New Flower Loom Kits

After receiving many requests, I've been selling kits to make flowers like mine for a while.  I had the looms made especially for me but my stock was beginning to run low and I wasn't sure I could get any more.

Up steps Mike from Wudwerx.  Mike usually makes great bee hotels like these

but he said he would have a go at making some flower looms for me.  And not very much later he had produced these, perfect!

So now my flower loom kits are back in stock on Etsy and on Folksy and Mike assures me he will be happy to make more looms when I run out - thanks Mike!

The kits contain everything you need to make 3 ribbon flowers and make a great gift for someone crafty.  But be warned, flower making is addictive!

I'm still here!

Oh dear, I have been neglecting my blog!  I hope you have all had a lovely peaceful Christmas and that the new year has started well.

As you've probably gathered, things have been rather busy here.  I had a great first half of December in my shops, and then I closed up while we escaped to Florida for Christmas and New Year.  After staying at home last summer (summer? what summer?) it was so lovely to be somewhere warm.

We've been back for a while and I am over the jetlag but coming up to assessment at uni so madly busy there!  There will be some photos of glass soon, I promise.

I did have a lovely surprise the other day when the lovely Julie of Moaning Minnie (she makes fab hats!) spotted my ffflowers in Wedding magazine.  Do you remember this article in Wedding Flowers magazine in the summer?  It seems they have reprinted it in another of their magazines - an unexpected bonus!

New stuff

I've been photographing new stuff for both my shops today!

I have some new flower colours - the first for a while.  I've made some in lime green - I love lime green, I don't know why I haven't done it before!  And also some of the bigger flowers in a pretty coral pinky-red, one of the colours for the season, apparently!  They look rather good together too!  I'll be listing them in my Etsy and Folksy ffflowers shops over the next couple of days.

And I've listed the first of the prints that are left after the exhibition in my hypsela shop.  There will be a few more to come as well.

And I will be listing some new brooches too - pictures of those will have to wait until tomorrow I think!

Blackcurrant Daisies

I went to buy some A1 sheets of paper from my local art shop the other week.  The weather wasn't very nice (no surprise there!) so the lovely lady found me a great big A1 bag to put my paper in.  I was incredibly restrained when I saw the bag and resisted the temptation to jump up and down, merely commenting that it was a nice colour...

I have only used the top third of the bag for these. What's even better is when I get down to the middle of the bag the writing is in gold. I'm trying hard not to jump up and down even now, thinking about it... all this over a plastic bag?!!

Goodbye to an old favourite

It is with mixed feelings I shall be sending these flowers on their way today.

This lovely soft yellow wool ribbon was one of the first things I tried when I realised that people actually wanted to buy my flowers, and it has been very popular.  But it has been discontinued for quite a while now; I have been working through my stash and now I am down to the last few flowers. 

These are the very last, just waiting for their buttons.

Of course I can't not have yellow flowers in my shop!  So the wool ribbon flowers will be replaced by these in cotton-rayon ribbon.  A bit brighter and bolder than their woollen counterparts and lovely in their own way.

My creative space - more ffflowers

It'a a grey and drizzly day here today and I feel as if I have been sitting around all morning not achieving very much.  I wonder if it is the greyness making me feel like that?  Because it is not actually true, I have been finishing off this whole garden full of ffflowers...

They have brought a welcome splash of brightness to an otherwise dreary day.  I think I need to do something a bit more energetic this afternoon!

I am waiting impatiently for the paper to dry from my printing sessions - the general humidity is not really helping.  Here's hoping for a better drying day tomorrow!

Edit: I've just realised that I forgot to include a link to all the other lovely creative spaces out there - oops!  Go and have a look!

Favourite ffflowers

I think of all the different colour flowers I make, these are probably my favourite.  I was quite sad to pack this lovely lot up today to ship them off to their new home.

Sea Breeze ffflowers available here.

New ffflowers

I have been surprised and pleased with how popular my little 1" flower embellishments have been.  I stock them in sets of 6 on a card.  From time to time people ask me for larger flowers so I will now also be stocking cards of pairs of 2" flowers in my shops.  Here are the first few colours... more to follow.



Available in both my ffflowers shop on Etsy and my ffflowers shop on Folksy.

My bag giveaway is still running if anyone is interested in entering... find the details here.

Unexpected Treasure

I found treasure under the sink.  White eco daisies coming soon!  The lime green bag might be too thick but I'll have a go, it's such a great colour.

Did you enter my giveaway?  See here for details.

De-Junk, Re-Junk Exhibition

Today I dropped off some of my new eco daisies as they are going to be in an exhibition of art and crafts made from recycled materials at Birkenhead Park Visitor Centre. The exhibition is called De-Junk, Re-Junk and will be running from 18th July to 31st July, open from 10am to 4pm each day. It looks like there is going to be some really interesting art there, well worth a trip if you are in the area.

New Eco Daisies

Like most of you reading this I have a stash. In fact, I have several stashes... this is one of them:

This is my collection of thin plastic carrier bags (only some bags are suitable) ideal for making into daisies.  I hasten to add that I have not collected all these by myself - I do take bags with me when I go out shopping - I have had donations from friends and family!

I have been meaning to update the design of my eco daisies for a while now. While I love the idea of using old plastic bags to make flowers, and I love the flowers themselves, the stems I had designed were terribly fiddly to attach and made making them rather a chore.  So this week I spent some time experimenting with new stems using green florists wire stubs.  These stems are attached at the same time as I stitch the centre of the daisy - so much easier than trying to attach them afterwards, the only thing I have to worry about is not poking my eye out with that great long piece of wire waving around...

The florists wire stems make for lovely tall graceful daisies with the added bonus that if the stem is too long for you, you can simply trim it to the desired length.  These new tall eco daisies will be appearing my shops soon.

In the meantime I have a few of the old style (still lovely) daisies left and I am reducing them to half price in my Etsy shop and in my Folksy shop too.  So now is the time to bag a bargain - ideal to brighten up any corner, but especially good for kitchens.

 

Reworking ancient history

Having decided there was something not quite right about the old sample I found the other day, I couldn't resist trying to improve it.

I released it from its card backing and took off the strange not-quite-button things and replaced them with real buttons from my stash.

I think it's an improvement... I'm not sure what to do next though!

I don't think it wants to go back on the cardboard - I think it needs a jazzy border and more of a mini-quilt sort of feel.  So I've had a good dig around in my fabric stash (there really is a lot of it)...

I,m still not sure... something like this maybe... (although probably a bit more random, knowing me...)

Or perhaps something a bit more restful?

I shall think about it. Because of course, this is not what I should be doing... I did make this, inspired by all these rich colours... it will be up in the shops soon.

ffflowers in print

A while ago I was asked to send some flowers to the Burda Wedding Flowers magazine for a photo shoot - very exciting!







Today a copy of the magazine dropped onto my mat.  It is gorgeous - such beautiful photographs - and there on the first page of a feature on faux flowers are my ffflowers! Don't they look great?

ffflowers update

I've been away for a few days looking after my mum (new hip, doing very well thank you!).  So it was a lovely surprise when I got back to find that I am a featured seller on Folksy this fortnight - thank you very much Folksy people!

I've also been working on a couple of new colours of flowers - one in a soft apricot ribbon with a pale yellow button centre

and one in a pretty lilac ribbon with a natural shell button centre.

I do think they look rather good together!  Coming soon to both my Folksy and Etsy ffflowers shops.

New Hairbands

Just a quick post to show you some new headbands/hairbands I've made.  I don't know why I didn't think of using this lovely frizzy ribbon for hairband flowers before - I think they've turned out rather well!

They will be available in my etsy ffflowers shop very soon.

The Etsy UK Silly Sale Returns!

Following the success of the UK Etsy sellers Silly Sale in October, those silly sellers are doing it again!  Yet more bargains are to be had at silly silly prices!  Here are just a few of the lovely things selling at bargain prices - clicking on the picture will take you straight to the item.

moocowhandknit... $15.00	BobbieandLola $13.60	oblue $13.50	delectabledeni... $3.50
maimy $4.80	moaningminnie $15.00	LilleyStitches $15.00	righthand $16.00
lazygiraffe $20.30	KitzieG $7.00	AREjewellery $15.00	katherinelkerr... $20.00
LittleWrenPott... $9.60	christinatay $67.50	LuluCutie $12.00	inkmeup $7.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

And here are just a few of the ffflowers you will find in my own sale section!

ffflowers $4.00	ffflowers $9.50	ffflowers $9.50	ffflowers $10.00
ffflowers $9.00	ffflowers $10.00	ffflowers $4.50	ffflowers $3.50

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.