Cinematic Treasure

I just made this vintage cinema themed treassury on Etsy. I was surprised at how tough it was to find images to suit the theme. I had a certain palette in mind and I wanted to keep it consistant, it took ages to put together but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Also last week I made farmville themed treasury as a not to my adddiction to the silly online game. It was lots of fun looking at all the brightly coloured toys. My problem with this one was that there was too much to choose from. Word of warning, if you ever get one of those farmville invitations, ignore it!! It is designed to get you hooked, stay away!Cinema Treasury

Ode to Farmville Treasury

My Drama Queen handmade card was also featured in these treasuries recently. It's fun to see the different things it's been paired with. Please click the links and make a comment to help these treasuries get hot! I'd really love to see one of my collections make it to front page. The treasury section is great for appeasing the inner currator in me and it would be a nice slap on the back to see that acknowledged....I'll live in hope. It's also far more satisfying to have a permenant collection of treasuries rather than putting in all that time only for them to disappear after 3 days (like they used to).

Fight Club Treasury

Drama Queen Treasury

Ponder Ponder???

Mmmmm....decisions decisions! I've just been researching a button press machine, which would enable me to make my own pocket mirrors instead of designing them and getting them made in the US. The press also make keyrings, badges,bottle openers and magnets. This would also mean that I would be able to offer the service of making custom made ones, or letting people design their own. It's a fantastic opportuniy and I don't think there is much competition for it in Ireland. People are always asking me where I get them and I makes great business sense to make them myself. But it's a large investment at the start, I'd need to ship two small machines from America. Decsions decisions!!! I'd say I'll go for it, but I just need to get saving.

Do you Love Limerick?

As lots of you may already know who are from outside Ireland, the lovely city of Limerick has a pretty bad reputation. Some bad stuff has happened here like any other city, but it was completely over blown by the media, cos bad news sells papers. All the positive cultural thing were ignored for years by the general media, and the city has suffered through lack of tourism. A good friend of mine Richard Lynch decided that to battle this problem in the only way he knew how, with positive action. Himself and a few other proactive folk in Limerick set up the website ILoveLimerick.com, to document all the amazing things happening here. It's an online tv station packed with interviews and footage of the city.
It's so great to see people facing a promblem and instead of gripeing about it down the pub, they gotten up and done something for themselves. I love the range of different topics that they cover from break dancing, theatre, sport, festivals, comedy and art. I've talked to Richard about maybe getting my own spot on it too, which would be lots of fun and great exposure too.

Note: If you watch the first video you'll see my very handsome boyfriend John Elliott talking about the history of Limerick.

The Power of Voodoo

My weird and wonderful pincushion series continues! Last night while siting down to watch some cheezy crime drama I finished off this voodoo doll pincushion. I really like him, he reminds me of the sad Iron Giant, that's why I gave him the huge red button eyes. This was another of Johns suggestion for things to made into a pincushion...I'm intrigued to see what he'll say next to be honest!!

This guy is rather large for a pincushion standing at 25cm high, but I wanted him to be a table ornament too. It took me a while to figure out how to make him free standing, in the end I gave him oversized weighted feet.

Writing this post just reminded me of David Bowie in lycra singing about voodoo.....hot!

Ps: After posting pictures on facebook of the aforementioned penis pincushion it sold after a half an hour. I think I definitely be making more of them!

Not For the Faint Hearted!

!!Contains Mature Content!!

Yes I may have crossed some line when I made this but I couldn't help myself. Back when I was making my cute and colourful cupcake pincushion I was chatting to John and looking for more ideas of things I could make. Weirdly enough my own boyfriend suggested that I made a penis pincushion, how perfect is that, you get to be naughty and sadistic while you work. So when I had a bit of spare time the other day I went about trying to figure out how to make it. This is the prototype, I'm pretty happy with it, and I especially like the different skin tones. When I order my new felt I want to make different ethnic penises, and maybe even a zombie one...just cos I've got lots of grey felt! I don't think I'll make millions from selling them, but it was lots of fun to make.

Sales!

It's fnny how some things go through waves of poularity. At the market I've given up trying to understand the logic, it's like collectively everyone decides to buy buttons one day, or another it's brooches. Well online this week it's been my pocket mirrors, which is very unusual as since I listed the lot of them after Christmas there have only been sporadic sales. They are far more popular on my stall. Whereas for some lucky reasons the etsians can get enough of them at the moment, woohoo. Lets hope this is the start of a continuing trend!

Have you ever had this happen to you??

Treasury Features

I'm totally feeling the love this week from fellow Etsy sellers! I've been featured in 3 treasuries, how cool is that??! So in an effort to give back some of that goodness I just made my own treasury. Mine is a pink themed pincushion collection, I included some oddities with some funky food creations. One of my favourites is the pink ovaries pincushion....brilliantly funny!

Thanks to Ooakie for inclding my pocket mirror in her team treasury.
Thanks to CherryBlossomTattoo for including my ladybird buttons in her garden themed treasury.
Thanks to Zuzusworld for including my blue duffle buttons in her eye catching yellow and blue treasury.

Please click and comment to make these treasuries HOT!!

Front Page Feature

I was away this weekend at a hen night celebration in Galway. So while I was shakin my thang on the dance floor I was featured on front pae on Etsy, yey! This is only my second time being featured so I still get a kick out of it. This time it led to two sales, so I was delighted. It's nice to be 'working' while having a mad laugh on my holidays. Sorry I can't get a link to the actual treasury, craftcult no longer give links, instead they have their own gallery view, very annoying as I would love to leave a comment saying thanks.

Sadly I partied a little too hard, and got very enthusiastic while dancing, and slipped and feel, twisting my ankle very badly. I ended up sitting on the stairs holding ice to my foot while medicating myself with beer. I haven't been able to walk since....another few days of rest and recovery should do the trick though.

A Creative Blank

I drawing a bit of a blank. I've spent months now working on my crafts and etsy shop, and barely making any clothes at all. Last year I put months of work into my collection, but sales were slow, so there was no need to continue making them. I shifted my attention away from them and followed where the money was-crafts and buttons. As you have probably gathered from reading this blog I do a million different things, from accessories, fashion, graphic design and techy things like this blog. It means things never get boring, but the down side is that sometimes I lack focus. Well things have started going really well in the shop down in Kilkenny and I have an order to do...and do you think I can muster up any ideas...no!! It's tumbled weed in my brain at the moment. So I'm gonna potter up to the studio now, stick on my audiobook, and play with some fabrics...hopefully that will start the creative juices flowing again.

Wish me luck!!

Market Stall Pics

I have returned to the blogosphere! After my little break I had a wee relapse with a nasty cold followed by a very busy weekend, after one week away it feels like I've been gone for a month. The busyness at the weekend was due in part to a craft class that I taught as part of the Spiritstore Cat Dig event. I wrote a full post about it all on the team blog, scoot over here if you wanna take a look at what I was up to.

I've also been back at the market about a month now so I thought I would show you guys some pictures of my stall. I've mostly focused on selling the accesssories and sewing supplies. So I went for a really bright and colourful display, with two large cork boards displaying all my pieces. I also got these really bright containers in the Euro store and they are great for selling the mixed bags of buttons. Next week I really want to bring down my snazzy card stand, but the transport of it is a bit cumbersome (check out this old post to see the crazy contraption we use to get it to the market). Also do you like my new banner? I used to have a long printed laminated one but I thought I would make this sweet sewn one, I think it looks far more crafty.