FOR SALE

My Janome Xpression Embellisher machine :o(


Used only twice so in immaculate "as new" condition, in its original box. Offered to a good home for £150 INCLUDING POSTAGE to the UK only. RRP on this machine is £250, so this is a real bargain !!

This is what the Janome website has to say about the machine:

No threads ... No bobbins … No limits

Xpress yourself!

Bring out the artist in you, select from your palette of fabrics and threads and blend together to create unique textures and surfaces

It’s easy, by simply moving the fabrics freely under the needles you can quickly and easily create beautiful surface embellishments…. watch your own design develop….. anyone can do it!

The Janome Xpression will help you create fabrics which can then be sewn into a finished garment, furnishing or be simply used as a work of art. It has five barbed needles which mesh the fibres to secure two or more pieces of fabric together. Every design you create will be unique .. experiment with colours, fabrics, yarns and a whole host of other creative materials.. a fantastic use of all those scraps of fabric and threads you never want to throw away!

A built in needle guard is provided for safety and there is easy access to the lint collection area under the needle plate. It even has a free-arm facility. The accessory kit includes a spare 5 -needle unit, a single needle unit ( plus spare needles ) for finer work and a single hole needle plate for heavier fabrics


If you'd like to give this fantastic machine a new home, please contact me.

Sarah x

Happy Mother's Day !

Hope all you other Mum's have had a lovely day today and been spoiled.

I was treated to Breakfast in Bed by my 2 little monkees and then presented with a box set of Audrey Hepburn DVDs, a CD of 1980's 12" tracks and this most fabulous book !!

I was really excited when I opened this one because I am expecting a delivery of these books later this week and they'll be available for sale on my website. I can highly recommend it - if you want first dibs on one of these new arrivals, please email me and I'll start to make up a list.

On the website front, I have very sadly had to stop offering free postage. This is due to the fact that Royal Mail will soon be increasing their prices and it would mean increasing the cost of every item on the website which, I am sure, would put you all off buying my goodies. So, I've added a flat rate of £1.50 per order (still cheap) on UK deliveries, £3.50 to European locations, £5.50 to the USA, Canada & South America and £6.50 to everywhere else in the world. But you can still get free delivery on orders over £30 (so you'll just need to order one of the books and a few other bits and bobs and you're done !!) I really am sorry about this and hope it doesn't affect your decision to shop with me in the future.

On the felt ball front, DHL are charging an extortionate amount in shipping charges so I've had to resort to snail mail, but I've been informed that it takes anywhere between 4 and 7 days for mail to arrive from Nepal, so I'm hoping they will be here later this week - once again, many apologies.

Now .... my embellisher ! I've finally had a chance to play around with it today and this is what I came up with.

Egg cosies !!

I am slightly disappointed with the amount of needle punched holes that are visible, but hey, it was my first attempt and I'm hoping that future attempts will be a bit better !

Oh, and thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to do the charity event in Chelmsford's shopping centre in April. I shall be booking my pitch tomorrow !

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 !!!

Look what I got !

As if spending lots and lots of money on lots and lots of lovely new stock wasn't enough to keep my shopaholic tendencies in check, I spied this rather lovely contraption on ebay yesterday (and at a very good BIN price too), and after pleading with Paul that I really, really, really did need it, I managed to convince him that it was an absolute necessity and he let me buy it !!

Introducing one nice new shiny embellisher machine !!

Of course, I don't really know what I'm actually going to do with it (ssshhhhh - don't tell Paul pleeeeeease), but I'm sure I'll find a fantastic use for it (I had a quick go on one at the trade fair on Sunday) and I've been scouring flickr for lots of great ideas. I've got a couple of Easter themed things in my mind, but until the machine actually arrives, I don't know whether they'll be possible. So all suggestions gratefully received !!

I've also been scouring all of the fantastic catalogues that I picked up at the trade fair and have a rather long list of "must haves .... when I've got some more money!" Or maybe I should just speak to the bank manager and convince him that he really does need some hand dyed ribbon, and wouldn't he just love some felt garlands and little fabric flowers to brighten his office up ?!!

***** Felt Balls Update *****

A new shipment of felt balls will be arriving on or around the 29th Feb and will be uploaded to my website shortly after !!! Please contact me if you wish to receive email notification on their arrival

Sarah x