Hoarding Brightly

I’m a bit of a hoarder and Andrew is a bit of a collector, I’ll let you create your own mental image of what that means to the inside of the cottage :-)

After a year or so of full-on crocheting I seem to have horded the last meter or so of every yarn I’ve ever used. Those bits that will come in handy for something, sometime. We had a bit of a tidy up yesterday and voila; a plan!

This afternoon I sat and tied it all together to make into a big ball and I now have my crochet hook at the ready to make….. something….. I think I might do a circle and maybe then it can be fashioned into some kind of purse. As you can tell this plan is as clear as mud in my head!

Who knows – whatever it becomes it might be the next BIG thing :-)

I’ve also been attracted to some really bright and fun yarns lately. As a result there are some pretty funky new coasters in my etsy shop all green and orange with a splash of yellow.

I was also inspired to zoop up these brown and green granny squares with some lovely bright yellows and made it into a scarf which I’ve popped into my ArtFire shop.

Introducing Sam and three other happy things

One

On Sunday at the Arts and Craft market I met a fellow etsy seller. It was really cool. I read on the etsy forums about teams all meeting up and people in the same area getting together and I have been a little bit jealous. There seems so few of us in NZ that to actually meet someone else doing the same sort of thing gave me a real buzz. I doubt if it was such a highlight for her though :-)

Two

Today I made my 2nd sale on etsy. It's so exciting to send my things to other countries. That someone has seen something that I've made and want to buy it... I've been grinning all day!

Three

Andrew won a prize in the colouring competition. His fabric collage came 2nd. Hurray!

Sam

Introducing another etsy hooker team member www.samscrochet.etsy.com
Sam is having a special sale on the 24th September, plus there 20% her hats for September!


Sam also has some really fantastic bags which are very reasonably priced!

Rosette & Pizza

It was NZ Safety at Home week last week. As part of the entertainment/education at work there was a colouring competition for 5 different age groups. Yesterday we decided we needed rosettes for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners to go with their (incredibly cool) prizes. The commercial ones were going to take 4 weeks to get to us, so I surfed the net and put up my hand. I had great fun, apart from a couple of stabs with the needle, oh and I'd forgotten just how hot the hot glue gun makes the glue :-)
Hopefully the kids will like them. And fingers crossed for Andrew's entry the adults prize is very fab!. He used fabric and made a collage. It's judging day tomorrow. I think his is the best one there, but I may be slightly biased lol!




I just put this in my Etsy shop with the description as "Red and green can never be seen, except upon a beauty queen" which was a saying I learnt from our mam, and it had another version, "Red and green can never be seen, except upon an Irish queen" I have no idea where they come from....

Andrew thinks it looks like tomatoes and capsicum, or maybe a pizza..... I wonder if that would make it a big seller ? ? ?
Maybe uniform for a pizza delivery firm ? ? ? :-)

Smell-o-vision

It would be so great to have smell-o-vision! Why, when it's been talked about for so long, has no-one actually invented it? Some of the Etsy sellers have great looking soaps and I'm sure it would help their businesses! And you would be able to smell how lovely the Jasmine is :-)

It grows all over the bamboo at the back of the orchard and up the drive, it doesn't seem to last long, and when it does it's so lovely. I think in some places it's a noxious weed which is such a shame, this morning I picked a big bunch for the cottage, it smells so beautiful.

Yesterday I popped into Spotlight in Hamilton and went a bit crazy in their yarn sale. One of the things I bought I made into this choker. When I was making it last night it reminded me so much of a dolls evening dress that I think my aunt made for my sister when we were really young. It was incredibly glamorous :-)

I though I might wear one of the chokers tomorrow at the Bethlehem Arts and Crafts market to attract buyers.

How are you finding the new look super-posh blog?

Kakarikis and a Posh Blog

I’ve been trying something different with all of the ribbon I’d bought to do my crochet art with. I’ve made about 6 of these now, I have a couple that I wear and others are in the shops. I love them, they make me feel very Victorian and elegant :-) plus they are very comfy to wear.

I’ve been on a health kick for the past few weeks, and with the change of season we’ve been taking advantage of the lighter mornings and been getting up at 6 and going for a walk. We walk up the hill to the back of the orchard and I like to stop and wash my face in the dew (hmm sounds a bit hippyish, but I’m sure I read somewhere it was good for your skin)

And even though it’s early the thing that puts a big smile on our faces is seeing the Kakarikis. They are parakeets and we call them the Berts.... just because lol.

They travel in pairs and we’ve been seeing about 8 of them in the mornings. They follow us up the road going from tree to tree just ahead of us. I’ve tried to take their photo they’re way to quick for me! They are very brightly coloured and shout their hellos as they are flying, it’s a great way to start the day!

I seem to learn something new everyday at the moment, anything from stuff you can do on Google to see if anyone is talking about you, to making the blog look fancier! So tonight I’m going to have a look here http://www.shabbyblogs.com/ and have a play. Be prepared next time you visit to go: “Wow! What a posh blog!” :-)

Team Mates and Dirty Dancing

I have to mark the sad occasion.


Patrick Swayze surely made every girl want to learn to dance, and I don't mean ballet (which is very cool!), I mean the whole hip grinding sexy stuff :-) Let's be honest, when Time of My Life plays on the radio, who doesn't re-enact the scene where baby goes across the bridge counting 1, 2 3, whether you're in your kitchen, lounge or walking down the road? I know I was doing it in the staff room at work today! :-)







And now to the team mates,

I'd like to introduce my next Etsy Hooker her blog is here:

http://bowenism.blogspot.com she's into her fitness at the moment :-)



and her etsy shop is here: http://www.Bowenism.etsy.com.



The couple of things I've chosen to show you are the dead cute happy doll, makes me smile :-)






And one of her felted bowls, (she has a few so it was a hard choice).




I've got a thing for felting at the moment, I'm amazed that things are made and then felted and still have some semblance of shape or usefulness. My felting experience being limited to old sweaters that someone has already knitted and I just want to cut up :-)

An old pair of jeans

What a lovely weekend :-) It started with a great day off on Friday, we went for a lovely walk around the Mount, out for brunch and then shopping. Today has been so lovely that we've had all of the windows open all day!

Yesterday was a great day for being creative. I started with an old pair of my jeans and made a bag out of one of the legs.

They were bootlegs so the bag is kind of a bucket shape. I sliced the rest of the leg to make jeans yarn and crocheted it with some ribbon yarn to make the strap.

And the same ribbon yarn has been crocheted into motifs and a kind of holster and attached to the bag to give it a bit of decoration.

For a first go I give myself 7 out of 10. The sewing is a little shoddy, and there is no clasp to keep the bag closed. A zip would have been ideal, but after the needle broke as soon as I pressed my foot on the peddle of the sewing machine, I decided that the smallest amount of sewing possible was the way to go!

I really liked the strap and so I cut up the other leg and crocheted it, now I have a jeans rope and I'm trying to think about what to do with it. Coiled up into a placemat? Cut into bits for hair bands? A skipping rope? Any ideas would be gratefully received :-)

It's a hooker!

hahaha, sorry, I couldn't resist :-)

Here is RedBerryCrochet

http://www.redberrycrochet.etsy.com/
she is an etsyhooker. I've picked the following items from her shop for these reasons: the duster because OMG who knew you could do such things wih crochet!


And the cat toys because the cat looks like our Ginger :-)

Ahhh to look into the thoughts of buyers to see why they might like our stuff :-)

RedBerry also has la great pattern for some twine baskets which I'd love to make, I've bought twine with the thought to crochet something wonderful.

I just need to know how to read patterns!

Bobbles for beads

Today is all about the crochet, (apart from the bit about the weather and the cats)

Crochet Art: I’ve put this on hold for a bit. I need to think about what to do with the background. I crocheted some flowers and glued them onto canvas. It hasn’t quite given the look that I was expecting and yes, I was a little disappointed that the idea didn’t look fantastic at the first go, hence it’s ‘on hold’. I’m enlisting Andrew’s help next. He has loads of cool buttons so we thought maybe some kind of crochet and button collage. It all seems a bit hard right now, so maybe a project for a future day :-)

Last night I discovered bobbles.
I made lots of bobbles and filled them with hobby fill, I crocheted a chain and voila, a necklace :-) So far I’ve made 3, a purple one (next door) pink one & and reddish one (down there). I’m perfecting them as I go. I think bobbles could make good beads, and I did try with the usual crochet bead necklace technique and it didn’t quite work, I found crocheting them into the chain worked best, something to think about though. I wore the purple one to work today and got lots of positive comments

Head and Fluffy.
It seems that Head isn’t the only neighbourhood cat that we are feeding. Fluffy is the other one, and we do believe he is the main culprit!
We’re trying to catch him and our landlord has almost caught him a couple of times. We both have the same tactic; lock the cat flap so once he’s in and is scoffing his face, we grab him when he makes a run for the cat flap and because it’s locked he can’t get back out. Simple eh? Except he knows! He stands outside and flips the cat flap a few times to make sure it’s going to open again before he comes in. Sneaky!

Fabulous weather!
We’re loving the blue sky and sun. It’s pretty chilly at night, nowhere near how cold it has been, and the cottage is getting lovely and warm during the day. We both have Friday off and are hoping that this lovely blue sky hangs around. The weathermen/people have a very different idea they reckon that showers will start tomorrow and carry on through the weekend. Andrew and I are banking on them getting it wrong, which seems to happen quite a bit, my theory is that it’s because the islands are so thin, (I don’t know exactly why that would matter it just seems important)

My next etsyhooker is away from her shop for a day or so, she’ll be back on Wednesday.
Sometimes the time zone thing does my head in, my Wednesday is nearly finished and she is in America so I think her Wednesday means my Thursday, and I left her a note to say I’d put her in my Wednesday post, so I wonder when that is? Anyway I’ll pop by in the next day or two and introduce you all. And if you can’t wait and your Wednesday is her Wednesday check her out here: http://www.redberrycrochet.etsy.com/

The Netherlands

Happy Monday!

We're having lovely spring weather at the moment, I even got a bit rosy cheeked yesterday when I fell asleep in the sun. We had a lovely picnic by the harbour after the market, which paid it's way and a bit more, which is always great :-) I get such a buzz when complete strangers buy my creations!

A bit of a coincidence today. I was telling the complete stranger how I learnt to make my crocheted necklaces, at the same time my friend was e-mailing me, the first etsyhooker was saying yes to be on my blog, and I took the pictures of the Tui to send to my friends dad. And the connection? The Netherlands! My friend is from there, her mum from there showed me how to do the necklaces, I took the photos for her dad who lives there and the first etsyhooker is from there. If we were having carrots for tea it'd be a full house!

And so to the pictures.....

A new crocheted necklace from me, and look at these amazing items from LeChatCrochet on Etsy

Tui & Art

So I played last night with crochet as art, I think I have a way to go before I share :-)

It's the arts and crafts market tomorrow at the Bethlehem Town Centre, and if the weather is like it is this morning it should be quite busy.

I've acquired a bit of board, and I'm off down town to buy some black material to cover it in so I can hang my crocheted necklaces and bracelets on it to make them look fab! And after some recent buying activity in the necklace area I decided to make a couple of new ones last night to keep the inventory up. I'll try and get them in the shop later on today.

Just came back from a lovely walk down the lane, the Kowhai's are all blossoming and the Tui's love to drink the nectar.

They're a bit shy, I did manage to get a bit of a pic though.

Green & Team

Here is the first promo for one of my fellow etsy hookers team shops:


I was gobsmacked when I initially saw this, what a brill idea!

Help to keep your fruit free from bruising in your lunchbox with one of these fab fruit cosies.
It would make a great pressie or talking point in the lunchroom :-)

You'll find them in loads of different colours with heaps more other neat things at http://www.UnravelMe.etsy.com/ and I've noticed that there is an offer of free world wide shipping for a limited time at the moment too!

In Home New Zealand magazine this month there is a very expensive piece of artwork that is crocheted, crocheting is en vogue :-) Maybe I should frame a scarf! Fingers crossed that everyone who reads that magazine comes to the market on Sunday!

I'm playing with beads again at the moment and have made this bracelet/hand jewelry mainly out of beads that were on a broken a napkin ring, and the others to break up the colour a bit. I like the matt finish.



Hmmm, that artwork has got me thinking........

Hookers & Lamps

Another Tuesday has passed and we're almost in the middle of the working week! I've been inspired today by other Etsy people. A few people use their blogs to promote other etsy shops, how cool is that! So I thought I'd start with my team. I am a member of the Etsy Hookers Team. It sounds way much more racy than it is! Crocheting people use hooks. (sorry, bit of a let down there eh :-) ) http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=tag_title&search_query=etsyhookers+teamThey are a great group that are so good at promoting each other. The majority of them are in a different time zone from me so I've been a bit slack being a member, and I thought I could make up for it here! I'm going to ask them if they mind me picking on them every so often and popping them on here, especially if they do things I have no patience, inclination or skill to do. Watch this space...

In the bio thing I mentioned that we enjoy shopping in thrift & op shops. As a consequence we seem to have accumulated more than the usual number of lamps, and lamp shades. Here are 2 of my favourite lampshade re-dressings.

Re-dressing lampshades is one of the few other creative outlets that can make me put down the crochet hook.

I'm working on an idea at the moment to see if I can do more

of it..... lets see if it comes to fruition

I can't take any credit for the ideas, the flowers one was inspired by a NZ artist who had an exhibition at our local art gallery and the orange pavlova was semi-insipired by a shopping trip in York, England