sewing machine

I rarely use my trusty sewing machine. It's seen better days; I inherited it from my mum (that makes it sound like she's dead, which she is not!), and it could probably do with a service, but it still goes fine so I should put it to more use.

With this in mind I've been eying up the new Meet Me At Mike's book, called Sew La Tea Do, at work. It's a beaut and has a couple of very easy very wearable dresses in it (along with lots of cute kid's, men's, and house stuffs).



I'm not one to buy expensive sewing books; all of the books in my sewing library cost under £5 from the market or charity shops. So I've been browsing dress patterns on etsy but I'm struggling to find exactly what I want.

This one's cute but I'd like something simpler...



http://www.etsy.com/people/historicallypatterns?ref=ls_profile

I'm sure I'll find time to sew myself something soon, just as soon as I've achieved brooch world domination

x x x x x

aims

Hurrah, two etsy sales in the last two days; nothing like a bit of custom to raise my spirits.

Handmade5! has been and gone, so now I can concentrate all efforts on amypanda global domination.

I've rented out a shelf space at BirdsYard, a lovely independent shop in Leeds, here's a snap of my shelf...



www.birdsyard.co.uk

So, aims... I've never quite got to the stage where I treat crafting as a serious part-time job, and thus I'm never quite organised. THIS MUST END. I have four new short term aims, and four more for the year

In the next two months:

- always have more than 10 items up on my etsy at one time

- sell 10 items by the end of March

- have at least 4 craft fairs booked, including the next handmade date confirmed

- blog or tweet or facebook or post on etsy about amypanda regularly


By the end of 2011:

- hit 100 sales on etsy (I'm currently at 49 so this will mean doubling my sales; I joined etsy years ago now so this is a big push)

- get a decent website up for handmade

- do at least 8 craft fairs over the year (indietracks definetely counts, hope I make it there again this year)

- join up again to some groups on etsy



Oh and I forgot the other BIG aim; keep track of all incomings and outgoings to finally establish whether or not I'm making any profit. Starting from now. No excuses.

lovely stuff

x x x x x x x x x x x x

new year

New Year's Resolution #2 - Put more time and effort into crafting




www.amypanda.etsy.com is back up and running

xxxx

sunday

My fourth "handmade" craft fair is on Sunday. I've done endless sewing in preperation and have a day of baking to look forward to on Saturday, I just hope that all my work isn't in vain due to SNOW.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=15896951&id=723215313#!/event.php?eid=122981384430005

christmas is coming...

and the robin's getting fat....

books

Although I'm a super-consumer of fiction, my softest spot is for children's books (thanks to running the kids' department at Waterstones). They are SO good. Picture books are my absolute favourite.

I've order a few Bruno Munari books for work but can't seem to shift them (customers are fools and buy the boring boring gruffalo instead)



One of my favourite picture book bod's is Polly Dunbar. She writes such sickeningly sweet stories with fairly traditional and completely lovely pictures. There's a recent series by her called Tilly and Friends. The elephant story is the BEST. Tilly the elephant tried to hide. argh it's so cute and lovely. buy it.



pretty much all of my recommend cards have the word lovely on them.

lovely lovely lovely

cat jumper!

i like:



rosiemusic.etsy.com

x x x x