Featuring Fab Finds For You

Featuring Fab Finds For You

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A front page spot on Etsy!!!

After a couple of months of crazy busyness, bleating and a few creative lulls, I finally made it to the front page of Etsy! YAY! Thank you to The Silver Dog for creating the treasury and to everyone in it too.

More new stuff...

I have been so inspired since I bought some new Nestabilities dies recently! Here are some of the latest:

Pasta (angolotti) meal:

and some felt friands that look most appetising - I have to keep reminding myself they aren't real!

Some more new stuff and what on earth did I do before die cutting?

Hello! I have been working my newish Sizzix Big Kick so hard - I'm hoping it won't go on strike but hey, it's pretty low tech (good news for me!) It's amazing and I really think my work has improved a lot using it. What do you think?

Here are some items made using the die cutter:

Oh, and I got a new shop banner - Check it out! I reckon it looks great.

Record sale time!

Made these little crackers last night and listed them this morning. They sold in half an hour! I think that's a record for me. They are cute though!

I had a fab time today walking with my school friend Serena (and her gorgeous little dog, Billy!) in the park. Thankfully the rain held off - it's been so wet recently! We had a great chat and catch up.

Well, back to the felt food making... I do love my job!!

More custom orders and new items!

Here are some of the things I have been working on lately:

Huge custom order: (loved every minute of it too!)

Little pocket bread with fillings (the felafel is cute, yes?)

And re-vamped the felt chocolates I began on Etsy with:

Now I've got to get ready for Christmas and my next Hong Kong trip! Yes, my mother and I will be heading back to Hong Kong in October for some Christmas shopping. Yipeee!!! Can't wait....

I'm such a bad blogger ;( ... but at least I was on TV!

I have just been so very busy! Custom orders for everyone (well, so it seems!!) Here are a couple I have been doing:

This is a felt birthday cake for a special little girl.

A lunch for another lucky little girl!

Also, something terribly exciting happened! One of my aprons was on national TV! Yes, that's right. The story is that I bought some fabric on Ebay about 18 months ago and made a toddler apron out of it. It is really cute fabric and I e-mailed the lady I bought the fabric from with the link to the Etsy listing. Then she bought the apron. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago saying that she was going to be on TV the next day and she was taking the apron to show. The segment can be seen here. I was very surprised! If you are reading this, Janey, thank you so much! Someone did contact me to see if I could make another one and I had just enough fabric. Here it is:

Stay tuned for more custom order photos and maybe more TV appearances??

Back from our trip!

We're back from Hong Kong and school has started again, things are back to normal (well, normal for us, anyway!) We had a great time and the kids loved Disneyland, though it was crowded and we waited a long time for most rides. We did some shopping also and just enjoyed the sights. Hopefully I'll go back again before too long.

There's some more exciting news! My fun felt foods will be available in a gorgeous shop called Retrospections right here in Sydney! The address is 498a Miller Street Cammeray and the shop opens on the 5th of May. Do check it out if you can...

Here are a few pics of stuff I've made recently:

Another new item!

Finally I have made another ice cream cone set! I had wanted to for a while but didn't have time so here it is. I love the velcro bits so that kids can play ice cream parlor too!

A New item - Hors d'oeuvres anyone?

Just finished these - they were great fun to think up and make!

Updates!!

I'm such a bad blogger!!! Naughty me for not posting for so long. I have been busy though and with a trip to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks, I have been saving hard! Here are some of the tasty things I have been whipping up:

Have a lovely day!! Oh, and if you have any tips on Hong Kong shopping for me, please leave a comment. Thanks!

Save Handmade!

On February 10th, a change comes into effect in the US which will cripple stay at home artisans like myself. And since most of my business is from the US, I am naturally concerned. Basically, toymakers will have to subject their goods to outside tests, costing thousands of dollars, to assure the public that their toys are safe. For someone like myself, this is beyond my reach... I'm sure this applies to lots of folks out there who make wonderful handmade toys. Please help by visiting these blogs:
http://handmadekids.wordpress.com/
http://coolmompicks.com/savehandmade/
Also Etsy has had articles recently on how we can help stop this happening. I am certainly all for making safe toys, and for ensuring that mass-produced toys are safe, but only the large companies can afford the testing. So lets lobby for exemptions for small toy manufacturers!
Thank you for reading.

Happy Creative New Year!

I hope that you all had a great break over the holidays! I had been so busy that I was glad to have a rest (that doesn't stop me making stuff though!). Now I am awaiting my sewing machine back from service because I'm raring to go with lots of ideas for things for both shops. We spent Christmas up in the beautiful Blue Mountains and the breath of cool mountain air was most enjoyable. The girls got to spend most of Christmas day with their cousins at their place and that was such a beautiful time for them all.
Special thanks to my brother-in-law Matthew for making the most enjoyable Christmas dinner I've had in a while, especially for the homemade herb and bacon stuffing in the turkey. He is quite a cook! I should try to commemorate the meal in felt!!
Here are a couple of things I have made for both the shops over the break:
(told you I wouldn't be able to stop creating altogether!)

Another (and probably my last) market...

Well, this last weekend I did a market at Dulwich Hill and did OK. But the reaction to my work at markets has been fairly underwhelming, so I think concentrating on my shops is the best idea for now. I did make some tote bags which went well though - here are some pics:

I will be making more of these for the Retrology shop so stay tuned!

New stuff in both shops!

These are a few things I was working on recently:

BITE ME's - cell / mobile phone charms with mini felt foods attached:

and for the Retrology shop, a new range of kids clothing, called Bow Wow! Meow! after a cute 70's Golden Book that was lent to me by my friend Catherine. The clothes in the book are retro, simple and cute and I really wanted to have that look in my range. So far I have only made one item, a little playsuit for sizes 1-4 but I plan to do some more items. Here's a picture of my daughter Isla modelling the playsuit. (I had to use Gummi Bears as a bribe to get the photos, but it worked!)

Where did I go????? Oh, here I am!

OK, I haven't dropped dead, but I have been so busy I can hardly believe it! In the aftermath of the market I did, I had an approach by a national magazine to feature my work (which I am so excited about!!), I opened a new store on Etsy, dividing the clothing and felt foods. The new shop is called Retrology - please feel free to check it out - it's kind of barren right now, but I am busy making some cute kids clothing.

Also, I have had many, many felt food orders coming up to Christmas - a big THANK YOU! to all my wonderful customers out there...

The other major thing I was doing was re-doing my studio to make it a purpose-built sewing space so that next year when Isla is at pre-school 2 days per week I will be making that my work time. All I can say is - thank heavens for IKEA! Here are a couple of pictures of the new, improved space:

Marrickville Festival preparations!

Whoa, someone stop the workload! I want to get off... I have been flat out getting stuff made for the Etsy DUST stall at the Marrickville Festival this weekend, and Lachlan (my husband) is running for local council elections. SO BUSY! Anyway, I am really looking forward to the Festival - it's going to be fun. If you are in Sydney and want to drop in to say Hi we are going to be near the kids area at Frampton Avenue. See you there (I'll be the one looking nearly catatonic...!)

Here's some of the stuff I've been making:

New item in store!

Here's a felt rolled brisket / pot roast in store now! You never saw meat this cute, right?

New item and a giveaway on Neatostuff.com

There is a new item in my shop today - felt gumballs in a little jar! Here they are:

Also, Neatostuff.com is having a giveaway of some felt fruit from my shop - check it out here and enter to win! Have fun!

A new addition to the Fun Felt Foods grocery range!

These little felt stuffed olives! I had great fun making these, though they are time-consuming. I think subsequent jars will have larger olives since they are so labour intensive... I reckon they've turned out pretty well though, I added the little "cross" at the bottom where the olive pitting machine would have gone through to extract the pit...

These are available in my Etsy shop!