Potty About Pincushions

I had quite a busy schedule last week trying to make new stock for the market, as I still had not collected unsold stock from the RDS horse show. A few weeks ago I had picked up some tiny plain terracotta plant pots with the intention of making some pincushions. As usual when I buy new supplies I forgot about them for a little while, but after a trip down town to get some varnish I was set to go.
These are lots of fun to make as i get to play with lots of different colours, and also I'm using up lots of scraps of pretty material and ribbon, which is great to find a use for them. I've only made 13 so far but they were much admired at the market at the weekend and i sold a couple, so I'll definitely be making more.

Ennis Order

I't been a pretty busy few weeks, but I finished the Ennis order(not the mamoth Kilkenny order, that's still on the boil), here are a couple of pictures of a dress and a coat that I did. Hopefully I'll have time to take more photos tomorrow before I pack them away for delivery. I also finished the mother of the bride dress I was making. I was one of the most difficult pieces I've ever worked on but I'm delighted with it and I think the customer is going to be really pleased. It's great to meet a client first because then I have some idea of how far I can go with something. In this case the lady is beautifully eccentric, so I knew I could go really mad with it. It's quite Helena Bonham-Carter and I love it.

Ps: Are all you lovely Irish folk enjoying the disgustingly muggy weather at the moment? I thought I was going to die of the heat today in work.

Riverfest Market

I'm back to reality after 4 days of markets. It was lots of work and fun all jumbled up together, and luckily the gods smiled upon us and we got fantastic weather albeit a little windy. Limerick was thronged with people, most were browsing and soaking up the atmosphere but thankfully there were still a few punters parting with their cash. I'll count myself among the shopping hungry as I spent a few of my hard earned euros at neighbouring stalls. I got two pashminas for only 10 euro, and I'm a huge scarf fan so I'm delighted with that. I bought a lovely wooden mobile from one of the Irish stalls for a co-worker who just had a baby. Lastly the stall next to me had beautiful woolen scarves cardis and some jewellery, so I got myself a fantastic pair of earrings(which I sadly lost on the way to the shop yesterday), and a fabulous cardi that is a really unusual shape, as it sits quite strangely on the shoulders but that's what gives it the wow factor.
I must say that the Irish stalls really raised the bar this year and and competed very well with our French neighbours.I know my own stall this year was a vast improvement on my two rails of clothes last year. It was amazing the amount of people who recognised me from the nationwide piece, an hopefully I got myself a few extra regular customers. I handed out about 300 business cards with badges attached, and told about a million people about the Sunday market on Bedford Row. By the end of Monday I felt like a mix betwween a parrot and a worn out pack mule ( we don't have a car so we transport all the stock on foot). Verdict: I'm exhausted but happy.

I'm MOO! happy

Yey my Moo cards arrived. If you have heard of these cute little darlings go check out their website.They are a London based print firm that deal with all you business card need. They are affordable and offer lots of uniquely tailored products. I heard once you catch the moo bug that's it, you're hooked, I now know why, they send you loads of discount vouchers for your next order. I must admit I'm a sucker for lovely packaging and design...check out what I opened up this morning. I'm a happy lady. I'll be usng these to distribute free badges, on the back of the card there are images of my clothes and on the front all of my details. I give them to people who are browsing at the stall, or I include them as a little gift with my online sales, and I give them out at a local music venue. It's cheaper than paying for ads in magazines and papers and I think it's far more effective.

Sunday Market returns

Today has been spent reorganising the madness that is my studio. I naively thought I could do this in a few hours, but 6 hours later it still looks like a junk shop. But at least I now know where most of the essentials are. I think I'll spend the rest of the evening pottering around in there trying to find suitable places for all those frustrating odds and ends(even my vast collection of cute boxes can't contain all those things I've horaded over the years). I have one large factor pushing the urgency on this unpacking endeavour.... the Riverside market is starting back this Sunday. With all my break-taking and moving house lately I've been left woefully unprepared. I do have stock, just not enough, and not an even balance of sizes. Ideally I would like to get more mens t-shirts done, a few jackets, and some cute tshirts for girls. So a mad sewing marathon will be starting on Friday morning. I always work best when I'm under pressure, so I'm not overly worried. After two years of selling at markets I've learned that the world will not fall apart if I don't meet my expectations, I'll just be a little disapointed in my self, but I can live with that.

So if you live in Limerick, spread the word, this Sunday we start back, 12pm-5pm on Bedford Row, yummy gourmet foods, hand crafts, and fabulous me.

Ps; the girl in the picture above really looks like me when I was a kid

A collection of animal feelings

Well last month I was busier than a bee, and new years day I was limping and sick as a dog with the flu, so next month I'm aiming for the cat that got the cream, and then progressing onto happier than a pig in shit. I might as well be optomistic.

Between sniffles and sneezes I posted some stuff on etsy.

RTE Nationwide

Part of my mad busyness lately is due to a recent email I got aking if I would be interested in being on Nationwide. For those of you not in Ireland I'll explain. It's a programme that has been running on national television forever, and it showcases different business and community topics around the country. Most friends that I told admitted to me that they secretly are addicted to watching it. It has the image that only grannies and watch it, but it's actually watched by a huge amount of people. So you can understand my bewildered excitement at hearing this, and for the past few weeks I've been in a bit of a tizzy trying to get things organised. I got a phonecall today saying that they will be filming this Sunday at the market. So if you ever wanted to pop down and have a look, Sunday is the day to do it, I need bodies at my stall, please. Also in a couple of weeks they will be calling to my apartment and filming me and some models in my apartment. So the first thing on the list was to get the place organised. So after 6 hours of myself and my sister cleaning yesterday, we got about half way there. I'l post photos later in the week to show you how beautiful it looks, at present it looks like it was attacked by bears.

Saturday Market

It's been a good week for this little 'nice day' girl. After recovering from the aforementioned wedding, and the nasty cold that followed it, I had a pretty productive week. I made 4 jackets, and eventually organised my display for my handmade broaches. The best piece of news is that I have at long last gotten a stall at the Saurday market. For those of you who don't live in Limerick I'll explain. The Saturday market is seen as the real market, everyone goes to it, and it's thronged with people over the Christmas season. I was told that there is a waiting list of 120 people to get a full sized pitch there, and people wait years for it. So since I don't have a car, I got a half size plot where I'll be selling my handmade cards, broaches and other little bits and bobs. It looks like I'm going to have to turn into a crazy little worker bee for the next 2 months. Between the 3 days in the restaurant, 2 days of markets and somewhere in there I've to make all of my stock. Well it's better to be too busy rather than looking for work. I can't wait to get started, this week will be my first time selling there. Fingers crossed I make some cash.

The broaches are 15 euro each or a bargain at 3 for 30 euro!

Spooky Wedding

I'm going to a Halloween Wedding this weekend, and it's fancy dress! It's a small low key affair which I really respect. I understand that some people really want a big traditional wedding with all their famliy, but the cost of it is what seems insane to me. As of late it's a hot topic of conversation as I'm at that age where a lot of my friends are starting to think of the chimimng of bells. Essentially a wedding is a party where all of your friends and family turn up. Then things like hotels and planners get involved and suddenly you're 30,000 in dept. So this couple have just rented a room to have an evening celebration, so no paying for a big meal, simple but it sounds great to me.
I spent about a week mulling over what I would dress up as. While I was in Scotland my friends convinced me to buy a corset that on later consideration I knew I would never wear. So me the Queen of repurposing based my costume around this gold corset (somehow it's more acceptable to wear this boobalicious corset as a costume). It has evolved into a Marie Antoinette type thing, including large brown frilly skirt. I just got the bulk of it finished about an hour ago, and I must say I'm pretty chuffed with it. I just have to add an extra supporting hoola hoop to the skirt and some lace to the end and collar. I kind of hate the day after halloween, I wish I could dress outlandingly all the time. It would be pretty fecking strange to buy a pound of butter down at the local shop in this dress, but a large part of me wants to.

Photos will be added soon as the boyfriend still has my camera in London at the stag weekend(I just got a call appently he broke a tooth!)

New Mirrors

I've just put in an order with the fantastic etsy shop kungfucowgirl for another 1000 badges. Believe it or not I've just about run out of the other ones, and I think these freebies make my stall that bit more memorable...which is what it's all about. Along with those I'm getting 250 1" magnets with my images and website on them. I know they may not work out as well as the badges but I couldn't help myself, they look so cute. Lastly I'm getting 50 custom made 2" pocket mirrors. I'll be selling these at about 3 euro each (or maybe 4 depending on how nice they look). At the moment I'm in the middle of designing a selection of pictures for the backs of them. The boyfriend is away on a stag weekend, and I feel a little sorry for my neighbours as I've been wailing away to Ani Difranco for hours full volume. When he is here I'm a tad more restrained with my cat cry singing, but while the mouse is away the cat will screach.

Here are some previews of the designs for the mirrors.

I had a good day at the office

Well my new tactics at the market really worked. I went from a small table of cards with two clothes rails, to four rails and a large table with a wide range of greetings cards. It's hard to get I rish people to cross over that invisible line and step into a stall and how a look around. Today the general public were feeling adventurous, stepped in and liked what they saw. So clap on the back for myself,yey. Hopefully next week goes as well.

I had a photo shoot on Saturday afternoon with my good friend Sharon, here are a couple of things I sold today. I haven't had a chance to process all my pictures yet, so my listing on etsy for my new garments are a little delayed. So if you're reading this Sharon you were great thanks a million!

Shopping Spree

I have been a very poor blogger as of late,apologies to anyone who stopped by. The reason being is that I'm expanding the market stall this week. Which mean my little fingers have been very busy making lots of new stock. I'm attempting to go from 2 clothes rails, to 4. Being honest i think I've managed 3 and a half, but it's not bad going really.As part of this stall over haul I went on a supplies shopping spree today. The Irish weather decided to play rather a significant role in this excursion which transformed a 1 hour mosey to the shop to a 3 hour ordeal. A mixture of very late buses, soggy damp paper bags, non existant taxis, and very heavey boxes made me a very grumpy lady. So I thought I would share the fruit of my labours with you guys.

I have had an on-going struggle with card display at the stall, but my prayers were answered by Easons, with this nifty perspex desk organiser,at only 15 quid a pop it's a whole lot cheaper than other units I had priced recently.It's also perfect timing to start showing my Christmas cards.

Times 3 it suddenly morphs into a display unit,genius.A table easle to safely display a mirror, the wind is a curse at outdoor shows, so I thought a mounted mirror would be safer than free standing.I got this in Argos for about 26 euro.
I picked up some nifty storage for my very untidy studio. A only 2 euro a pop a grabbed three of them.
Speaking of untidy studios, I eventually took some photos,at long last.