busy busy

I feel like I've been super busy the last few weeks...I've sold at a few craft fairs, one of which I organised, and one of which I helped organise alongside reetsweet. I've been sewing til my fingers hurt, and speaking of hurt I've been suffering big-time with horrid flu. But there is a light at the end of the slightly stressful busy tunnel...this weekend will be my last craft fair before christmas and I've got a few days off to relax. I'll be selling at reetsweet at the corn exchange this weekend, hopefully I can sell some things so that I can buy christmas gifts from other sellers!



x x x x x

lucky number 7's!

I've just finished a nice bulk order for number 7 brooches for John at the record label WIAIWYA for his singles club. Lovely!








If you'd like to join the singles club for a nice dose of indiepop and lots more thrown in, take a look at the blog here


Always nice to do something different. It's made me think about doing custom letters at craft fairs spelling out names, or just using initials. Might look nice.

x

jammy

As part of the dream to live a more sustainable, green life, we have been delving into the world of foraging. If we can't grow our own just yet then we can at least go out and collect some free food from the amazing countryside around West Yorkshire. So we donned our matching walking boots and went on a woodland walk oozing with brambles. After an hour or so of collecting we had a plastic bag FULL of blackberries, and I made jam. Hurrah! I think I over-boiled it a bit so it's extra thick, but it tastes really good! And I even used half a jar in an apple crumble (with apples from Dan's parents apple trees!), which is really yum!





x x x

wallpaper

mmm cute expensive sea-scape patterned wallpaper. lovely.



by Abigail Edwards (check out her owl paper too here)

books

I'm a big fan of books. Magazines don't really do it for me, and technological replacements aren't the same. I mostly buy fiction to bury my nose in, but I'm also slowly but surely becoming addicted to buying vintage sewing/craft books. I can't resist a cheap charity shop find.













Some of them are real gems packed with projects that don't always date very well! think tassels!

amsterdam

I've spent the last few days in Amsterdam soaking up some culture. I was SO pleasantly suprised to find that the sex, drugs, and Stag-do's were very easily avoidable, and that outside of the small central red-light district the city is both stunning and oozing with European style. I spent much of the time gazing up at the apartments, peeking in the windows at the perfect modern interiors, and longing to live such a stylish perfect life! But, alas I am much to fond of clutter for such a life! We hired bikes for a day and took a ferry north, which was windy but really lovely. A row of wooden picture-book houses along the sea-front were pretty much the most perfect place to live that I can imagine. I loved it. Cute children in boxes on the front of bikes. Cool bars and coffee shops. The best falafel we've ever had.


cute shop! I managed not to buy anything but fell in love with brightly painted vintage bread tins.


felt ja!


bikes!


x x x x

shop

It's extremely early days but I've started looking into getting a small shop space in Hebden Bridge. We're thinking of moving there. It's so very exciting. Hebden is lovely; such beautiful countryside and a place where people would (hopefully) buy my craft all year round. Plus I love its eco credentials, maybe we could finally stop feeling guilt over every purchase and rest safe knowing that our food/clothes/books were all bought from a good source. I'd be able to sell my own work and also sell other people's on their behalf alongside my own. I've been very excitedly looking at ideas of how to fit out the space and display work in interesting ways. I need to get sewing too! It wouldn't happen until early next year, but I'm sure that time with fly and like any other crafter I'm thinking about christmas and preparing for the joy of christmas fairs...busy busy!

this shop looks cute...

sino works



x x x

children's books

I love children's books. I used to work in the children's section at Waterstones and had a shift back in there yesterday, much of which I spent re-familiarising myself with my favourites and swooning over some nice new additions. Pictures books are my absolute favourite (apart from the Moomin books which I love with a love normally reseved for cats and pandas) and although I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the big names in picture books (I hate you Julia Donaldson), Anthony Browne is a firm favourite. There was a new autobiography of his picture books....



looks really interesting and inspirational for any budding illustrator (unfortunately I dont fall into this category, I'm terrible at drawing).

Speaking of picture books this Japanese website is AMAZING. there are even some vintage Tove Jansson books on there! curio books











My other major picture book lust is usually over vintage scandinavian books, there are so many good websites out there showcasing their cuteness.

x x x x x

bunting

I know bunting has become so widespread that if I see another set of floral print cath kidson style bunting I might be sick. HOWEVER the bunting on tents at indietracks was just plain cute, and although I dont like to toot my own horn I do love how the felt bunting I made to decorate my stall looks. I've been thinking about how great it'd look down one of the red brick streets in Armley or Hyde Park (Leeds) with hundreds of rows of bunting draped across. Maybe it's all the (gross) nationalism around the royal wedding/olympics seeping in, but I'd love an excuse for some kind of twee street party.

This bunting illustrates my thoughts...



By Sophie Cuvelier

selvedge magazine

indietracks

I took along a couple of other handmader's work to indietracks to sell on their behalf. We all did amazingly well, and the indiepop crowd were our perfect target audience...full of compliments and the cutest children I've ever seen. If a bomb had dropped on Derbyshire that weekend then there'd be a lot less cardigans in the world.

Some snaps of our stall....










Looking forward to doing similar "handmade on tour" stalls in the future, worked a treat :)

x x x x x

indietracks

I'll be selling my wares, and a couple of other handmade-ers on their behalf, at INDIETRACKS again this year. sigh. what a lovely place it is. cannot wait!


indietracks

alice in wonderland

I've been eyeing up this book at work for a while. I'm a big big fan of Tove Jansson's moomins books and novels, so this'd be a lovely addition to the collection. There are illustrations throughout, although some are in black and white and most are quite small.



alice in wonderland

x x x

Todmorden

Sold my wares at an admittedly quiet but never-the-less lovely vintage / craft event in Todmorden at the weekend. And we went for tea in Hebden Bridge on the way home. I want to live there! Probably one of the few places where you could actually make a living out of crafts. Although I'd probably have to give my future children double-barrelled made-up names. Not sure how I'd feel about having middle class children. Swings and roundabouts.








x x x x x

kites

This nice weather has given me some mega kite lust. I like making little kite brooches but can't help but feel that I could go one step further and make some kind of kite of epic porportions. I especially love their little triangles hanging down, which would look great in felt! Kites always makes me think of flat stanley for some reason!



Charles Eames' kite design. so good. pinched from here.
x x x x

doll scenes

We recently went to Whitby and there were some old dolls in one of the charity shops crying out for a new home, but I decided against buying them as my never ending piles of stuff that needs a new home really don't need any new company. Kind of wish I'd got out my purse now though...these cute little dolls with their own shoebox world are great (hopefully they wont lead to my obsession with dolls houses re-surfacing!)






http://www.vendredimatin.be/

mobile

We're lucky enough to live somewhere with a clamp thingy in the basement for holding wood (or, as Dan uses it for, bicycles)which has helped me to think ouside of the felt box and plan on making some mobiles. I bought some thin wood poles and a saw!

I've been looking online for some nice mobile inspiration....



specksandkeepings.com



makikomo


also...

snug songbirds mobile

mine would be very different to all of these, mostly because it'll look more like my brooches but dangling in the air!

x

listings

FINALLY we had some natural light coming into the house so I quickly took the chance to snap some pictures for etsy. New items listed today looking bright and perky =)







www.etsy.com/shop/amypanda

reetsweet

I've been busy playing shop at stalls at reetsweet events :) First at a lovely little fair at Nation of Shopkeepers, and then this weekend at the corn exchange. They're such great events, second only to handmade!





x x x x x