my little treasure

I am in the blog dog house as I haven't been blogging for ages. No excuses really apart from a visit from the grandparents and just general tiredness.

I didn't realise I hadn't uploaded the pics I had taken on our day out in brighton and this one just sums up what happy wee soul my daughter is. (most of the time!). She loves buses at the moment.

Design wise not much happening either but trying to get back on track. Few sales on etsy for vintage fabric cushions which has been nice and I'm trying ebay again to see what happens there.

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....

discovering folksy

My blog discipline has faded a little recently due to being so exhausted by the last week of the carnaby street pop up shop. The clear up and clear out ended up being really stressful due to one man and van cancelling and the other ending up being late and going to the wrong address - nightmare!

So I've been taking it easy today and spending some time with the little lady. I have also discovered the new 'uk etsy' in the form of folksy.com and have managed to list a couple of things so far, one kids tshirt and one vintage fabric cushion cover.

It looks great and so good to be able to buy and sell in £ and not have to pay the paypal conversion charges (dick turpin wore a mask!). However I'll be interested to see how they spread the word about folksy beyond the crafting community or will they fall into the etsy trap of marketing to sellers?

I asked loads of people who came to the shop if they had heard of etsy and very few had. These were the sort of folk who were happy to spend their cash on our handmade goodies. Hmmmm

little flockstars

Spent some time yesterday trying to photograph the new tshirt designs but the pics didn't come out too well. It's quite dark in the pop up shop and too many shadows. Also I'm not sure how good tshirts look when not on a real child! My toddler is way to wriggly for a model!

I've added some pin button badges to the toddler tshirts. For the singing birds tshirt I have added a badge made from vintage sheet music.

Struggling a bit to get some good images for my website. I'm switiching from linking http://www.littlechook.co.uk/ to etsy to linking to my bigcartel shop. I am hoping in the longer term this will be more cost effective as there's still no option to pay in anything other than dollars on etsy and the paypal conversion charges are extortionate.

wee birdy blog

features the urban craft stars today which is so kind of her!. I love Rebecca's insightful blog with her pick of the london shopping scene. Her blog covers fashion, design, beauty and style in general and it is not just a 'oh look at this etsy shop' kind of thing.

You can tell she really researches her features and edits and picks the best from a range of designers, new and established. She picked out a vintage fabric cushion cover from my etsy shop in blue and white french ticking with a pink floral on the reverse. Oh the lady has style!

My blog posts are overlapping a wee bit at the moment for several reasons including the fact that I am so knackered and I am not really getting any new littlechook work done. Being away from the little lady has been really hard too. More for me than her I suspect though!

I do feel the littlechook blog is the place to be a bit more personal about me whereas urban craft stars is about the 'collective' and what we do with the pop up shop.

But - it is friends and family day tomorrow in the shop so if you are around Carnaby street come and see us for champagne and cakes. Yum.

exhaustion sets in!

For some mad reason I decided to print a whole new series of cushions and tea towels for the pop up shop which has left me absolutely knackered with trying to organise everything, look after the little lady, update my etsy shop etc etc - the list is endless!

And the prints haven't turned out the way I want them to either. My ideas are still in my head and I really need to do something with them.

I am thinking of making changes to the website again so I've been looking at other websites for inspiration and I really love Melin Tregwent's site, http://www.melintregwent.co.uk/

It's fantastic to see a welsh woollen mill using its traditional skills to create some gorgeous fabrics. I love the vintagey feel to their products and I love the bags. Everything is photographed beautifully too. Their blankets look really soft and cuddly. I'd love to visit the mill next time I go to Wales to see mum and dad. Having worked in a textile mill I am always interested to visit and I especially like buying fabric remnants in mill shops!

all things original

Doing some research into etsy like sites tonight and came accross allthingsoriginal.com

It's a beautiful site featuring some really fab designers including bombus (who is going to be part of the carnaby street pop up shop).

I have decided I am in love with the coffee table covered in decoupage with a vintage 1960's london map. It belongs in my living room!

I do wonder though how many of these types of sites can be successful as I know from my time in the corporate world how much time and cash is needed to develop a website and then all the marketing and PR needed to get the name out there. I think alot of folk still think 'build it and they will come'.

This week though I am really looking forward to meeting the other pop up shop folk and to having another peep into our unit and to deciding how we will arrange all our goodies.

all change please!

Change is in the air....

It's still hot and sunny here in london and I'm enjoying it while it lasts having picnics in the park.

Labour have lost the Glasgow East by election, Obama has been doing a JFK in Berlin and littlechook is organising the pop up shop and has new etsy sales - yay! I am surprisingly un stressed. (for now).

I have also decided not to make up any more vintage fabric cushions. From now on I want to concentrate on my own print designs. I just feel that is now the right direction for me and I am full of ideas at the moment.

Tomorrow is the little lady's birthday party so I'm looking forward to some family chill out time filled with food, drink and catch up chat.

the pop up shop

is finally going to happen....

I saw our unit yesterday. It's in Kingly Court just off Carnaby Street. The unit is absolutely massive so I am hoping that we can do it justice.

I am keeping in mind though all the Mary Queen of Shops programmes I have been watching and how she advises her clients to keep the layout and fixtures very simple. I love the interior of the Mayfair Stella McCartney shop with its vintage style wallpapers combined with modern touches like the bright pink bag display unit.

My aim is to move us as far away from a 'craft fair' with its horrible 'behind a table' philosphy to a place where customer can browse and touch the product, see demos of knitting, embroidery and other crafts and really talk and get to know who is behind the product. I have a fab bunch of designers ready - some london etsy folk, others I have met at craft markets.

In order to keep costs down I am planning to use some of the victorian pine vintage furniture I have already plus we are of to find a cool sofa and chair at one of the many second hand places round here at the weekend. Plus a trip to Ikea for some open shelving too.

I have big plans so watch this space!

the studio clear out

is now complete! I have room for my heat press, sewing machine, printing stuff as well as my stash of lovely vintage fabrics all boxed and labeled.When I packed my latest etsy sale to send away to the customer I could actually find all the things I needed without having to run up and down stairs or saying any sweary words. Result!

The room was used as a kitchen by the house's previous ocupants so I have a very useful sink and some much less useful kitchen cupboards and a cooker (now covered by a piece of chipboard and has my lightbox on it). The second pic also shows the crazy light which you can pull down or up. I have managed to raise it up a bit so I don't keep hitting my head on it!

children's bedrooms

Whenever I see children's bedroom in interior magazines like living etc and elle dec it makes me feel a bit sad as they are always so 'styled' and more for adults than kids. Recently DesignSponge featured a Yellow and Grey colour scheme which to me was really bland and had very little to stimulate a child's imagination.

Ok so the pics here of the little lady's room are after a good tidy and hoover this morning but it is a room for playing and enjoying. Yes it does have elements of her mum's style in it - vintage furniture and crochet blankets but it is for her to enjoy as she grows and if she wants Barbie wallpaper at some stage then so be it!

The wardrobe I bought on ebay, it is victorian pine and it is gorgeous. The child's chair I resuced from the side of the road. The rug is from ikea (it's really easy to clean) and the grey toy cupboard was given to me by my mum.

The wallpaper is cream with silver flowers - it was here when we moved in and I actually really like it now!

My bedroom

Hello bedroom! I have some new pics on flickr including this one of my bedroom. I made lovely new bed cushions made from a vintage butterfly print and a paisley print vintage dress. My crochet blanket came from a charity shop and the lampshade is a Habitat sale purchase made from cork which is a material I really like.

The chest of drawers came from an antique shop in crouch end and is made of victorian pine. It's one of my favs. The fireplace is not orignal and is a horrible fake mahogany. I did read in living etc though that to disguise a not so nice fireplace the surround should be painted the same colour as the walls. As you can see we haven't tried this yet! The walls are a bit distressed looking as I stripped the hideous 80's wallpaper (green textured background with brown roman collums) about a week after we moved in as it was so so so bad!

The show and tell at broadway market last night was a bit of a fiasco due to staff not turning up so everyone waited hours and hours to be seen. I left after 3 1/2 hours as had to get the bus home! Better luck next time....

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!

my mums a hippie

The lovely my mums a hippie aka Monique Jivram was part of the Brixton Craft Market. She does embroidery and illustration and I love her quirky and colourful style. She had framed drawings, embroidered broaches and t shirts for sale on sunday. Her images are really diverse - wasps, fairground ride and vintage gramaphones and she stitches on top of the drawings.

I am hoping that she can join our seven dials pop up shop as I think she has an amazing talent. She isn't on etsy yet but I've told her all about it! She's on my space www.myspace.com/mymumsahippie

i want vintage!

This super cool newish website was featured in Grazia a few weeks back and I had a wee look at it and decided to take up the free trial for some ads.

Lots of the usual suspects are on there: clarissa hulse, jan constantine, ulrika may with their vintage goodies and now littlechook is muscling in.

They have a newletter for customers which this week is on the very important subject of cushions and they featured me me me! My 60s floral cushion is hanging out with the cool crowd. I can't post the feature as it's a pdf thingy and I can't figure it out!

http://www.iwantvintage.co.uk/

Apart from this excitement I did do some work today printing tea towels and cutting flock shapes for the t shirts in preparation for saturday's craft market. My lovely sister looked after Katherine. The little lady was made up to have her Auntie Ali with her all day. Thanks sis!

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!

vintage fabric from the states book

I bought a book called 'Vintage Fabric From The States" in the Tate Modern bookshop on sunday but only had some time to have a look at it properly today and it is gorgeous. The range of fabrics is really good with lots of sweet little florals, polka dots and some really fab children's prints. It is split into rooms to with fabrics for the kitchen, bedroom etc. Somehow though I have managed to buy the japanese version rather than the english one I was reading in the bookshop! Not fussed though as the images are great.

I really like the style pages in it too especially the pic with the cotton reels. I am for some strange reason quite into cotton reels at the moment. I have some proper vintage ones too in my sewing box inherited from my gran and I remember playing with them quite vividly from when I was little. She had a great button collection too and that was always great fun so I am keeping some for Katherine to play with when she is a bit older.

I actually used some of my 'vintage' thread on monday night as I was making two box seat cushions for my sister's companies stand at The Bar Show at Earl's Court. I felt quite apprehensive about making them as the fabric was a beautiful silk from the Gainsborough Weaving Company and I was worried I'd mess up and waste the fabric but it all turned out fine. (littlechook breathes huge sigh of relief!)

Baby Banksy at the Tate Modern

Nice relaxed day today with lunch at Wagamama's on the south bank followed by a walk to the Tate Modern. My cousin was with us and needed to get a train back to Edinburgh so we didn't have time to visit any of the exhibitions. Instead Katherine ran around the turbine hall with her Daddy while I had a look in the bookshop resulting in a couple of purchases for me but I also bought Katherine an Eric Carle book "brown bear brown bear what do you see". It is almost as fab as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I love kids books and their illustrations particularily anything by Eric Carle.

The Tate is adorned with large scale "street art" from various street artists from around the world at the moment. It's ok I suppose. I did like the American Indian/Horse one but wasn't convinced by the others. They were ok. I was surprised though given the UK street art talent (Hush, Prefab etc) that no one was chosen although apparently Banksy declined their offer to take part.

However I think I spotted the new banksy working on the posters by the entrance!

organic cotton kids tshirts

My samples arrived! They are 100% organic cotton t shirts and are also fairtrade. The only drawback is the sizes only seem to go up to 18 months. Colourwise they do white, unbleached and red. Somehow I have managed to forget to order the red ones! They feel lovely and soft. No chemicals or pesticides are used on the cotton. I am interested to find out more on their fairtrade aspect though and how this works. I am really aware that I don't want to be printing tshirts for kids that are made by kids. Not right in my book.

The manufacturer is Mantis World and their website is http://www.matisworld.com/ The website on the label though is http://www.tenderlovingclothing.com/ but it doesn't seem to be working???

No chance to add any printing as yet. I have decided to stick with the littlechook name but go for FlockStars by Littlechook. I am thinking of having a second etsy shop for the vintage cushions and using the littlechook on for all the printed, organic cotton cushions, t shirts and tea towels. So far my designs have rabbits, squirrels and deer. I am about to add pigeons, woodpeckers and foxes.

That's it for now, off to eat chicken fajitas an drink pear cider for dinner.

Like mother, like daughter

Haven't had a chance to photograph my latest street find which is destined for the seven dials/carnaby street pop up shop but here it is.

I am developing a slight obsession with vintage suitcases and luggage. I already have a lovely silver steamer trunk which is being used to store all my vintage fabric cushion covers. I rescued this little beauty with Katherine's help. The outside is a lovely coloured tweed fabric but when we looked inside and saw the paisley patterned lining fabric we both said 'ooohh' and she was coming home with us.

My long suffering husband says I am corrupting a toddler with my magpie habits. I think it's all in the genes...

Katherine made a little bed for herself inside the suitcase this afternoon. She's been a bit off colour these past few days and possibly has chicken pox. We just have to wait to see whether her rash turns into the actual pox. I have calamine lotion ready.

So no nursery for her today and hence no new designs for littlechook. Hopefully I'll catch up on my new flower circle designs over the weekend.