The Felt Invasion

I feel sad lately... maybe it's the night drawing in and getting colder... maybe it's my pitiful bank balance... who knows. I do have a sure fire cure for  the blues tho, when I feel sad I turn to the feltanomicon to cheer me up! I have been making some new designs recently, just playing and having fun with it all and my fevered brain came up with brain squids!

They are super cute little one eyed aliens that sit on your head and suck you brains out! I think they are great fun, it very hard to feel sad when you are wearing one of these all I have to do is catch my reflection in a mirror and I'm giggling!

Old Thu face, the dark god Cthulhu Feltathulhu is back for halloween again too and I am planning my Christmas lines too... lets hope that the sales follow soon!

New Shop and a big old Givaway

Oh yes I did it! Not content with having 3 etsy shops I decided I needed a 4th for my new range of Inkmeup designs! And what better way to celebrate then to have a giveaway... yay! So what's the prize? Well you can win your choice of brooch from my new shop and I'll even throw in a bunch of goodies from the original Inkmeup print shop Including a lavender bag and notebook and a bunch of mini prints for good measure so it's a prize fund worth more than £30. So head on over to Inkmeup's Blog for details on how to enter!

Don't worry we will be having a Feltmeupdesigns giveaway very soon... running 2 at the same time might make my brain explode!

Silly Sale Half Price Tweets for a Limited Time

Sale time... I think I want to clear some space for all my new designs and reinvigorate my shop a little bit so for one week only all spotty tweets and lovebird tweets will be half price... that's just £6.25 to you my friend!!!

Visit the shop to pick up a bargain... and of course when we reach 900 sales we'll be planning a giveaway!

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!

Craft Fair Prep

I'm just about ready for my first proper fair at the Harrogate Show ground for the British Wool Weekend. Now I should say this isn't my first experience of craft fairs when I was growing up my mum had her own business, Joybears, so most of my weekends were spent getting up very early and packing a car to drive to a fair and set up so I know what's in store for me... it doesn't stop me being really nervous though!

I'll be taking all my new designs with me including my new wreaths and my inkmeup feather brooches (which I love!) a huge pile of lavender bags and of course all the tweets! We're pretty much ready but there's always something else you can be doing! I'm still trying to finish a big wreath as a centrepiece for my display and I have to stamp all my boxes with my logo but I'm getting there.

I have been thinking about my brand and how I want to promote it so all my carrier bags have been stamped with my logo and I have made special promotional postcards with a discount code for fair goers so I will be able to track where my orders are coming from! (hopefully!)

On Thursday I shall be putting all my shops in holiday mode so I don't have to worry about them while I am away... I have big plans for when I come back but I shall keep that under my hat for now!

My First Proper Fair!!!

I just booked in for my very first proper craft fair with my mother this week... The very first British wool weekend at Harrogate show ground. We're both very excited, my clever mum is a feltmaker too, you can find her at Joyfeltcreations, and we both really wanted to do the fair so decided to split the costs and share a stall.


I'll be taking the full Menagerie with me and closing all my shops for the weekend and there'll be some special show offers for visitors. It sounds like a fab weekend and hopefully will continue and become a Yorkshire version of Woolfest! I shall be in a state of panic for the next month until it's all over now trying to make extra stock and sort out my prices etc... squeeeeeeeeeeee.... we can't wait!

British Wool Weekend 2011

Hall 2, Event Centre, The Great Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate HG2 8PW

Saturday and Sunday September 3rd and 4th 2011

Yeti Summer!

A while ago it snowed very hard... this was probably over a year ago because I was still at my old home. I wrapped myself in blankets and made 3 little yetis with soft curly fleece... I had a surprise last monday when I went to The Feltanomicon and found that 2 had sold!!!
What really surprised me was the tug on my heart strings as I wrapped them in tissue paper and wrote a little note to go with each one! I am really going to miss those yetis, they were very special to me! Immediately I sat down to make some more... these ones are for me to keep but being the business woman I am I made some for the shop too!
I've also been working hard on other Feltanomicon beasties both old and new... Cthulhu... or Feltathulhu as we like to call him... or Old Tentacle Face as we really like to call him! Has had a make over... he now has more elegant tentacles! He like them as they are longer... better for grabbing things to nom!
And I made a teeny thu... a pint size lesser evil minion! There are other projects in the pipeline but I'm keeping them under my hat... or somewhere near the top of my head at least!