Hello Battenberg

The lovely hello battenburg was at the East London Craft Guerilla on Saturday and she has got the most gorgeous collection of handmade toys, badges, baby pixie hats and bib/burp sets. She uses vintage fabrics and simple shapes to make really beautiful things. www.hellobattenberg.etsy.com

I love the birdy with its button eyes and so does the little lady. I also love her pixie style hats and I need to measure the little lady's head so I can do a custom order. It's always dangerous when I've got a wee bit of money in my paypal account!

Another etsy sale today to Australia! I sometimes wonder if my mum distributed some flyers or business cards before they left Melbourne....

Liberty Lovelies

I bought some beautiful liberty fabric squares on ebay and they arrived yesterday. I was planning to use them for vintage fabric badges but I have had so much trouble cutting fabrics with the badge cutter I have given up. The point is to cut a perfect circle but the fabric seems to blunt the cutter and the circles are not properly circular so the badge machine doesn't properly press them into the fittings.

In summary the badges look great but they fall apart which isn't going to be good for customers!

The badges in my etsy shop are made of fabric but these fabrics are much thinner cotton and they worked out ok.

So I think I may just hang onto these fabric samples as inspiration as they are really gorgeous fabrics! Liberty is one of my favourite shops in london and I especially love going at Christmas to see their window displays and their whole department of decorations. The only thing is the shop is so old it isn't that easy to manouvere a pram around the floors!

the calm before the storm

I am sitting here surprisingly calmly the night before the Brixton Craft Market and drinking fruit cider. We had a brilliant day today with lots of sunshine and just general family happiness. I put together a trial layout of my stall for tomorrow and I have a fair idea of what I will do tomorrow.

I am really on my own though tomorrow with my sister at Glastonbury and hubby looking after the little lady. We decided it wouldn't be fair to get her up early and then have her spend all day at the fair so I am driving there and setting up on my own. To unload by my stall I need to arrive between 6 and 7 am. I'm hoping there's somewhere around to have some breakfast!

I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing as it will be a good chance to get feedback on my work and to chat to other artists and designers. Still bit gutted that I have no t shirts though as I felt they would sell well at an event like this. Instead I have vintage fabric cushions, badges, cards and tea towels. I am looking forward to seeing all the handmade goodies on sale.

Wish me luck!

Vintage Fabric Button Badges

I finally got around to uploading these to my etsy shop. They are made from vintage fabrics using my lovely badge machine. It seems like a fun way to use up off cuts of the fabrics from my cushion covers. I hate wasting lovely vintage fabrics! My photos of the badges are not very good! I think it is because of the plastic film that goes over the badge to protect it. The fabrics do look much nicer without the film but they'd get marked or might not handle rain too well.

I have also added some badges to some of my handmade cards but I am keeping these for craft fairs rather than etsy for now.

Next weekend is the brixton craft market so I am busy preparing for this event. Tomorrow I am going to practice setting up my stall so off to check out the flickr group for craft shows to get some inspiration!

And finally our purses from peppermint designs arrived and they are gorgeous. They even come in a linen bag to protect and store them. Just lovely!

moreglitterplease

I have also discovered the pounce feature on etsy and bought a fab keyring from moreglitterplease. Its a loteria card and has a frog on it. Def time to find out how to upload a photo!

http://www.moreglitterplease.etsy.com/

apart from that a quietish day today. Had a lot of fun with katherine watering the plants and eating jaffa cakes.

couple of enquires about my vintage fabric cushions and another sale - yay.

Just finished putting together a parcel to send off to Texas to a lovely customer. Included some vintage fabric badges as a wee treat as she is a great customer.