A new home !!

Hurrah .... we've moved !!!

Well, I say hurrah, but I really was sad to leave my old Shedquarters in our garden.  Tuesday was moving day and fortunately for us it was a lovely sunny day.  The removal guys were fantastic and didn't complain once that they had to make another trip when they had only quoted for one.

Everything fits perfectly into our new shed

The pink carpet is REALLY pink (but I absolutely love it)

We've even got some spare shelves now that we can spread everything out and we've got loads of room left over to fill with new units (when we've got a bit more money!) and also lots of new product lines, which is just as well because after spending a rather large amount at the trade show  last Sunday, we'll need the extra room !

Unfortunately, the store room is still a bit of a mess - but we just shut the door on that and pretend it's not there !!

We've got a lovely new sign on order that will take pride of place on the outside wall

and once I've put a couple of pots of spring flowers and a couple of hanging baskets outside, our new home will be ready to receive visitors !!

Once Easter has been and gone, we'll be telling you all about our regular open days.  We're hoping to open 1 day a week and then occasionally on Saturdays for those of you that can't make it during the week.  Keep your eyes peeled for more info

xx

New Stuff just in ....

A real quickie because it's New Year's Eve and I've got other stuff to be doing apart from updating the website !!!

Like sausages ? And dogs?? Then you'll love our fab new sausage dog embroidered ribbon - £1.60 a metre. Get it here

PS. All of our embroidered ribbon has now been restocked.

Are you a misfit ? No, of course you're not - but some of our felt is !! We're selling off all of our felt sheets, shapes, string and felt balls that just don't make the grade. But be quick, because when they're gone, they're gone. Find them here

2 new colours of beading elastic have been added to the site - Royal Blue & Purple. They're here

Just before Christmas we had a big felt delivery - it has all now been checked off and loaded onto the website so all of the 10x10 felt sheets are now back in stock, along with the felt string, most of the metre squares and all but 1 colour felt purses.

And that's it for THIS YEAR !!!

Wishing you all a wonderfully felty, buttony, ribbony, creative New Year !

(ps. My New Year's resolution is to learn how to speellll !)

See you in 2012 xx

We've been away so long ......

Sorry folks - the school holidays have finally taken their toll on me and something had to give ! Sadly, for you, it was the updating of this blog !

But, I've put some time aside today so make a list of the new goodies that have recently made their way onto the website and to update you on life at Blooming Felt Shedquarters in general.

So, first up. An update on what has been happening.

Well, this week we have taken over the lease of a storage unit / small warehouse !! Whilst we will still be operating from Blooming Felt Shequarters and this is where all of your orders will be processed and dispatched from, we now have a fantastic new storage space where we will keep the majority of our stock. We have been looking for some time for the perfect storage solution for us and finally found it. Because we now have much more storage space, we'll be able to stock lots more products ! Good news all round !

Preparations for The Knitting & Stitching Show are now well underway. Ally Pally Ali and Rosie have been doing a fantastic job making lists of everything that will be needed for the show, along with making up kits, labelling grab bags etc. Lots of new stock for the show is arriving on a regular basis and I think (!) things are under control (famous last words!)

We've also been extremely busy lately due to the fact that we have been very fortunate to have been featured in a number of craft magazines. Sew Hip, in particular, have been spreading the Blooming Felt love with them featuring us in their "Sew on the Net" feature last month and an interview with yours truly this month (in the shops now) along with a tutorial by us on how to make your own felt.

And that, I think, leads us very nicely onto the new products on our website !

If you've seen the tutorial in Sew Hip (and even if you haven't) and fancy having a go at making your own felt, then our new felt making starter kits will be perfect for you. Each kit contains everything you need to make your own felt - 75g of wool (25g each of 3 colours), bubble wrap, a bar of wool fat soap and a set of instructions. Everything comes done up in one of our fantastic branded cotton drawstring bags and costs just £8.25.

(sorry - rubbish photo !)

Due to popular demand, we have added an extra colour of felt shapes to our range. Now available in ivory / cream (code W1, which matches all of the other W1 felt on our site), you can buy each size of felt flower, felt heart and felt circle in this colourway - on the website in the next couple of days !

The crochet beads are back ! Available in 5 colourways - red, lilac, pink, green and turquoise and each measuring approximately 2cm with a 2mm hole, these crochet balls look fab teamed with our felt balls to create necklaces & bracelets.

The resin cabochons have been fully restocked and are now back on the website, along with a new colour of the rose cabochon - bright green.

We've also been busy adding colour names to all of our felt.

Whereas before we used to just code everything ie. R1 , BL1, P1 etc., we've now tried to come up with colours that best describe those particular codes. So, for example, code R1 is Pillar Box Red, code BL1 is Royal Blue, P1 is Bubblegum Pink etc. We've still left all of the codes on the felt for ease of use (and because that's what we use ourselves to identify the colours), but for our new customers, we've found that they can more easily identify which colours they're likely to need by the names. These names have been added to our felt balls, felt sheets, felt string, felt gift tags, felting wool and felt shapes.

We have a number of other new products all on their way, along with a rather large delivery of felty goods (to our new warehouse!). If there are particular colours of metre squares that you are waiting to come back into stock, these should hopefully be here sometime next week.

That's it for now - see you next time for the monthly giveaway ! (is it that time again already ??!!!)

Sarah xx

IT'S FREEBIE TIME !

Hellooooooo !

It's been far too long my friends ! Having been away for nearly 3 weeks, catching up on orders, Easter and of course, the Royal Wedding it seems like I have been away from this little old blog FOREVER !

But, I'm BACK and raring to go.

So, without further ado I shall announce this month's FREEBIE giveway. And it is .........

A Felt Purse Kit !

This fantastic little kit contains one of our turquoise 100% wool felt purses (complete with felt ball zip pull), some felt shapes and buttons for you to embellish the purse with.

As with all of our giveaways, it's open to everyone, wherever you are in the world. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post (only 1 comment per person please) and ensure that I can contact you via your own blog, website or email address. If you win and I am unable to contact you, the prize will be redrawn and another winner picked. Please note - last month's giveaway went to a redrawn name as the original winner didn't provide any contact details. Please don't make the same mistake.

The Giveaway will remain open for 1 week and will close at 5pm next Sunday 8th May when a winner will be picked and the name announced.

GOOD LUCK !!

xx

Hurrah - the monthly freebie has launched !

Well, it took a while, but today we finally hit 200 followers and as promised, are now launching our monthly freebie !!

As a special thank you to all of our blog readers, we will be offering a fantastic freebie every 1st of the month from now on.

So, for our first monthly freebie we are offering 2 (yes .... 2 !) lucky followers the chance to win one of our new "Goody Bags". Each bag contains some felt string, felt shapes, buttons and felt balls. In other words, a wonderful selection of Blooming Felt goodies for you to do whatever you please with !

"How do I enter ?" you ask.

Well, all you need to do is leave a comment on the Freebie Post (no anonymous comments please) and once the freebie closes (one week later) all comments will be entered into a random number generator and a winner will be chosen. I must be able to contact you via an email address, or your own blog / website etc. If your name / number is selected and I have no way of contacting you then I'm afraid you will lose your prize and another winner will be selected. All winners will be announced on this blog and an email will also be sent requesting your address so that we can get your goodies out to you.

Our monthly freebies are available to absolutely everyone, wherever you are in the world !

This freebie will close on Friday 18th February 2011.

So go on, what are you waiting for ? Go get those freebies !!!

Sarah x

And the winner is ......

Drumroll ............................

NUMBER 9

This number was picked by http://www.random.org/, but unfortunately I couldn't copy & paste the result or do a screenshot to prove which number it chose - sorry.

So, congratulations to SIMONE who is "going to play with them" ! Simone, if you could please email me your address I'll get them sent straight out to you. Well done !

I have to say I did love reading all of your ideas of what you would use the shapes for - "hats for aliens" really made me laugh !

And in answer to ethel & edna's comment about how many shapes were in the boxes - well there were actually ..................................................... you'll have to wait until next time to find that out !

Thank you to all of you who take the time to read my blog and to those of you who entered the competition. If you're wanting to get your hands on some of the shapes, they're all listed on the website here - you can buy them individually, in sets of 30 circles

hearts

or flowers

and in complete sets of 90 just like the giveaway.

Following on the theme of what would you do with the shapes - last Christmas I had these

which were made from the large felt flowers and small felt circles,

all with brooch pins sewn onto the back. I sold them in my NOTHS shop, my website and at all of the Christmas Fairs that I did, for between £3.50 and £5.00 each.

I was constantly selling out - these brooches were my best seller. At a cost of 35p for the large flower, 18p for the small circle, 6p for a brooch pin, a bit of thread and your time - that's a making price of around 70p for each brooch. Not a bad return eh? Christmas is a coming ... get making girls !!

This weekend, I managed to get the Yo-Yo makers onto the site - they were delivered absolutely ages ago and I never got round to listing them - but they're now available for sale on my website.

I'm also running a SPECIAL OFFER for the rest of May - buy any needle felting kit and get a needle felting sponge / foam pad absolutely free. This is a good freebie because even though the kit contains everything you need to complete the project, it doesn't contain the sponge pad, so if you do decide to buy a kit ... maybe as a gift ... the recipient will get everything they need to complete the project, with you saving £2 into the bargain.

That's it for this week. I'll look forward to seeing you at the Blooming Felt website, with lots of felt shapes and brooch pins in your shopping carts !!

Sarah x

The DHL man cometh !!

and what did he bring ?

Felt shapes .... lots & lots & lots of lovely felt shapes all cut from my lovely thick handmade felt !!

I am in felty heaven. Give me the weekend to get this felted loveliness listed on the website and then they'll be all yours. EDIT: Saturday evening and they're all listed and available for sale.

BUT, in the meantime, I'm doing a freebie. All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog between now and Monday telling me what you would make if you won the prize (don't worry, this won't affect who wins - the winner will be selected by a random number generator) and I'll pick a winner on Monday evening. Your prize ? A complete set of felt shapes - 3 different shapes (heart, circle and flower), 3 different sizes of each shape (3cm, 6cm and 9cm) and 10 different colours !! That is a lot of felt shapes - 90 actually ! Think what you could do with all of those ?!

GOOD LUCK and I look forward to reading all of your comments.

Sarah x

Sunny Days & Website Updates

Hello, hello, hello !!

How fantastic is this weather ? Essex has been positively basking in sunshine this last week and I'm LOVING it ! At last, the children actually want to be outside - we finished the play centre last weekend and they've spent literally hours on it. And of course with all this lovely weather it would be silly not to use the pool, so everything has been checked and serviced and is ready for the summer season. Unfortunately I didn't realise that we'd run out of oil so had to make a pleading phonecall to the fuel company and beg them to deliver some oil so that we can use the boiler to heat the pool. Sadly they can't come until tomorrow, but there was a teeny weeny little bit left in the tank so we managed to get the pool up to temperature so that we could use it today. Which was just as well because today is hubby's 40th birthday. We had a lovely day, just chilling out this morning and then friends and family round for swimming and drinks this afternoon.

So, with all this lovely weather things have been a bit slow on the website front and I haven't had time to update the site. But, I had a fantastic delivery on Friday and it contained 40, yes 40 different colours of wool roving. They're all 25g balls and will be loaded onto the site this week (my camera is playing up, which isn't really helping things at all!)

I've also had a complete restock of felt balls, along with a few new designs.

I'm now stocking handmade felt shapes - again, these will be on the site later this week.

And this book is on the way to me as we speak - if you fancy giving needle felting a go, there are some really lovely projects in this book. And of course, you can buy all of your wool roving, needles and pads etc from my site at the same time !!

If you subscribe to my mailing list you'll receive an email from me later this week once everything has been loaded onto the site as well as details of some new, very exciting items that are on order. If you aren't currently on my mailing list and want to know about the new items, then get yourself over to the home page of my website and subscribe !!

Sarah x