Whoops!

So much for a blog post every week! I can't believe how long ago it's been since I last posted on here! And what have I been up to since the beginning of 2012? 

The answer is... 

..not a great deal. Although I did have the great fortune to become a home owner in September 2012! After 13 years of living in Portsmouth I packed up my vast quantity of books & craft supplies and sailed across the water to the Isle of Wight. 

I've done a bit of crafting (and a lot of reading, I managed to get through 95 books last year!). I made a few more tote bags, branched out and tried my hand at jewellery making (rings & earrings made using cabouchons) but mostly I made things for the new house. So here are a few pics of what I've created.

I recovered my old dining room chairs, Kirstie Allsopp style!!

I made two draft excluders from left over fabric and scraps.

I made a few Christmas decorations


 I must admit that I haven't made a single thing in the last 7 months but I have just been commissioned by a friend to make some bunting (and a few other decorations) for her wedding later this year. This has rather reinvigorated me and I now have lots of ideas and more importantly some much needed motivation to get back into crafting. I hope that it won't be too long till the next post.


HAPPY CRAFTING!

I've Managed It Again...

... somehow almost six months have past me by and my last blog post seems to have been July! First off let me wish you all Happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed yourselves over the festive season as much as I did!

If you are interested here is a quick summary of the more exciting things I got up to in the last half of 2011 (other than reading, I did an awful lot of that!). 

In August I managed to nab myself a table at the Boutique Market in Portsmouth's Guildhall. It was a good experience and I got to meet other crafters from the local community, which was really nice. I was there for about 4 hours and my stuff seemed to get quite a lot of interest which was really encouraging and by the end I'd made £40 (which was even more encouraging!). The day itself was a bit of a logistical nightmare as I was supposed to be working! Luckily 'the management' were kind enough to let me skip work (as I was owed some lieu time anyway) for a few hours. So I ended up starting work at 9am leaving the shop at 10 o'clock to attend the market, only to return again at 3pm and carry on working til 5.30!

My very first table at my very first craft fair!

My table presentation will need some work though!!

In September my boyfriend's parents very kindly took us on a little holiday to Bruges. It's a really lovely city and I had such a relaxing time! I pretty much spent most of my time following everyone else and enjoying the beautiful architecture, it was so nice not to be in charge of the holiday and just go with the flow. The people were so friendly, the food (especially the hot chocolate) was delicious and the best thing of all, people thought I was under 26 years old - we were told you can get discounted tickets for galleries and museums when you are under this age, unfortunately I'm about five years too late to receive that, but it's still nice to be asked!!

Unsrprisingly I've hardly done any crafting (apart from a couple of custom orders) in the last few months! October, November and December were pretty uneventful and merged into one long month as the bookshop got into Christmas mode. Although I can tell you that I managed to sell about 90% of the stock I had on display in Waterstones and I completely sold out of my russian doll totes about a week before the big day! I even had people asking when they would be in stock again (that did made me feel quite proud!) 


Oh, one thing I can show you is something I made for my friend to give to her fiance (the guy I made the felty batman for). As they loved the other one so much she commissioned me to another superhero. He's not a character I'd ever heard of so I had to do some research, and I found he was a bit tricky to make but I got there in the end!

His name is Etrigan The Demon, who looks a bit like this....

...and here is my interpretation in the medium of felt! 

Apparently when my friend saw his gift he was speechless (which is quite a thing to achieve) and I received a lovely text message something along the lines of BEST. SOFT. TOY. EVER! So all the time and effort was all worth it.

Anyway I think that's enough for now, I'll try and blog again soon I'm aiming for one a week but whether or not that will happen is another thing.

Happy crafting everyone!! :)

Another Quick One...

...to show you guys the new batch of bunting added to my Etsy shop. There's...

Carole's Cosmic Bunting

Kat's Autumn Bunting

Tilly's Pretty Bunting

As you can probably tell I've gone a bit bunting crazy so there will be more to come in the following weeks.

Happy Crafting. :)

Trying Something New...

Here is a quick sneaky peak at one of the new creations I've been working on whilst on my little break from work.

I've got a lot more sewing planned for the next couple of days so hopefully I'll be adding more pictures here and new items to my shop very soon.

Following by Example...

After my complete craft space blitz today and following feltmeupdesigns' example I decided to post a few pictures of my new and improved work area. I went through every single box/ drawer of my crafty things and rearranged them so I (hopefully) can find them again!!! I dusted every single surface and I even hoovered!!!!

I am terribly messy and unorganised so I'm (again) hoping that this will motivate me and that having a properly defined and designated work area will help me to be more professional and treat my crafting as a business rather than a hobby.

I decided to put up the Cloudberry Skies bunting I made to take to craft fairs but it's far too long but I think it looks perfect hung over my bookcase (BTW this only contains a small selection of my many many books). Also I would like to point out my TinTin poster, I love it as it reminds me of my Ottakars bookshop days.

As you can see I have organised all my fabrics by colour, I've even integrated all the guilt ridden items I mentioned in my last post so hopefully that will be the end of that and I can move on.

One last thing, feltmeupdesigns also had an inspirational image in her studio tour, this is mine!! Not all that inspiring but every time I read it it makes me feel a little better, this card basically sums up my attitude to life!!!

All in all I've had a productive day and just maybe this will mean a step in the right direction for  cloudberryskies.

Happy crafting. xx

I'm Not Sure How I Should Feel...

About two years ago a friend gave me a huge bag of fabric as she was moving away to Liverpool and couldn't take it with her. I had a lot of things going on at the time so didn't go through the stash properly till I was about to move house last year and at the bottom of the bag was something I really wasn't expecting... it was the partially made nursery wall hanging that my friend had been making while she was pregnant! It was mostly due to this project that the two of us really got talking at work (and we soon became good friends) she would ask me for the odd sewing tip and I gave her leftover fabric to use but unfortunately a couple of months later she had a miscarriage. I'm assuming (understandably) that the project was tidied away and forgotten...until the day I found it! Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am not the most emotional of women but when I found this item I have to admit I cried (a lot) and to this day I still haven't used any of the fabric that was in that bag.

A few months back I inherited another lot of fabric from another friend from work when sadly her aunt passed away. She knew that I liked sewing so I was an ideal candidate to take some off her hands, when I went through the bag I couldn't help but notice that some of the fabric had labels pinned to them and I had that horrible feeling once again. It's just so sad, this woman had so many plans for this fabric and now she never would get a chance to use them. I've had this fabric for a while and again I have not used a single thing.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I guess my main problem is that I'm not sure how I should feel about this fabric (sounds strange, I know) and the sad circumstances in which it came to be in my possession. Perhaps I even feel a little unworthy (does that make sense?) because I'm not the greatest crafter and I'm really still learning the ropes. My biggest worry is that I'll ruin the fabric by making something rubbish that'll end up being thrown away! So I've been telling myself that I'm just saving it for the right project and when that idea presents itself I will make something wonderful in tribute but I don't know if that will ever happen. I guess it just goes to show that you never can tell what's going to happen in the future and we should all try make the most of each day. (That goes double for me!!!)

Sorry that this post was a little miserable but it's just been weighing on my mind and just had to get it off my chest.

Happy Crafting. xx

To Boldly Sew...

Do you remember I made that felty batman a few years back? Well the friend I made it for is getting married in July next year to his lovely (and equally geeky) girlfriend and I want to make them a particularly awesome and unique wedding present. I've bandied around a few ideas but kept coming back to the same one! I'm not going to tell exactly what I'm making yet (I don't think they read my blog but I need to check as I don't want to ruin the surprise) but below is a small clue. So with most other potential projects on hold I've got just over a year to achieve my goal, so fingers crossed I've got enough time (you know what I'm like) and I'll let you know how I get on as I'm going along.

In other news you can now get free shipping on all items in my Etsy shop until the end of May. All you have to do in type in the code BLOGGER into the special box at the checkout. So please feel free to have a good look around see if anything takes your fancy.

Happy Crafting. :)