etc.

Nothing like an evening of crafting to cure a grumpy Monday. I stuffed, unstuffed, and restuffed this little lass three times before she was finally done (the first time, I forgot the tag (tags! I have tags now!), the second and third times, I picked the wrong spot to leave an opening & had a hell of a time sewing her up (I do this all the time!)). Meet Gertrude the Cat:

When I got home yesterday, I unrolled that bundle of grey wool that I picked up at the fabric sale, measured it out, and found all of 6 yards there (for $20! There was no indication on the tag so I hesitated at the sale, but was convinced, in the end, by the sheer heft of the bundle. I think I did well!), so I tucked right in and came up with Gertie. I’ve been messing around with ways to attach tails for a bit and finally settled on the buttoned on tail since it seems to work best with my very limited sewing abilities. Gertie is up for adoption in the shop and I’ll be working on some more cats in the coming days to send away to The Glitter Workshop.

This morning is the sort of morning that puts a spring in my step and makes me feel like hailing and hallooing every human being I skip past. Happy Tuesday to you, and you, and you! And you, too.

My little shop is plugging along nicely. I’ve spent most of this month working on sending out some promos (to The Sampler for the summer mailing, and to a handful of generous Switchboards folks) and have drawn up a little plan for “marketing” over the next few months. Pardon me, the language of commerce sounds completely foreign in my head. It’s a good thing the mister has a good handle on the whole retail thing.

In exciting shop news, owls & flower pins are now available at Dream & Sugar, and note cards are also up for grabs at PixelGirlShop. Also, I’m working on some more owls, cards, and a couple of bags for The Glitter Workshop, a real bricks & mortar shop in Madison, Wisconsin. And in site news, I’ve added an order form to the shop site for ease of ordering. Fun!

To-day, fun with paper and felt. I’ve been making notecards all day, a bunch for The Sampler and a few for the shop (that still sounds a little odd rolling off my tongue!) Here’s what they looked like in production:

And in all their note card glory here. Also in shop news, Home Baked jewellery & mohair flower pins are now available at Pink Thread & more. In such excellent company!

I’ve been meaning to tell you about the shop I’ve been working on, but then time sort of got away from me as I crafted like a mad woman and fell into bed every night in a fuzzy heap of exhaustion. And then, before I knew it, it was ready! So that explanatory post I had planned has turned into an introductory post, and here I have for you, my brand new shop: Home Baked.

I’m quite proud of it, it has taken a lot of my energy over the past few weeks, so it feels good to finally unleash it upon the world. Easily one of the most exciting aspects of it, for me, is that some of my stuff is also available at Copacetique, and will soon be available at Pink Thread & More and Dream & Sugar, alongside the work of so many talented artists and designers. I feel like a bit of a fraud in the company of such creativity!

I laboured for a very long time over the decision of whether or not to get into the shop business. Some of you might recall the jewellery I designed and sold/swapped on this site a couple of years ago (under a name that I thought was charmingly cute at the time, but turned out to be spam-worthy in ways you really don’t want to know about. Lesson learned: research possible nefarious uses of all names and phrases before committing to them). I very much enjoyed the low-key, low-threat sales/swaps that happily came my way, they allowed me to meet some great people (local and not) and continue designing and crafting at my sometimes-bridled/often-manic pace. And since the pace around here has been tending more towards manic lately, I thought it might be time to venture back into the shop game. Also, I’ve been delighted to see so many avenues of support for indie artists and crafters crop up on the Web over the past year: there are a number of excellent consignment boutiques that sell indie art/craft at reasonal rates, not to mention directories, collectives, and interesting & fun marketing avenues.

Final analysis? Mostly, I just couldn’t resist giving it a go! Stay tuned for progress reports.