Welcome to Handmade Monday (follow the link to find out more about it).

This week I dusted off my sewing machine and started playing around with making sewing patterns. It’s something that has been on my to do list for a long while!

sewing machine

I also built some shelves in the office/spare bedroom which is now also a sewing room – a true multi-functional room!

gorm

The shelves were courtesy of IKEA, the wonderfully-named, cheap and functional Gorm, a name which makes me laugh.  My dad’s greatest insult when we were kids was to call us gormless.  Thank to IKEA, I have so much Gorm now (in my studio, the garage and now my office/sewing room/spare bedroom) that I thought maybe I would never be gormless again.

gormless

How wrong can you be?

While measuring up for this latest lot, I thought the shelves were 70cm long, so I measured up, bought them, built them, moved them into position and

slightly too big

. . . they would have been perfect if only we didn’t need to use the door to get in and out of the room.  The shelves were actually 77cm long and there were three, meaning my measurements were out by a critical 21cm

All was not lost – I rebuilt, because their versatility meant I could squash them up a bit by staggering the shelves.

shelving

That was the point at which I dropped the (very heavy) spanner on my bare foot.  Ouch.

Double gormless!

I typed this on Saturday, foot raised on a couple of cushions, feeling a little sorry for myself (well, someone had to and nobody else in the house was feeling sympathetic!).  I’m happy to report it’s starting to feel better today.

I’m  also trying to prepare for a potentially busy week next week – I’m waiting to see if this clock

give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world

goes into a certain magazine with a very large circulation, as planned.  Part of me is dreading it because of the reaction my clocks have had before in the press (it can result in stupidly busy days with no spare time at all).

But another part of me is of course very excited.  It’s such a lovely thing  to see people reacting positively to your designs and even better when they part with cash to own one of them.

Here’s hoping your week hasn’t involved dropping heavy tools on your feet.

Join in with Handmade Monday by leaving your craft blog link and leaving comments on the other blogs if you can

Those of you on Twitter will probably know about Small Business Sunday (#sbs in Twitterspeak) where Theo Paphitis of Dragons’ Den chooses six small businesses each week.

Theo retweets each of the six winners’ tweets to his followers (there’s more than 200,000 of them!) and I was lucky enough to be a winner last year. . .

Theo's retweet

. . .  it brought me lots of new followers as well as lots of extra website and blog visitors (and even a few extra sales).

It was all good stuff indeed, but I didn’t think a lot more of it.  Until now . . .

Now I’ve been invited (along with all the other winners) to a meet up, in Edgbaston, Birmingham on 30th March.  I’m not sure what to expect, but it all sounds very exciting!  I can’t wait to meet all the other tweeters, especially the craft and design tweeters!!  How exciting it would be to meet Theo himself, too.

Or not . . . I think maybe I would just get tongue tied and end up making a complete idiot of myself!!

Is anyone else out there going?  It’d be lovely to meet you!

Welcome to another Handmade Monday.  If you’re joining in, please remember to add a link to this blog somewhere in your blog post – thank you.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums out there!  Hope you’re having a lovely day.  If you’re in the US, you may think I’ve gone slightly crazy, but I promise you I’ve not (yet).  I don’t know why the world doesn’t co-ordinate these events!

toilet door plaque

One of my commissions this week was for a ladies’ retirement home.  Specifically, the request was for six toilet door plaques, without wording, because some of the ladies have dementia and have lost the ability to read but can still recognise pictures.

toilet door plaque

Each one was slightly different and I really enjoyed doing the little plantpots, each with something different in them!  I’ve had an email from the retirement home manager saying they were exactly what they’d hoped for, which I’m pleased about

toilet door plaques

I’ve also started sending out interview questions for the Handmade Harbour features – if you want to promote your shop, let me know and I’ll send you the questions too.  The first one has just gone live and is one of the Handmade Monday linkups tonight.   A big thank you to Caroline, for agreeing to be featured and sharing some tips with us all.

What have you been making this week?  Looking forward to finding out…

Actually, it was two lovely surprises rolled into one!

A friend who I’ve not seen for over a year (how time flies!) phoned out of the blue and invited me to visit her in her new home – which was lovely in itself – and also to congratulate me on my plaques being featured in Handmade Living magazine.

handmade living magazine

Now, this could be old news to you (I’d already flicked through the magazine and left it on the newsagent’s shelf – I had no idea my plaques were in there!)  but this is brand new news to me!  It’s always exciting to see your work in print so please forgive me my little self-indulgent showing-off.

handmade living home shopping page

I’ve sold more than I usually do of these plaques recently.  I just thought it was mother’s day that was boosting sales for me!

a closer look

If you’d like an even closer look, you’ll find both plaques on the hanging plaques pages on my website.

The craft room one also comes as a door plaque – it comes complete with sticky pads so it can go straight up.

OK, so if you “do” Pinterest, you may be interested in Pinerly.

click for more info about Pinerly

Pinerly is apparently an excellent way to manage your Pinterest account.  Can I tell you more?  Well, not until some of you click that link and sign up – there’s a lot of intrigue surrounding it and I’m going to get shown a bit at a time.

But the trick is that once you sign up, you can invite people to the Pinerly party too and you will get a sneak peek and an invitation to join!  It’s brand new and we can be among the first.

register for Pinerly

P.S. Is it just me that’s cringing over the spelling of Pinerly?  Call me old fashioned, but surely a short vowel sound should be followed by a double consonant? OK, I realise I’m sounding like a spelling geek now and I also realise that maybe you’re all cringing at my geekiness.

I was recently asked could I put an army tank onto a door plaque for a boy’s bedroom.  This particular door plaque was for a little boy who’s army mad and just become a big brother.

army tank door plaque

I was quite pleased with the camouflage effect on the tank, and the flag gave me somewhere to add the name too – usually the name would be where the “big brother” writing is.

Because each plaque is hand painted, these cost a little more as they take a bit longer than most plaques (but they’re still affordable).  I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed doing it though – it all seemed a bit on the macho side for me at first!

They’re available on the door plaques page on the website.

And, as usual, you can have your door sign personalised with absolutely any name or wording.

Welcome to another Handmade Monday.

What’s Your Tipple?

I seem to be becoming known for my alcohol-themed clocks – this vodka clock was a special request!  There’s already wine, gin, beer and my list of jobs often looks like a round at the bar (two large gins, a small beer and three large wines – the clocks come in two sizes!).

it's vodka o' clock

I meant to have tea time clocks made in time for Mother’s Day, too, but there’s just not been time

Handmade Harbour

I think a lot of you have by now discovered my new baby – Handmade Harbour.  If you haven’t seen it yet, please do have a look.  It’s all about supporting the handmade community and I’ve started by blogging helpful tips that you might be able to use.  I’m hoping to add downloadable designs and even ebooks at some point in the (probably very distant) future.

Would You Like to be Featured?

My next stage for Handmade Harbour is looking for people to feature.  I’m going to be doing a regular feature in the form of an interview with designers and shops (you could potentially be featured in both because the questions for each will focus on different things).  I didn’t want to do this until I’d drummed up a bit of interest, but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the number of readers I’ve had up to now (which could just be down to the fact it’s new of course).

So – with luck – the interviews may begin sometime very soon!

If you’d like to be featured, please email wendy@1stuniquegifts.co.uk with Handmade Harbour as the subject line.  Once I’ve finalised the questions, I’ll send them out to you.  It’s another way of promoting yourself -  and you’ll get links back to your shop/blog of course.

The interviews aren’t just a standard set of questions – I want them to be something where we can all learn from each other.

put your feet up

In the meantime, I’m going to put my feet up for a little well-earned blog browsing (join me by clicking on the links below) – it’s been a busy week and looks set to be another because Mother’s Day orders have been coming in thick and fast this weekend.

I was tempted to be selfish here, but I just couldn’t help myself!

I adore these little bookcase necklaces so much I just had to share them with you:

handmade bookcase necklace

And there’s a giveaway going on!  You could win one of these gorgeous necklaces over at Cory’s Blog.  Not only that, but there’s the cutest little teapot earrings thrown in too.  You have until 25th March, so don’t hang about!

Books and tea. What more could a girl want?

Handmade Harbour is a project that’s been in my head for a long while and I think it might be time to give it a little more space (there’s really not much room left in that head of mine!).

I’ve become aware that the blog you’re reading now is aimed at two very distinct camps.  There’s the fellow designer/makers (many of whom are interested in what I make and how I make it) and the customers (many of whom are also interested in what I make and how I make it too).  All well and good up to now, it seems.  And I’m hoping not to lose any of those readers.

the designing and making process

However, every so often I’ve written posts which are very much aimed at makers.  Posts about blogging, marketing, the business side of craft fairs, etc.  Because I have so much to share on these topics, I think the time has come to separate my ramblings and give the business snippets a home of their own. Cue Handmade Harbour.

inspired by Beaumaris

I have even more ambitious plans for Handmade Harbour which include the following:

  downloadable images for card makers (instant and reusable downloads – all very affordable and sometimes free)

  ebooks and information for designer/makers/craft sellers (very affordable and sometimes free)

  sewing patterns (I know I’m not known for my sewing designs but in the past I designed sewing patterns for a number of magazines and my fingers itch to get back on my sewing machine and work out the intricacies of assembling flat pieces into something more 3D.  This part of the project might take a little longer on the back burner than the others!)

  interviews with designer/makers (watch out for the invite!)

  book reviews with small business owners and crafters in mind

  tutorials (if I have time or can persuade another blogger to help out!)

It’s all going to take a long time to come together the way I see it in my head, especially as 1st Unique Gifts is very much a full time job.  However, if you’re interested in reading more about the business side of crafts, learning, sharing and growing, then you might like it.  Also, if you think you might be interested in the ebooks (they will be very affordable and available in different formats) or printable images for card making, then Handmade Harbour will be the first place you’ll hear about them.

I’d love it if you could have a quick peek at Handmade Harbour (I promise it won’t take long – there’s not much there yet!) and become a follower. Once I have a good number of followers and readers, I’ll be doing interviews with designer/makers and online shop owners too, the focus being on what we can all learn from each other, especially regards marketing, selling, inspiration and motivation. If you’re keen to be part of it, email wendy@1stuniquegifts with Handmade Harbour as the subject line and I’ll send you some questions as soon as they’re available!

P.S.  If you’ve worked out a way to function on two hours’ sleep a night, I’m all ears.

Hello and welcome to Handmade Monday – click the link for more info and how to join in.

Phew! It’s been a week of short notice orders and urgent deadlines.  It’s all well and good prioritising orders when they’re needed urgently for Christenings, weddings and birthdays but it’s difficult when they all come at once!  It’s been a good mix of canvases, clocks, plaques and photo frames (a good mix makes life more interesting but slows down the making process!).  Oh, and a couple of chalkboards thrown in for good measure!

personalised christening frame for twins

In other news, I was shocked to see Culcheth village on the national news today – the car park where the man was shot dead by police last night is the one I use every day when I do the post office run.  There’s a lot of online speculation, but it seems the victim may have been involved in a number of armed robberies (there was one in the village a couple of weeks ago).  Culcheth is usually such a quiet place, which makes it all the more shocking.

I’ll be using a different post office for a couple of weeks – not because of this incident but because the post office was taken over by new management this week and the emphasis has very definitely been on staff training rather than customer service.  The queue has been out of the door and it’s been moving rather slowly, to say the least!   How is it that a slow queue rather than a shooting sways a decision?

I’m looking forward to seeing what’s been going on in your world.  Please leave your craft blog link and I’ll pay you a visit!