A new style of Christmas bauble has emerged at Free Spirit Designs! Although i've been very much enjoying the simple elegance of my recent designs i took the plunge this week into doing some more detailed work and i have to say i'm loving the results (so expect more soon!)
Personalised Father Christmas Bauble
The background i chose for this bauble was a bit of a risk - black being a colour more associated with Halloween than Christmas! However as soon as i saw the gorgeous shininess of it i loved it, especially when i saw how fantastic gold and silver look against its lustrous sheen... maybe black can be Christmassy after all! (Do share your thoughts on this btw, i'd love to hear them!)
Personalisation
I came up with a fun idea to personalise this design which i hope you like as much as i do! It reminds me of a book my brother and i had a children - it was a Christmas story i think... (i'm hopeless with details on these things!) What i do remember though is that the two children in the story had the same names as my brother and i! I don't know how my parents managed to source this level of personalisation but we LOVED it - these things really do add to the magic of childhood.
So, back to the bauble... you see how the Christmas presents on their way down to the waiting chimney pot have blank tags attached...
...that's right, you guessed it! Anyone purchasing this design will have the opportunity to choose the names on the tags. Anything up to five gifts can be featured in the design, each with their own name tag.
More images and details can be found in my Etsy shop where it is available to buy for £16 (as with all my products, shipping within the UK is free).
Complimentary Gift Wrap Service
This week i have finally got around to something i've been meaning to do for a while - offering a complimentary gift wrapping service. This includes delivery to the recipients address and personalised message on a gift tag if required.
I'm currently in the process of updating all my listings with this pretty picture of the wrapping i will provide... simple yet stylish :)
In Other News...
CRAFTfest
Christmas CRAFTfest is just around the corner (24th Nov - 1st Dec) and i'm busy stocking up my virtual stall... For the uninitiated, CRAFTfest is a regular week long online craft fair organised by crafters network, Creative Connections - i took part in my first one in September and learnt so much about networking and other things related to online craft selling that i just had to be part of it again! Another lovely thing was the atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual support and 'meeting' lots of lovely fellow crafters :)
I will let you know how i get on this time in due course!
Craft Couture
Craft Couture is a Facebook page i found out about from Jan over at Handcrafted By Picto when she mentioned it in her Handmade Monday post. I popped along to investigate at the time and liked the idea, but it has developed a little since then so i thought it worth mentioning this fantastic little enterprise again.
The premise is to try to connect those seeking to buy handmade items with the crafters that make them. Buyers post requests on the page and then crafters can reply with appropriate links to items (either their own or another crafters). There is none of the indiscriminate self-promotion or spammy posting that you see on other pages because only those seeking items can post - sellers can only reply.
I think its a great way to encourage people to shop handmade this Christmas and to help them find just what they're looking for from the handmade community.. yay! :)
Handmade Monday
I am linking this post, as i do every week, with Handmade Monday, the fabulous linky party run by Wendy over at Handmade Harbour. Do join me in browsing the superb array of crafty blogs on display over there!
If you visited my blog last week and left a comment, thank you! Your thoughts on my dog and cat baubles were super useful and so kind too :) x
Have a wonderful week!
