♥ Hearts for Peru ♥ – Valentine’s Day Special

20th January 2012

You may remember that towards the end of last year I mentioned wanting to do something special with the handmade yarn that I acquired on my travels across Peru. Well, due to the amazing bright red colour I figured that adorable little love hearts for Valentine’s day would be the perfect thing.

These little bundles of love are only 1.5″ square and are available in my shop now. I’ll be donating 20% of the proceeds back to the Women’s Weaving Project in Peru. So, by purchasing these listings you will be supporting the community who produced the yarn, allowing them to maintain and expand their heard of Alpaca and gain access to schooling and dentist care. The current listing is for the heart by itself but I think they’d look fabulous as a brooch pin or attached to a long necklace chain. What do you think?

iPhoneography: Bristol Harbourside

10th January 2012

I’m having a cathartic sort of all my photo’s from last year, in a bid to be more organised for 2012, and thought I’d share some of my favourite moments. This one, a quiet wander down Bristol’s waterfront on a warm, thundery spring evening. Bristol rocks!

DIY: Handmade present ideas

6th January 2012

I’ve battled over the last few years with present ideas for my friends and family, there’s always that nagging worry that I’m over-spending on something they may not like or need. Last year I think I managed around 30% handmade; a start, but it still left me poorer than I would have liked! So my goal this year was 100% handmade.

I set aside an afternoon of research and this is what caught my imagination. Some I didn’t get round to making for a lack of time and tools, but there’s always next year! I think they’d make nice gifts whatever the occasion so here’s a roundup of how I got on. Just click the images to get to the original recipe/tutorial. There’s a full roundup over on my Pinterest account.

CHILLY JELLY

This was probably my biggest success in the hamper of goodies. Nigella Lawson’s recipe is so good – I wouldn’t recommend altering or substituting ANYTHING in the recipe. I didn’t quite have the right ingredients for my first batch and the results were not good!

GINGER ALE SYRUP

This is such a fantastic idea and so quick and easy, courtesy of Vanessa at Nifty Thrifty Things. The syrup has a lovely warm kick and offers something a bit different in a hamper full of preserves. Tastes awesome with straight fizzy water or tonic water.

EASY STRAWBERRY JAM

Another great recipe from the BBC website. I used a mixture of raspberries and strawberries when I made this; never realised how straightforward jam making is – I’ll definitely be making more.

COCONUT ICE

I have lingering memories of coconut ice from my childhood living in Canada. This recipe from Two Little Dicky Birds is scrummy. I chose to use traditional pink and they came out so so pretty.

CARAMELISED RED ONION CHUTNEY

This recipe is from the Guardian online, takes a lot of onions and crying but is very tasty.

FLAVOURED COFFEE SYRUP

From the very talented Elsie at A Beautiful Mess, this is another brilliant idea. Sugar syrup is so versatile if you have the imagination to turn it into something. I made the vanilla version and it literally didn’t take more than 15 minutes.

HOMEMADE TEABAGS

Another one from Elsie at A Beautiful Mess. I got together all the components to make these but found hand-stitching the coffee filters quite tricky; think a sewing machine will be on my list of purchases this year.

CROCHETED BANGLES

This is a really pretty tutorial from Second Sister. I do really want to try this at some point, but I ran out of time for my Christmas hampers.

I managed to find some clear sweetie bags in a local cookery shop, along with lots of empty jars and sealed bottles for the syrups. There’s all manner of ways to present a hamper of gifts; in the end I went with red and white bakers twine, scalloped luggage tags and circles of pretty scrap material to top the jars. Did you manage any handmade pressies this year?

The Makery Christmas Market

18th December 2011

I’ve been very slow to get a post up about last weekend but I’ve been hovering between utter exhaustion and the frenzied realisation that the real Christmas is only a week away. I’m back to reality now and ready to spill about my amazing weekend at The Makery. Kate and the girls were so so lovely and welcoming; the shop is narrow and tall and a crafters paradise. It’s all kinds of charming, and lit up even more with two floors of handmade goodness and a big dollop of Michael Buble.

If nothing else the Buble put me firmly in a Christmassy mood.

Tucked away up in the rafters my fellow crafters and I huddled around heaters and crafted our wares whilst welcoming happy, smiley shoppers. My wonderful sister came to help and shared part of the stall, she embroiders pretty tote bags, napkins and tea towels! I’m hoping she’ll have an online shop at some point soon so I can show you all.

I was so blown away by all the lovely comments and purchases; so much so I had to make an emergency batch of bow necklaces that evening so I was re-stocked for Sunday. Ben Tambling made sure I had a never ending supply of these amazing business cards, which he designed for me.

I really can’t thank everyone enough for an amazing weekend. My fellow crafters were so nice in giving me advice about fairs! I think I bought something from almost everyone there. Can’t wait to get out and do some more now.

Eek Christmas next weekend – I’m attempting 100% handmade presents this year. I’ll let you know how that goes! Wishing you all a very happy christmas; stay safe and eat lots!

DIY: Making a lightbox for product photography

27th November 2011

I recently saw a brilliant webcast on the Etsy blog about photography tips and am slowly trying out my own interpretations of the same. I don’t know about you but lighting and poor colour integrity is a really big gripe I have with my photos. It may be that I’m still learning how to use my Canon EOS 500D
so incompetence is playing a part!

Still, I figured that if I could get all the other elements up to scratch they would compensate for me, hehe! And lighting is the biggy. I live in a fairly ‘boxy’ city flat, much akin to a shoe box, so natural light and shooting space is hard to come by. I look on in awe at other peoples crispy white backgrounds so, when I saw this awesome little trick, I couldn’t resist. The photo above is the not so attractive result; please excuse the kitchen paraphernalia.

It was surprisingly quick to make and if you’ve got a cardboard box lying around doesn’t require a lot more effort. You need to create a series of windows in your box which work to diffuse artificial light and avoid those harsh shadows. I cut a 2″ border around the top and two sides of the box and taped tracing paper over the hole. You could also use a thin cotton or muslin fabric and it’ll have the same effect.

Then you can line the box with whatever backdrop you like. I went for crisp white by tacking A3 card onto the back and bottom of the box, but you could use any fabric, or string mini bunting along the back, depending on the look you want to achieve. It might be an idea to line the box with white paper first anyway to cut down on the orange-y box glow. Then light the box from the top, sides, or both. Here are my first few test shots:

I think they’re pretty good as a starting point. I’m hoping to improve the crispness by getting some daylight bulbs, and another light. The ikea halogens that came with the lamp pictured are still awfully orange. I read that an actual camera flash is the best to use but i’m sure they’re way out of my price range at the moment.

As you can see the teacup is casting a slight shadow over the actual bow on my necklace and, as I only had the one light available, I used two mirrors to reflect the light where I needed it and brightened up the bow. Tinfoil or a reflective material would be just as good here.

One top tip I learnt about my camera whilst setting this up is how to optimise the white balance indoors; if you have an SLR or are able to adjust the white balance on your compact camera, make sure it is set to tungsten (artificial lightbulb) to cut own the horrendous yellow tinge. Big relief when I found that little setting!

Then it’s just up to you to play with props, styling and backdrops to really bring out the character in your products. I can’t wait to really perfect my set up and take the stress out of shooting. Hope this is useful to someone out there and let me know if you have any top tips yourself, what do you use to photograph your own items?

P.S Preparation for the craft fair is coming along nicely. This weekend’s task is packaging and price tags. Hopefully I’ll have something funky to show you later in the week. 13 days to go!!!