And I Almost Forgot...

... here are a few photos (that I promised to post months ago) of the brooches I have been making, and I will be listing them in my shops very soon. Fingers crossed they will be really popular as I am quite proud of them!!

Five Sales and a Theft.

I'll try and make this just a quick post today (as I know I have the tendency to waffle on) and tell you about what I've been up to. I recently had a two week break from my day job in which I spent lots of time creating new things (there was also quite a lot of eating and sleeping as well, it was bliss!!) like a new line of sweet Matryoshka and Little Bird brooches (pictures to follow) as well as a couple of bags.

This creative time off made me realise all over again that this is what I want to do as my full time job! At the moment it can only be a far off dream but I'm determined that one day I will achieve this, I just need to work harder at it (and I know it'll be hard work)!!!

Anyway my craft stuff has now been on sale in Waterstone's for five weeks and as the title of this post suggests I have had 5 sales (not too bad) and 1 theft (v. bad). So far I have sold 1 Matryoshka tote, 1 Heartfelt Decoration, 1 Matryoshka and 2 Skully brooches. Also one of my Cloudy bags was stolen! I'm trying to take the latter as a compliment but I've got a horrible feeling it was just used as a receptacle to steal books from the shop!! But then who knows what goes on it the minds of shoplifters, they may also love to 'shop' for local products!?!

Guess this wasn't such a quick post after all!

Happy Crafting.

New Year, New Me (I hope!)

HAPPY 2011 EVERYONE!!!!! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, I unfortunately had a bad cold and seemed to be surrounded by ill people over the festive season!!! I had really been looking forward to Christmas but it turned out to be a bit of a non event for me, however I can't complain as there are many people out there much less fortunate than I am!! Where has this 'counting your blessings' attitude come from I hear you ask? Well, I haven't made any resolutions this year (I never keep them) but I have set myself a few personal challenges for 2011, one of those being that I would think more positively!! (Another was that I would try not to worry so much although that might be a hard thing stop doing as I maybe just a natural worrier!!!!) Anyway 6 days into the new year and things are pretty much on track, just need to get more motivated in the craft department and I'm sorted!!!

Anyway about my crafting, well there's not much sewing going on at the moment but in November and December I went a little cloud crazy, adorning totes and brooches with fluffy cloudy loveliness! Here are a few examples, I apologise for the quality of the photos, they were a few quick snaps I took with my camera phone (but you get the general idea).

As in previous years, in the run up to the festive period I took my finished craft creations into work for my friends and colleagues to take peruse and (hopefully) buy a little something. This time round was particularly good for sales!!! I sold 4 totes bags, a skully brooch, 2 xmas puddings and a gingerbread man!! That made me a grand total of £52.50 not bad eh? Especially when you take into consideration that I sold all those items to only 4 people!!!!

I'll hopefully be listing my new cloudy collection on etsy soon, I'm just waiting for a nice day so I can take some better photos!!! The weather down here in Portsmouth has been pretty drab for a while now so the lighting never seems right for photography. (It's hard to put a positive spin on that one!)

I've got so many things I'd like to make but I think I'm going to wait until I've got some sparetime to experiment, I've got two week holiday coming up in February, so that may be the perfect time!!!

Happy crafting everyone!!!

What Have I Been Up To?

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I blogged. What have I been up to? What have I achieved? The answer? Not as much as I should have!!!

I haven't been completely lazy this past month, I have made a few bits and pieces (which i will be listing soon) and had a couple of custom orders but overall I haven't been feeling particularly inspired lately (it didn't help that I have been completely distracted reading an awesome series of books).

Here is a few photos of one of my custom orders. I was contacted by a lady in Louisiana who's cousin was having a baby and wanted to decorate the new nursery with a cutesy skull theme. Seems a little unusual I know but I thought it sounded like a fab and unique idea for a baby boy's nursery.

I was asked for two large squishy skull decorations in light blue and black. It was slightly intimidating as I've never made a skull this big before so wasn't sure how they would look but I think they turned out alright in the end.

The other thing my customer wanted was one of my long skully ornaments but in light blue, black and white felt. I had to play around with the colour combinations (usually my skullies are brightly coloured with black eyes and nose) because one of the skulls was going to be black. This was the end result and I'm pretty pleased.

Also this month I also sold four skully and two heartfelt brooches, two totes and two cushion covers. So it was a pretty good month here at CloudberrySkies.

Feeling More Positive.

In my last post I was feeling a little negative, talking about shutting up shops but since then I've made 2 Etsy sales (one of them was a custom order for 4 Camo Star totes) and a couple of days ago I sold 2 skully brooches on Folksy so I'm feeling a lot more positive. 

Also I added a new tote to my shop. It has a pretty star made up of lots of lovely pink and purple buttons of different shades and sizes. I have high hopes for this one. 

Bugs, Buttons and Brooches.

Heartfelt Brooches

Today I mostly made some little heart brooches. Unfortunately my photo taking skills don't really do the lovely colours justice. I'm still deciding whether or not add them to my etsy shop.

Butterflies....buttonflies.

I love how these butterfly brooches have turned out, they are so cute (even if I do say so myself!) I'm hoping everyone else will love them too. I've decided to call them Buttonfly Brooches (see what I did there! Lame I know!)