Trade Show Virgin

Yesterday I had a rare but deserved day out. Part of my plan for 2013 is to do a trade show but decided it might be a good idea to visit a trade show to see what it's all about.

I grabbed a couple of my crafty friends and off we went to Earls Court in London to Top Drawer, their tag line claims they are 'The UK's leading event for design-led gifts, lifestyle & fashion accessories.' Perfect!

As you can see from the first photograph, I don't get out a lot.

If I am going to embark upon the world of tradeshow there were some things I wanted to know first. For instance how much space do you get for your money (not much I found) and what sort of printed materials do prospective customers expect? I'm a sucker for a postcard but are buyers and do they expect free stuff too?

I found that there were lot's of creatives like myself there with fairly small stands just handing out business cards and pricelists, and then equally there was the other end of the scale, one stand I particularly liked was Hemingway House. It was a beautiful stand with some very special tiles:

Another eye catching stand was Dots and Spots, owner and designer Becky Peabody was absolutely lovely and gave us some samples of her paper, which I am really interested in for gift wrapping my products.

By mid afternoon I was a bit overwhelmed by the bright lights, so decided it was time to head outside for some air, so we spent the next couple of hours wandering around Notting Hill and Portobello Market.

We were getting a lateish train home so spent an hour or so pootling around the wonder that is St Pancras station. It really is a beautiful place with some pretty nice shops too.

Then we headed home, extremely tired (although Deanne kept me giggling all the way, even when I nearly gave her a black eye opening my train picnic on the homeward journey).

Thanks to the super talented Deanne of Quirky Boots for the pics in this post. We also traveled to the event with seasoned trade fairer and fellow craftsperson Louise Verity of Wall Envy Art.

Personalised Owl Bunting

I have just made some owl bunting for an order from notonthehighstreet.com and am really pleased with how it has turned out. I bought some chunky gingham fabric on Sunday when I was in Brighton from a magical little shop, the fabrics were stacked to the rafters and if I'm honest was possibly a bit of a death trap, but what a way to go!! I digress, I have used the lovely chunky lime green gingham in my latest bunting order and love love love it, I wish I had bought more!

I don't stipulate in my listings exactly which fabrics I use as I like to keep things fresh and make each design different, but you can choose a colour scheme. This customer chose pink and green which always work really well together. I am slowly replacing all of my photographs in my shop with up to date ones, it's starting to look a lot more how I would like it to.

Monday morning, erm actually it's Tuesday

Good morning peeps.
I am a bit confused about it being Tuesday as it definitely feels like a Monday, those pesky bank hols, I'm sure they are just there to throw out my body clock. This morning I was so unprepared for the day I didn't have any milk for cereal and Eva's pink milk, so I had to drive to the shop (which I hate doing as at 8.15am it takes forever, in fact I should have walked) I was feeling a bit stressed out about my early morning shopping trip but I actually managed to get most of my supplies for the week, including a cheese straw for my breakfast, which I have now eaten and it has certainly lifted my mood. So if it proceeds to rain all week as forecast I can now hermitise myself. I actually quite enjoy sewing in my cosy little work room when it's chucking it down outside.

The more observant of you will have noticed that I have changed my blog design. I just thought as I am making a lot of florally Jubilee themed products right now I ought to embrace the moment and signpost these makes. All of my items are available through my shop, if you have an aversion to red, white and blue, or you would like the design to fit with your own colour scheme I can make you a bespoke version, just email me. Here are some shots of my bunting in alternate colour schemes.

The new background image on my blog is a recent shot of my fabric stash and some vintage buttons. Its looks quite neat in the photo but I am preparing for a craft fair during the next two weeks, so I doubt it will remain in neat little bundles for long! I might photograph it next Friday just to see how it compares!

Hope you have a fabulous week!

Day 50: Homemade Daily Challenge, sketch to stitch

Whilst browsing through my sketchbook for yesterday's post I found this really quick sketch I did last summer, it was a design for a tea cosy that I was going going to make, it's slightly unusual in that I drew it within the boundaries of the cosy shape, I don't normally work like this as I don't like to constrain the design in case it is more suitable for another product, but I think in this case I had a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve:

Here is the finished cosy, it made from a mix of vintage and modern fabric with free machine embroidery. I really love drawing little houses and flowers I have an idea for draft excluders that I am going to be working on soon for Autumn!!!

I always do my wispy chimney smoke like this...

The windows were a bit of a 'happy accident' I especially love how the blue checks look like graph paper.

Enjoy your Sunday :)

Day 36: Homemade Daily Challenge

Hope you all had a great Sunday and didn't get too snowed in.

A short post from me today as it's a little late, had a very busy day seeing friends and family as it's Eva's birthday weekend.

Just got time to say I've had a few bunting orders this week and back by popular demand to my noths shop is this country style, Love Heart Bunting. It's Valentine's Day next week and this would make a great present that won't look out of place all year round.

Day 31: Homemade Daily Challenge

Today I am launching the last product in my new range for January. I've revisited an old favourite technique I enjoyed whilst at college 'patchwork'. I have made some little patchwork bags, made using gorgeous Tilda Scandinavian fabrics in olive green and fuschia, teamed with some love sage and baby pink polka dots. The owl keyring is an optional extra.

This bag is a perfect book bag size for a little girl and completes my new range, it will be available in my shop today, also in the shop you will find matching bunting and keyrings, perfect gifts or just for yourself. I launched the heart bunting last week and already it is becoming a popular choice.

I have got to bake Herman today as he is ready, if you would like some of the mix message me. Also there has been much excitement at the short flurry's of snow this morning in the Watts/Day home (and that was just me!) xx

Day 30: Homemade Daily Challenge

Well it's Monday again, start of a whole new week of posts :) Today I am giving you a little update on a project I was working on last Thursday and have now finished. The project is my first Owl cafetiere cosy and if you read the post you will remember I was having fun choosing the best position for the eyes.

The design was a bespoke order for a local person ordered through facebook (although I didn't know they were a fellow Ketteringer until I started to fill out the address label!) The customer had chosen the main background fabric from a photo of a number of fabrics in their scheme. The selected fabric was the green with the tulips (second from bottom). I then had great fun selecting the other fabrics for the design. I also really enjoyed the embellishments using free machine embroidery.


Here's some snaps of the finished cosy:

I got a message from the customer this morning to say that she loves her new cosy... always a good start to the week :)

Day 21: Homemade Daily Challenge

A very quick blog update from me today I have got a birthday party to go to this morning at the lovely and very talented Quirky Boots house, Eva and I are both excited, she's at that age now where she understands parties, which is lovely to see, but thinking I might take my ear defenders!

Today's craft is an update on my patchwork quilt:

 It's an appliqued love heart attached with a blanket stitch (done by hand) using vintage fabrics. I hope I can keep up the enthusiasm for this blanket, handstitching is not really my bag. So we'll see :)

Have a super weekend whatever you are doing x

Day 8: Homemade Daily Challenge

Well it's day 8 of the challenge, I've done a whole week and it has been challenging. I thought January would be a nice quiet month to help me get into the swing of this blog challenge thing. Not so! I have been working on lovely bespoke orders from my online shop and some from regular peeps, which is completely brilliant if a little unexpected for this time of year.

This is a cosy phone cover that I have been asked to make by a regular shopper, I don't keep them stocked in my store as I make them to order from range of fabrics and to the individual dimensions required (some phones are big - some are small) and I'm currently working on some super duper ipad case designs, news on this will follow in due course.

If you would like an phone cosy made for you, message me :)