Day 11: Bird a Day : Scarlet Ibis

Day 11: Bird a Day : Scarlet Ibis

This one became a challenge for 2 reasons... firstly I decided it would be a great idea to give them legs, cue an afternoon of fiddling with bits of wire and get frustrated because while my regular birds are build around their legs getting the wire to stay in the bead and the bird to be the right way up was quite tricky!

Secondly I learned that red is a pain to photograph and that a lanky bird with a long neck presents a unique challenge to an amateur photographer with a slightly dodgy macro lens! But I managed it and here he is! 

Bye Bye Big Owls

We're starting to get super busy for the festive season and the gallery and shop orders have been coming in thick and fast. We're very excited about our first Christmas with our new stockist especially Pippin in Edinburgh who commissioned a special order for a wonderful window display.

 

 Yes Folks today is the day that the big owls are flying the roost to their Wintering grounds up North! (well thursday is!) I have been carefully packing up my big owls for their journey along with a pile of robins and little owls!

 

Each owl gets it's own box with packing peanuts to keep the extra safe and warm on their journey, some aren't looking especially pleased with the arrangements but short eared owl always looks a bit miffed! I got a little emotional while I was packing them up, I kind of feel like I am sending my babies away but Erica at Pippin has a wonderful plan and I can't wait to see it!

  

All our stockists can be found here with links to their personal websites and instructions how to find them, we have stockists in York, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Mersyside, Dorset and Masham in North Yorkshire so if you want to visit any of them they'd love to see you. (stores and galleries only stock limited selections, if you are traveling a long way we recommend you call ahead if it is something in particular you want. Stockists details are here) Full range of birds are as always available in Feltmeupdesigns on Etsy

Early Birds Catch the Bargains!

Christmas is coming!!! Yep, we know this... for us at Felt Towers Christmas has been coming since mid July when we started making robins and planning our Christmas stock for the year.

October has always been a tricky month at the Felt Menagerie because we know that things are about to go crazy for Christmas but we also know that many of our fans and followers are poor and holding on so as a little treat I have made and EARLYBIRD coupon code for all you organised people who are starting you Christmas shopping early. Just enter EARLYBIRD in the couponcode box on Etsy checkout and you'll get 10% off your whole order.

While being a little cash poor I'm also super busy making Robins and getting early Christmas orders sent off to my shops and galleries. Cambridge Contemporary Crafts and Pippin in Edinburgh have already had their first Christmas boxes and I am working on a big pile of robins to take to Me & Mrs Fisher in York soon!

I am also felting like crazy to get 5 big owls finished for a window display, I have 3 so far and another 2 to finish and am getting a wee bit panicky! I'm sure I'll get them finished in time but that doesn't stop the crazy from leaking into my brain and turning me into a quivering wreck! I've also got a bunch of big wreaths to finish and a Christmas display to plan... in a couple of months it'll all be over, let's all try and get thru it sane this year!

Why Didn't I Think of This Sooner?

The answer is... I did!

When I first started making owls I thought "I must offer these as wedding cake toppers" and then I just didn't because I am slightly rubbish! Lots of people do buy pairs of owls for their weddings but most do it by special request.

 

Around 2 years on I have finally managed to get my butt in gear and start photographing owls in pairs for cake toppers. I have been making them as special pairs all week. Rather than just throwing 2 random owls together my idea is to offer these as a made to order item so each pair will be made specially for each other just like my wedding cake topper love birds. I'll be offering them as big and mini owls pairs, so far I have on big and mini snowys and some barn owls.

I spent a very busy couple of days making 3 pairs to start off with and over the next few weeks I hope to be able to offer all my owls as wedding pairs. I'll be felting hard and taking advantage of the mid summer lull to get ahead with stock levels for the holiday season and working on new designs (hopefully)

Big Birdies at The Felt Menagerie

I've been pretty quiet in the blogosphere lately, I've been keeping my head down and working hard and haven't had the energy to blog so I thought we were well over due an update since the last one I posted was in April. The last 2 months have pretty much been about weddings, wedding cake toppers and generally going mental making them (yellow and grey are the current bestsellers!) but I have managed to fit some fun time in for myself as well and made 2 big barn owls.

I made the first one as an experiment and love her sweet little face but I wasn't totally happy with her tail and wings so I set out making another one. The 2nd owl has a much fluffier bum and looks a bit like he is wearing very frilly knickers! They look so cute as a pair!

The owls stand at around 7.5 inches tall and each took more than a week to complete... although I wasn't working on them continuously because this feltmaker has a very short attention span! I had so much fun making big owls I am planning on making a bunch more next on the list is either a snowy owl or a scops... I haven't quite decided!

Also I have been watching lots of nature programs and think I really need to make some more life sized realistic babies to go with the adult birds as the babies grow very fast and are almost the same size as the adults but really really fluffy!

One barn owl is up for sale already in my shop here at etsy and the other shall be up for sale soon.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/96540997/needlefelted-barn-owl-life-sized

On another note I am currently languishing at 1197 etsy sales so pretty soon I'll be passing the 1200 mark... and you all know what that means... yes... we'll be having a giveaway! Yay!
 

Harrogate Wool Weekend

I'm back folks! I had a whale of a time in Harrogate and have so much blog fodder that there will probably be several blogs over the next week or too about my fair experience! As you know me and my mother decided to share a stall at the Harrogate Show Ground British Wool Weekend event. We packed far too much stuff into the car and set off early Friday morning to get to the fair and set up!

We took our time getting there as Mum had just been to enrole for her degree course starting soon and was a little bit shell shocked from it all (she'll be studying fine art at Scarborough College) and got there after lunchtime and set up. The stall looked fab and we were very happy with our display, it was lovely and bright and jolly and we thought it stood out in the dingy hall! We tucked everything away for the night and headed off to stay at my Grandad's house for the night.

The next morning we were filled with enthusiasm after some early sales and lots of squeeeeees and positive comments but after the initial rush things died down and we started to wonder where all the people were! We got our needles out and started demonstrating and lots of people asked us where they could buy the needles and equipment to do it themselves! Looking around we realised that it was more a supplies fair then a gifty kind of fair... had we made kits to sell we would have sold loads!

By mid afternoon the fair was so quiet that it was mostly just stall holders wondering around and chatting so we got a coffee and discussed tactics for Sunday, we decided that we had to make every customer count, everyone who looked at our stall needed to leave with a postcard with a discount code on it or at least with a business card tucked in their pocket and a good experience to make them remember us! We practised on the few customers who were left for the rest of the day... one of us demonstrating while the other chatted away. (here's where all those years of dead end retail jobs came in handy!)

Sunday was better and a bit busier... people seemed to be staying much longer and walking around several times, we had one lovely lady and her daughter come back 3 times and eventually buy one of my mum's pictures. We gave out at least 100 cards and leaflets and kept up our chatting with customers all day... we talked to some lovely people who really wanted to buy things but couldn't think of a good enough reason and made sure they took our cards and knew about our online shops and had discount codes tucked in their pockets!

Financially the fair wasn't so great for us in the end but we made some good contacts in some of the other stall holders and had a lot of mother daughter quality time together which was nice! I'm not sure I would do it again but I might try other venues in the future... I think it was just the wrong venue for us. I'm looking forward to seeing if there is any comeback from all the leaflets we gave out too... we hope people will remember us when they start buying their Christmas presents! 

We both learned alot this weekend and now know what we will do if we get an opportunity to do a fair again... a good time was had by all!

500 Sales Celebration Blog Giveaway... Who Gives A Hoot!!!

I remember not so long ago in 2008 saying to my boyfriend "Do you think I can make 100 sales by Christmas?" Well we smashed that goal and the following Christmas we passed the 300 mark. I can't believe that in so little time I have sold 500 birds and that doesn't include families and pairs... which all equals a quite scary amount of stabbing felt!To celebrate I have decided to have a giveaway and for the prize 1 lucky winner will receive a Hoot! I am offering the winner their choice of owl from my Hoot section and a goody bag with lots of felty and inky goodies, a prize worth $50 all together. Which would you choose? A barn owl, a tawny owl... or maybe you'd like a cute pink owl?To enter simply first leave a comment on my blog telling me what your favourite item in my shop is and then if you want leave a Twitter comment mentioning this blog post with link @feltmeupdesigns or become a fan at facebook ... If you do all 3 you get 3 entries... simples!Winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator (otherwise known as John!) and the competition closes Thursday 17th of June

Louchelab gets Teeny Tweet Seal Of Approval!

Today I got a lovely little parcel in the mail. I was very excited to open it.I turned my back to find some scissors and the teeny tweets beat me to it!They were very curious, naughty little blighters!It turned out to be my little cup from Louchelab on etsy! I love these so much! The colours are so pretty and obviously the tweets liked it! There was a bit of a scuffle to see who could get inside first but after a little pushing and tweeting (and a stern look!) they came to an amicable resolution and shared!Well done little tweets! And well done Louchelab for being so talented!

Blog Giveaway Inky Prizes!!!!

I am feeling generous this week, I am looking forward to my week off and moving my boyfriend into my flat and I reckon I need to declutter a bit! So I am having my first inky give away. You may have noticed I have another wee shop on etsy called inkmeup which is edging ever closer to 100 sales. I am offering one lucky winner a great big inky prize of a music wrens print , a blank notebook of their choice plus a great big inky pile of post cards and mini prints... in a big prize haul worth over $50
How to enter
This time there are 4... yes 4 ways to enter!

To enter simply leave a comment on my blog telling me what your favorite item in my shop is or buy an item from from either shop or leave a Twitter comment mentioning this blog post with link @feltmeupdesigns

Finally become a fan of inkmeup at our face book page here ... If you do all 4 you get 4 entries... simples!!!The best thing about having a week off from my day job is I will be getting my fingers well and truely inky and working on new designs. Yay! I will draw the competition by the scientific and totally random way of sticking the entries in a hat and making John pick one out, with his eyes closed, probaly looking dopey... there may even be pictures ... competition closes February 24th.