New Additions

I'd thought I'd share with you what I've been up to recently. I've been meaning to add a cat and pig design to my iPod /Phone range for a while now and after a lot of designing and several different prototypes, I've finally got them to turn out how I wanted.

Both designs are now available to purchase from my Folksy and Etsy shops. I have also been working on mini penguins. They fit the new iPod Nano and are super cute!

Minifelts are for sale in a gallery!

I have some exciting news. A few weeks ago I was contacted by the 20-21 Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire about stocking some of my Minifelts and today I finally finished the order and sent them off!


They requested about twenty items plus a few replacements which is practically all of the stock for my Folksy shop!

So I've been hard at work replacing items and working on some new designs.

Including new animal face purses. So far I've made a bear, owl and cat which will soon be available to buy from the gallery, and hopefully I'll be expanding this range for the website and folksy shop too. 

I also made a few keyrings, the Owl Keyring and the Penguin Keyring are for sale on my website.

This is the first time I've supplied a gallery, so it's a really exciting opportunity but scary too as I  really hope they sell! It's also given me the confidence to start approaching more shops and galleries, I just need to get much quicker at making things...

Unfortunately Lincolnshire is quite far away from me so I won't be able to go and see them on display but the gallery have kindly agreed to send me some photos, so I will give you all another update when they go on display. 

Folksy Friday

Time for another Folksy Friday instalment. The theme I've chosen is.... Rhyming things! A cat, rat, bat, mat, hat, meerkat and a tat (tattoo!) They're all also animal themed coincidentally!

1. Bat! Kooky Bat Fabric Applique Brooch - Tailor Made
2. Cat! Cat Paper Weight - Millicent
3. Hat! Frog Animal Hat - Doodles In The Margin
4. Mat! Mat Bag Birdies - Devon Red
5. Rat! Roderick Rat - Ukke-Puk Crafts and Toys
6. Tat! Temporary Tattoos - Lou Peajeux
7. Meerkat! Big Meerkat - NiftyKnits

Badgeorama

I've managed to get a lot of sewing done this week. I've been making the most of this amazing weather by doing my sewing outside in the garden. Lots of felt did keep blowing away in the breeze, but I managed to design and make quite a few new badges/brooches. There was even enough sunshine for some nice photos. Take a look...

Dog

Little White Kitten

Black Pig

Bear

Lion

Raccoon

Mouse

Tiger or stripey cat!

All these brooches are available from my brand new Zibbet Shop, which I've just launched, please pop over and take a look. It's a great site as it's easy to sign up for (as a buyer or seller) and doesn't charge listing fees or take commission on sales. 

Does anyone else sell on there? If you do please leave your shop link below, I'd be interested in checking out some other peoples shops, as I don't know many people that sell on there yet. 

Anyway here's hoping this lovely hot sunny weather continues!

Creature Swap

Happy Easter everyone. Hope you all had a great egg day, and got suitably sick on chocolate. I had a fun but quiet day and went out for roast dinner at a little restaurant with a beautiful view of the sea. My sister had also come down to visit which was lovely as I haven't seen her in a while.

Anyway I've been meaning to share some photos of the Creature Swap I took part in a while ago on Folksy, organised by Giraffe Craft. My swap partner was Sugar and Rhubarb who creates very cute little Ninja Kitties! Here's what I sent...

Who's in the box? Little Grey is very inquisitive and is checking so see which lucky little Minifelt is off to a new home...

Boo!

It's a little black kitty to keep Ninja Kitty company!

I turned my back for a minute and some friends had jumped in the box to come along for the journey...

Once I'd convinced them to leave I finally had a chance to package up the box ready to be posted.

I added one of these monkey brooches for the Ninja Kitty maker. Then off it went... Take a look at Sugar and Rhubarbs blog Itty Bitty Ninja Kitty to find out about their adventures and to find out the names they've been given!

and here's what I got in return from Sharne Mainia

It's a cute little frog called Freddy! Thanks so much Sharne he's awesome, I love him!

This was the first swap I'd ever done and I really enjoyed it. In fact I've already signed up for another swap that I saw on the Stuffed Nonsense Blog  and I need to find 6 other crafty folks that'd like to get involved. 


The details are: "it is an international swap, and all you have to do is make one lovely hand made piece (be it a picture, a card, a purse, something beady, something sparkly...anything goes!) In return you get 36 pieces sent to you from all over the world. It works on a sort of chain type system..." Please let me know if you'd like to get involved and help carry on the chain of craftiness, and I'll send you more details! 

Surprise holidays are the best

Last week my lovely boyfriend whisked me away on a surprise trip to Oxford, as a late Christmas present. I had no idea about it what so ever, I thought we were heading up to stay with his mum on the Wirral. I didn't even suspect anything when we were driving down country lanes past fields of sheep, instead of speeding along the motorway!

Anyway we were driving through this little village called Stanton St John just outside Oxford, with me saying "wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere like this?" He then pulls into the pub carpark and says "well let's stay here for a few days!" He'd arranged for us to stay in a lovely little cottage just down the road. It was really quirky, had loads of antique ornaments and furniture, plus a jacuzzi and a really good curry house near by! Although the "period" style decoration wasn't all to our taste (especially the very scary giant baby painting in the bedroom), it was so much more fun than staying in a boring hotel! Oxford was also lovely and definitely worth a visit if you haven't been there before.

I managed to take a few photos of the cottage before my camera battery died...

I really liked this piece of furniture in the kitchen, it had loads of little draws each with various useful items in, such as knives and forks, thought it'd be really good for storing sewing stuff in, you could have a draw for buttons and one for fabric etc... Definitely need something like this to help me be more organised!

Here's the Minifelts filling out their postcards that they got on a visit to the fantastic Ashmolean museum. No idea how they managed to gatecrash our holiday, those Minifelts are very sneaky...

 They were especially excited when they heard the cottage was called the Burrows, and was sort of underground, they also approved greatly of the number of rabbit themed ornaments they discovered.

Projects galore

For the past week or so, I've been waking up most mornings with a head full of ideas for new projects. Unfortunately this just seems to mean I have tons of unfinished projects on the go at once, as every time I go to finish something I get a different idea, or it doesn't quite turn out how I'd planned and that leads to a whole new idea... Need to keep away from the internet there's far too many inspiring things on there!

Here are some projects I did manage to finish. Firstly with Valentine's day approaching I thought I'd have a go at making some cards. Here are my first attempts, I've listed them over on Folksy if you fancy buying one. Would love to hear any thoughts/suggestions for future cards.

I also got some new fabric for Christmas this year, so thought I'd put it to good use. I've made a load of Minifelt badges, as I'm thinking of doing my first ever craft fair and thought it'd be good to have a few small things to fill up the stall with.

I also made these lavender smelephants, from the same fabric. I made the template myself, and kept them a simple shape, think I need to add some tails to these though.

and finally an idea that still needs a bit of work, my cardboard cuckoo clock. This didn't go quite to plan as I wanted to make a net out of one piece of card then fold up the sides, but I didn't have a piece of card big enough, so I improvised! I made it out of several small bits of card and attempted to glue them together. However, this was a big mistake, as the glue didn't stick well enough. I tried to rescue it using good old double sided sellotape, but that also didn't quite stick right... So it needs a bit of a re-think. Here it is anyway.

Hope I continue to have many more successful (well at least easier to make) ideas over the next few weeks. Must make the rule of not starting something new till I've finished the last thing!

Christmas Eve!

Ooooh it's Christmas Eve! Been really busy over the past few weeks, made a couple of sales on the website, and finally got round to opening my Folksy shop which you can check out HERE and has these new additions for sale.


At the moment I'm back home visiting my parents on the Isle of Wight, feeling a bit lonely as the Minifelts have all gone on a roadtrip to Newcastle for Christmas. Where hopefully they will be having their photographs taken with a fancy camera.


I couldn't resist taking a few craft materials home with me, so have attempted a couple of projects. Firstly I found a free bird template HERE on the Spool website, which I didn't end up following but inspired me to make a bird mobile, it's still a work in progress at the moment so will share some photos once it's finished.

I also attempted to use my mums sewing machine to make a giant Minifelt bunny, or rather a Megafelt. I haven't used a sewing machine since highschool, so it didn't quite go to plan... Think I need to practise on something a bit easier first, so I finished it off by hand. It needs a name, any suggestions?



Right I'm off to eat some mince pies and watch some terrible Christmas telly.
Merry Christmas from me and the Minifelts!

Hello from the Minifelts

The minifelts are all really excited about having their own blog and are even more excited to announce that the new website is ready! (I have to admit I'm quite excited too...) They'd love it if you could pop over and have a look - minifelts.com

They couldn't wait to have their photographs taken for the shop. So I lined them up on a white sheet, stuck a huge spotlight on them to compensate for it being gloomy winter, and here they are...

The bunnies were a bit nervous at first about the idea of going off to new homes, to be honest most things seem to scare them, but once I'd explained that they would have lots of adventures with their new owners, they hopped about excitedly.

These tigers are brothers and sisters and are very competitive (as siblings ofter are) Every tiger is unique with it's own individual stripes, which is very useful for telling them apart when they get into trouble. They're favourite food for some reason is frosted flakes...

The cats are very quiet and mysterious, they are always competing to sit on the highest perch, and often appear deep in thought. Perhaps they know something we don't...

These birds are terrible show offs, they're rather proud of their feathers. Mind you they are mightily impressive!

Watch out for more Minifelts coming soon, and if you like the look of any of these they are all in need of a loving new home over at: minifelts.com