tick tock

I've been looking for a watch for over a year and found this one just before Christmas at Granny Would Be Proud (a handmade and vintage sale that happens pretty regularly in Glasgow). Look - it even has a compass in case I get lost! It's not at all what I thought I was looking for, but I just saw it and loved it and when I found out it was only £2, I thought it was worth the risk that it might not work very well. I still haven't got a battery or a strap for it though. Aaargh! My slowness at doing simple things is driving me mental at the moment, so I thought if I posted about the watch here, it might remind (or guilt-trip) me into sorting out a battery and strap this week. Quite apart from that, I had meant to share it at the time (another thing I didn't get round to) just in case anybody else might like to see it. I'm a bit worried this watch will look ridiculous on me because I have bizarrely skinny wrists and it is a pretty big watch. Graham has been openly coveting it since the day I got it though, so I can always pass it on to him if it does turn out not to be right for me. That way at least I'd get to look at it all the time, even if I was still a watchless wonder.

super(mercado) saturday

The Barras: Supermercado & MITS HQ Grand Opening
Originally uploaded by We Are Made In The Shade
Bet you thought I might actually do some blogging in my week off. Ha! You fools! Only kidding - I thought I'd be blogging too. Best laid plans etc... I am having a good week and I am being productive, just not exactly in the ways I'd planned. My to-do list for the week is sadly lacking ticks and I've done so many things that aren't on it. Just by coincidence, it turned out that Graham had a lot of days off this week too, so we've been doing stuff together, like going to the supermarket and making soup (and wishing we had a bigger freezer) and charity shopping and choosing our new bathroom... Yes, by December 5th we will have a working shower/bath and will be able to feel clean for the first time in over 3 months! Hooray!

Today Graham is at work so I am master of my own time and I'm planning to head along to the grand opening of Supermercado at the Barras, the newest venture from the Made In The Shade ladies. It's been up and running for just over a month, but this is the first chance I've had to go, so it's lucky it's the official grand opening today. It sounds like they have lots of fun stuff happening. I'm also hoping to buy a couple of Christmas presents. I am so organised this year that I've made it my mission to have all presents bought/made by the end of November! How I will laugh at the rest of the world in December as they all rush about and panic while I sip my gin/rum/whisky/tia maria/wine/booze in general and watch Scrooged and It's A Wonderful Life in front of the fire. Mwahahahaha! Goodness, I really have a touch of the evil about me today.

Talking of Made In The Shade/Christmas, I was supposed to have a stall at their Festive Shindig in Edinburgh at the end of the month. It was going to be my only Christmas market outing, but we found out on Monday that the event has been cancelled because the venue (the Roxy) has gone bust and closed down. This is bad news for me as I now have no Christmas markets lined up at all and it is very bad news for the poor Made In The Shade girls who had already paid for press and marketing materials. It's doubly rubbish since the same thing happened with the Lighthouse for last year's Christmas Made In The Shade extravaganza. I'm at a bit of a loss as I was halfway through making oodles of wintery goodies and now have no place to sell them. Boo! I guess I'll just have to update my shop (long overdue anyway) and see what happens. Or do a couple of Saturdays at Supermercado maybe? Either way, I predict being left with a lot of pom poms on my hands... Ah, how could that be a bad thing really? :)

Anyway, I'd better get going if I want to beat the crowds at the Barras. If I can overcome my embarrassment, I'll try to take some photos and blog about it later for those of you not lucky enough to be in Glasgow today. If you are in Glasgow, you can go and see for yourself.

market mayhem with made in the shade

The two markets I did seem like a long time ago now... probably because they were! I can only apologise for my terrible lackadaisical blogging style of the last couple of weeks. I have actually really enjoyed my unplanned break, but I promise to do better now that I'm back.

Part of my blogging problem is that I am no good at taking photos (or more accurately, no good at taking my camera out of my bag!) so I should confess that I stole the first and second-last photos in this post from the markets' organisers' flickr photostream. Thanks, Made In The Shade, for awesome market-putting-together-skills and for the photos!

These first three photos are from the Summertime Hop through in Edinburgh - the tatty-looking back of my stall (oops!) the out-of-focus front of my stall (oops!) and a close up of my newly packaged handkerchiefs and space-saving display methods.

Space-saving display methods turned out to be very necessary. Here is the scene (very late at night) on the night before the market, when I realised I had made enough stuff to fill my whole living room, let alone a six foot by two foot stall! Excuse the cat's scary eyes. Look very closely towards the right of my imaginary stall and you can see my miniature bunting hanging. Eep! The bunting was very well received. I didn't sell that many, but it had lots of people squealing and oohing and aahing. The really big sellers of the day were the pinwheel brooch kits.

My first ever market in the capital was brilliant and I set a new personal best in sales (smashing, obliterating, stamping upon and destroying my previous personal best) even though the day had a nice laid-back pace to it. I was there on my own, so didn't get the chance to look at all the stalls, but I did find the perfect Christmas present for my brother-in-law on the stall next to mine. My brother-in-law (notoriously difficult to buy presents for, hence why I'm saving this for Christmas!) works at the Hadron Collider at Cern and my neighbours, The Lindstrom Effect, had made this IKEA style flat-pack Hadron Collider instruction manual. Perfect!

Here I am at the second market of the week, Pin Up Nights, with my friend Bernie who (thank goodness!) came with me for moral support and even brought some stuff to sell with her. This market was... interesting - the sort of thing I'm glad I did once, but probably won't do again! It was fun (drinking cider funded by sales and chatting to Bernie and other stall holders like lovely Mhairi from Bonnie Bling) but I did spend most of the night defending my wares from drunk people and their sloshily full pint glasses. "Noooooo! Not the bunting!" etc. We didn't quite last until 3am, but did stay late enough to sell some Pat and Frank lavender bags to a man who was almost too drunk to get his purchase into his jacket pocket. Oh how we laughed at the thought of him finding his lavender-scented friends in his pocket the next morning! I gave him a discount - it does feel a bit weird to sell things to drunk people, not knowing if they would ever buy them sober, plus he was the first person all night who was nice enough to put his drink on the floor rather than on top of my stock!

This hand-drawn notebook was my purchase of the evening, for a friend who always laughs at the word "jobby". I don't know the name of the person who made it (I'll try to find out it's by Jolly Joyness) but she does really lovely line drawings and portraits, by which I mean that she is a very talented individual and hasn't merely built her artistic empire on the strength of the word "jobby"! This was, in fact, the only jobby-related item I could see on her whole stall. I wish I'd never started trying to explain that!

Phew! This post has taken me so long to write. I'll try to come back soon with something more snappy for you. I'll be off now, to forage the bare cupboards for food.

judy for girls

I'm loving this old Judy annual. I saw it in a charity shop many months ago, but thought it was a bit overpriced. There was lots of writing over the pictures that I liked plus I'm trying to resist more purchases in general. Recently, though, I picked the same annual up and found it had been reduced to a much more reasonable price. This time, resistance was futile!

I love these two pictures from the inside cover, so I scanned them and photoshopped out all the felt penning. Apparently this annual belonged to a girl called Jane Fairgrieve and apparently Jane Fairgrieve liked to write her name in VERY LARGE LETTERS.

Ta-da! Judy For Girls! And just where did those two extra balls appear from...?

I'm busy being productive this morning and touching wood that I don't get called into work.* The Summertime Hop in Edinburgh (where I have a stall - please come and visit!) is now only 6 days away. Eep! I've been sidetracked by embroidery, which has eaten into way too much of my crafting time, so I haven't managed to make all the ideas in my head come to fruition. Some of them may have to wait until after the markets, unfortunately. All this embroidering has also confirmed to myself that sewing definitely is what I'm allergic to (or sewing needles, at least) as my hands are very painful and are bleeding a lot again. It's very frustrating as I spent about 4 weeks putting on lotions and potions every half hour or so to get my hands to the (somewhat improved) stage they were at. I obviously like sewing a lot as I know the most sensible thing would be to stop doing it, but I just can't bring myself to do that. Why oh why? This crafting life is really a mystery to me...

Right, off to try to do things other than embroidery (though I hear it calling me).

* It may surprise you to learn that subtitlers, just like doctors and other people with the world's most important jobs (ha!) are often on call. Talking of my job, I did the subtitles for tomorrow night's EastEnders and I do recommend that you watch if you have been looking forward to Adam getting his comeuppance. It's a classic scene!

pussies galore (indulge me... or just skip to the end!)

Apparently I have only mentioned my cats in 26 of my 331 blog posts (which is not so bad) so I am not going to apologise for this bona fide cat lady (cat bore) blog post. Just look how cute they were being today. Aw...

This is Poppy - small but tough.

Here is Lola - made of fluff.

(Oh dear, I just wrote a poem about them. Maybe I should apologise after all...)

And lastly, Lola's tufty paw. Sigh...

OK, enough cat ladying (for now).

In the midst of all this cat gushing (and not much blogging) of late, I have actually been productive in the extreme! Yes, extreme productivity - I've become the Bear Grylls of the craft world. Well, nearly... I still don't think I've found a new 'direction' to fill the EastEnders shaped hole in my life (unless, possibly, that new direction is miniaturisation...) but I have had a lot of fun and have come up with a few new products. Here's a wee sneaky peak of one that I was working on today, but I'll have to come back when I have more decent photos to share because this does not do it justice at all. I've been so excited about this one that I literally have not been able to sleep some nights! That makes me think the EastEnders ban has been a good idea :)

All these new products are coming at a very good time as I have a stall at two very exciting events later this month and it will be good to see people's reactions to the new stuff first hand. The first event is the Made In The Shade Summertime Hop in Edinburgh on July 24th. This will be my very first market outside Glasgow and I'm really excited to be dragging my wares to meet a whole new audience in the capital! The second is the Pin Up Nights Festival in The Flying Duck (Glasgow) on July 30th. It's on from 9pm-3am, which is very exciting and rock and roll for a homebody/early-to-bed type like me! Mind you, I'm working till 8 that day and then heading straight there, so there is a chance I will embarrass myself by falling asleep behind my stall... Not so rock and roll! I'll try to start getting some half-decent photos of my progress and preparations to share with you here. More crafts, less cats - I promise!

what to do with myself now...?

I am here, but a weary shadow of my former self after two very busy markets this weekend. Here's how my stall looked at Say No To Plastic yesterday. Made In The Shade on Saturday was brilliant. Although it seemed a bit more quiet than usual, the people who were there were buying and I set a new personal best in market sales. Woo hoo! I also met lots of lovely people with lots of nice things to say about my work (I even had one person tell me I was their hero! That was a first!) and very much enjoyed the soundtrack, which didn't repeat a single song in the whole 6.5 hours. Impressive. I managed to have a quick browse round the other stalls when Graham came to help out at the end of the day and saw lots of lovely stuff, but resisted buying most of it. The market yesterday was super busy with so many people you could hardly move, but they were a bit less spendy than Saturday's crowd. It was still a worthwhile day though and my friend, Bernadette, came to help me sell stuff, drink wine and man the stall while I browsed the great vintage and handmade goodies.

If you live in Glasgow and are wondering why everybody except you is wearing a domino on their lapel, that is because domino brooches were by far my top seller of the weekend. I'm glad I made so many! One sweet couple even bought a his 'n' hers set - large for him and teeny for her. How cute?! Vintage button cards went really well too. It was back to their heyday/debut levels of enthusiasm and I think it was just because I displayed them in a cute miniature suitcase rather than on a plate. Makes me think I should invest in a few more display items... The handkerchiefs were oohed and aahed at a lot, but I only sold two. What?! Bernadette had a potentially good idea for them though, so they will be reappearing in a slightly different guise soon and I'm just happy that so many people liked them. I'm not giving up on them yet. I think it's definitely worth sticking with things. Case in point, I've lugged Big Daddy prints along to every market and given them valuable table space that could be used for... more dominos(!) but they have never had many (usually they have never had any) takers. I love them though, so have stuck with them. Well, I sold as many this weekend as I ever have previously and had lots of people commenting on them. I think Big Daddy's day may be coming, people! I'm glad I didn't give up on him before. And there go all my trade secrets. Ha!

I didn't buy an awful lot and resisted a lot of temptation. I would have bought a very lovely but slightly expensive vintage tin if the woman's hard sell approach hadn't frightened me off! Everything I did buy (except for an EastEnders item for a friend that a very nice customer tipped me off about) is in that bag above and it's all white! As well as lot of lovely white buttons, I got this little ice skates brooch.

I think it is adorable. It's one of those items that you can imagine someone from days of old wearing on their lapel as they skated round their local pond and watched a handsome boy... Well, maybe not, but I love it anyway :)

After weeks of squeezing in market preparations, I had so looked forward to a long lie today (and kind of needed it as I'm working late tonight) but the cats wouldn't allow it and I have been up but bleary eyed for hours. The flat looks like a post-market bombsite and I'm really quite excited about tidying up this week, especially after seeing Claire's tidiness here. Could my craft room really look like that? Time will tell... In other words, no, it couldn't, but it could certainly look a lot better than it does!

see you this weekend?

The Springtime Jamboree 2010 Flyer (Glasgow)

Originally uploaded by We Are Made In The Shade

Oh, good grief! My weekend of markets is here already. It arrived so fast and I'm not feeling very ready. That said, I have been working my socks off and my fingers (quite literally) to the bone. Now only 50% of my digits will function and it's the least useful 50% too. I type this with my pinkies and ring fingers :( I will have most of my old favourite products (some at excitingly reduced prices, bargain hunters) and lots of new stuff too. It sounds like there will be lots of exciting and talented stall holders to keep me company at both events too, so if you're anywhere near Glasgow, please come along to one (or both) of them and, if you see me, do say hi!

I'll be at the Made In The Shade Springtime Jamboree on Saturday (10.30-5, The Lighthouse, Mitchell Lane) and Say No To Plastic on Sunday (12-5, Oran Mor, Byres Road). No excuses will be accepted for non-attendance! Be there or be square/somewhere else etc... :)

Do you pom pom?

Ha ha ha! Last night I made a pom pom wreath and I can't stop laughing at it. I think that's a good thing... but I'm not sure. Is the pom pom wreath totally great or just totally awful? The flash isn't flattering to it and I think that in real life it's great - very snuggly and, er, old school... I might take it to the markets I'm doing next weekend and see if anyone wants to pay a small price to adopt it. I think we probably only want one wreath in our house over the festive season and the gum drop wreath has become an annual tradition for us.

Markets next weekend, did you ask? Well, yes! I'm doing two. On Saturday December 5th you will find me at The Big Bang in Langside Hall from 12-4. This is an event that's being organised by a very nice glass artist called Keira McLean, who I met at the market I did at the start of October. There's fine art, photography, furniture, glass, performance poets... and me! It sounds like it will be really interesting so if you are south of the Clyde next weekend, do come along. On Sunday December 6th , I'm going to be at Say No To Plastic at Oran Mor from 12-5. I can hardly tell you how good the November Say No To Plastic was, with its fabulous array of vintage and handmade goods, and I'm hoping this Christmas one will be even better. And if you're a Londoner, then you might just get a chance to see/buy my wares at We Make on Saturday 5th December, too. Claire (Miso Funky) will be having a stall there and, if she can squeeze anything else into her already bulging suitcase, should be taking along a handful of things made by me too. What a weekend! That's why I've got to stop dilly dallying and actually make some stuff to sell. Eep!

Can you really call them Russian?

They're not very Russian looking, really, but just how cute are these Russian dolls? I bought them at Say No To Plastic (the market I did a couple of weeks ago) for the princely sum of £2! I spotted them on the stall opposite mine (selling vintage and second hand goodies) while I was setting up and decided I loved them. I expected they would be on the expensive side but decided to torture myself with a closer look anyway. I was so delighted when I saw the teeny tiny price tag and snapped them up before the market had even opened! They remind me of Dick Bruna illustrations. I now have three sets of not very Russian Russian dolls, so I guess that is kind of a collection.

Blogging about this has made me realise that I never got round to posting a photo of my Say No To Plastic stall. Here it is! Not much different from the last market shot I posted but it is if you look closely, and there will be some close ups coming soon...

I should also mention the fabulous stall that was set up next to mine, selling cake stands made by the clever stall holder from vintage tea sets. Some of them even had a little tea cup at the top to put marshmallows (or whatever!) in. Sadly, my battery died, so no photos but check out their etsy shop - Truly Madly Sweetly.

I was a bit sneaky and took a lot of photos of different things this weekend (making the most of the rare daylight!) so that I could blog a bit more this week. I'll be back soon (hopefully tomorrow) with something else!

p.s. I made cushion covers tonight! They were not as straightforward as I had hoped but I think they have turned out quite well and they are making our sofa look a bit more snazzy. Right, off to recline with them :)

And the winner is...

... comment number one, which was from Marceline, who liked the hulder print best of all. Congratulations, Marceline! I will be emailing you tonight to find out your address and will send you your hulder print as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyone else who entered, whether you were one of the six (brilliant) people who actually entered, or one of the many thousands/millions who entered in spirit, I'm sure... :)

I had a brilliant day at the market today. It was mega busy and there were heaps of good stalls and loads of enthusiastic customers and browsers. My friend Bernadette came along to help me on my stall, and we drank wine while we sold my wares (lots of them!) and then went out for dinner afterwards. I make money, I spend money... I bought something great (and resisted lots of other things) but I will share all soon. For now, I have to go and panic about starting my new job tomorrow. Eep! Wish me luck!

Remember remember the 8th of November!

Just a reminder that the giveaway ends tomorrow.

So far there are a measly four entries, and two of them are from people I know in real life!

Thanks if you are one of the four! :)

That would give you a one in five chance of winning...

... and you can choose any prize you like, whatever your heart desires, from my new shop.

Come on, people!

I'll be drawing the winner at random when I get back from the market (Say No To Plastic, 12-5pm, tomorrow, Oran Mor, Glasgow) that I am woefully under prepared for. I am just back from France and a bit frazzled but will have at least two brand new, never seen before products with me as well as the usual stuff that I thought was ace until I realised I could hardly give the stuff away! (Hee hee!) If you're in Glasgow tomorrow, do stop by. It should be really good and I've slashed some prices so there will be plenty of stocking fillers and the like for you.

I'll be back with a proper post soon. I've got lots to share about my holidays and my new products and some exciting (to me) news, as well as revealing the winner of the giveaway. It could be you. But not if you don't enter. Do it.

I noticed that the pictures from the last post did not show up on my sister's computer. They do show up on mine. If you (like me) can see the pictures then apologies for using them again in this post. If you can't see them (like my sister) this post shows what they were meant to be so you haven't missed out on anything really :)

how was your halloween?

How was your halloween? Mine was good but fairly uneventful and I didn't carve this rather spectacular cannibalistic pumpkin. My sister went all out for halloween this year, it seems! She says she saw the idea for this pumpkin somewhere on the internet but couldn't remember where. If it's your design... well done!

Here's my youngest niece, Ruth, dressed up as a witch. Ah! So cute! She's only just started eating real food and is apparently enjoying it.

I was on the phone to my sister on halloween night (hearing about the slime soup and witch's hair they had for dinner) and she said I should go and visit them before I start my new job. Ha ha, we said. Well, to cut a long story short, I am going to visit them. I booked my flights (they live in France) last night and I leave tomorrow morning. Hurrah! This sort of spontaneity is not at all like me and I'm a bit stressed. I have lots to get organised today before I leave. I'm doing a market on Sunday (Say No To Plastic, Oran Mor, 12-5) and won't get back until Saturday evening so have to take anything that needs doing with me. I've already axed one top product plan but, since I'll be employed as of the next day, profit making is not quite so vital as it once was. I will no longer starve if people don't buy much :)

Still here? This is the important bit: check back here later today for an announcement and a giveaway!

little red in da hood!

Apparently the story of Little Red Riding Hood is thousands of years old, not mere hundreds as was previously imagined. I think the story certainly must have something about it to keep us all so interested for so long...*

I know that many months now have passed since I made the tiny Little Red Riding Hoods from shrinky plastic. It is also many months since I attempted to paper cut the backgrounds for the Little Red Riding Hoods. And it's also many months since I was inspired to improve said paper cut backgrounds! But here, at last, are some of the finished brooches!

I actually really like it when projects take a long time to come together. They are always much more in keeping with how you wanted them to be. These brooches are quite tricky to photograph but (sigh...) I lurve them. Hope you do too :)

I have just listed one in my etsy shop, for anyone who may be interested. Yippee!

I spent most of yesterday and today making another Little Red Riding Hood inspired project. It was another one that had taken a long time to come together but I can't post any photos yet as it is a present for a (very) special (very) little someone. I'll share it next week. I really like it so far! Exciting!

Oh, by the way, the market I did on Saturday was good. It wasn't especially well publicised so wasn't that busy but I more than covered my bus fare and met some really nice people who were running the other stalls. I also sold a Dot Cotton pendant to a lady who had met Dot and Nick Cotton earlier this year! Oh, so jealous! Oh yeah, and we got coffee for free! Woo hoo!

*I think it's the scariness of Little Red Riding Hood that keeps us all interested. I once wrote a dissertation about why scary stories rock. Actually it was about how moving away from scary stories to pretty pink and sparkly stories would do the children's publishing industry no good. But, pretty much, it was about how scary stories rock!

Last minute market! Tomorrow!

I'm going to be doing a market again tomorrow (Saturday). Just a little one this time, in Beanscene on Skirving Street (Shawlands) from 11-3. I only found out about it this afternoon. I don't know what it will be like but I thought I may as well give it a go anyway. If you're in the area you should stop by and say hello or eat a muffin! I think it is going to be a regular (monthly?) event so hopefully it will be good. The space was free so I'm only gambling my bus fare to find out :)

I am shrinky dinking like mad this evening (see random picture above) as I sold out of most of my new Eastenders pendants at Made in the Shade and had yet to replenish. I will share a better picture of them (in their super duper packaging, which I'm very proud of!) when I have some light to photograph by!