Edgar Allan Crow... Beating Burnout part 2

As Part of my plan to beat burn out I decided to do, make, or draw something every week which isn't related to my business, last week I was naughty and skipped class because I was just way too worn out so I decided to use sunday for my making/playing day (after I did my accounts and answered my emails and made some wedding birds)

A pal had brought this gorgeous book, The Artful Bird by Abigail Patner Glassenberg to class previously and I kind of had to buy it! I chose the crow as my first project... probably a bit ambitious really as I haven't really sewn properly for 12 years but I decided to just dive in. The first obstacle I came across was the pattern pieces, they are printed in the book without seam allowance so I struggled adding it on, especially to some of the more complex small pieces, I haven't used a pattern since GCSE so it was a struggle for me.

The next obstacle was the darts for the legs (do I just sew the darts, as indicated? what about the seam allowance) but after that it was pretty much plain sailing... altogether my crow took about 7-8 hours if you include the time to bake the beak which is made from polymer clay. I imagine a more experienced sewer would be faster... or if I made a few more I might be faster too.

All in all I enjoyed making my crow, he's a little wobbly and his beak is crooked  and there are lots of places where I have used sneaky tricks and embroidered bits to hide my mistakes and bad sewing. The instructions are concise and pretty easy to follow but you need a reasonable experience with sewing, I wouldn't recommend this book to a novice.

Edgar Allen Crow is lovely tho, I'm very fond of his crooked everything. I went with bead eyes and changed the wings as I didn't like the way they were in the book and added a little embroidery so he didn't look so very black, he's now gracing our living room, perched next to the Plague doctor's mask we have on display and looking very at home there!

I very much enjoyed losing myself in a project that didn't come entirely from my noggin and I have a feeling that artful bird making is addictive!

Origami Dresses

Recently I decided to use up all my old card stock (I don't make cards so why do I have it?) and all my papers that were bought for inkmeup in it's early days before I had got to grips with the gocco format properly. Plus the 15 years worth of randomly collected crafting paraphernalia... which is a lot.

So last week I started making up cards using my maps and music to make origami bows and blossoms... now my attention span is that of a flea so after a week of bows and blossoms I decided I needed another challenge an went for a little trawl around Pinterest for inspiration and came across some beautiful images of origami dresses.

After several hours of interwebs research I found a pattern/ tutorial which gave the kind of dress I was imagining and I had a wee crack at it! I used this lovely Cath Kidston stationary that someone must have bought me as a present (I'm not exactly a Cath Kidston kind of a gal, have you met me? I'm more of a big boots and scarlet hair kind of a gal!)

I'm really chuffed with the results so there shall be some music paper dresses soon as well. This fab tutorial came from the lovely and talented Christy at Inklings and Yarns and it was beautifully photographed and so easy to follow.

It also gave me an excuse to crack open the bag of tiny pegs I randomly bought last week because they were cute! Now I have a lovely washing line of little dresses hanging from my pinboard! Cute as they are I reckon they will need a bit of bling before I turn them into cards... maybe some buttons and bows!

I'm really enjoying playing with paper and making cards but I have now a much increased respect for people who do it for a living as so much work goes into one little card! Although I am thinking how sweet these would look in little box frames! So far my project to use up my papers has cost me about £30 including glues and new scissors... I'm not sure I have got the hang of clearing out yet!

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!

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!

Blog a day 6 Some Days Require Pins!

You know those people who really annoy you? They make you angry and they break your heart? Or worse... they break your best friend's heart!Maybe it's not so dramatic as that... maybe they just talk too much, the eat the last cupcake, they step on your toes and don't apologise... maybe they are those people who are rude to you in shops, maybe they are those people who are rude to cashiers in shops, maybe they wear clompy heels and walk down the street behind you clomping away but not saying excuse me...Well those people... I have found a way to deal with those people. I keep my little voodoo doll in my pocket and while they aren't looking I stab it with pins!
They don't feel anything but I feel better!

Blog A Day 5 Not Tweet or Hoot but Coot!

For a while now I have had a burning desire to make some life size or at least bigger sized birds. I have a real craving to make a large flamingo but I thought Maybe I should start with a less ambitious project!I started making a Raven but then decided against it as it would be BLACK and I doubt it would photograph well at all so the creature got longer and thinner and I remembered the Coots and Moorhens we used to see drift around Roundhay Park Lake in Leeds as a child, they had such fun characters and a funny bobby kind of walk!I have christened my coot Christopher... I don't know why I just have. Christopher is 6.5 inches tall and a little intimidating to the average tweet but he is a very friendly chap!
Now I am going to start on my flamingo... I really hope it works!

Blog A Day 2- Free Shipping

As a special celebration for my holiday I am offering free shipping across my shop. The offer includes all full size tweets, real birds, pet birds, owls, cake toppers, pairs and families and runs for 5 days until sunday the 30th May (Offer does not include teeny tweets or hatchlings tho, cos our margin is very small on these guys!)I have even made a treasury of free shipping items to celebrate!
And look what came in the post today... my gocco stamp! Yay... it's a massive indulgence but means i can print on fabric and different surfaces! I hope I get to use it this week!

A blog a day... Holiday Project

It's not often that an unexpected holiday falls in your lap! This week I checked my rota at work and found that I had been given a holiday to use up holiday hours... yay! Totally unplanned and I'm broke so I can't go anywhere... Oh no you might think... but you would be wrong!This little crafter is totally chuffed to have a week off and has major plans to work my butt off and do all those thing I would do if I didn't have to be a bookslave 20 hours of the week!Wren Notebooks

Starting Monday I plan to do a blog a day to motivate myself, monday is about sorting out so today I am cleaning the house, tidying my craft stuffs and I received a lovely delivery of ribbons and am wrapping all my notebooks for Inkmeup, I may even do some paper work!

Kingfisher notebooks

Keep your eyes peeled for Tuesday's blog... hopefully I'll have lot of interesting things to show you!

Working hard for Christmas

Well, it's that time of year again and I am working hard on my commissions for Christmas. The only problem with this is I don't really have time for my real work, the things that I love. I have, however, still managed to fit in time for making this fella.

This is my very first tentacle bag, something I have been wanting to make forever since i started making tentacle creations. He's really given me a kick start and i am ready to take on those commissions now.

I absolutely love him but he will be on sale on my Etsy site soon...

www.feltmeup.etsy.com

if you want to find out how he was made visit my flickr account at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/feltmeupdesigns/sets/72157602528652859/

for a step by step account of his creation.

Cupcakes!!!