Tuesday 2 November 2010

Excuses, Excuses.

Has a woman ever lived up to her blog title more than I do? I think not! When I named it ‘Diary of a Lazy Crafter’ I wasn’t actually too bad, in hindsight I would probably mark myself a C (maybe a C-) I was trying to create one or two things every week (not always successfully mind you) but at least I was making an effort! Now I would mark myself a big fat F (with a must try harder comment written in red pen next to it!)

What have I achieved in the past 4 months (other than reading so many books that I’ve lost count. I think it might be around the 90 mark!)? Three lots of bunting – that’s it!! That is all I’ve made since I moved house in July! As I write this I realise that this is only my 7th post of the year (and one of those was about my holiday to Paris!) compare that to the 39 I posted last year and it illustrates my point perfectly!

Where has it all gone wrong for me? I’m not sure. The craft section in the bookshop where I work is probably the tidiest and most cared for section in the whole store. I get extremely excited when new stock arrives and can often be found flicking through the books getting ideas (and pretending to work!). I think there lies my problem (and I’ve definitely said this before!) I’m always full of ideas and grand plans for my shop but I never really do anything about them!! I have a million and one of them going round my head at work and I say to myself I’ll make a start on them as soon as I get home but what happens when I get in? I plant myself on the sofa and that’s me going nowhere for the rest of the evening!

But I’ve decided that things are definitely going to change starting this week!! My new determination has come from speaking to Alix of BigBlueBed who was in the shop the other day. We talked about my lack of motivation and the fact that neither of us really know many other people in the ‘real world’ who like crafting, so it’s often hard to find other crafty minded people to get excited about things like buttons and fabric. That may be the biggest part of my problem, I’m not very good at motivating myself and I need other people around me to spur me on. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find crafting a chore (although I do make it sound like one sometimes!). I love making things, it’s just that whenever I make something I always have doubts about it, I look at it and go ‘That’s not as good as I hoped it would be!” or “Why can my stuff look as professional as everyone else’s!”. But I guess I’ve always been like that I just need a little more self belief and a lot of motivation because if I’m left to my own devices I’d never do anything but read and watch TV!!

Anyway enough of my moping! Today I had a day off work and I promised myself it would be a day completely devoted to craft and I stuck with it!! I decided to start with my to be finished box and it was really satisfying to complete a few of the items that had been sitting in there for months, crying out to be made! I also started some new projects too, I’ll post some pictures on here as soon as I’ve finished them.

Here is a photo of one of my (long overdue) finished projects - recycled pin cushions made from an old pair of cord trousers and a camo shirt. I was planning to sell them separately but they looked so cute piled up on top each other that I decided they had to be a sold together.


Well that's all for now, fingers crossed that I'll be back soon with (hopefully) lots of news and plenty of photos of all the lovely projects I have planned.

Night y'all and happy crafting.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Back to Basics. Back to Bunting.


Just a quick post today. I've added two lots of new bunting to my Etsy shop!! I've also tried to be a bit more creative with my photos, I commandeered my boyfriend's house as it has a lovely light living room.


I think the photos look a lot better than my previous attempts but they are still not quite there yet.

Sunday 15 August 2010

Oh dear where has the year gone!?!

Well it's nearly the end of August already (where has the year gone?) and what have I achieved since my last post? Well, I moved house at the beginning of July and that kept me busy (I never knew I had so much stuff!) and rather stressed for a while (thanks to a certain phone company!). But once I'd unpacked my books and craft things into my little craft room/library/dining room, I began to feel a bit more at home. The only thing that was missing was internet access and we finally managed to sort that out on Saturday! Yay!!!

Anyway my boyfriend and I had a little trip to Paris at the end of July in celebration of his 30th birthday and I had my first journey on the Eurostar, which I rather enjoyed!



Neither of us had been to France's captial before so we did all the main touristy things and had a really great (but tiring) time. Mostly I was pleased to find out, as we only see each other once a week that we can spend 5 days together in an another country and not want to kill each other! Also we were lucky with the weather as it was mostly dry and into the high 20's - typically I managed to get quite sunburned even thought I was wearing factor 30!! If it had been raining that would have resulted in a rather cold, wet and tired Denise which would have made me an absolute nightmare to be on holiday with!



I was really surprised how much I liked Paris as I've heard lots of mixed reviews from other people who have been there - things like the people are rude, it's really dirty etc - but I didn't experience any of those things! Everyone we met were very polite and helpful and I thought it was no dirtier than any other city I've been to! I'd really like to go back one day as there were so many things I didn't get get round to doing.



And has Cloudberryskies done anything crafty, I hear you ask? The answer to that is... NO. But I have read 57 books so far this year, does count for anything!?! Oh dear, I am such a lazy crafter!!

Monday 14 June 2010

Doesn't Time Fly When You're Trying To Find Somewhere Else To Live...

I can't believe I haven't posted anything on here in about 6 months! How shameful! I guess I really do live up to my 'lazy crafter' name. I have no real excuse as to why I've not been on here! I suppose I haven't really made anything blogworthy and when I really think about it apart from a few custom orders and a couple of presents for friends, I haven't really made much at all this year!! I'm going to blame my craft apathy on a couple of things that happened back at the beginning of year. I told my self that 2010 was going to be a year of change and it was, but just not in the way I had planned!! In summary, I managed to get my full time hours back at work (good) but unfortunately in the same month my landlord told me (completely out of the blue) that he needed me to move out of my lovely (and very inexpensive) flat after nearly 5 years (v. bad).

I think it was the combination of these two events that threw my me into my craftless slump, essentially I have been going to work during the day and house hunting in my evenings and on my days off. I decided a couple of months back to close my Etsy and Folksy shops and pack up my craft things so I could focus my mind on house hunting so rather that spending my free hours on Etsy, blogging, tweeting etc, I was trawling the properties on Rightmove, silently praying that I could find somewhere nice that wasn't asking for too much rent!

Finally after months of searching (and viewing some absolutely hideous places) I have found somewhere and it is lovely! Slightly more expensive than I had hoped but as I say it is rather lovely so I'm sure it will be worth it. It is a fully furnished 2 bed terraced house (I currently live in 2 bed flat) and I knew it was the one for me as soon as I walked through the door! People look at me strangely when I say that, "I'll know it when I see it" but I've always felt like that when looking for somewhere new to live, I get a feeling for somewhere as soon as I set foot in it and I just know if I would like to live there or not!

Now that I've found somewhere new and lovely to live, I'm hoping to turn things around! I move in at the beginning of July so it's not long now until I get back to crafting and get hopefully get Cloudberryskies back up and running again. I know I'm always saying this but I am definitely going to have to take this craft business more seriously, so in the mean time while my shop is closed I've got a lot of thinking to do. The first thing I need to do is to re-evaluate the kind of things I make, so rather than making whatever I feel like and listing it, maybe I should think about what Cloudberryskies is all about (does that sound quite as lame as I think it does?). The main thing I need is a stronger identity and I'm thinking starting with a new banner and avatar and then going from there. I have another Etsy shop called BizarreDodo which I started ages ago but never got round to listing anything on it so I have been toying with the idea of linking the two shops with the themes of darkness and light - with Cloudberryskies selling the lighter, cutesy stuff and BizarreDodo selling the darker, skully side of my craft personality. What do you guys think? Sound weird?

I think that's enough for now, I'll try not to leave it so long next time.