A Mixed Bag For Handmade Monday

I'm one of those people who sends their energies out in many directions, i tend to have loads of projects on the go at one time and like to try doing things in lots of different ways.

For Example, instead of having one online outlet for my wares as many of my fellow crafter do, i have four - my website, and shops on Etsy, Folksy and WowThankYou (and then there's my new Etsy shop and my Spoonflower shop...). The upside of all this is that i get to connect to more potential customers this way, the downside is that it takes me aaaaaaaages to list new items! Each site has slightly different requirements and all the copying, pasting, uploading, tagging, editing of this and resizing of that is very time consuming... and then there is the process of sharing my new creations... on my blog, facebook, pinterest, Etsy teams, wanelo, kaboodle... its a wonder i get around to making anything at all!

This has been one of those weeks where i've done a lot of this kind of thing, plus, rather excitingly, i've been invited to list some of my items on a gorgeous site for pet lovers called Pets Pyjamas and i've been doing all the admin required to set that up. My creations are soon to be appearing in their lifestyle section... i will keep you updated!

So, i haven't got any new makes to share with you today, but i do have a golden oldie, plus some other titbits of loveliness which i hope you'll enjoy :)

Pottery

There is a special place in my heart for ceramics. I took it up to GCSE at school and attended classes here and there during my twenties, i even worked in a potter's suppliers for a while. I took to hand building immediately i tried it and my style has changed little over the years, my pots always look the same!

I was searching around in the back of a cupboard this week when i came upon this - the last pot i made which, thanks to a date on the bottom, i can see was nine years ago.

It is a coil pot, made by rolling out long sausages of clay and then placing them on top of each other, blending as you go. It is way more time consuming than 'throwing' a pot on a potter's wheel but i absolutely love it. There is a real intimacy with the clay and you get to know every nook and cranny of your creation by the time its finished.

This pot has been 'biscuit' fired and decorated with underglaze's. You need three good coats so painting this took me ages too! That is not to say that any planning went into it though, it just kind of developed organically (i.e. i made it up as i went along :))

In fact, i took this home from a class to finish it and never got round to going back so it hasn't had its final firing which is why its stuck at the back of a cupboard rather than out and about. One of these days i'll get round to finding somewhere to fire it and maybe start up pottery again as i do miss it... i've got room for another creative direction in my life... right?! :)

Custom Fabrics

I had an enquiry from a lovely lady via Spoonflower this week who wanted to see how one of my fabrics looked in different colourways - it was no problem at all for me to do this for her so i thought i'd tell you a bit about this process and the possibilities!

For $1 Spoonflower can send you a colour guide printed out onto fabric. Each colour has a 'hex code' compatible with those used by photo editors like photoshop and pic monkey.

This is super useful when you're designing fabrics as you can choose colours by their code and have a good idea of how they'll turn out (which is often quite different to how they appear on screen), but its also a great tool if you're buying fabric. 

For example, lets say you're trying to create a particular colour scheme in your home - you like my nesting birds fabric design...

...but you want to make cushion covers to match your minty green curtains.

With the colour guide you could pick out the perfect colour match, give me the code (in this case 99FDC9) and i could list it for you to order a sample.

There are also other ways to easily customise your fabric order, such as asking for different print sizes or even altering designs - this might not always be possible but its definitely worth asking if you've got an idea in mind!

Free Customised Printable Leaflets For Your Shop!

As you may know, WowThankYou is a super site where British crafters can sell their wares. Its run by a lovely lady called Tracey who puts her heart and soul into making the site something special and is always coming up with fun and creative new ways to help her sellers.

One of the most recent is the offer to create a printable leaflet (for free!) featuring products from your WTY shop! Here's a sample of how it would look using my shop...

I'm not a regular attender of craft fairs but i could imagine these being a real asset to stall holders - leaflets jump out at people much more than business cards i think and i just love the pink and green tree design! I know those with WTY shops will have heard about this idea via Tracey's monthly update but i thought it was worth showing you how pretty they are incase you haven't had a chance to look!

Handmade Monday

That's it from me for this week, i'm off over to Handmade Harbour now to find out what my fellow Handmade Monday crafters have been up too - incase you don't know, its the most friendly linky party around... and you're invited!

I will leave you with a pic of the flower arrangement currently gracing our dinning table...

...a (metaphorical) gold star to anyone who recognises what these pretty yellow flowers are... i'll let you know next week if you can't guess!

Thanks for dropping by :) x