A Handmade Shopping Affair

If you pop by regularly you'd know that I sell my crochet creations on Felt and Etsy.  One of the things it has made me more aware of for myself is the want/need to buy handmade goods directly from the people who make them, just as I want people to buy from me. 

I've been incredibly fortunate recently to have bought some incredibly gorgeous creations (all for myself!) so I thought I might share :-)

A Bit of Mystery

Based in Huntly and is a great shop on felt that has loads of bags  from recycled mens ties, this is the one I bought, it's a perfect size, beautifully finished - I love it so much!
 

trash footwear

 Based in Raglan, all their shoes are made from recycled or upcylced material.  I loved it that he could tell me where the material for mine came from :-)  I got some ballet shoes in a lovely retro purpley flower material and some boots which have green leather (where the brown is) and a fab red and green tartan

 

By Nature

Based on Waiheke Island the lovely Mel is showing off a petticoat made from bamboo cotton.  Mine is black without the lace panel. Made to measure, it's the most comfortable piece of underwear I own!

Lavage Handcrafted Soap Boutique

Based in Wellington, and with a factory shop in Plimmerton, the amazing Jayne comes up with brill creative treats for your body.  A great fan of Lavage I use her handmade soaps and body mist daily. And fighting off my germs a few weeks ago, this eucalyptus soy Melt Me was great to burn in the room. 

These are just a few of my recent purchases.  Jewellery would need a couple of posts just for itself, what with the fab earrings, nose rings, ring rings, bracelets, pendants and brooches I'm a bit of an accessory nut! :-) Shamefully I haven't keep a note of everyone I have bought from from I strongly recommend having a look on www.felt.co.nz there is something to suit everyones tastes!

Retro Crocheting

Found this fabulous collection of crochet books from the 60's and 70's in a shop in Paeroa when we were on the way home from Tauranga earlier today. 

Can't wait to try and read some of the patterns so I can recreate a little piece of retro crochet :-)

On a similar vein, it seems that Loo Roll Cover Dolls are finally making a come back, I've sold 3 in the past 3 weeks.  That's as many as I've sold over the past 2 years altogether!

I've been window shopping.....

A Softearth Koru For...

softearthart

$15.00

Postcard Mermaid

sonikamonica

$3.00

Retro Brooches

intothewoods

$22.50

Party Dress For Barbie

viridis

$18.00

Sweet Felt Butterfly...

cloak-bagger

$10.00

Fabric Babushka Doll...

s4sh4

$40.00

Glass Spider Ornament

sylph_glass

$16.00

Retro-style Peg Bags!

manukablue

$15.00

Coffee Plunger Cosie

swirl

$25.00

Berry Cinnamon - Han...

sweetescape

$4.50

Pattern To Make Duct...

blendy

$10.00

Felt Rose Ring

wildguava

$15.00

F*A*S*H

It’s blog carnival time again with the etsy bloggers team. The topic:

Cabin Fever - What do you do or what are you looking forward to doing to escape the doldrums?

We are heading into Autumn, the air has started to chill a bit, and next weekend daylight savings ends, the clocks go back and the evenings become shorter

At the moment I’m actually really looking forward to the autumn and winter, cold rainy days mean I can stay home and create constantly. For some weird reason I always have a sense of guilt staying inside when the weather is lovely.

I’ve been keeping a note of all of the crafty ideas floating around in my head, and I’ve been collecting bits and pieces to add to an ever growing collection of ‘things to use creatively’.

For the past couple of years we have been to FASH which is held at our local town centre. It’s like a destash, mainly for sewers. And luckily enough it was on today!

These are some of the fab bargains I’ve picked up to add to my colection...

Spare Time and Some Shopping

When I have some spare time or just want to hang out on the computer I like to do these 3 things in this order:

1. Read the blogs on my bloglist and add comments - which is like a “Gill waz ‘ere” stamp


2. Play addictive time consuming games on facebook and try and beat my friends (they are usually those ones with a 1 – 3 minute time limit so I have no idea where an hour goes!!)


3. Stare in a trance at Time Machine 2 on www.etsy.com
   

I usually just have time for the first one on the list, however just the other day I skipped down to number 3 (bypassing addictive games) and did a bit of Christmas shopping. Which I can't show you in case any one I bought for is reading..... so here are a couple of other shops that I love

www.JeByJa.etsy.com has this fab mushroom made from an old record which I think is the coolest thing ever (and might have to be my next purchase!)

www.dzfantasy.etsy.com has fab fairies and mermaids (not this fairy head brooch though cos I bought it! I wear to work to brighten up my uniform and have gotten loads of compliments – big-ups to DZFantasy for that one!)