You should see my house!!!!

Well things are going along swimmingly here with my plans to take over the world by beautifying it just a bit. The plan for this week is every crafter's cross to bear - my house is disappearing under my stash!
I have several boxes of paper supplies in various states of chaos cluttering up the front room, along with all my mailing supplies, except for quite a lot of pre-deployed cardboard which it is part of my mission to re-use as my packaging!

Then there's various knitting and crochet prototypes and a fair amount of yarn. And six beautiful vintage saris and elastic, binding and thread to make them into new garments. Somewhere in the middle of that is my bag of needles etc, which is always lovely and neat, several sets of knit pro loveliness and a couple of pencil cases and makeup bags keep it how it should be.

I am thinking of fitting my scissors with beepers though. It's usually the kids who walk off with pens and scissors and everyone knows that purloining my dressmaking shears is absolutely out of bounds, but I just found my little embroidery scissors by the telly in the bedroom so my husband must have nicked those! For what purpose, we can only imagine.

In my hall there are three bin bag sized bags full of new and used fabric for making my signature bags with. The kitchen and dining area holds a knitting machine, a sewing machine, a spinning wheel and three bin bags of fleece, and a fair few bags of cleaned and carded rolags. Somewhere in all this, my family are nestled. I'm sure they are!

Organisation is the plan this week! I've got a whole bunch of books and dvds on ebay and amazon to ease the strain but I need to get the rest of it in line. I'll start the easy way with the boxes I've got but I've got this plan to make a bunch of special bags to organise the rest..........

Oh, and I forgot to mention the jewellery supplies and the 15 finished bits of beautifulness ready to go on Etsy. And the catalogue for the card company that I intend to sign up with to fill out my portfolio.
At some point I will post about techniques, design and marketing, really I will, but I think I'd better tidy up first before I have family mutiny on my hands. Or move house!!!!

Did I mention the dye supplies that just arrived?????


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Too busy!!!!!!

The trouble with a craft blog is that you're so busy doing your crafts you spend loads of time thinking about things to blog while you're...I don't know....kneeling on your kitchen floor sorting out your stash whilst deflecting your cat with one hand (gently of course so she thinks it's a cool new game). So despite not having a clear and cogent plan of what I'm supposed to be writing, I thought I'd just ramble and see where it took me!

This week I have had a big row with my accountant and decided that I would go back to doing my own books when I've paid him. I seem to have spent a year paying him money to annoy me, then reminding him that I do have high overheads thank you very much, then telling him how to do his job, then paying for the privelege!

I had a brlliant conversation with someone from Businesslink last week though. They found a fellow crafter to talk me through my marketing plan who has a mind that works like mine. We spent an hour tripping over each other on the phone, she reinforced some of the ideas I already had and gave me a bunch of new ones. She's fab.

I found a card company that does direct sales that I plan to sign up with so I can ditch a night at a time of my (nocturnal) 'day job' by placing myself at fairs and stuff and making a few quid. And I joined WiRE - Women in Rural Business who look fab and will set me up with networking, ideas and support.

I've spent the rest of the week sketching and buying suplies - my house is an alladin's cave of shiny paper and fabric! I caused a lot of 'tutting' in my favourite fabric shop when the till spat out my sale and had to go back to the start - I let a few people clutching single items go ahead of me before we got stuck in again but none of them said thanks! And I bought six old saris off ebay, along with loads of bias binding and stuff, and six second hand curtains from charity shops - part of my ethos being upcycling beautiful old fabric into bags and things.

All in all, I've got through a whole week without making an awful lot except for a card for my husband made from old magazine collage (looks like a ransom demand but he lurves it) thanking him for his endless support and putting up with the mess, and a birthday card for my neice with so much glitter on I thought it would never dry, and I've crocheted a couple of little beady knot bags - one for my daughter to stop her ball of wool escaping after she was taught to knit by the utterly fab Sarah from Three Bags Wool - I learnt to knit at a very young age from a picture book and I didn't know left from right so I knit inside out and back to front, exctly how the pictures looked, and I thought I'd be doing Iz a disservice if I taught her my way! Thanks to Sarah! And I'm knitting a shrug by designing it as I go along - I'm basically doing a cabled sleeve, then I'll knit a strip to join it to the other sleeve and knit the other sleeve top down. Then I'll do my current obsession, thread a big load of beads onto some yarm and do a lot of shiny free form crochet edging - wish me luck!

And when I finish work at 3 am it'll be back on ebay to list a loads of books and dvds. I thought it was only fair that I should make a few quid out of the general clutter in the house since I'm currently obscuring most of the floor with my crafty stuff!

Oh, and did I mention my sketching? After having four kids I think I need to design the perfect nappy changing/day out bag - glam, gorgeous, loads of pockets and easy to keep clean and comfortable to carry. So the first thing I do is buy yards of cutesy brightly coloured canvas. I'm just a sucker for colours! I'm also doing mummy bags for when, like the two 've still got at home, they get a bit older and you need a day out bag that you can find things in under the tissues, snacks, computer games, wallet, makeup, compass, penknife, hand sanitizer, map, stuff everyone else asked you take care of...did I mention tissues? without injuring yourself or looking rubbish. And that's where the saris and the bin bags full of notions come in.

I'm looking for the name of a clippy thing that you can fasten your purse onto a d-ring attached to your bag but I can't find out what they're called. If I could find out what they're called I could buy a load of them but when you google "clippy thing you can fasten your purse onto a d-ring attached to your bag with" you don't get much of any use. It's a highly entertaining way to waste half a precious hour though. If any kind person knows what they're called I would forever be in your debt ;oD XXXX