I am back but...

... just popping in to say hello for the moment!

I'm a little bit too distracted/busy to blog properly today, partly because it's my niece's birthday this weekend and I'm in a super hurry to get her presents made and posted to France. Despite the fact she was born in 2005, she loves Rainbow Brite more than just about anything so that's the theme I've gone for with her presents. Tonight I made her this Rainbow Brite pendant from shrinky dink plastic stuff. I like how it turned out!

Our holiday was brilliant - best holiday ever! I'll be back with some photos soon and promise to be selective. I'll try not to bore you (too much).

Thank you and goodnight!

I usually know when I really like something I've made because I get the urge to post twenty photographs all from slightly different angles. I'm working hard to limit myself to three pictures of these as I'm loving them rather a lot. I had been intending to get some sort of thank you postcard printed for anyone who bought something from my shop but my quick off the mark purchasers caught me unawares so I had to whip up some handmade thank you cards instead. These tiny notes are so much better than a postcard but could I really make one for every customer? Got to think of those profit margins, baby! It's not that so much, really, just that they are pretty labour intensive.

The little red riding hood is the made from shrinky plastic and is attached with strong double sided tape. Remember when I made them? I did not intend to use them like this at all and I still have another project in mind. I will do it one day! The red border is hand stitched (after punching the holes with a pin so that the card does not bend) and each and every letter was rubbed on from letraset. I hadn't used letraset for about twenty years and can thoroughly recommend it - it's very fun and very satisfying! At least my first two customers will know I appreciate them :) and I may make more if I haven't come up with a postcard design I like enough. Or maybe for the first ten customers? I'm not sure....

Anyhow, I will be away on holiday for the next nine days or so. I'm not going too far, just heading to Perthshire with Graham for some quiet times, whisky, swimming and wandering, not to mention going to the Highland Games in Aberfeldy again! Woo hoo! We are really looking forward to the whole holiday. I'm not going to be on the internet at all, I doubt, but I'm sure I'll share plenty of photos on here when I get back. Have a good week!

ahoi! (german for ahoy!)

Remember that gocco I blogged about a few posts back? Well, I did some research (faffed about on the internet, I mean) and found out the talented lady who made it lives in Berlin and has a Dawanda shop which she runs under the name of Smil. And look what I found in that shop! I LOVE this sailor cat so much I may actually have to break my not-spending-vow and buy this bag. I'll wait until I'm back from my holidays to give me a cooling off period... It's so great though! I pinched this picture straight from the shop which you can (and should) visit if you click here. There is also a Smil blog, also worth a visit.

In other news, I have made two sales in my shop! How exciting is that? Well, it's very exciting for me at least :) I fully expected not to sell anything for months and months so this has been a really nice and surprising start. Of course, I may not sell anything else for months/years/decades to come. But I'll always have the happy memories of my two sales... Hee hee!

And finally, our plumbing problem got worse before it got better (top tip: don't mess with plumbing when you have no idea what you're doing and have even been warned not to by someone who does know a bit...) but our friend, Alex, came round and fixed it for us. Yay! We've done so much washing today (washing machine, we missed you!) and now that the plumbing is sorted we've been able to make some progress with the rest of the cleaning and tidying. We even cleared out the cellar last night. It was dark and dirty and scary and... rat infested! Well, maybe... There were certainly rats in my mind!

I promise not to bore you with any more tales of domestic chores on here. I have got a little something I made to share with you but it will need to wait until tomorrow at least. And when I get back from my holidays (HOLIDA-A-A-A-YS!) I am going to do a tutorial to share how I made the embroidered trees on hessian a few posts back. Two people have asked me to and, in my internet life, those are massive numbers and not to be ignored!

Giveaways are not a mug's game!

Cakeify & Friends mug

Originally uploaded by diskant

Look what I won! Woo hoo! This mug was hand drawn by Marceline of Asking For Trouble fame and she was giving one away over on her blog. And I was the lucky winner. Yay! I've been having quite the good luck in the blog giveaway stakes lately as I also won some French cigarette cards in a giveaway over at Miso Funky while I was in Elgin. I can't wait to see this mug in real life and to drink my first cuppa from it :)

This stroke of good luck was well timed as we're having a problem with a leaking pipe today (and, after much fiddling, have just been reliably informed we'll need to call in a pro) which is quite depressing and frustrating. It's not helping me at all in my quest to get the flat ship shape for my parents' visit! Sigh... But this good news has helped to cheer me up a bit :) Did I mention I'm a winner? Yes I did! Yippee!

Anybody know a reliable and reasonably priced handyman/plumber in the Glasgow area?

psst - look at this great gocco!

psst

Originally uploaded by sa_su

Just popping by to share this fabulous gocco print I came by on flickr. I love it! I am wanting to gocco again and have two specific ideas in mind but, annoyingly, not any specific images. They're in my brain somewhere, I'm sure, but they're not coming out just yet. I had a half hearted "ideas seance" (a.k.a. an internet browse and a doodle) this evening but to no avail.

I've got cabin fever bad this week and am frustrated and doing a lot of sitting around, thinking about doing things but not really getting round to doing them. I think it was all the time I spent listing stuff in my shop. It's given me computer brain drain. Eugh. We are going on holiday this week (yippee!) and my mum and dad are going to holiday in Glasgow, staying in our flat while we're away. I'm trying to get the flat tidied and cleaned so that it will seem like a real holiday to them (and so that my mum won't be tempted to break out the cleaning products) but it's a bit of a one step forward and two steps back affair.

Graham moved his furniture from his old flat in today (his subletting days are over!) so there is stuff everywhere. He had a big Ikea wardrobe that wouldn't fit through the door so I was given the task of dismantling it out on the street while he went back to his old flat for the next load. Unfortunately, he took the tool box with him so I had to try to do the job with a just kitchen knife and a pair of tweezers. Ha! I ended up inside the wardrobe, kicking the back off it with brute force. One of my neighbours came out at just that moment and was rather surprised to find me in there! After much internet searching (most of which said the wardrobe could not be dismantled unless you used a hacksaw or a mallet) I finally found the secret and it came apart quite easily. Now we just have to get it, and all the other furniture, back together and then clean and tidy every square inch of the incredibly messy flat... By Thursday... Can we do it? Probably not, but I'll try!

And maybe once I have a clean and tidy home, my brain will see fit to give me access to all those half-formed ideas :)

Mail rocks my world!

Yesterday I got a surprise package from my sister, Kerry, who had been charity shopping in Inverness and picked up some goodies for me. As well as some pretty ribbons and fun stickers she got me these sewing patterns for doll's clothes and a teddy bear. I mean there's a pattern for a teddy bear in there (pictured on the back) along with the doll's clothes patterns, not that she got me an actual teddy bear. I love the illustration on the front - the outfits are fab!

There was this snazzy knitting pattern. I have quite a collection of vintage knitting patterns now and can't quite decide what to do with them. I've chosen eight to frame for my crafty room but have only painted four of the frames. I painted them MONTHS ago and the other four have sat unpainted since. Tonight...?

This booklet of springtime knitting patterns has some really cute pictures in it. Look at the little boy and girl on the bottom right!

Some glow in the dark stars in sweet packaging and the stars are teeny tiny. I may have a plan for them...

A Big Fun postcard! Remember them? I think one of them came from Elgin, maybe. I certainly went to swimming lessons with someone who claimed their cousin was in the band...!

The package also contained a couple of balls of wool in lovely shades of green so last night, given that my shop was so fully stocked (Ha! I wonder if I will ever need to re-stock? I may have overdone it a bit...) and I was at a bit of a Saturday night loose end (when did I lose all my rock and roll?) I finally got round to making this little tree embroidery on hessian, that I'd been thinking about for ages. I'd been telling Kerry about it so I guess that's why she picked up the wool. What a good sister!

I actually made one of these during home economics when I was at primary school (we turned it into a calendar) and I've always remembered it. It's such a neat little idea. I should do a tutorial!

This was just a wee quick trial (and I think I'd make the trunks a bit shorter next time) but I still like it and I'm sure I could do something with it, I'm just not sure what exactly yet. I love seventies looking wool projects. I've got a great book called 'Have You Any Wool?' with all sorts of projects that I've yet to try. I will need to dig it out and see what else I could make.

I opened a shop!

After much procrastination, I finally went ahead and opened my very own shop on etsy! It's full of goodies (so many that it took me around eleven hours to list them!) and looks like a proper shop. There are things I still want to tweak (like getting a less cheesy banner and checking my postage costs for a start) but all the tweaking was holding me back so I figured I would just open it now and tweak as I go. And I'm so excited!

I'm selling:

Dot and Pat embroidered portraits, large and small...

The new and improved Dot and Pat notecards, now in a folded format and professionally printed so that they will stand up, be sturdy and not fade...

Zip brooches, in five colours so far but plenty more to come...

Button cards a plenty...

... including these fancy beauties.

Vintage button earrings...

... and hairclips. These nautical ones are my favourite!

A selection of the new vintage recipe cards...

Hulder gocco prints...

Ice cream van gocco prints and...

... cards too.

Big Daddy lino prints.

I've probably overdone it with how much stuff I've put in there (hence the eleven hours of listing!) but I wanted to start with a bang. Please go and visit and let me know what you think. I'll be grateful for any advice!

You can find me at lauradonald.etsy.com

p.s. If anybody knows a simple and straightforward source where I can find out all I need to about tax etc. then please let me know. That's another thing that has been putting me off doing this and, search as I might, I still don't have the foggiest where to start. And you just know I'm going to make thousands before the week's out... Ha! Nonetheless, I would like to do things properly. Thanks :)