Fused Fabric Artist

As I have mentioned before I am now a felt addict & use a lot of my felt beads in my jewellery creations but today I am wanting to tell you about a very talented friend I have met through Flickr who also uses felt & other fibers to make the most gorgeous pieces of art work , Aileen Clarke came across my page one day & left me a wee note , which I am very glad she did as her beautiful work inspires me to try new techniques out & try to incorporate them in to my jewellery. Aileen is a very busy work at home Mum of Two kids who has worked hard to build up a successful cottage industry over the last couple of years, I am going to have to meet up with her for a coffee one day to discuss business tactics as with my two kids I never seem to have any time to myself to build up any sort of business at all, so Aileen if you are reading this do you have any tips for me ? :) The photo above is one of Aileen's creations called Aziba as you can see it is a beautiful mix of different colors & textures , this is just one of the many pieces she has created, Aileen also makes gorgeous cards with fused fiber motifs on them & Beautiful sea scape's which I must admit are my favorite as every time I see one it reminds me of my holidays by the sea when I was a child. If you go & have a look in Aileen's Etsy shop you will see she has a little soft spot for hearts, one of her best sellers is a gorgeous fused fiber heart decoration which looks amazing, At the moment in Aileen's Etsy shop she is also selling a beautiful fused fabric bird which has lots of beautiful detail on it . What else can I say about her work ? You are just going to have to go & visit her to see what you think for yourself , I am sure you will see something you like. http://www.aileenclarkecrafts.etsy.com/

I have been neglecting my blog lately due to felt over load & very sore fingers , I have been making lots of new felt beads & bracelets thanks to a fellow Etsy seller who has the most beautiful color combinations of Merino wool roving, plus she is a UK seller so I didn't start having withdrawal symptoms by the time my order arrived, ti came very quick & they were all gorgeous bundles. I will definitely be back visiting her again soon ! This is her shop http://www.fibrespace.etsy.com/ other than wool roving she also sells gorgeous felt bags, felt greeting cards & jewellery, so if you are a felt addict like me please pop in to her shop and have a look . The pic is of one of my new felt bracelets that I was struggling to name but thanks to all the response I had when I asked for help on my Flikr page My Blue Universe is now listed in my Etsy shop. I think my head is too filled with felt ideas I am a bit stuck for doing anything. I am going to go and get my needles out & start felting again so I might have something new by the next time I blog !

My new felt addiction has taken a turn away from my usual jewelery side of things not a far of the road turn just a little swerve to the supplies side of things!. I have been thinking about starting to sell some of my felt beads & leaves that I have been making a lot of recently, the only problem is I don't know where to start, how much to charge, to sell them in groups or sell them on their own etc, so if any one who reads this please leave me a comment as I am a little bit stuck!.

The last few weeks have not been to great we have all been ill with a bug , this year so far has just been one sickness after the other , I am blaming the weather it changes so much you never know what you are going to be waking up to!. Between crappy bugs (literally) and my washing machine & tumble dryer bursting on me so far this year has been terrible, plus I have only had one sale on Etsy so far this year so if you are popping by Etsy please pop in & tell me where I am going wrong there, prices, pics etc. http://trinkettree.etsy.com/

Dentist Hell!

I did start of well with my New Years Resolution but once I tell you about how great my Birthday went you will realize I have had other things on my mind!. It all started about a 2 weeks ago I started to get a little pain in what I thought at the time was Ear ache, I know ear ache is really sore but by I would be able to cope with that , then as the days passed the pain started to get worse & I realized it was tooth ache, I have never experienced a pain like it!. By the time it came to my Birthday last Thursday I was walking about with a hot water bottle stuck to my cheek & biting every ones head off, I was that bad every time I walked into a room where my children were the would automatically run out screaming so I did not have a very good Birthday lots of gorgeous prezzies but a mega sore face, mouth, head & Ear!. Friday came & I finally gave in realizing it was not going to go away I thought I would phone up my Dentist to get some help, then I found out my lovely Dentist no longer took NHS patients, after lots of swearing & phone calls I eventually found a willing Dentist to save me but not until Monday afternoon. After LOTS & LOTS of pain killers Monday finally came & I was even smiling even though I knew I was going to probably get a filling (boy was I wrong). I arrived at the Dentist at 12:15 & got taken straight away, got asked all the usual health questions then I got some X-rays taken all was going fine then she told me that my Wisdom Tooth on the bottom that was not even completely through was to come out!. I thought she would give me some painkillers & an appointment for the Hospital where I have been told that is where I would have to go if my wisdom teeth were to come out. But I was so wrong she disappeared for a minute & came back with the senior Dentist, He told me it was causing me to much pain (REALLY) & it had to come out NOW, this was at 12:30 so 7 shots of that yucky tasting numbing stuff a lot of screaming from me & a very worried looking young Dentist (which really never helped me)I was finished with a very numb swelling face, burst lip & shaking like one of those hairless dogs on a snowing day, I finally managed to get out of the surgery after getting talked into another appointment next week to get a filling (So looking forward to that!)got back into the safety of my Mum's car white as sheet at 1:45, Mum goes to me are you felling OK I just burst out crying & told her what had happened she said come on we will take you home for a cup of tea (which I burned my self while trying to drink with a numb face). I honestly thought I would go get it sorted & come out felling great, I was so wrong . I am still in pain not as bad as yesterday but at least I am managing to get some work done, doped up too the eyeballs on strong pain killers but I suppose it is getting better don't think I will be making that appointment next week though!.

This gorgeous collection of hand made soaps is from one of my fellow EAST members on Etsy. Stephanie bought my Winter Magic wind chime last week so to thank her for giving me my first sale of the year I am promoting her shop , not that she needs any help as her gorgeous soap's speak for themselves!. Stephanie is a very busy Mum who lives in one of the places I would love to visit , Florida. So she might be getting a visit one day!. Stephanie has been making her soaps, lotions & potions for seven years so she has had a lot of experience in her craft if you would like to catch up on her new additions to her shop & other info this is her blog http://heartcrafts.blogspot.com & this is the link for Stephanie's Etsy shop where you will see for yourself how gorgeous her hand made goodies look & sound! http://seaspritesoaps.etsy.com Please pop in & have a look!

Trying to be one step ahead!

As I am new to selling my goodies on the Internet I thought I better try & keep up with all the special occasions like Christmas, & now Valentine's Day plus trying to keep ahead of the changing seasons!, so I have been working on felted hearts, so far I have only managed to make 1 Valentine pin with a genuine Swarovski crystal to give a little sparkle & 1 heart keyring I thought this would be good idea for the bloke in your life as a wee token of your love!. I have also been preparing for Spring with my felt beads again but I have also added the luxury of pink pearls, I have just finished them tonight & thought I would share them even though the photo is poor quality, hopefully it wont be blowing a gale tomorrow & I can maybe manage to get some good photos, even though it is my birthday I don't mind standing out in the freezing cold !.I really had no idea about how hard keeping my new plan was going to be, it is only coming up for 10 days into the new year & I am knackered all ready but saying that I have managed to keep up my resolution of posting something new ever day on Etsy & keep up with all my new creations, so being a little sleepy is worth it. I also got my first Sale of the New Year yesterday but I will tell you more about that later as I have to try & get some sleep since it is my birthday tomorrow, I know I am going to be another year older but I really don't want to be walking around looking like the living dead! .

As you can see I have a new past time I am at the moment addicted to needle felting. This is one of the first things I have made using my felted beads, I think it has turned out not bad. I love felting it is so therapeutic except for the hundred holes in my fingers, the amount of plasters I have used is unbelievable but all the same it is great if you have a lot of built up tension just think of something (or someone ) that has upset you & you will have a perfectly felted ball in minutes The only down side except for the sore fingers is I don't want to get on with my other stuff I need to get done like making a light box so I can post some new stuff on Etsy. We had our fist proper snow fall yesterday & the kids were all excited Dylan is not that keen on it he says it is to cold! I could not get Hollie to come in all day today except when she went rushing to her room to get changed then she was off out again. The snow is nearly all gone again but I hope there is more soon as I promised to take the kids sledging, we never seem to have much snow here anymore, the last few years there has been very little, I can remember getting a week of of school nearly every Winter & my Mum panicking that we were going to run out of food as we were snowed in & it was a long walk in the snow to get any thing from the shop. I miss those cold snowy Winters!