The Big Fat Blog Of The Year

It's been a big old year for me over at the Felt Menagerie both professionally and personally so, as is traditional this time of year, I decided it would be a good thing to reflect on all the things I have achieved this year.

January
Was mostly filled with being loved up in a new relationship and recovering from Christmas!
Celebrating my first 100 sales

February
Saw the first felt giveaway and the Menagerie's first birthday, the first of the real bird tweets, the Cardinal was created and the great escape from the world's coldest flat was planned!

March
A time for mad Hare's and moving house, the great bunny giveaway, John's bringing creative input to the menagerie by demanding Feltathulhu's and the invention of the emo tweet. Not to mention a wedding cake topper frenzy where I felted my fingers to the bone with custom orders!


April
April saw our most ambitious giveaway/ competition, the Have It Your Way Giveaway where I asked you to design your own tweet... this was the most fun and the most hard work. Big Blue Bed's canary design won the day!

May
I opened my 3rd shop the Feltanomicon... mostly to play with crazy characters and have a bit of fun. Mythosian designs, aliens and dead bunnies followed. Just wait till you see what the Feltanomicon has in store for 2010


June
Feltmeupdesigns wedding cake topper came 2nd in the etsy voter poll and another birthday giveaway of teeny tweets.
July
I turned 30... eep.... don't tell anyone and turned down a fulltime job because I prefer the felt to the bookshop!
August
UK retreat... amazing fun! Met the most amazing people, Learned to gocc from Fabricnation, marvelled at Alibali's capacity for wine (kidding) admired Debsmuddle's tweet making skills and tasted Marmalady's nommy marmalade! Split my jeans (whoops!) and modelled T'shirts for the lovely tinyisland aka Debbie in unsplit jeans thanks to Debbie for the lift to tescos on an emergency jeans run!
September
Hit 300 sales and bought a gocco and opened Inkmeup... that's shop number 4 if you are counting!


October
Introduced the real bird tweets to the menagerie and gocco'd till the cows came home!

November
Made Tweets for South Street Gallery, held a twitter competiton which nearly drove me mad! Crowned John postmaster general and wrapped many dozens of parcels.

December
Featured in christmas voter and the etsy finds email, plus a cheeky bonus in the form of a Christmas day front page feature. Which about brings us up to date...

So often when you work for yourself you forget to look back and reflect on your own achievements and give yourself a big old pat on the back. Instead of making resolutions I am writing a business plan... watch out 2010 the Felt Empire is on the march!

Happy new year peeps, don't forget to give yourself a big old pat on the back from me and celebrate your achievements. And if you do make resolutions try and keep them achievable... and as I have done, throw out the size 10's and be happy with your big bum!

xx

A very Merry Felty Christmas

This post was going to be a big rambley review of the year but I am far too tired my friends. Ah yes I am worn out from too much feltyness!

All that remains to say is thankyou to all the people who have supported me this year and have a very merry christmasOr as we say in my house Merry Cthulhumas!

xx
mel

Leggy's Surprise

Hi

I am leggy, I work with Mel, I help her by putting all her fleece into colour coordinating piles. Often while she is out and I don't tell her so when she comes home it is a big surprise!


She is very very busy but I know she appreciates me because she just bought me a present from Kittypinkstars, the person who made me for Mel to adopt!

Look it's a new friend!


And a nifty little Christmas ensemble!

Thanks Kitty and Mel

✻´¨)

¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)

(¸.•´ (¸.•´✻

xx leggy

The Little Red Door

Now I don't often do swaps with people but when Thelittlereddoor made me a proposition how could I refuse?

I love these adorable little houses and have wanted one for ages so I was so happy to get a wee goody bag thru the post. The tweets investigated immediately and now are demanding a whole village to play with so they can pretend to be Godzilla! Really I can't blame them, they are so well made and one looks so lonely by itself!


Visit The Little Red Door at etsy and get a village for your home today!

Inkmeup... my other self

As you may or may not know I cultivate several etsy shops and have had a few changes in directions Since I started this etsy malarky. I felt it well past due the time to have a blog about my latest venture Inkmeup.


I opened the shop at the end of September, listing a few little wren prints, thinking Hey Ho this will never catch on and as a result didn't really have a proper opening celebration. 50 sales later I may have to put my hands up and say whoops I was wrong!


Inkmeup came about mostly because I bought a gocco... for those who don't know what it is the best way to describe it is a miniaturised Japanese screen printing system... and then I had to pay for it, which was problematic being a poor bookslave and feltmaker! Well I am also a frustrated artist too... I work in pen and ink mostly and spend hours on tiny details and then can't sell my work cos I spent hours on tiny details and the price gets too high! The gocco machine seemed a reasonably cheap and effective way of reproducing these drawings in a repeatable and affordable format. It's such an effective little printy machine that often my flat is covered completely in inky little prints which my boyfriend has started referring to as Inksplosions!

Inksplosion in progress!

I've also started introducing some of my sketches to the shop... I have to admit Ink has been great fun so far and I find myself sitting at home trying to decide between ink and felt quite often as there are not enough hours in the day to do both!


I've been so surprised how sucessful this venture has turned out to be... I was just hoping to pay for my equipment! I am especially taken by printing on moleys (moleskine journal covers to the uninitiated) I love prettying them up with some ribbon for packaging as gifts!


So pop by and visit the ink mice at Inkmeup, let me know what you think my ext inkventure should be!