A polkadot giveaway!!

I am pretty excited over on Facebook this week! I have reached over 100 likers and I am having a celebratory giveaway! To be in with a chance of winning £10 to spend on polka dot sweetheart goodies, just follow This linky link  and follow the direction. Simple!

I look forward to seeing you over there! The giveaway is open until Sat 25th Feb x

And what is a post without a pic??

Here are some recent makes.

An organising extravaganza - part one

Since my last minute craft fair it has just been so apparent that my crafty storage "systems" were failing me . Spectacularly failing me.
It had all started so small and easy to manage, but my hoarding tendencies stash has grown and grown until I was finding it hard to know what fabric I had. I also had pretty coloured buckets with all of my general crafty bits in it but they don't get used so often, so I decided it all needs a revamp.
I simply need all of the things I use most often to be easy to find, easily accessible to me and close to hand.

Here are some before pics, they're actually, technically, after pics as it was after the craft fair tornado had hit. Also imagine if you will, 2 carrier bags with fabric in it and a wicker laundry basket filled with fabric and everything I had been carting around with me for over a week.

My wonderful and long suffering Mr polka dot allows all of this madness to take over his side of the bedroom! He has never moaned once! 

those pink and blue boxes on the shelves hold my fabric, I like to keep the fabric covered as we have a very hairy housemate who is interested in all things crafty. She also once had to have serious emergency surgery after eating thread from my sewing machine. So now I am super careful to keep it all tucked away.

My favourite basket that joins me on all crafty outings, filled with loads of odds and ends from my crafting whilst sitting at the fair.

this basket held ribbon and bits and bobs before it became a free for all .

I tried to think of the things that I knew I liked and the things that worked. I love using old cans to hold pencils, stationary and scissors. I even have one stuffed with glue sticks.

They are easy to decorate, you can cluster them as I have, or move them around as you need to. And best of all they are free! 

I also love using jars, again they are free, easy to pretty up with ribbon and fabric or paper. They are also great because you can see at a glance what is inside and where everything is. 

I think jars are going to be used A LOT throughout this project.

Next was my large ribbon problem, I need to keep it all handy and organised. I searched pinterest and came up with a few ideas. I love to be able to achieve things with little or no money, so I shopped around my house and found a solution hiding in my pantry.

It's pretty self explanatory, a dowel rod and a plastic basket. 

Thread the spools onto the dowel and then thread the ribbon through the slits in the basket. everything stays separated and organised.

For now there is also a little etra storage in behind the rolls. This is great as it holds my larger rolls of ribbon and also my business cards and pin cushion.

I also re ironed and re-folded all of my fabric, it is now wrapped around cardboard inserts and stored in my boxes, sorted by amounts. 

It is so easy now to see what I have and it all stays wrinkle free. These little rectangles of cardboard which I simply cut from cardboard boxes, have made my life so much easier and ever so happy.

Next up will be some more ribbon and thread storage ideas. I'll take some pics tomorrow when it is daylight ;-) 

I'll leave you with a super cute pic of the hairy one

My sweet Meatball x

Craft fair ...... sort of

Well, here I am. Finally tucked up on the couch, with my favourite quilt, after a whirlwind week of orders, illness and being super busy with my actual job.
I found out on Wednesday that a craft fair (that we thought had been cancelled due to lack of interest) was actually going ahead.
Today.
 That gave me 3 days to organise for it!  Cue a flurry of activity and emergency runs to hobbycraft! Whilst being doped up on lemsip and anti biotics and hacking up a lung every 5 minutes.

I may or may not have stayed up until 1am sewing and then up again at 7.30am to make more clippies.
I may or may not have still been sewing when I arrived this morning!
I may or may not have trashed my entire house in the process and then left a huge pile of thread and scraps on the living room floor for my long suffering husband to clear up when I left...........

But I made it and had a lovely day drinking tea, quietly crafting and chatting to Beebs (of Rosebud designs) and all of the lovely customers that somehow found their way to us, in spite of the lack of advertising ;-)

I did have a complete tablecloth fail though! So my poor table looked kind of sad with the bare wood. Mental note to buy a large flat sheet so it will fit any size of table!

I spoke to the lovely lady who owns the local coffee shop to see if I could borrow a cup to display my cup sleeves. She was very nice and I think I will go and see her next week to see if she might sell some for me!

I also forgot to take pics before I started selling, but that could be because I arrived 20 mins before doors opened ........

I loved these happy little clips, but again I was mrs disorganised and was running around like a headless chicken  I  forgot to take some before I started selling.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by today, It  is always lovely to meet  new people, hear some feedback and new ideas and to see happy little bags making their way to their new homes.

If you would like to see how I have been more organised in the past ....... click here ;-)

Lots of love!

Well folks, here we are in February! Already. I started pottering last week, to make a valentine's hairband for my girly. I love making things for her, she LOVES everything! She is always just bubbling over with so much enthusiasm for life. I love it when this tips over into  all of her mama made belongings. I love hearing her proudly telling everyone that her mummy made it for her.

Ok, complete tangent there! Where was I? Oh yeah, valentine's day. I started pottering with some felt and made a sweet little heart for K to wear in her hair. This simple little heart made me smile so much that I decided to keep going. I spent a few lovely relaxing nights watching tv and playing with some felt and button and all sorts of valentine coloured fun! It was nice to be able to sit with the boys and craft away rather than hiding away in my crafty zone with the sewing machine whirring away.

The end result was a wee variety of hearts that can be added to hairbands, clips , brooches or even keyrings! First up - some hairbands

A beautiful glittery pink band with my hand stitched felt heart embellishment.

I also added one to a plain pink band. Simple and pretty.

Each heart is a unique combination of buttons and ribbon roses.

I also attached one to a an alligator clip  and it would be so sweet pulling a little hair back or even nestled in to the side of a ponytal or other "up do!"

I haven't attached them all yet as I wasn't sure which would be most popular so I thought I would just share pics of the hearts and the buyers could choose and then tell me how they would like to wear it and I would go forth and oblige!

The hearts measure approx 2 1/2" x 3" and there is one slightly bigger heart that is 3" x 3 1/4"

The prices are as follows

Hairband - £3.50

Brooch pin - £3.00

Clippy - £3.00

Keyring - 3.00

My girly is off to school wearing hers today, she chose a pink glittery hairband for , I must remember to take a pic of her when she gets home fron school :-) , we even have sunshine here today so it will be fun and probably a little wiggly.

I am off to list the finished ones in my folksy shop , if you would like to order one of the hearts, drop me an email (email addy next to my profile at the top right of the page) or leave me a comment to let me know which one is your favourite and how you would like it!

You can check out my folksy shop by clicking the wee button over top the right ---------> or by following this link

ps - I have 86 followers now on my Facebook page! So exciting! I think I may have another celebratory giveaway when I reach 100! So if you haven't clicked to follow on facebook yet, then follow this link and become a fan! And possibly a winner......