New Brooches

 It's that time again when my studio has turned into a little sweat shop; or rather an ice box as the temperature has really dropped, but you get my meaning! I'm trying to get all my stock ready for Limerick Craft & Design, something I thought I had mostly sorted but I severely miscalculated. It turns out I had double of some stock and none of others. I ran out of time and energy half way through my list and then forgot this fact for a couple of months until I went to my stock box about two weeks ago. Since then I've been frantically sewing, gluing, cutting, drawing, and crimping. My inventory is looking a lot healthier now and I'm nearly there!

These are just a few of the 50 brooches I've made for the shop. I love the two toned buttons that I got at the Friday market, I've never seen them before. The checker red and black piece is actually weaved strips of felt that have then been hand stitched together. There is a red circle that has been reverse appliqued on, with another red circle backing it. It was way too much work for the €10 price tag, but sometimes it good for the brain to experiment a little bit.

Sorry that the photos aren't prettier, but as I've said I've turned into a machine, as soon as a batch is made I package it and tick it off the list. Next week I'll have loads more new products to show you.

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Nuts about Robots

I popped into the Hunt Museum gift shop the other day to buy a wedding present for a friend (yes I'm going to ANOTHER wedding this weekend, I'm at that age). I did get a lovely gift...which I obviously can't reveal as the Bride my stumble upon this by chance.
While I was there I spotted some lovely jewellery made by Artysmarty, I fell in love instantly and I had to buy a present for myself. The only hard part was deciding which one to buy.I got this wooden robot brooch, I was mad about his quirky face and his red feet, and I'm also nuts(and bolts, har har!) about robots. I met Angela from Artysmarty about a year ago at an Etsy Ireland meeting in Dublin. It was so nice to see a large range of her stuff there in the Museum, she had a whole glass case of them just to herself as you walk in the door.

I highly suspect I'll be buying more of them in the future!

New Handmade Cupcake Brooches

I didn't wait long to get cracking on some new brooches after the arrival of my lovely new felt from Lupin. I made out a new template for cupcake brooches, smaller that my usual ones as not everyone likes to wear big jewellery like I do. I cut them all out and settled in to a lazy evening listing to 'Under The Dome' by Stephen King on audiobook. I nearly didn't want to take pictures of them and list them in my shop because I wanted to stay upstairs listing to what happens at then end of the book(actually after I publish this I'm heading straight back upstairs to hear the conclusion!).

The new listing system has made listing items in my shop way faster I can't believe I shot,edited, and listed 8 items in just over an hour and a half...that must be a new record for me. I'm gonna work on a few other pictorial designs as they usually sell pretty fast. They are €10 each(or 3 for €20), and if you would like one made in specific colours just let me know and I'll make one up for you asap.

Broaching Photos of Brooches

I had previously listed some brooches in my etsy shop, but I was never that happy with the photography as they were just sitting on a white background. This morning I played with using a mannequin and a scarf. I'm still not totally happy with the pictures, but I wanted to get them listed, so I put them in the shop. I figure I can play with some other set ups down the line, but for the moment they will have to do.

Have any of you had to photograph brooches before? It's kind of a tough one to make them look interesting. Next time I might try a better background, I would like something bright, but not as overpowering as the stripes.

The 'C' Word in July

I showed you my wip box before in this post,that I bring it to the market on Fridays and Sundays. Things down there have been pretty quiet lately so I've gotten lots of felt brooches made while I was working at the stall. It's really good to know that I have a stock pile of them made. They sell really well as gifts, especially at Christmas, and that's when I'm insanely busy and don't have time to make them. I know it's mad to be mentioning the 'C' word in July, but I've started making stock in August before and still been swamped come Nov/Dec.

To see lots more of my brooches go to my facebook album here.

Wip Box Full of Brooches

I got loads prepared this week for my work in progress box(or wip box as it's cutely called in the crafty blogosphere).I have stupid amounts of off-cuts of felt, I went through them all with my card circle template and cut out loads of circles in lots of different colours. I then paired these cirlces with cute ribbons and buttons or flowers, composing and co-ordinating each brooch. I then bagged each of them up separately with a brooch back.

This means that I have a handy amount of work ready to go, whether I'm at the market or watching a dvd. It cuts out the awkward and fiddling stages of cutting and co-ordinating. I got about 40 of these little projects prepped this week. I was so glad I went to the bother as yesterday was incredibly slow at the market and my sewing saved me from mind numbing boredom. I got at least 10 new brooches sewed,when you've got a hectic schedual like mine it's really good to be able to kill two birds with one stone like this.

I'm also trying to discipline myself to use other colours outside of my usual favourites. This has is beneficial in two ways, firstly I'm using up all the felt that I had previously left at the bottom of the box, and secondly it means that I'm making work to suit other peoples tastes. Sometimes when I'm designing things I forget to work outside my default palettes, and it's good work practice to shake things up a bit. Above are some of the more interesting combinations that I've never used before. I'm also in the process of trying to use up the materials I have at the moment instead of buying more, mostly due to my lack of space for my ever increasing amount of materials.

Getting Organised

I usually bring some sewing with me to the market for two reasons. 1: So people can see that the pieces are made by me, and not by children in a sweatshop! I ended up talking to lots of customers at the market because the tell me stories about their mothers sewing lots, or their grannies button boxes, it's fun! 2: Sometimes it can get really boring if it's quiet and I would prefer to be doing something contructive rather that staring at the stall holder across from me. What I've been doing before was to bung a load of felt, thread and buttons into a box, and work things out when I got there. This mostly led to me making either ugly brooches that didn't match, or lots of half finished pieces. I was over at my favourite blog Lupin and she showed her whip box of tricks. She pre-cuts and bags all her pieces. Genius!!! I tried it on Sunday and I got loads made, with no waste. So yesterday I pre-cut 30 brooches, bagged them up, and they are ready to go. When they are finished all I do is staple a tag onto the bag and they are ready to sell, how handy is that??

Ps: there is a possibility of me maybe getting a pitch at the much sought after Saturday Milk Market in Limerick....if all of you could collectively cross your fingers for me I might be in with a chance!

I am a Machine...kinda

It seems I turned into a brooch making machine this week, I went into total over-drive on Wednesday and Thursday and made all of these brooches. It was really nice to sit in my studio and listen to loads of my audiobook, I'm currently on book 9 of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. It was also really relaxing to have a set methodical routine, all I had to choose was nice colour combiations, and root through my huge stash for cute buttons...oh what a lovely chore! I think I've changed my mind I might list a few of them in the shop and see if there is any interest. I've never bothered before because there are so many people selling brooches on Etsy there didn't seem to be a point. But there have been lots of lovely comments on facebook/twitter/blog about them so I'll give it a shot next week. Now in preparation for the market on Sunday I've to go into card making over-drive, if only it was Christmas, I have lots of those cards.

Sofa Day

I've been really busy with lots of different projects over the past few months so I decided to take it easy this week, well relatively. I made more brooches yesterday, they are the kind of thing I can make while I sit on the sofa and watch a movie (since we don't have tv). The general rules are I can't watch anything with subtitles as I can't sew and read at the same time. I tend not to watch really good films as I miss most of it. That mostly leaves rom-coms and stuff I've seen a million times. Yesterday for my veg out sewing marathon I watched
The Lady in the Water: A terrible M.Night Shyamalan movie, that is weirdly entertaining because of some very good performances. But at it's core it's trite. The subtly and charm of the small bit of magic in his other films is totally over blown in this one.
Love Actually: I know this is an awful film, it makes me cringe for half of it, but for some bizarre feel good fuzzy reason I like it. I watched it with the commentary so I didn't have to suffer through the awful bits with the kid in it.
About a Boy: A really sweet Nick Hornby story about how no man is an island. Also watched with the commentary on.
District 9: When John was home we watched this, a really great film, but it makes me feel queezy with the grossness. This broke my rule of watching something good while working. If you haven't seen it go rent it! It's a sci-fi movie set in the slums of Johannesburg shot in a documentary style.