Christmas & Craftseller Magazine

This week I've had a few orders from my family for Christmas and Birthday cards. But the best news this week was receiving an email from Steve at Craftseller magazine.... He was looking for someone to send in some tips about cardmaking. They are doing a small piece with the top 5 tips, and hopefully a photo of me and a couple of photo's of my cards and details. I was so excited about this, as I've never had anything published in a magazine before. I'm not sure when it will be published yet, but I'll keep you posted on that!

I'm signed up for my first Craftfest in Nov, so I'm getting more involved with that, and trying to do more promotional stuff. If you fancy having a virtual craft stall, then click on the link above to book your stall.

I'm still busy making Christmas cards, gift bags & tags to sell on Etsy. I'm always trying to think of new ideas, so this week I made a Christmas gift tag kit, for those people who like to have a go at making their own. Don't know if this will work, as Etsy seems to be saturated with almost every idea I have at the moment.

Sorry! I couldn't add the pic of my Gift Tag Kit, as blogger seems to be doing something silly with my photo's & won't let me upload it.

Hope you have a great week :0) I'm off to Handmade Monday to have a look at all the crafty makes over there.

Melanie x.

Autumn Glow - Folksy Friday Treasury

I love Autumn - I think it's all the gorgeous rich colours of the trees, that inspire my crafting. My two favourite things to do in the Autumn, when I was little, were to collect shiny conkers and pretty leaves to press in my books.

So, for my first blog treasury, I'm celebrating Autumn, and showcasing some wonderful craft goodies over on Folksy.

Orange Fox Brooch from OddSox

Sewing Purse from Handmade By Edwina

Yellow Cable Tea Cosy from The Cosy Daisy

Yellow Felt Flower Brooch from Whimberrypie

Red Button Bracelet from Mrs Gibson

Lavender Bags from Chris Made This 

Hope you enjoy this selection. Comments welcome :0)

Vintage Ribbon Flower Christmas Card

My plan last week was to get a lot of Christmas cards made, so that I could make some packs up for my Etsy shop. But as life often gets in the way, plans don't always work. So, this week I've written down what I'd like to achieve in the next few weeks with getting prepared for Christmas, and the November Craftfest.

When I was on YouTube the other day, I saw a video on how to make a flower from ribbon. The finished look was very pretty and could be made to give a vintage feel to Christmas cards.

 

The red ribbon flower takes longer to make. You start with a circle piece of scrap card, about 1 1/2ins in diameter, a circle punch is good for this. Then stick the end of approx 16ins piece of ribbon to the middle of the card, and knot it to make the ribbon center. You then keep twisting the ribbon around in a circle until you get to the end of the card, sticking the ribbon down with a glue gun as you go. Wrap the ribbon over the back of the card and stick down to secure. The flower can then be embellished with buttons, brads or any gems from old jewellery add a nice touch.

The second ribbon is quicker to make, you just put a running stitch through the top edge of approx 15ins ribbon, then pull the cotton to gather it together tightly, and knot at the bag. I then added a brad from the Dovecraft vintage range.

Another website I found this week for promoting your blog is the blog Guidebook. You can submit your blog to their directory, as yet I haven't had any views through from them.

That's it for this week, I'm now popping over to Handmade Monday to see what everyone else has been making this week.

I'm also linking up to  Clares Craftroom.

Melanie x.