Twenty Seven

I've been scalpel-happy again for the last couple of days and have come up with lots more generic card designs which will all be on show (and for sale!) at We Make London







Of course, the new card designs will all be available through Storeyshop online as usual too!

Life away from Storeyshop brings my birthday next monday! I'm very excited. I'm like a small child and get excited about my birthday as soon as May starts. I'm actually booked to freelance on my birthday and for the rest of that week so my celebrations will be all weekend instead! We are heading down to sunny Sussex By The Sea tomorrow night and will be out and about shopping and eating nice food in Brighton for a few (hopefully sunny) days with all my friends and family. Woo hoo!

Ta ra

We Make London

The craft fair 'We Make London' is fast approaching and Beca and I are busy making new Storeyshop goodies to take along! Hopefully Storeyshop will be featured on the We Make blog soon too. Have a look at the blog for details of all the other sellers who will be at the fair and for links to their Etsy shops if you can't make it to London to see them. There are some gorgeous things!

I'm creating a new range of generic greetings cards to sell at the fair. Here's the latest..

I'm Back!

My, how times flies when you're freelancing! It has been a while but I am back. I have been doing freelance design at various design companies in London and Newcastle over the last month, all of which has been very hectic and busy. Much as I like the fast pace (and getting out there working with other human beings again!) I am happy to be back at the kitchen table concentrating on Storeyshop once more.

I have been keeping up to date with sales and orders, both of which have been fairly regular I'm pleased to say! Now I need to restock and made lots of new products. The Craft Fair in London is rapidly approaching so lots of monkeys, bags, cards and other Storeyshop goodies need stock-piling!

The best way to get sales must definitely be to plan a craft fair. Try and make lots of products for itand they all sell straight away! Not that I am complaining at all. Like they say on that Shreddies advert, "We'll knit/sew/scalpel more!"

Here are some of my creations so far this week:

Every Good Turn...!

I just bought myself a little treat from a new Etsy seller. It's a gorgeous necklace. I like to think of it as helping a fellow Etsy seller to get her first sale! I can always come up with excellent reasons to spend money. The thing is, just as the payment left my account, a lovely person bought one of my sock monkeys. One of my favourites too -Blue Retro Monkey. It was meant to be!



On the subject of sock monkeys, my Green Stripey Monkey has been featured in ellebeestudio's blog. Have a look, it's a great blog. Here is a link to her fab Etsy shop too!

Sunny Thursday

Yay! It's a lovely today and I got up early. I've had a very productive day already. As it's sunny I thought I'd take the opportunity to take lots more photos. Here's my latest card order which I have just finished..








My other new products soon to be for sale in Storeyshop are simple graphic canvasses. Here is the first one. I made one like it for Dave for Christmas to put in our bathroom (we have a bit of a secret Sudoku habit!). The range will include other puzzles and quotes too.

Baby Cards and New Little Bags

Here are the two personalised new baby cards I made this morning. Both customers asked for specific imagery so these are my first ever rose and elephant details. I was planning to try some new imagery so it was good timing. I especially like the roses and they will work in birthday and anniversary cards too.





I have also made a new little bag today. I was sure my bag making technique wasn't very efficient so I found a tutorial a while ago on how to sew simple bags with zippers. It's neater and faster than the way I was sewing them and I'm pleased with how my first try turned out..



http://www.twelve22.org/2006/07/zipper_tutorial.html

I thought I'd add a link to the tutorial as I love it when people go to the effort of publishing lessons like this complete with photos and everything just because it's a nice way to pass on their knowledge. This one was so helpful and clear to understand.

Happy monday!
Ta ra

Visitors

Living up in the sticks miles away from most of my friends and family means visitors up our way are a bit few and far between these days but, this weekend, we have had quite a turn out! My little brother came all the way up from Brighton on friday and Beca and her man popped up today from their holiday cottage in the Lake District.

We took my brother for a walk up to Hadrians Wall on saturday morning and got caught in a torrential downpour on the way home to the point that even our undies got soaked through. Phil ended up with one muddy sock after losing a shoe in the mud!





Today we took Beca and Tom for a big ol' roast dinner in this brilliant old lady canteen-style pub near us. Hard to explain but it just makes you think of wedding receptions as you're eating your lamb and yorkshire puddings on a table positioned on the wooden 'dance floor' area. Lovely food though and such a bargain. You don't get places like that in London.

On the Storeyshop front, I had my fastest ever monkey sale on friday morning. My Yellow and Grey Retro Monkey sold in under a hour and to a fellow Northumberlander. He was only sat on our sofa for a few hours but the time we had with him was special! As well as packing Monkey up and sending him on his way tomorrow, I have a couple more New Baby card orders to make and I'm also going to start on a new product range. Look out for more little bags and animal purses (hopefully) very soon!

Ta ra