Little Treats

Hello !!

First up I wanted to tell you what I've been up to this weekend.

Yesterday afternoon we dropped the little monkees off at my Mum & Dad's house as Hubby and I had been invited to a wedding reception in Suffolk. We stayed here in Framlingham. Could have been better I must admit - £130 for the night for a very standard room with a non-flushing toilet and milk to put on your cereal in the morning that was off ! £8 for a glass of wine and a pint of beer, specials that aren't served until 6pm (even though they say they're available all day), £6 for a beef and horseradish sandwich and £6 for a jacket potato with cheese !!! I can't say I would particularly recommend staying here.

This morning we went here and bought 2 lovely old chimney pots to put either side of our front door and plant up with beautiful flowers. I think our weekends will soon be spent trawling around reclaimation yards because with all the building work that will be taking place on our lovely old house next year, we need to start sourcing original bits and bobs - like 250 year old handmade clay peg tiles. Hmmmm - we could have our work cut out there me thinks !

Then, we met some friends and had a very enjoyable lunch here. Fortunately, this place is a whole lot better than where we stayed and the food was absolutely delicious - highly recommended.

I do love my children, but it's also lovely to spend adult time with just hubby and I've had a lovely weekend, despite the disappointment of the hotel.

And now I can finally announce the new section of my website that I've been keeping under wraps for so long - I have been working like a trojan getting it all photographed and uploaded onto the site and it is finally here - YAY !!

Introducing the new "LITTLE TREATS" section of my website. Do go and check it out and let me know what you think - I have had great fun sourcing all of these goodies and the excitement when Mr Postman started delivering it all was fantastic - just like Christmas time when you're a kid !!

Here's a little taster of what's on offer (click on the pictures to go to that particular section of the website):

Felt Accessories

Silk Button Badges & Handbag Mirrors

Party Badges

Ice Lolly Badges / Brooches

Felt and Fabric Applique Badges

And now with all this excitement I'm absolutely knackered !! I had a delivery on Friday and will very soon be restocked on the spiral wool pompoms, if you were waiting for these to come in (just give me a couple of days to update the website ... again). I'm also awaiting another very large delivery of the wet felted hearts (in loads of new colours) and another new product line which I will tell you about when it arrives.

See you soon !

Byeeeee 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

How time flies !

Well, it is almost upon on.

Another year has absolutely flown by and I've watched my little darlings getting older by the day - sometimes I panic that I can't remember what they were like when they were really tiny and then I have to go and get the videos/DVDs out - and then it all just seems like yesterday.

Every day they learn something new - Sam started school in September and is now able to read quite well along with writing with lovely spidery back to front writing !! Grace gabbles away ten to the dozen and gets more and more bossy every day - she likes to stand next to me when I'm ironing, using her own little iron and ironing board, chatting away like a little old lady. I wonder what I will be saying this time next year ?!

The above photo was taken on Boxing Day when we decided to have a day at home and spend it by ourselves (well, apart from saying goodbye to my sister who was going back to Guernsey). My 2 monkeys wanted to climb the old Mulberry tree in our garden and then insisted I take photos - well of course, who am I to argue ?!

Looking back at the last year craft / business wise, I cannot believe what I have managed to achieve in such a short space of time. At the time, it seemed to take forever to get off the ground and I apologise now for all my grumblings to anyone who was kind enough to listen. I'm just impatient and couldn't wait for things to get going ... of course, once they did things just seemed to get better and better.

I can't believe Picture it in Stitches (as it started out) is a whole year old (even though it has now changed its name to Blooming Felt) and that when I started out, determined to design and stitch beautiful textile pictures, that I would end up with a different named little Company and a completely different product range !

Sadly, the pictures just didn't take off. Despite my very best efforts with marketing, press releases, selling through various websites, knocking on doors of shops etc., it seemed that textile pictures weren't popular and I was wasting my time !! However, once I ventured into the wonderful world of felt, it became quite obvious that I was not alone in loving this wonderful medium. The people I have met through "felt" are absolutely amazing and have become real friends (even though I haven't actually met half of them !) and similarly the people I have connected with through blogging are equally amazing and have also become friends - thank you to all of you lovely people. I really appreciate all of your kind words and support.

As 2007 ends and I look back I can be truly thankful - to have a business (albeit a tiny one) that is slowly getting off the ground and people are starting to recognise and buy from ~ to have met lots of fantastic people through Blooming Felt and through blogging ~ to have a wonderful family that support me all the way (hugs and kisses to all of you) and finally, to be doing what I have always dreamed of doing ... designing and creating lots of crafty items for other people to love, appreciate and enjoy... just as I do.

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR !!

Lots of love

Sarah xxxxx

PS. My SALE is now on !!!

Blooming Felt

Hiya

Well, most of the presents are wrapped, the tree is up, I've posted out all of the orders and fingers crossed, they all seem to have been received.

And just for good measure, I've decided to redesign my website (please bear with me whilst it's being updated) and introduce a whole new range of fantastic felted goodies !!

As most of you regular readers of this blog will know, my main line of business when I started out a whole year ago, was designing and creating hand-stitched textile pictures. Sadly, after a year, it has become apparent that hand-stitched textile pictures aren't the best sellers in the world and so I have had to take the decision to stop creating my pictures and concentrate on my felted accessories. My shop at notonthehighstreet.com has been manically busy over the last 2 months and as a result has virtually depleted all of my felt accessories. So, a radical rethink was needed. As I wasn't lucky enough to have a little set of elves that came out at night and made lots of new stock, I was working myself ragged trying to keep up with orders, look after the house, look after a husband and 2 small children and still do my part-time job. The time came for me to admit that I'm not superwoman and that I would need to work out how to continue to produce beautiful felted goodies without running myself into the ground.

Enter a fantastic company employing a small team of women in Nepal. So, for the last few weeks I have been designing lots of lovely felt accessories, sending the designs over to Nepal and the wonderful ladies there have been producing numerous samples of my designs. We're now in the finalisation stage and I am VERY excited to tell you that these goodies should be available for sale through my newly designed website in the New Year.

As a consequence of this, I have decided to drop the "Picture it in Stitches" name from my website and rename it "Blooming Felt". Unfortunately I can't change the name of this blog without scrapping this one and starting again, so Picture it in Stitches will stay here for the time being.

I will continue to produce the corsages, bracelets, hair accessories, keyrings etc., that I have always made myself, but everything else will be designed by me and handmade in Nepal. All of the items from Nepal are Fair Trade, made of 100% wool and are of fantastic quality. Do please join my mailing list on the welcome page of my website and you will be entered into a special draw to win one of my lovely new items. Below is a sneaky peak of just some of the samples

Oh, and if you fancy a bargain, all of my textile pictures are on SALE on my website with 25% off every picture - be quick because when they're gone, they're gone !

HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarah xx