy" !! Clever or simple .... you decide !!

Enjoy the rest of your week !