All about the detail

I've used Instagram now for a number of years, but mainly as a quick and easy editing/ 'share with a few friends' kind of a platform, never as anything more wide reaching. Recently though, a fellow crafter (the lovely Liz at Baytree Boutique, go check out her IG feed it's lush) started posting some really stunning pictures of what she makes and has started getting some great feedback and sales even. 

It's such a simple platform to use that I thought I may as well have a go for Thisel & Bean so I created my own published IG feed. So far it has been a fantastic experience, not just for the comments that people have posted or the sales (and yes I have noticed a pick up in that), but for the fact that I have started finding joy in the little details again!

When I started blogging it wasn't about selling, it was about the enjoyment of making and the thrill of finding something pretty/unexpected that I would be inspired by, be it a vintage leather button (a post about which I even found on Pinterest today and gets huge amounts of traffic!?!) or a beautiful fabric or a great color combination. Don't get me wrong, I am really happy that I have been able to share what I make and make a small amount of pocket money for myself, but the simple joy I used to get from buttons, bows and colours has gone a little in recent years. 

Enter Instagram...which from where I am sitting is all about the picture. Now I don't churn out enough crowns to be posting a new crown daily, but what I do have a ton of is all of those little bits that make the crowns special. So that's what I have been focusing on and sharing. And it has brought me a whole new level of happiness and excitement!

I could get used to this!

So as it turns out, sitting in a field, with your stall full of special things you have crafted, watching the world go by as you do a bit of sewing and a bit of selling is a pretty pleasant way to spend your day! Taking aside the stress of singlehandedly setting up a stall outside for the first time, with gusty winds blowing your carefully planned stall set up over so many times that you simplify madly of course!

But it was lovely! I would highly recommend the Tribal Hearts Festival if you have a young family as it was a setting full of magic and adventure for children and had a beautifully chilled out vibe all day.

Tribal Hearts

Since child #2 has come along, unsurprisingly, I've had even less time to craft! Shes very snuggly and pretty good fun though, so I don't feel too bereft...most of the time!

As shes about 18 months now (the eldest is 4.5 yrs and off to school next week! Eeek, where did THAT time go!) I began feeling like I should make a bit of an effort to get back into the swing of things...cue the wonderful Tribal Hearts Festival

It was a LOT of fun to prepare for but also A LOT of hard work of trying to figure out from scratch what on earth I should be taking for the stall, how to deal with the stall if it was sunny, rainy, worst of all- windy, and what people might want to buy at a festival!?!

I ended up plumping for woodland items...

feathered items...

and summery folksy items...

In typical 'last minute makery' fashion I didn't have time to photograph many things that ended up selling on the day. Doh! The upside being that I kept seeing children darting about across fields and woodland wearing Thisel & Bean crowns which was incredibly heart warming!

Experimentation

I'm always a bit sporadic with my use of social media, so have been trying to work out how to get a bit better.

If this has worked, it's a photo edited via Instagram that i have used for an Etsy shop update and shared to here, Twitter and Facebook! Ta da! :-)

Dinosaurs

This week has been all about dinosaurs (well in crafting land anyway)! This week in 'real life' has been jobs, stress about jobs, lots of work, cleaning, Christmas decorating, more thinking about jobs, woodland walks, more cleaning and more Christmas decorating. Its been nice in places but mainly just bit exhausting, so I've been very pleased to spend time in my crafting corner later at night working away on my final few pre-Christmas makes...and that has been all about dinosaurs.



This custom made crown is on its way to its owner today and several sets of dino bunting will be making their way this week too. :-)



I have to admit I find it really gratifying when I have a design that people really like (to a point anyway). The dinosaur crown gets a good few likes on Thisel & Bean' etsy store and after selling a set of the dinosaur bunting recently, I had a run of other people wanting it too which has been awesome! Hilariously (well actually not hilarious at all) someone liked the design that much that they copied a photo of the bunting and posted on their Facebook page as their own work! Grrrrr! They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I cant say I'd ever imagined someone actually trying to copy my work! Anyway, that has managed to take the shine off the dinosaurs for me a bit. It also means that I am having to think a bit more about how I present my photos online. I have a watermark that if I remember to I'm going to try to use. It annoys me a bit to be honest as it makes me feel a bit suspicious about peoples intentions when I know that a lot of the online crafting community is lovely and friendly and wanting to help each other out rather than anything else.

Speaking of lovely communities I'm linking for the first time in a very long time with Handmade Monday held on Lucy Blossom Crafts

Diggers

One of my recent favourites orders has been this crown and bunting order. The little boy this was made for was turning 3 and loves vehicles (especially diggers) and bright colours…

So vehicles and bright colours it was…

I have to say it was pretty hard to give away, as there was a little boy in this house who would have loved this crown and bunting too! 

Woodland Photo Shoot

Am sitting in the car outside of my house with child #1 asleep in the back and child #2 making my stomach leap so wildly that the laptop (which is precariously balanced between my baby bump and the steering wheel) is increasingly hard to type on. But one has to get things done as and when one can, so on this dismal drizzly day, in my hours worth of compulsory confinement, I figured I’d post a bit on my long neglected blog. I've been meaning to post for an AGE about the little woodland photo shoot I did during the summer...

I’d been wanting to take photos of children enjoying the crowns for a while to use on here, in any promotional bits I might create etc, but hadn't managed to get round to organising anything. Then I was talking to a friend who runs a woodland playgroup who suggested I went along with the crowns to get some pictures at one of their sessions. So I did and it was perfect! Here's a selection of my favourite shots...

The woods were a lovely backdrop for the photos and the children just got to carry on as normal whilst I chased them with the camera. It was actually really fun. I didn’t worry too much about the pictures I was getting at the time and kept clicking away until everyone got bored but I was really pleased with the final results.

What do you think? I used a few of them at a craft fair I did the other day and they fitted in beautifully.

Joining in with Handmade Monday

Its been a while

I probably have about five posts with a similar name as I seem to be either fully 'on' or the complete opposite with my crafting/ blogging/ tweeting in recent years. My most recent excuse is pregnancy...again!

The happy news is that all being well, we are expecting baby Thiselton #2 at the end of December (stellar timing eh!). The not so happy news is that I've been feeling sick as a dog (where does that expression come from? I've never even seen a dog being sick!?!) and therefore totally un-inclined to craft, write or even read about crafting. I have unopened copies of Molly Makes sitting on my desk still in their cellophane :-o

Its also been a bit of a concious choice to stay away from both craft and keyboard for a while as last time I was pregnant, I made a few things/wrote a few posts and even now, feel nauseous when I look at them: a weird pavlovian response that I didn't want to re-create this time.

All that being said, I'm actually starting to feel more human (hurrah!). This morning I was awake from 5am and couldn't stop thinking about new crowns to make and whether I should be planning for a Christmas stall. So I guess I'm somewhat back for a while...fingers crossed!

In the meantime I have had the odd order or two through the shop. One of which was to create some coordinated felt bunting for a dinosaur duvet cover for a little boys room. This was what I made...

and this was the inspiration...

I was rather pleased with the result. By all accounts he was too! :-)

Joining in with Handmade Monday - yay!

A busy but crafty week

Its been an eventful week or so at Thisel & Bean. My first sale to a completely unknown person was swiftly followed by a custom order by someone else...who then also bought a second custom crown! It was all very exciting. 

These were the two creations...

The first crown I made was for a little girl having her 1st birthday. The lady requested lavender with butterflies. Here's the first sketch and the colour options. 

  

I wanted the butterflies to look like they'd landed on the crown for a moment so only attached them in the centre.

The second crown was for a little boy who was also celebrating his first birthday. I was told that his favourite things were giraffes and balls, so this was the first sketch and colours.

 

I think my sketches are a bit on the basic side, but they seemed to give the right idea. I have to say I really enjoyed the process of discussing the options with the customer and then creating something that felt quite special.

I'm looking forward to making more!

 

Feeling full of spring

Its been a funny weirdly up and down week: feeling much less tired then last week and so far migraine free (yay!), a trip to A&E with Owen (boo!), considering applications to craft fairs (yay!), overtime in the day job (boo!) and my first 'real' sale on Etsy (the first person to buy from me without knowing me from Adam anyway!) (EXTRA yays, woops and other happy noises!!!).  

Amazingly quite a lot of crafting took place too. My main show and tell for this week is the floral crown I was working on last week. 

I wanted to use some of the gorgeous Pantone colours (see below) that are out there at the moment and I quite like it. Its a bit different from some of the others I've made so far.

 (Image from here)

I used the closest felt colours I could get to Placid Blue, Radiant Orchid and Freesia.  It was tricky doing the colour matching and even trickier to get the colours to come through in the photograph. Taking on some internet advice I threw together a couple of Amazon boxes and some white card and have created a rather unwieldy item that currently masquerades as my 'light box'. What do you reckon?

It actually seems to have helped with the pictures I've taken so far, but now my challenge is to choose a consistent time of day and position in the house to take the photos and stick to it! I need to see if I can get some consistent results which represent the 'true' colours of what I'm photographing.

Anyway the crown is now nestled comfortably in my Etsy shop here. I'm not entirely happy with the title I've given it though: I started out thinking of it as a spring crown (and that's how its named), but the colours say 'summer' to me much more than spring. Hmmmm...it may change yet!

For lots of other crafty folk head on over to Handmade Monday

Quick hello

Desperately tired at the moment for no apparent reason so I have to admit, blogging is not top of my list at the moment. That being said I wanted to say hello to the Handmade Monday peops this week so figured I should probably do a quick post too.

This week I mainly have works in progress. I got some new felts the other day so have been playing about with them.

One idea I've had for a while is about doing some kind of seasonal bloom type crowns. Something a bit like this...

I'm going to do more of a cherry blossom version later in the week if Owen's nap times allow me.

As I was working away a second idea popped into my head and before I knew it, there was a little interloper on my floral crown! Can you see it? I started getting WAY sidetracked with anchors and waves so i didnt end finishing a version of either! Doh!

As a little side note I gave my dad the seagull bowl yesterday and he was quite taken with it. :-)

Have a good week all!

No tantrums, just tiaras

I was going through my crafty supplies the other day with a view to having a bit of a clear out. To my surprise I came across a few bits of sparkle tucked in away in one of the boxes that I had totally forgotten about. My first inclination was to put them straight into the 'freecycle' bag (I'm not much of a bling girl) but I got distracted by something else just in time. When I came back them a bit later, they'd been deposited next to a few other odds and ends which prompted a light bulb moment. Half an hour or so later, I had created my first felt tiaras (with sparkle)!

Ta dah!

I have to admit I tried using a bit of bling when I first started making my crowns last year. I thought it would almost be an essential part of the decoration, but I got into a huge mess with it. They just didnt feel like 'me' and I love the simplicity of just the felt and ribbon that I use. So the sparkles got shelved...unitl now. For these little tiaras I think a bit of sparkle works perfectly!

pic. my little helper very begrudgingly modelling the first Tiara!

Joining in with Handmade Monday

Woodland creatures cont...

I was obviously in a grump having a bit of a 'moment' a couple of weeks ago when I posted about the woodland puppets and and the woodland crowns. Since then the crowns that I refused to show(!) have quite grown on me. Now that the sun is shining again and I have some perspective I actually quite like them.

 

More then that, the process of disliking them and rethinking them, forced me to work out how I'd use the chevron ribbon differently if I didnt make the woodland crowns. I decided to do a range of very simple birthday crowns using it.

I REALLY like the POP of colour you get from the ribbon and think if people were looking for something simple but cheerful, this would suit the bill perfectly! I'm going to get some felt in the same colour as the ribbon I think for the number/initial as I think that will a. keep it simple and b. look best!

Further on from that I have fallen for the puppets again; most likely aided by Owen who whenever he sees them exclaims 'Mr Fox!' with glee and insists I put them on him!

Audrey made a comment about how the russet fox looked a little more 'beary' and that sat with me for a while until I realised that actually yes they do - he really reminds me of a red panda. I might have to tinker with him a little. I think the original Mr Fox will stay though...if I can find a better red. And so the work on the woodland creatures continues!

Joining in with Handmade Monday

Hmmmm...

Whilst Mr T. took the lad out for some play time this morning, I foolishly made the decision to clean an area of the kitchen that hasnt seen sponge in a long LONG while. I could have been crafting instead, but I managed to convince myself that I'd get more time later when the boy was napping or something.

Naturally, that didnt happen! So whilst I feel super virtuous about the cleaning (even though no-one but me will know its been done), I'm now feeling frustrated about not being further ahead! In Homer Simpson's words 'Doh!'.

With the scraps of time I did piece together I managed to finish my more russet coloured Mr Fox (left)

and gave him a new friend - Mr Badger

(and yes the two foxes on the left of both photos are the same colour. The photos were taken seconds apart and inexplicably the light/colour is entirely different. And no, my camera isnt sorted yet!)

I have to say that I'm feeling pretty underwhelmed by both them. I feel like Mr Fox has lost something something of the essence that his red counterpart had, and the badger (which should actually have round ears I've just discovered) needs something too. A natty green bow tie perhaps?

At least someone had fun with them!

I have managed made up a couple of the crowns but I'm even less enamoured with those than with the puppets (hence no picture)! Hmmmmm!

I'm hoping that maybe I'm suffering with a lack of sun or something (has the weather been as awful with you as with us?) and that my enthusiasm will come back shortly. In the meantime I'm joining in with Handmade Monday to get a little dose of cheerfulness from all the lovely things everyone else has made this week.