WORK, WORK, WORK - ROLL ON CHRISTMAS

Hello everyone

What a soggy and miserable day today is - only weather-wise that is.  I don't think it has stopped raining all day - thank goodness we did a bit of gardening yesterday as the ground is now pretty muddy.

A busy week again - it's that time of year, isn't it?  You just can't sit back and think everything has been finished, you are on top of your work and it's time to put your feet up, can you?

On Friday I took part in the Autumn Fair at the Normandy Therapy Garden.  A little surprised when I arrived to find that I was going to be in a small marquee - there were three other stalls in with me.  If you recall Friday's weather it was very, very windy and although the marquee was well anchored to the ground, the sides were flapping a bit, but we did have quite a bit of sunshine during the morning.  I know the organisers as I have held a card-making workshop there so it was nice to see Penny again.  Thank you everyone for the numerous and very welcome cups of free coffee.  The event was very well attended and I am pleased to say I made a small profit.  The Therapy Garden is a lovely place and if you live in this area or if you visit here, please do go along and have a look at it.  It provides great learning opportunities for people who may not get the chance to work with plants.  You can also buy vegetables there, plants and some pretty amazing wooden structures (plant frames, bird boxes, etc).

The only disappointment and nothing to do with the Therapy Garden is the signposting here.  About three years ago our Parish Council (PC) promised to put up signs to the Village Hall and the Therapy Garden (they are on the same land).  True to their word, they have put a sign up - directing everyone to the Manor Fruit Farm!  Great if you know that the land where the Village Hall and Therapy Garden are situated was formerly the fruit farm but if you don't live in the area, it will not mean anything to you.  I feel a letter to the PC coming on.

I made a few items of new stock and here are some photographs taken at the event:

This one is made with what felt like 1,000,000 ribbon circles!

An autumnal ribbon wrapped around a polystyrene ring, decorated with same ribbon ties and topped off with felt flowers and brown beads in the centre of the flowers

As you can seen, the sun did shine during the day 

A work-in-progress wreath.  navy blue ribbon wrapped around a polystyrene wreath and decorated with sea shells (bought from The Works, not removed from a beach).

I had a lovely order for a large quantity of my decorated jute bags from a friend this week - thank you Lesley.  I am going to enjoy working on these very much as they are to be butterfly themed.

I have a meeting at a local day centre on Wednesday to discuss holding regular card-making workshops there.  I should have more information for next week's Sunday blog and will tell you all about it then. I hope that not only will this be of interest to the people who use the centre regularly, but also to local residents, people who have attended my card-making workshops and newcomers to this lovely craft.

A very busy week which ends with a Craft Fair in Pirbright on Saturday and a Wedding Fayre at Frensham Pond Hotel on Sunday.  I have a feeling that this time next week, I might be asleep!

Between now and then it is work, work, work - no doubt the same for all of us involved in the world of handmade.  Have a great week everyone and don't forget to visit this week's bloggers taking part in Handmade Monday - would you believe it is week 138??

Jill  

IT'S GETTING BUSY HERE IN PIE LAND

Hello everyone

It's a gorgeous day here and possibly the last warm one for a while.  We recently had our 'green sacks' replaced with big brown wheelie bins.   A pain for storage, but as we are doing some heavy heavy pruning of

our fruit and other trees at the moment, it is very welcome - in fact we could do with two at this time of the year.  We shred and compost as much as we can and over the years our soil has benefited from the addition of our shreddings.  Today is also likely to be the last chance we have of cutting the lawn (well we like to think of it as a lawn, more a big patch of moss, weeds and some grass) because it takes ages to dry out and for most of the day it is wet from a very heavy dew and partially in shade.

As for everyone in the handmade world, it is a very busy time of year for me.  Making what we think will sell as well as what we enjoy making - do you find that very often they don't go together?  Something you were glad you had finished proved very popular and you had to make more.

This week was spent making cards, more gift tags, sample wedding invitations and I found time to decorate another jute bag; this time for Halloween.  I don't really 'do' Halloween crafts, but felt it was about time I made something and as the colours of black and orange are ones I like, I couldn't resist the opportunity to use them.  I am taking part in an Autumn Fayre on Friday at the Normandy Therapy Garden and think this might be a popular item, and here is a photograph of my make:

This week, time permitting, I will have a go at making a ribbon or fabric wreath in Halloween colours.  I have four events I am taking part in this month, one of which is a wedding fayre, plus a fifth one that a friend is covering for me/sharing with me.  This coming week is going to be hectic and I think I had better get back to work now - but I will do some gardening first as it is very relaxing and the sun is shining.

Don't forget to visit the Handmade Monday bloggers this week - as we move towards Christmas, they are blogging about lovely Christmas makes.  Thank you to everyone who visited and commented on my last week's post and I am so pleased my cat-decorated jute bag was liked by so many.  Using the feedback as a gauge of popularity, I think I had better make some more for stock.

Have a great week everyone - see you next Sunday (Milly will be here on Wednesday with her purrs of wisdom).

Jill

RUNNING TO KEEP UP

Hi everyone

A late Sunday evening post - time seems to be rushing by so quickly at the moment.  Too much to do, and as always I have plenty of excuses not to do it all.  The beginning of this week made me feel summer had arrived, today makes me feel that it has finished!

My Jacob's Well Country Market trip on Friday did not produce any sales - disappointing, but I wasn't the only one who didn't sell anything.  Being tucked away in the corner didn't help and I have been promised a more prominent spot at next week's market.  The lady on the stand next to me sold cards to the value of £20 to one customer - I was very pleased for her but, as you can imagine, being a card-maker who cannot sell cards at this event, this combined with my lack of sales made for a rather disappointing event.  Still, I won't give up just yet, no sales means no costs apart from petrol (the hall is very close to where I live so travel expenses are quite low), so can I really complain?  One visitor to my stand said to me: 'why do they ruin crockery like that by putting a candle in them'.  They?  Uhm, perhaps this may be one reason why I had no sales this week, am I spoiling the 'crockery'?

However, on the brighter side the plans for the joint workshop Lauren and I are running on 11 June are moving on very well.  We have a venue booked (Normandy Therapy Garden), we have started a blog to promote the event and we have three online adverts running - more to be arranged this week as well as local advertising.

I had a card order to complete this week for a fellow student on my pottery course.  The brief was 'natural, no glitter and likes homoepathy'.  This was a hard challenge, but I am glad to say she was very pleased with the card - as always apologies for the poor quality picture, but here is one view of it:

I printed the photographs and text on to gold-coloured paper and I was really pleased with the effect it created.  It gave an out-of-focus, smokey finish to the photographs.  I was so pleased with it that I re-printed  some of the digi-stamps downloaded from Wendy's links onto the gold paper and here are the results of one of them (not finished, but well on the way):

Something weird happened on my computer and printer, when I printed the quilt digi-stamp it went all black-and-white on me, so I have decided to colour that one myself - here are a few bits of 'colouring in'.  Great fun:

My progress work-wise for the last two weeks has been fairly slow - Richard has been on leave and it is hard to work around someone who is 'on holiday'.  Sadly back to work for him tomorrow but it does mean I should be able to catch up on everything.

I will be back next week - hopefully having caught up with everything: blogging, an interview, Wendy's digi-stamp feedback, etc, etc.  Milly will be back on Wednesday with her 'Life of Pie' tails and I am off now to check out the other bloggers taking part in this week's Handmade Monday.

Have a good week everyone

Jill

GOING FOR GOLD

Hi everyone

What a fantastic week it has been for Team GB; some heart-breaking moments for some of the athletes and some really wonderful achievements.  Can there be a more exciting medal-winning day than yesterday?  Well done everyone.

This week has been wall-to-wall wedding invitations plus two 'need it now please' card orders: one for a friend and one for my sister.  As always, I forgot to take photographs!  I purchased some material for fabric wreaths this week, because I couldn't resist them when I saw them in the shop, but as the invitations (and now the Orders of Service) have been top priority the wreaths are further down the Crafts To-Do list.  Here is a pic of how the invitations looked in the early stages (a cream pocket with orange ribbon - the colour combination is lovely):

I am moving ahead with the Craft Workshops I want to set up; a message has been posted on Twitter and Facebook and I am producing some posters to place on local noticeboards.  My plan is to have everything in place to begin the workshops around late September.  I would also like to run Christmas card workshops and think this is a good time of year; school holidays will be over and perhaps parents may have time to attend a workshop on a Friday morning.

From feedback and comments posted this week on a very interesting Handmade Harbour blog post about blogging etiquette, I understand that chatty, newsy blog posts may not always be welcome in the crafting world and as my followers/readers know, I have a tendency to write (and enjoy writing) this type of post.  Handmade Monday (HM) followers take part in the weekly event because of the blog's aim to bring crafters together to share and talk about their work and see the creations of fellow handmade artists.  Even though my Sunday blog post is not written specifically for HM (it is my main weekly post), my future Sunday posts will be for HM only and will be about my creations and craft-related topics.  This will, as usual, be published on Sundays and from this week onwards I will publish my chatty, newsy round-up of the previous week's goings-on at Christmas Pie Crafts on Tuesdays.

Don't forget to check out the other Handmade Monday blog posts this week - lots of beautiful crafts, tutorials and interesting posts to read.  I will be back next Sunday with my Handmade Monday post, but do visit my blog throughout the week to catch up on the tales of life in Christmas Pie Crafts.  There will be a Guest Blog post on Friday of this week, and I have 4 lovely bloggers who are already writing their posts for publication in the coming weeks.

Enjoy the Olympics everyone - it's getting more exciting every day.

Jill

WARM WEDNESDAY

Hi everyone

Are we ever satisfied?  Too much rain, too much heat, too cold, oh dear.  We seem to have extremes in this country, but nowhere near as bad as in the USA where in some areas the temperatures have been almost unbearable.  However, I do hope this good weather lasts throughout the Olympics as it will make it much more enjoyable for visitors - imagine how grim it would have been if the games had been held last month!

This week is possibly my last Friday Guest Blogger's post.  Understandably it is holiday time and lots of people are either on holiday, getting ready for a holiday or enjoying the sunshine.  My guest blogger spot has been running for six months and I have enjoyed every single post.  I have learnt so much from them and have enjoyed reading the feedback comments that visitors have left.  Thank you visitors and most of all thank you guest bloggers - you have been brilliant.  But, I am not giving up just yet - in case anyone wants to be a guest blogger, please do get in touch as it would be great to continue this enjoyable activity.  Have a look at the guest posts that have gone before and you will see the variety of topics that have been covered.

Off to enjoy the sunshine now.  I have a meeting this afternoon with the manager of the Normandy Therapy Garden - I am going to have a look at the hall they rent out to see if it is suitable for craft classes.  I hope so because it is in a lovely setting.  Out for a meal with friends this evening - fingers crossed they have plenty of seating outside of air-conditioning inside.

Don't forget to come back on Friday for my guest blog - fingers crossed it isn't the last one.  I will be back on Sunday with my main post.

Jill

OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN

Hi everyone

No rain for 2 days - put the hosepipe away, take a shower not a bath, drought conditions soon to be declared.  Sorry for the sarcasm, but having spent every single day since some time last year (OK, OK, slight exaggeration there) with a brolly in hand, a coat at the ready and a boat parked in the drive, I can't cope with dry weather!  Everything in the garden is rosy - actually this rain has given us the most beautiful display of our climbing and rambling roses ever, so it has its good points.  Keeping up with mowing the grass has been hard work (Richard's not mine) and almost needless to say the weeds have been holding parties and appear to have invited all of their friends!  I hope the weather forecaster who says we are in for good weather is right - otherwise I wouldn't want to be in his wellies if he is wrong!

The whole world seems to be experiencing extraordinary weather.  I saw the news this morning about the floods in China and landslides in Austria.  Some very odd things are happening weather-wise everywhere and it makes me wonder what the next few months will bring.  Snow in August and a heatwave in December?

Friday saw the Olympic Torch Relay wend its way through Godalming and Guildford and for pics of the Godalming stretch, have a look at Dawn's Facebook page.  The weather was good and it's lovely to see so much enthusiasm for this event.  This brings me to the reason for my title.  I don't know about you, but I am fed up with the critics of the Olympics, the people who claim they need to be paid extra for coping with it, those who plan to go on strike before or during the games, and anyone else who moans about it!  Yes, I know it will cause traffic problems, yes I know it will upset the working patterns of lots of people, and yes I know you can please some of the people some of the time and not all of the people all of the time.  Let's look on it as something positive for the UK, a chance to show we are a very tolerant nation (well, most of the time), that we are pleased to host the games and that we want to welcome everyone who is attending, whether they are in the audience or taking part in a particular sport.  This event is for a few weeks, not months or years so let's wish everyone a really good time.

Have you had a chance to read my guest blog post of last week?  Linda Kirkbride wrote about Challenging your inspiration.  Have a look at the photographs she has included - it does make you think about the unusual things you see when out and about and how annoyed you are when you realise you haven;t got your camera with you.  Thank you, Linda, it is another great guest blog post.

It would be lovely to have some more of my followers as guest bloggers - it's a bit of extra promotion for your business, although your post does not have to be business-related.  Fancy giving it a go?  Email me on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com.

I know some fellow Handmade Monday bloggers received an email from Blink Collective and I am interested to know how many of you decided to jump into this new way of marketing and promoting a different side of our business.  I have listed three workshops and have arranged to meet with the Centre Manager of the Normandy Therapy Garden next week to view their hall which can be rented out on Fridays.  The garden is on the same site as the Village Hall, so plenty of parking is available and if one day I venture into the full-day course, a lovely place to have a picnic lunch.  Over the next week or so I  plan to list more courses.  I am realistic that they may not all take off, but as a glass half-full person, it seems a great way of promoting them and less time-consuming than trying to promote them myself and I am looking forward to this new venture.

It hasn't been a busy 'making' week as I have been busy sourcing wedding stationery materials.  I met with the bride and groom this week and they have also requested I make their Order of Service and Table Plan. Very exciting and once all the materials arrive, I will be working very hard to complete their order quickly for them.  They were let down by a previous wedding stationer, and I want to ensure they have everything in place for this part of their wedding arrangements.

I took the plunge and began listing things on Etsy this week too.  It struck me that while I may be dragging my heels with my website (no excuses, but lots of guilty feelings) I should take advantage of other websites to list my work on.  I don't really have experience of Etsy, so it is a bit 'wait and see' really - it would be lovely to sell from there, but again I am realistic as I know the competition is rather fierce.  However, you never know, and you have to be in it to win it.

A while ago I had an order for a congratulations on your Divorce card; this wasn't needed until August, but as I am meeting the customer tomorrow for coffee I finalised it this week.  Her brief was pink, champagne bottle and glass and a specific salutation which I have left off for the following photograph.  Card giving has changed so much over recent years - a card 'celebrating' this occasion would have been the last thing on anyone's mind.  It is good news for my business, but also rather sad how things change.

I am off now as the weather is so gorgeous and I want to enjoy some time just lazing in the sunshine.  This coming week is a very hectic one for me; quite a bit of evening socialising, but working hard during the day to make up for it.

Don't forget to visit the other blogs posting on this week's Handmade Monday blog.  You will see some great work, excellent tutorials and lovely tales of what has happened during the past week.

Last week I 'shared' with you some of the funny/interesting search terms that had appeared in my blog stats, and I am going to make this a regular thing as two more wonderful strings popped up in this week's list (again exactly as they are, no corrections for grammar or capitalisation):

pictures of decorated netting on the wall
weed for crafting

Aren't they fantastic - and hilarious?  Can't wait for next week's stats.

Enjoy the sun - I will be back on Wednesday.

Jill