12 days to Christmas - Christmas/Winter quote book

making a little Christmas/Winter quote book...

When I watch movies I'm itching to be doing something so this becomes the perfect time to sit and invent. I already have my Christmas/Winter papercraft stash out, organised and at hand, so it's easy to set to work. I'd found some little plain book kits and decided I would decorate them - ideal for using up offcuts from larger projects. I like to use washi tape to bind the edges of journal pages - it seems to make them look more finished. 

And as I was tying the cord to bind the pages to the covers I thought of writing some Christmas/Winter quotes. This is how quite a lot of what I make happens, things evolve into objects even though I hadn't planned them. A couple of tassels tied onto the cord ends and it becomes a tiny Christmas decoration - one to be picked up and flicked through. Just add a cup of hot chocolate with a dash of brandy.

12 days to Christmas - decorating my planner

12 days to Christmas - Trollbeads Share-a-Christmas-Card

12 days to Christmas - making bunting

12 days to Christmas - Jacquie Lawson advent calendar

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my creative planner...

I can hardly believe it was June, 4 months ago, since I last posted an entry in this blog. I have been in the throes of a dark phase but have and am still crawling out from under that particular stone. I have a couple of other blogposts that I might now be able to finish. For this one I've taken a few pictures of my creative planner without which I wouldn't be able to function as an artist/crafter.

I use a green Leuchtturm (how is that pronounced?) which I picked up at TK Maxx for half price. I stood there at the stationery shelves with both the green one and a grey one in my hands, trying to decide which to buy. I should have bought both. 

The Leuchtturm is favoured by many bullet planners as the 249 pages are each numbered plus it has an index section at the front. This keeps me from losing track of what I'm doing when. The pages are nice quality though some pens are too heavy ink-wise. I like using a Papermate Replay as it's easy to erase mistakes, misspellings etc. My book has blank pages so I can sketch ideas in them.

I draw out a new month's calendar when I need it and prefer drawing boxes to write within. I do use a code to indicate whether a task has been achieved, decided against or pushed ahead to another time. However my writing changes depending upon my mood or emotion. It can be anything between neat and downright chaotic. I doubt if I will ever achieve the perfection of Kara Benz's careful yet artistic consistency, and yet I yearn to be able to do so.

Unlike my personal journal, where I revisit pages I've written again and again and add dated notes in the margins, my Leuchtturm is a working tool. It serves to organise the inspiration and excitement I feel whenever I have an idea and helps me translate that maelstrom into achievable working tasks.

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ABADID 11...Etsy shop, a no-go this year...

I had great plans to open an Etsy shop in time for Christmas 2016 and had been making all sorts of stuff throughout the year that might have sold. Jewellery, cards, smash books, junk journals, bookmarks, artwork and more. 

I'm aware that in 2012 Etsy had over 800k active sellers (https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/notes-from-chad-7/) and that figure may have fallen or risen since then. So it was quite competitive in 2012 even with 40 million visitors to the site each month. But that's not why I didn't open a shop. 

I started to open one, naming it 'Sticky Papers', but that's as far as I got. And I had experimented with shops over the years on Folksy. I sold jewellery on 'The Thieving Magpie' and paper crafts on 'Harry Rascal' and mixed vintage bits and bobs on 'The Mudlark' making enough to refund my expenditure but not make any profit. All about funding a hobby because craftwork and collecting can be expensive. 

Why I didn't open a shop was because I wasn't convinced I'd sell enough to make it worth the effort. I didn't have a decent sized following on any of my social media sites and I believe that's an important factor in having a successful online store or website. Otherwise you fall into the trap of having a lovely looking shop and no-one ever sees it. 

So, the items I've made are getting used as Christmas gifts - friends and family seem to like receiving handmade things from me so that in itself is enough to make me think I might open that Etsy shop in 2017. And I've a few ideas to give me a slight edge on so much of what's for sale online. What I need to do early in 2017 is to make more of my social media pages, draw followers...and I don't find that easy. 

Here's looking forward to Christmas 2017...

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Craft - Sock Wabbit

So my pal Suze arrived back from the Hospice charity shop and handed me a 'make your own sock bunny by Sainsbury's'. I had been looking at sock monkeys and sock bunnies and any variation of sock animal patterns online but had never downloaded one to try. So when Suze handed me this I stopped doing what I was doing and began to make.

Inside were a pair of pink and teal stripey socks, stuffing, some felt shapes, a needle plus yellow and black embroidery thread (floss). The instruction page was really helpful, in full colour and with simple directions. 

Before long I'd the pieces cut and had stitched and stuffed the head. There was no sewing thread but perhaps that had been lost or used before the kit was donated to the Hospice shop. I did have a nice strong dusty pink sewing thread which was perfect for the task.

When I make something from a kit I'll usually put my own spin on it and although the cross-eyed bunny looked cute on the box I decided to use some craft buttons, a Christmas gift from either my niece or my nephew. This sock bunny was going to look like a bloowabbit sockwabbit.

A tiny red button nose and a thin black line smile. I left the rough edge of the body sock and gathered loosely to look like a ruffle but I think if I were going to make sockwabbits as gifts I'd run a little coloured or glitter glue along the edge to prevent it from ravelling after many hours of hugging.

There are a few wrinkles around the neck of both head and body so I need to be more generous with the stuffing there. However, it has the right amount of weirdness and quirkiness about it, definitely a relative of blooowabbit...

complete with a stripey sockwabbit tail...

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All rights reserved. The artworks/illustrations or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the artist except for specific permission granted with a free downloadable.