An obsession with spots

No, not the kind that appear on your face at the most inappropriate times (and I do have a bit of a minger on my chin at the moment), but the kind that make you swoon. The kind that make you say "I MUST HAVE THAT" and the kind that you become obsessed over. So obsessed in fact that you start you looking at what you can sell to fund that obsession.

I am sad I know, but I bet there are a few of you out there who will also have the same obsession as me (even if you won't admit it !)

Today I saw this

I MUST have this AGA. Even though we are still frantically trying to save for our extension/ renovation and building work, I know that my mission is now to stop saving for the extension and start saving for the SPOTTY AGA (ok, so I won't actually have anywhere to put it until the building work is completed - but who cares ?!). I wonder how much money the children have in their money boxes and savings accounts. Wouldn't they love this AGA just as much as me ? Of course they would ! And would they begrudge their mummy her wish ? Hmmmm, maybe. Their mission is to save for a customised light sabre and a Minnie Mouse outfit. Me thinks I have some convincing to do !!

I'm off to drool over the spotty aga and work out what I can sell to fund the purchase of it. In the meantime, I shall start to put my pennies in here

And if you'd like to add to the "spotty aga fund", please visit my website and purchase some goodies !

Thank you xxx

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

I'm SEW HIP !!

YES I AM !!!

At the risk of boring you all, I just wanted to blow my own trumpet a bit and tell you about the editorial piece / interview with me "the brains behind Blooming Felt" (haha - how funny is that ??!! ) in the latest issue of Sew Hip magazine.

You may recall that back in October at the Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally I was "discovered" by Sew Hip magazine. They were keen to do an interview with me at the Show, but as I was so busy, I sadly couldn't spare the time to speak to them. But, true to their word, they contacted me at the back end of last year and did the interview. The result ... a 3 page editororial in issue 13 of the magazine (3 pages !!!!)

I was just amazed when I managed to get my hands of a copy of the magazine today - thank you to all of the editorial team at Sew Hip, along with their photographer (shame he couldn't have come round and taken a decent photo of me instead of me having to take a rubbish picture of myself - maybe I should have asked them to replace my photo with some glamorous lady, or at least airbrush me !!)

I will be back with news of more NEW PRODUCTS soon.

Sarah x

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Happy New Year everyone ! I hope you've had a fantastic Christmas and great New Year spent with family and friends.

I feel like I've had a very well deserved rest over the holidays - I didn't look at my website for days and days so was amazed when I did finally log-on and found rather a lot of orders there ! What were you all finding to buy ?? I had virtually no felt goodies available for a loooooong time but I am very pleased to let you know that I have finally received a replacement order so the felt sheets, felt balls and wool roving that were out of stock are now back on the website and are waiting to be snapped up.

I have to say that after TNT lost my shipment I got really fed-up and disheartened with my whole little business. Even though there was absolutely nothing I could do about the situation I found myself in, I was fuming with the shipping company who had no idea how much trouble and upset they had caused me. I had even got to the point at one stage where I was within a day of shutting the company down entirely, but, after receiving so many lovely encouraging emails, phone calls and Christmas cards from lots of my customers, I decided there was no way I was going to let the horrible shipping company get the better of me. TNT had disappointed me, but there was no way I was going to disappoint my lovely customers, so, after a nice break over Christmas I'm now back and raring to go !

One of the things that kept me going was the fact that I had lots of lovely new products on order. Many of them have now arrived and are now loaded onto the website - click here to see them or you can go to the "Just Arrived" section on the website. More new products are on order and I'll let you know as soon as they get here.

Now, my SALE starts on Monday 4th January (that's TOMORROW !). Lots of end of line products up for grabs with up to 70% off some items. As always with SALES, there's very limited stock on some of the items .... so be quick

I'll look forward to seeing you on the website tomorrow .... if not before !

Sarah x

Let it snow

let it snow, let it snow ...... a LOT !!

Last Thursday evening we got 6 inches of snow. They'd been predicting it all week, but I have to say that I didn't really believe them. Although after the 8 inches of snow we got back in February I should have been a bit more trusting of the lovely weather people at the BBC.

Today is the first day that the temperature has risen above freezing since it snowed and it looks as though it's finally starting to thaw. Having said that, I've just looked out of the window and seen its snowing again, so maybe not !!

It's all very Christmassy though, looking out of the window whilst we put our Christmas decorations up on Saturday we could have almost been in an Alpine country !

So, the Blooming Felt website is now CLOSED for the holidays (although you will still be able to place orders - they just won't be despatched until 4th January). All of the last minute orders have been despatched (albeit a little late due to the snow hampering my efforts to get to the Post Office). The Christmas tree and decorations are all up and the Christmas presents are NOT wrapped (nowhere near it !).

Instead of wrapping presents (I'm hoping that Father Christmas might take pity on me and do it for me !!) I've been shopping on Etsy again. I just can't help myself with that website lately - everytime I go on there, I find something else that I just MUST have. And what I love most at this time of the year is that everyone seems to be offering free shipping, which is fantastic especially as all of the stuff I've been buying is coming from the USA. I've bought hair bobbles for Grace (not a Christmas present as it's far too late for that), a set of alphabet stamps for Sam and MORE clothes for me !! I know, I know, it's Christmas and I should wait and see what I get, but I'm pretty sure Father Christmas won't be bringing any of the things I bought, so I might as well buy them myself.

Lots of lovely new stock for the website is starting to arrive. I'll be putting a new section on the website over the holidays entitled "Just Arrived" and all of the new products will be popped in there so that you can easily see what lovely new goodies there are.

I will also be starting my "Sale" in the New Year as well - this section will contain all of the ready-made products that didn't sell before Christmas, as well as end of line products. I usually list all of my sale items at between 40% and 70% off their original price, so you really are getting some good bargains. But, as with all sales, stock is limited and once it's gone ... it's gone, so you'll need to be quick if there''s anything in particular that you've got your eye on !

Right, as it doesn't look as though Santa is going to send his elves to help with the wrapping, I suppose I'd better do it myself.

This will be my last post before Christmas, so I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you if you've visited the Blooming Felt website this past year and if you haven't, well then I'll look forward to seeing you there next year !!

Have a lovely Christmas everyone !!

Sarah xx

Christmas is a coming

Oh yes it is !! Sorry - I didn't mean that to sound like Panto, but I guess it is the season :o)

We've had Grace's Nativity (she had the starring role of Mary !)

and Sam finished the school term with his carol concert at the local church - lovely !

My little man has now broken up from school and we have a very loooooooong school holiday ahead of us. So to start off the holidays we (we, being me and 2 of my very good school mum friends) took the children up to London on Friday to the Christmas Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. I hadn't heard many reports about this particular event so wasn't too sure what to expect, but I have to say it was really good !

It was free to get in but you had to buy tokens to get on to all of the rides (no cash allowed). Each ride for the children worked out at £2 each, but it was well worth the money because they got a really long go on everything and there were lots of different rides for them all to go on. We didn't actually leave the children's part of the park (Santa Land) so missed out on the rest of the huge event - apparently it covers 32 acres !!

Fortunately for us, it wasn't very busy there at all so we didn't have to queue for a single ride and even got straight on to the great big ferris wheel - well, sort of ferris wheel - it was like a smaller version of the London Eye and the view was just as good, especially with all of the beautiful twinkly Christmas lights.

Of course, it was all very exciting for the children as they got to eat M&S sarnies on the train on the way up, have a good ride on the tube, have a wonderful time at the wonderland and then got a McDonalds for their tea !! And to finish it all off, we had to get the bus back to the Park & Ride carpark and we didn't get home until 8.30pm !

What a great day out !!

Sarah x

Positive / Negative

NEGATIVE

The field at the bottom of our garden going up for sale and the very real threat of travellers buying it and setting up camp there.

POSITIVE

We go to auction and manage to buy the field ourself with 2 of our neighbours. We are now the proud joint owners of a 5 acre field. I feel the need to buy some sheep and chickens to keep on our part of the field !

NEGATIVE

My little man has been told he is short sighted and needs to wear glasses

POSITIVE

He gets a really funky pair of glasses and looks very intelligent !!

NEGATIVE

Danyl has just been booted off the X-Factor

POSITIVE

Olly is through to the final - YAY !! Come on Essex !!!

NEGATIVE

TNT have managed to lose my entire shipment of restock felt items !!! The Blooming Felt website is now running at less than 50% stock levels on the felt side. The 4mm thick felt sheets, felt string, plain felt balls and wool roving that are all currently showing as out of stock are likely to remain out of stock until the New Year. I'm so sorry.

POSITIVE

The 2cm spotty and spiral felt balls are almost fully restocked, as are the 1.5mm thick felt sheets.

NEGATIVE

Sales on the website are way down due to TNT's total incompetence - thanks TNT !!!

POSITIVE

I've managed to write all of my Christmas Cards and get all of my Christmas Shopping done !

NEGATIVE

My little man breaks up for the school hols on Thursday - arghhh !

POSITIVE

The lie-ins start on Friday !!

There are a couple more positives that I want to mention just so that I can convince myself it's not all doom and gloom on the Blooming Felt front :

1. I've got lots of lovely new buttons and ribbons sitting in a box all waiting to be loaded onto the website.
   


2. I did an interview with Sew Hip magazine last week - how exciting is that ?!! It will be in the January issue which I believe will be in shops on the 31st December. What a great start to the New Year that will be (as long as I can get more felt stock of course !!)

And finally, I bought these 2 lovely items of clothing from etsy last night in an attempt to cheer myself up.

Can't wait 'til they arrive !!

Sarah xx