Anyone know a fairy?

Help...does anyone know where I can find a magiacal cleaning fairy. Just for one day...or even 5mins as she would be able to blink or flap her wings and all my troubles would be over. My studio has exploded and imploded at the same time. Picture the mad run up to the show, add a splash of manic packing in two days before we left, a good dollop of hangers and unassembled rails, a pinch of dumping all our gear when we got back, and at last a sprinkle of two bags of donated clothes...and you have the recipe for my disaster zone. I have to wave my hand in the air and admit a healthy dose of procrastination is half to blame for my predicament. I took a week off, then another week just sorting buttons, and tomorrow I have to start back making clothes.

So if you happen to glimpse a flutter of silver wings in the magic of twilight can you pass on the message that I need a bit of a miracle thrown my way.

The Little Things in Life

It's always the little things in life that make a difference. The other day we eventually sorted out our lack of wardrobes after months of living in this house. It's so nice to wake up in the morning and not have to dig through piles of clothes that have been living on the floor. It's really not the most beautiful wardrobe in the world...but in my eyes it's magnificent

In other news I am still buttton washing and listing, I roped John into to helping today, but we watched Rambo while we were sorting them so it was reall manly...I swear. As you may have guessed John is a bit of a superhero boyfriend. He may not cook, but he emties the bin, helpes with laundry, and now and then does very girly things like sort buttons, and staples labels onto packages. Gold star and a mexican wave for John.

Recessionista Fashionista!

I really shouldn't be spending more money but I went into A-Wear yesterday on my way home...'just to have a look'...and I came out with two pairs of pants and two dresses!! I have never in my life done that strange thing of buying two of the exact same garment but there is a first for everything. I bought two pairs of black harem pants, I've been looking for a good pair for AGES and these are lovely cos they are fitted at the waist like suit pants, and they tie in a bow at the calves, which is a look far more forgiving on me. They were only 5 euro, and I figured I would wear one pair to death so it seemed to make sense in my head. I also got a great denim dress that buttons up the front with cute pockets, and then strapless knee lenght dress made out of grundgy check...oh so very Pearl Jam. I figure this dress was also only 5 quid, and I'll customise it with some denim and make it look a bit more Miss Westwood. I usually wouldn't go for this style of dress, being a DD cup, but it looked surprisingly good. Not a bad shopping spree for only 25 squids?!?

Another notch on the recessionista bedpost me thinks.

Bargain Audiobooks

I just found this great shop Dazawoo that sells MP3 audiobooks, I got a little trigger happy with that dangerous mouse that is attached to my paypal account and I bought, all the Harry Potter books, all of The Lord of the Rings, and ....wait for it....all of Terry Pratchett, and The Talisman by Stephen King. Now I know that seems insanely extravagant but it cost me less that 30 euro! I've ordered stuff off the guy before and the recordings are great. You just get a cd in the post, slap it onto your computer and listen away, and you can transfer it to any MP3 player that you want. Johns arguement was why don't I download them myself, but to be honest I tried this and I got hopelessy lost, and ended up after two days of effort with an awful abridged version of Jane Eyre that cut out all the time. I figure at times like these, delegate, I'm more than happy to spend 30 quid and somebody else does all the donkey work.

I'm bursting with excitement I can wait until the postman comes knocking with my lovely parcel.

In other news my big sister Karen called over today to help me with the button management task, we delved into the pretty tricky metal ones and got a fair bit of work done. We also did a good bit of chatting and catching up too, which is always great!

Button Supplies Shop

My new etsy shop is up and running! It's so much easier to set up a button shop, easier to photograph, and they all pretty much have the same description. I have 18 things listed already after two of sitting at the computer, and I have booked a showcase for Sunday (have any of you done a showcase on Etsy?). I started with my basic plastic buttons so that my glitsy metal ones will be at the front of my shop.
Anyhow here are some pics!

Button Washing

The mamoth task of washing and sorting my 100,000 buttons has started. I've gotten a good bit done already, I have a system where I wash them in hot water, put them in a cullander, towl dry them and sort them into small plastic bags. I've been doing all this while listening to the audiobook The Stand by Stephen King. I had to choose a very long book to keep me going, as this may take me a little slice of eternity.
Instead of finishing all the button sorting first and then set up my new Etsy shop NiceDaySupplies.etsy I thought I would do the two in conjunction. So last night I put up my first listings in my new supplies shop At first I'll just be selling buttons-a whole lot of them- and then I'll list some extra supplies I have, like ribbon and paper. I had lots of fun yesterday taking photos and making my new banner and avatar.

Fashion Show is Finished

I've come back at last!

Hopefully this will be the first of many posts over the coming weeks. The fashion show is over, it went fantastically, although I think it was the most stressful day of my life. In the end the total was 51 full outfits, with a good few spare pieces that were for sale at the end of the room. I had never though of the logistical nightmare of matching clothes with models sizes, age, and shoes size...and I only met them the day before the show! But all the volunteer models were great, including my very handsome male models. 'The Shoe Box' in Kilkenny city were very good to donate shoes to the show, and they were truely drool-worthy, if I would have had more time I would have taken photos of all the shoes, if i was a killer heels woman I would have broken the bank buying them.
The one thing I really regret is that I didn't hire a photographer, but it just seemed to slip to the end of a long list of priorities. So I don't really have any decent pictures to post of the show.

More New Work

More new things that I've been working on.

The black jacket was made by machine applique-ing geometric shapes, I also added pockets, and a flared cuff with some chequered wool material.

The ruffle from the grey jacket from made from an old pair of jeans. There was a good bit of hand sewing in this one and is nearly broke my fingers with all that heavey denim.

On the grey dress I made rosettes out of scraps of fabric, all hand sewn but I think the end result is pretty smashing if I must say so myself!

New Pieces

Just a brief little update with some pictures of what I've been up to.

Exciting News

Yes it has been a very long time since my last post, and I missed my wee little blog very much, but with all the busy-ness something had to give. There has been lots of news...

Remember the shop in Kilkenny, well I'm on my 3rd order for them, they decided to go with smaller more regular orders, which is easier to maintain for both of us. It's working out well and things are selling pretty quickly.

I've taken a break for about a month from the Sunday market, it's been very quiet and it really wasn't worth my time doing it during the Summer. Limerick is a largely student based population and they all disappear for the Summer time. Also everyone else seems to gravitate towards the coast every weekend. So sorry to anyone who has gone down the past couple of weeks looking for me...I'll be back eventually.

I've decidied to invest some money...not in wine or art or property....in buttons!! A friend of mine is selling off a massive job lot of buttons for 1000 euro, there are sundry haberdashery supplies too, like pinking shears, thread, etc etc. I'll use a fair amount of it myself and the plan is to set up a second shop on etsy selling supplies, and also to go around the fashion colleges selling to students. They are all vintage buttons as the shop they all came from closed down years ago. I can't wait to collect them.

And the big news is...

I'm having a fashion show! Yey!

It's in relation to the shop in Kilkenny, the lovely Roisin organised the event for me. It's just myself and my friend Orla showing our collections, so it's been a pretty tall order trying to get a big enough collection made to fill a whole night of entertainment. It's on in Newross on the 20th of August if any of you are in the area. I'm really excited about it, but I'm pretty exhausted as I am sewing pretty much every waking hour. .....speaking of which I should really go upstairs and do some work