Lots of New Supplies to Play With

Look what the postman delivered this morning!!


I knew I had to do a major restock of jewellery making supplies, I had run low on pretty much everything. Last week I went on an etsy supplies shopping spree, after lots of searching I found some great new suppliers. I got 100 ball chain necklaces and really pretty polka dot ribbon and buttons from twpmango. Since I'm paying for shipping to Ireland I look for shops that do good deals on their secondary shipping and I try to buy multiple items from the same shop to try to save money. 


I made some simple button necklaces a while back that have been selling really well, but I never knew what to search for when buying the disc that you glue the button to. After much searching I eventually figured out the name for what I needed to make my button necklaces, bails, I got them from studio29 supplies, and they are a much better price than what I got before.


 Pretty soon after I made my shrink plastic wine charms I decided to make some charm bracelets, using the same templates that I had designed. After much searching and price/quality comparisons I found these blank charm bracelets and a few other bits and bobs from Small Parts. I think these supplies will be the first ones I play with as I really excited to see how they turn out. Who knew when I discovered shrink plastic about two years ago that I would become completely addicted to it, and create a whole new range of work!! I also got some basic chain so that I can make more of these button necklaces to sell. The brown one I made for myself got lots of compliments when I wore it out so that was a good sign that they would sell well. I got the proper wire in Silkes and now they just need to be finished off with some chain. I already have about 6 of them made and ready to go.


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Branding and Packaging

I've been humming and hawing for ages about ordering small jewellery boxes, I couldn't decide if I wanted to go with Kraft, white, or blue boxes, or even who to order from. After lots of research I chose to go with Box Displays, and I'm delighted I did. I ordered 200 of these 8cm cotton filled shiny teal boxes and it only came to just under €68 including postage. Not only that, but they arrived freakily fast, I ordered them late on Thursday and I got them Friday morning, pretty amazing huh?

Since I'll be using them in the craft shop for my brooches and necklaces I wanted to put my personal stamp on them. I've seen lots of people wrap a white paper label around on the top lid, which looks great, and I was just about to do this when I remembered that I have sticker paper. I got packets of 10 sticker sheets in the €2 shop for only €1.50, and they work in my home printer. I whipped up a few layout sheets in Photoshop, making sure that all on my website/online details were on them. I also made little labels to go under/over the pieces to explain what they are. After lots of chopping and sticking I packaged all of my new jewellery and I must say I'm pretty chuffed with the result. They look so much better than the labels I was using previously. I've also discovered that people really like getting pieces in a box as it's already gift wrapped, and it makes the piece look more substantial.

Old packaging

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New Yummy Fabric and What I Made With It

As you all know I've been a busy little worker bee making lots of new stock for the Limerick Craft & Design shop that will be opening in the next month or so. Over the past few days I've been making lots of new pot pincushions. Thankfully I had a load of pots already painted from before Christmas which saved me loads of time.

Last week I got tired of scrounging through my scraps box looking for pieces big enough to make stuff with so I treated myself to a bunch of new material. I went to the Limerick Quilt Centre and bought 21 fat quarters, at that I was seriously restraining myself. They have amazing fabric out there, and I'm told that people regularly tell the staff that they hate them(just because their stuff is so nice that there is no choice but to buy it). This trip marked a vast improvement on my last one, I only spent €63, whereas last year I spent €250 on my first visit to the shop. It should come with a health warning like those on boxes of fags, 'Hoarders beware; may cause heart palpitations, bankruptcy, and eventual madness'.

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Christmas Supplies Shopping

I came to the daunting realisation yesterday that Christmas is soon approaching, and as usual I'm not properly prepared. So in an effort to tackle this problem I went supplies shopping yesterday online. 

At Christmas cards are obviously a bit seller for me, by rights I should have started making them already...but sadly I'm not that organised. I popped over to the Cork Art Supplies website to have a gander at what they have. I picked up 4 large paper pads, and two smaller ones too, including a drool worthy set from Graphic45 I also got some rubber clear stamps to add to my ever expanding collection. They also had some other paper that was out of stock which I'll check back on next week.

Much to delight and surprise it arrived this morning! Talk about fantastic service! I also ordered some nifty supplies from Papermania, but that will probably get here next week or so to get here.

New Supplies from the US

My friend Orla just went to San Francisco for a well deserved holiday. The fantastic thing about it was that I gave her €100 before she left to buy as much paper as possible. I am able to buy American paper here but it costs between €20-€30 per 12" x 12" pad, it's also possible to ship it in from the US but the import tax and shipping makes it just as expensive. I knew I would get value for money but what I failed to factor in is that Orla is the best bargain hunter I've ever met!

She bought some beautiful sheets from Graphic 45 which is very pricey here, which is exactly what I asked for. Where she really excelled was getting pads that were $20 reduced to $5, and a few of them! The most impressive paper was a pad of 360 sheets for $20, and it's really beautiful paper. She really paid attention to the paper and patterns that I love, and shopped accordingly. We estimated that she got €260 worth of paper for about €100. I'm delighted with my stash, but now I'm daydreaming of winning money and flying over to buy paper, stamps, embellishments, dies.....sorry I got lost there.

Now that I'm making way more cards these days I've had to speed up my system. Firstly I pick out loads of paper I want to work on and then guillotine them into 5" wide strips(the width of my cards), I get 2 of these per sheet with some leftover. I then cover a large amount of blank cards with this paper using my glue gun, cropping off the leftover piece. When I have a stack of about 50 covered I then use the left over scraps to embellish the cards, going through them in themes of colour so I'm working with the same papers all the time. When I get new stamps I stamp them out on blank paper and keep them in a box, so that at this stage of the card making process I just have to go to the box rather that spend time inking up. This method of production line working has really helped speed me up, and also saves on wastage as all my scraps are used up on the cards.

Supplies Shopping

Oopsy, I was bold! While I was in Msigns buying myself some elastic so I can make more button rings I spotted this lovely A3 cutting mat. My old A4 one looks like it's been mangled by a rabid glue gun. I decided to spoil myself and start this new year with a much deserved cutting mat. I also picked up some 300gm card for a Valentine's project that I'm working on...I'll keep you all posted.

Recession...what recession?...My Confession of a Supplies Splurge

This is the scary time of year for me when insane amounts of money are being spend on supplies but most customers are saving for Christmas and not spending very much. In my mind I know it will be busy and that I'll be glad I bought and organised all this stuff early..it's just kinda hard to remember that when I look at the bundle of receipts. Recession...what's that? My inner craft nerd doesn't seem to have heard of it. Here are just a few of the supplies I've been stocking up on...Yesterday I went to Cork to go to Cork Art Supplies, I was there earlier this year and was really impressed with their paper selection. I really had to restrain myself in the shop this morning,and make myself just buy Christmas papers. But in the blink of an eye I spent 80 quid, having said that I'm delighted with what I picked up, and I know I'll make that stretch really far, saving every scrap of unused paper for a later project.

I then popped into Vibes and Scribes to pick up some material, they didn't have exactly what I was looking for but I picked up these fat quarters at 2 for €5 and a couple of meters of this super cute stars and polka dot material.

Also the post man has been very busy lately, my delivery of 500 velvet bags for my pocket mirrors arrived. I was really worried that they wouldn't get here on time for the Christmas rush as last time the took 2 months to arrive! I ordered in a large amount as I think I might be selling them in my shop for people who order custom made mirrors. I have looked into selling them in larger quantities but it would mean ordering them in the thousands per colour, an investment that I may have to forgo until the new year.

Lastly I was really surprised to arrive home to see that my Shrinkles had arrived already, I only ordered them a few days ago so I was chuffed to see them here so soon. Since my last post on Shrinkles I've expanded my line to include Shrinkles brooches, hence the fact that I bought 200 sheets. I'll be posting some photos of these later in the week.

Ps: on a personal note, last night for the first time I got to use all my letters in a scrabble move, I've always wanted to do this! It was a word score of 81 and the word was stringy...so satisfying

New Supplies and Custom Orders

As I mentioned before we went to see Twilight the other night, while I was out in the Crescent Shopping Centre I popped into the art and hobby shop. Usually they have lots of lovely paper but I was a little disappointed to see their tiny selection. It's like there is a city wide nice paper ban going on at the moment. While I was there I did see these two nice packs though, even though I'm don't really need any paper at the moment I picked them up anyhow. They were pretty reasonable at about 14 quid for the pair of them. I'm a sucker for nice paper and I feel compelled to buy any pretty ones I see, it's like buttons, or material! I'm some strange female anomaly, I can walk past designer shoes or dresses, but when it comes to lovely supplies I can't resist myself.

At the weekend I also got a couple of custom orders done. Val from Vals Kitchen asked me to make a bee brooch for her, which was loads of fun to make. I spent a while sketching on paper first so I could get the shape of it right. Also Magatha-Mag is an avid archer and she asked me to make a target brooch for her. I think this works really well as it looks almost Modrian-esque in it's minimalism, but to archery people it's a fun in joke. I have another order to do this week which is a cheese slice brooch for one of my fellow stall holders, I think she is going to wear it as part of a uniform, which I think is adorable!

Vintage Supplies Arrive

At long last my second delivery of vintage supplies arrived this week. I got hundreds of knitting needles, thimbles, circular knitting needles, and loads more buttons. It's not quite the same amount as I got the first time round but it was still very exciting to root through all the boxes. I'm not a knitter so to be honest some of the more esoteric tools confounded me, but after some googling and asking people on facebook I found out what they are for and how to price them. I did discover that a circular needle is practically impossible to make look pretty in a photograph. I'll have to try to shoot them again because I'm really not happy with these pics that I took. I've a fair bit of sorting to do, but I have listed a few of the needles in my shop already.

Also this week some of my novelty buttons arrived, that means that my Hello Kitty buttons have returned to my shop, and I now have rabbit, and teddy bear buttons too.

Tasy Buttons

Here are some yummy-tastic buttons I listed this week in my etsy shop. I've gotten to the point of properly going through the massive collection of buttons that I bought and I'm still finding some beautiful hidden gems. Maybe the cute buttons are mating and making extra cute buttons in my absense...maybe...hopefully?!

New Supplies

These lovely supplies from Lupin arrived on my door this morning. I've been dying to get my hands on her felt since I started making my pin cushins, so expect more photos of super colourful cushions in a few days. I'm off upstairs now to go make some more!!! I love supplies...and the postman who brings them :)

Note: Most of the things here are for me, but I'll be selling the small strawberry, bear, and miss kitty buttons. Also the buttons are not from lupin, but everything else is.

Button-fest

Yes i know it's crazy but I got even more buttons yesterday! I think I have a serious addiction on my hands here. I was out with a friend last night and he compared me to the little dude from the kids cartoon Duck Tales who dives into a pool of all his gold, Peter said he could imagine me showering in my millions of buttons....not far wrong Peter! I just spent the past hour taking photos of them and I'll be listing sets of 200 dark, toffee coloured, and white buttons. I also made a couple of pincushions too. It was really nice to get away from the computer and get back to some sewing.

Shopping

I've been trying to source some new supplies for my shop. As you know I already have tonnes of buttons, but I wanted to get a few new items, just to keep things fresh. So in the next few weeks the postman will be delivering these lovely things.
(on a side note it's very hard not to buy LOADS of new supplies)