Business cards

I find 'networking' a real challenge. At the moment I work in the middle of nowhere with very little human contact on a day to day basis, but in just a few days I am moving to my new job which is going to be mostly about people. I'll have to work in an office and interact with people on a daily, if not hourly basis. A truly terrifying thought for me!

I created myself some 'business' cards (although calling cards might be more appropriate as I don't have a business as such) to help with my networking goals. At the very least they should help prevent the awkward scrambling for pen and paper, if and when asked for contact details.

Of course, once I had made the business cards I just had to make a little pouch for them to go in. Which is probably the real reason I wanted to make the cards in the first place...

I punched all of the little Scottie dog holes myself with one of those fabulous shaped paper punches! So cute, and I was aiming for something to give my cards a little 'edge'.

Thank you for visiting!

Apples and oranges...

....and all things fruity!

I got these fantastic fruit pieces a few weeks ago and I just love their bright colours. Did I mention orange is actually my favourite colour!? It's just so vibrant and fun and summery. We could use a little summer around here...

I made up a couple of pairs of orange earrings as shown, and I plan to make some more of these and probably some cute knotted bracelets with the rest of the pieces.

I hope everyone has enjoyed my first A to Z post, I'm going to try and keep them short and sweet because I know there are so, so many other blogs to check out! Thanks for visiting :)

A to Z, just ahead!

The challenge begins tomorrow!

I have written a number of my posts already and I'm planning on pre-scheduling them to appear at midnight on the appropriate day. I'm not sure this will continue for the whole month, but I'm hoping it will give me a head start at least so I can concentrate settling in to my new job and new home.

Being a craft blog, my posts will mostly focus on all sorts of crafts that I have attempted or intend to attempt, including some interesting leaps back into my past! I'm trying to put as many colourful photos in as I can to keep things exciting.

As this is my first year participating, I'm also really looking forward to seeing what everyone else's take on the challenge looks like and hopefully finding some great blogs to follow.

Good luck everyone!

Counting down to the A to Z Challenge

With just a week left until the A to Z Challenge begins, I've finally realised it's about time I do some planning and forward thinking!

I've had the letters of the alphabet listed in a word document since the day I signed up, but there wasn't a whole lot next to them! But thanks to a big push today I just have 7 letters left now to figure something out for.

On top of this, I've had the camera out photographing anything and everything that might be remotely useful for my posts. Because pretty pictures make for far more exciting craft blogging :)

Next step - to get writing! I am moving away and starting a new job the second week in April so having lots of my posts pre-written will take some of the pressure off in case I am too mentally and physically exhausted to do them on the day.

Good luck to everyone else taking part!

Felt: back on the menu

I've finally delved back into the world of felt. If feels good! I made up a new pattern, for a narwhal, and I'm really pleased with the result.  Keeping this post nice and brief, because the pictures do all the talking for this cute little fella:

Oh and for anyone wondering what on earth a narwhal is, and if such a thing even exists, Google it!

Knowing when to admit defeat!

Any returning visitors may have noticed that my blog's makeover is well under way! I'm very pleased so far and would like to thank my wonderful best friend for helping me to bring my doodles to life for my header. Check out her blog, Creative Therapy, to see some of her own artwork.

Besides bringing getting my blog shipshape, part of this whole effort has been about opening an online store to start selling some of my pieces. Etsy seems like the obvious choice, but I have been reluctant due to reading a number of horror stories about how nasty things can get if you get copied/are thought to have copied someone else.

Having thought this over and decided to take the plunge anyway, I was today searching for similar examples of my cat ring to determine how much to charge. To my dismay, I found my answer, in the form of a ring that looks exactly like mine. In every way. It is the same. Don't believe me? Check it out here.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this. The buttons are obviously readily available, as are the ring backs to mount them on. I knew when I made the first one that if I could make more, people would buy them...it's just a shame someone else realised that before me! And indeed this shop has nice long list of sales, of black and white cat rings and even necklaces (yes I had thought of that too!).

The upshot of this is that I can't now sell my cat rings on Etsy. Which does make me sad, and worries me about selling any of the other rings too - seeing as they are all made from easily available buttons too. On top of this, it reinforces my fears that a) there's no such thing as a new, unique idea out there any more and b) it's pretty easy to copy someone else's idea even if you don't mean to! Which make me very reluctant to put my felt animals for sale on the internet either.

I am sorry about the long post, with no photos. Well done and thank you if you managed to read this far! I needed to get this one off my chest. I admit defeat and wish the Etsy seller above the best of luck - I take my hat off to them for being able to make money out of this lovely product. So, if you fancy one of my gorgeous cat rings for your own, get along to their shop! Just remember you saw it here first.

It's a ring thing

After the success with my first cat ring, I decided to make more!

I managed to get some more cat buttons, in black as well as white. Along with an assortment of other buttons I thought would work well, I broke out the glue...

Closely followed by the camera...

And then I found a pretty awesome prop to make things even more fun...

I'm still working on my photography! I had some issues with reflection on these, both on the hand prop and the rings themselves. But I'm pretty pleased with my results. What do you think?