Let the tidying begin. Or not...

First though, here is the craziness of last week in pictures (but not including the train'n'tram trip to the Big Blue scandinavian emporium of white picture frames and the "interesting" journey home again with three Big Blue Bags in a heat wave...)

Stitching a new sort of doodle on a piece of embellished felt

Foiling a huge piece of painted Bondaweb and felt, ready for sari silk strips. Note that the kitchen worktop is not man enough for the job, so I've now moved onto the dining room table ...

Stitching said huge piece of foiled sari silk strips.  

The complete Slater, put to good use sticking down my book covers.

Sari silk bead production line

Picture/gift bag production line

The beginnings of a big foiled bit of velvet (the random one I mentioned last time)

Now with foil

and now with stitch

to be turned into book covers, a bit like this one (sorry for bad pic).  Glad I did these, turned out to be popular!  I also did a demo of this technique on the stand, and lots of people came to watch, even the "serious" oil/acrylic painting types over the way!

My lovely huge corner stand at Art Trail.  Boy, was there Much Faffing, I've never taken so long to put up a display before.  Pleased with my sticks!

But just LOOK what I woke up to on Sunday.  It's Tuesday evening and I still can't face it!  Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow...

Busy doing nothing

Just watching the sparrows devouring my pea plants

trying to ignore the Whippet's demands for attention

"Oh PLEASE Mum can I sit on your lap?"

"Great!  I do fold up small, I won't be any trouble..."

Shame about the slightly ridiculous ears....

And what better way to spend a half-term than sorting the Playmobil for storage.  The two cousins are too young for it at the mo, being 5 months and unborn respectively.  Well, I'm sure the Girl could think of many alternative occupations for a rainy half-term, but tough - someone had to reunite all the people with their hats and swords and diving helmets and so on, and only the Girl knows what belongs to whom....

And with the Girl suitably occupied, I dug out the embellisher and started to try some more ideas for Art Trail.  I remember this from last year - the panic beginning about now, short deadlines etc - the embellisher is definitely the answer!

Bracelet Idea 1.

Bracelet Idea 2. 

A sort of wraparound bracelet.  I'm trialling it as I type...it's certainly warm around the wrist, maybe good for rheumatism?

And then late last night, I cracked how to make wired fabric petals

And made a flower....

I haven't worked out what to do with it yet, because today was spent out and about with the Girl.  We went to Lewes and found TREASURE in Oxfam:

And after lunch we went for a walk in the woods, just to hear the racket with the wind walloping through the trees.  There were lots of lovely sticks, so I had to bring some home:

Gosh, that little arrangement makes me so happy.  Why do I have a compulsion to collect sticks (and fabric)?  If it had been a beach walk, I would have brought back shells or pebbles...

The lovely lovely block printed fabric was from the India Shop.  It cost slightly less in Oxfam than it does online.   There was sparkly sari fabric too, but I resisted...

Here are all the different patterns in the pack

Now what?!  Just look at it, drool a little...

Not enough hours in the day...

Well, I've been a bit quiet lately - life has been busy!

I signed up to Twitter weeks ago - and you may now follow me via my link, over there  ->

I've been too busy to tweet anything, so it's not very interesting reading at the moment!

I did manage to pause and take photos of all the things I've been doing, but there were so many photos I ended up making collages for this post.  And this is just skimming the surface, there's so much more I want to be getting on with - what a lovely feeling to be inspired!

First up, some mucking about with paper and fabric snippets to make some bits and pieces to sell at Art Trail this summer - and multitasking with the laptop, looking at the HMRC website of all things!

And I was looking at the HMRC website because I taught my first solo class last Tuesday - and immediately thought "why haven't I done this before?".  A lovely busy afternoon, the students even helped to put the tables away at the end, and there were two posh biscuits left over to take home to the Girl and Mr G - so everyone was happy!  We made cords and tassels:

Then I noticed that Gina had been making tassels too, but posh ones with beads.  So I had to have a go at some beads, something I've been meaning to do for ages.  It was huge fun getting out the soldering mat, heat gun and soldering iron (not least because it winds up Mr G, as it just confirms what he already thinks ie. that I've lost my marbles...) - and I thought I wasn't a burny-melty-kinda-gal!  My beads aren't as nice as Gina's though...I'm teaching embroidered bead making in a few weeks, but luckily I hadn't planned to do melty-hot ones, or I'd be feeling a tad discouraged!

And then finally, the thing that has been occupying me the most: Maggie Grey's new book arrived in the post and I stole all the Girl's pipecleaners.  Girl was very cross, but I was very excited so didn't care (but I have bought her some replacements now...).  Pipecleaners!  Who knew?

First I used a "novelty yarn" to make a hairy multicoloured bracelet:

And then I played around with fabric wrapping to make this bracelet:

Both these two bracelets were made on the spur of the moment, with no real thought as to what I was doing or the best order to do things - I just jumped right in with my stolen pipecleaners.  As a result, they took longer than they should have, and I knew I would do things differently if I did them again.

So I had another go!

I'm yet to finish these two little projects - destined to be another bracelet and a brooch:

I'm very excited by this!

Finally, I managed to package up a bit more foil today and will have a grand total of one more pack in the shop!  If you leave me a comment, I'll enter your name into a draw for a little pack of bronze/gold like the one in the shop - the winning name will be chosen by the Whippet in a few days' time...

Marking time

Here 'tis then, my 100th post! 

To celebrate I wanted to do a little giveaway. 

After mounting all my Art Trail work on canvases, I had lots of little pieces of wood left over.  I think they're supposed to go in the corners of the stretcher bars to stretch the canvas.  I started to bung them all in, then didn't think I needed them so I took them all out.  I have loads now, littering my desk.  I wanted to do something creative with them and I wanted to make something for my giveaway.

One idea was to wrap the little bit of wood in fabric and thread and beaded wire and use my new toy*  to attach a brooch back:

 (*glue gun! hot dribbles of gluey stuff! the Girl is also mightily excited by its arrival)

It looks huge in this photo, it wasn't.  Past tense - it has been dismantled, after it was deemed too strange and lumpy, and because it didn't hang properly on a Tshirt but just looked odd.

So then I tried this (sorry about the lack of focus - story of my life):

A flatter piece of embellisher felt/embroidery stuck on to a black-painted small piece of wood, with brooch back attached (hot glue!).  But again, it didn't hang properly - it sorted of wobbled over to one side.  So now it's on my bag strap.

At this point I gave up.  Anyone got any bright ideas on how to use up lots of little rectangles of wood?  (They were pointy, but I hacksawed the ends off and sanded them smooth.  Almost DIY).

SO after all that, my giveaway is now going to be one of my little books! 

A tiny little handmade book, with lining paper pages.  The pages can be removed when they are full and either replaced with something similar, or you could then use the cover as a credit card holder - there are little pockets inside each cover which hold the pages in place, which could then hold credit or business cards or whatever you wish.  The cord just wraps around and the beaded ends can be looped through to fasten.

To win yourself a little book, just leave me a comment on what else I could try to do with all my little pieces of wood!  I'll ask the Birthday Boy to pick a name by pointing with his needle-nose:

One doggy birthday cake, two candles.  Please can i eat it now mum i'm drooling all over the mat.

Special mince and carrot doggy cake with yoghurt icing and bacon sprinkles.  Yum!

NEXT on the agenda, I've been nominated for one of these awards!

Thank you Bee!  In return I would like to nominate Emma, up there on the island of my ancestors, Chloe and her birdies and last but not least Linda - I am in awe of anyone who can stick at anything for 34 years, but especially teaching!

MEANWHILE, here are a few photos of the Art Trail bits that didn't get their close up before:

The books sold really well, bestselling item at 36%.  Pictures/hangings came in at 29%, but I didn't sell as many as I would have liked.  But then again, I'm not sure anyone else at our venue sold anything much.  I could be wrong there.  We had a fair number of visitors, but not as many as I would have hoped for.  However, I had very positive feedback and everyone said they loved my work, so that was a massive boost to the self-confidence!  And as a direct result I've already got four people enrolled in my course for next term, and the brochure's only been out a week!

Here are some of my brooches - these came in at 11%, the same as bookmarks:

I sold loads of these, and had to make more mid-week.  They're laminated paper and sheers, with machine stitch and an embroidered/beaded cord.  I worked out that eight of these takes about the same time as one brooch, and the money is the same - swings and roundabouts.  I only sold a few brooches, but that's the same as quite a lot of bookmarks...

And I really enjoyed making these cards, but people seemed to prefer the bookmarks:

Cards were only 9%.

The remaining 4% was a bag, made a year or so ago, found in a drawer mid-week and added to the display, sold at 4pm on the last day!

So all in all, it was a hugely tiring week but very good to do - I made a lot of new contacts, my course is almost certainly going to run in September now, and I made a bit of dosh for my holiday spending money - (except I've already spent some of it on my new gluey gun!).  It took two days to tidy my desk and the end of the table, but I finally closed the doors of my desk/cupboard yesterday.  Only to open them again to help the Girl make a Button Babe and a Birdie brooch for her teacher and teaching assistant:

Phew!  Time for a sit down.  But don't forget to enter the giveaway first! 

Hutterly Xausted

Just a quick one to say I'm still here, just!  Joints are aching and the eyes have crossed and the hair is more grey than before, but I'm still here!

I pulled a late one on Thursday, staying up until 1.30am to make 47 cards - much to the Whippet's disgust: "trying to sleep here, Mum, blimey" - and then got up at 6am to start labelling and bubble-wrapping.  Basically, I did Wednesday's job all Thursday evening, and Thursday's job in the early hours of Friday morning...so much for schedules and timetables, huh!

Then with the help of Mr Gonecycling and his hammer and spirit level (he's not too bad, really) we finally managed to set everything up a mere two hours behind schedule.  Here's a little look:

I realised it's the first time I've ever done anything like this - I've done City & Guilds exhibitions, but that's different...

I hope nothing's fallen down overnight!

I'm in a show home on the outskirts of town, so lots of pristine white walls.  I'm also supposed to be sharing the space with a macrame jewellery maker, but she was very late arriving to set up, so late that I didn't meet her - I hope I left enough space!  I'll check on it all again later today. 

There's a hideous black shiny fitted wardrobe in the room, so I put my little sales table in front of it:

Fingers crossed...

Then there was just time to drop off my Art Trail competition entry (theme: Play and Recreation),

walk the dog (still upset, with confused ears all morning due to all the wrapping and packing and comings and goings), watch the Shuttle launch, before collapsing on the sofa with a cup of tea...only to have to get up again an hour or so later to go the the Art Trail launch party...and I was finally allowed to sit down with a glass of something toothsome at about 9.15pm. 

But it's not all over yet!  Oh no!

At least it's the Girl who's under the spotlight today and not me.  She's doing the town Festival parade at lunchtime, a piano concert at teatime and a violin concert at suppertime.  Whether any of us are actually going to be able to eat a meal at those times remains to be seen.  I think we'll take the day off tomorrow...