Crafters Hearts And New Nature Notecards For Handmade Monday

Another busy week at Free Spirit Designs HQ... Mostly doing the nitty gritty of updating my website - a long and tedious job, involving re-loading descriptions and images for all my products! I'm getting there, slowly... and in between i've been rewarding myself with some fun stuff too like working on the beginnings of some new designs.

I've also got a few lovely new things listed for sale, and they're coming right up!

Crafter's Ceramic Hearts

If you've visited my blog over the last couple of weeks you'll know that i have been working on a new range of ceramic decorations and these are the latest... two heart designs with crafters, upcyclers and anyone who likes a bit of modern/retro fun in mind!

As with all my hearts and stars they are priced £7.00 and are available now from my Etsy shop. I know i'm talking to a pretty crafty audience here on my blog so i'm hoping you'll like these :)

(p.s. how many of you have ignored 'measure twice, cut once' and lived to regret it...? I know i have...!)

Life Is Better In Flip-Flops

Speaking as someone who lives in flip-flops, slippers or Ugg boots at all times (yay for working from home! :)) i whole heartedly agree with this saying.

Anyone else find they're never happier than when they have comfy feet?!

This star joins my other new hand painted ceramic stars on Etsy.

They are all priced £7 and can be personalised with a name/message on the reverse side.

New Nature Notecards

Also new in my shops this week are three nature photograph notecards. I can remember the exact moments of taking each of these shots - you know that feeling when you see something really beautiful and your heart lifts... i love how with a camera you can capture a moment like that to share with others.

The first shows a beautiful green fern caught in a ray of sunlight piercing the woodland canopy. I love the sea of wild garlic flowers in the background, its such a magical time of year in the woods when they are out.

Next is a pink cosmos flower bathing in warm afternoon sun. I think this could make a nice Mother's Day card for those who prefer to write their own message.

And finally, a Red Admiral butterfly which i found happily feeding on the ivy that grows up the side of our house... i had to risk life and limb leaning out of the bedroom window to get the shot!

As with all of my notecards these are £1.99 if bought singly and £1.75 if bought with another card. You will find them over at my Print And Paper shop on Etsy.

And that's it from me or this week! I'm looking forward to my weekly stroll around the other Handmade Harbour blogs :)

Thanks for stopping by! x

Personalised Patchwork Hearts And Colourful Cats For Handmade Monday

Another gloriously sunny week in Wiltshire... its just soooooo lovely to have some proper summer weather :)  And isn't it beautiful out there...?! I just had to take some snaps of this stunning field of poppies and yellow rape seed flowers.

Personalised Patchwork Hearts

Do you remember i told you about a lovely commission i got to work on recently? Well today i get to show you some photos!

The brief was to create six patchwork lavender hearts similar to this one which i made a while ago as part of a collection of other hearts and banners.

I had to improvise as i only had a little left of a couple of the fabrics, and i needed enough to create six identical hearts (fellow crafters reading will no doubt be familiar with the scenario where you've used up scraps of lovely fabrics on a project only to be asked to reproduce it at a later date!)

The customer also wanted each to have a personalised message - i've blurred it out for this piccie but you get the idea of how they look.

I loved working on this project as the fabrics are gorgeous and the sentiment behind the gift is lovely too. 

Commissions can be a bit nerve wracking when you're waiting to find out what the customer thinks of the finished result... happily though she was really pleased with them!

Colourful Cats

This week i've also had the chance to finish my colourful cats bookmarks...

and lavender pillows...

...their cheery colours have suited the summery weather beautifully!

I'll be listing them soon in my various online outlets. The bookmarks will be £5.50 and the lavender pillows £8.50 per pair (if you know you want one let me know and i'll set it aside for you!)

Mystery Plant Time

As always you have astounded me with your cleverness this week! There were some superb guesses as to the identity of this mystery plant...

Highland Monkeys and Ginx Craft did fantastically well to guess that it is in fact...

CELERY!!!

The biggest well done has to go to Christmas Pie Crafts though who also guessed that it was grown from the bottom of a celery i'd planted up!

If you've never given this a go, i highly recommend it as a way of making the most of your shop bought celery - cut off the stalks and use as usual, then just pop the base in a saucer of water for a couple of days until tiny leaves start to appear, plant it in a pot and watch a new celery plant grow! It even works during winter and if nothing else provides something lush and leafy to look at when nothing much else is happening.

That's more than enough from me for this week i think! Time to find out what all the other Handmade Monday crafters have been up too... 

Have a wonderful week :) and thanks for popping by! xxx

Personalised Father Christmas Bauble And Complimentary Gift Wrapping For Handmade Monday

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!)

In case you were wondering, this is the same type of porcelain bauble i've used for my other designs - decorated with enamel paint and then oven fired for a chip resistant finish.

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!

Hand Painted Porcelain Heart Christmas Decorations For Handmade Monday

It may still officially be Autumn, but its jingle bells all the way at Free Spirit Designs HQ... I read somewhere yesterday that Christmas is only eight weeks away... and this morning i woke up to heavy snow tumbling down outside my window!

Peace And Love Porcelain Christmas Decorations

Peace and love... two of my favourite sentiments at any time of year and certainly a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas time. These little porcelain hearts are a simple design but i have to say i love them (especially photographed in the snow for added wintery wonderlandness!)

They are a beautiful mat white porcelain and i've used my favourite ruby red enamel used for the freehand lettering.

Personalised Peace Dove And Reindeer Stag Christmas Heart Decorations

My next porcelain heart designs feature two classic Christmas images from the animal world - a reindeer and a dove. Animal inspired symbolism always touches my heart and these simple designs were a real joy to create. They are freehand painted which i always enjoy, although it is a little trickier with unglazed porcelain which doesn't allow for slip ups to be wiped away!

These are designed to be personalised with a message. I'm still umming and ahhhing about whether to...

a) Give customers the option of having their message either written on the front alongside the image or on the reverse (leaving the space beside the image blank)

Or...

b) Writing something on the front myself as part of the design (i'm thinking the first line of Silent Night for the stag and 'peace, love and good will to all men' for the dove) and writing personalised customer messages on the reverse only...

Or...

c) Offering all options... which could get complicated!

Any input welcome!!! (if this dilemma even makes sense :))

Black Cat In Santa Hat Personalised Message Heart Decoration

I couldn't resist showing you this little cutie too... matching doggie to follow shortly! :)

All of these hearts will be available soon from my Etsy shop and other online outlets. They are a little on he heavy side for tree decorations although would do well on a stronger branch. Equally, they would make gorgeous luxury gift tags and keepsakes that will last for years to come.

Rustic Christmas Angel Decorations

On the fabric front this week i've made this set of three Christmas angel decorations. I've used scraps of organic and fairtrade sample fabrics so this particular set is a one off (although this design will return with other fabrics). They are made more substantial with a layer of cotton wadding and have a rustic/primitive style - i have handmade the buttons (from fimo) deliberately a bit uneven and the angels have been finished with frayed edges. I've also used white thread so the stitching shows through on the red linen reverse.

I rather like their rustic charm.... i hope you do too :)

That's all on the creative front from me this week... now i just need to get all these lovelies listed!

In other News

Remembrance Day Poppies

I've already bought a regular paper poppy this year, but that was before i saw these beautifully handmade felt poppies by Graces Favours...

... aren't they just gorgeous! I just had to share :) All profits go to charity so not only can you look super stylish but its all for a good cause!

Handmade Monday

If you are a regular Handmade Monday reader you will know all about how to join in with Wendy's super crafty linky party over at Handmade Harbour (which is what i'm off to do now). If you're new to Handmade Monday, why not come along too! You will be made very welcome and there is always some fantastic crafting on the go :)

p.s. Thank you very much to all those who left lovely comments on my HM post last week - they are all greatly appreciated x

Have a great week!