I'm in need of cake!

 Hello readers, crafters and anyone else popping in for a read of my latest wafflings. 

The reason for me popping in here on a Saturday, is that I thought I'd better let you know, that my Etsy shop, blog, Twitter and everything else associated with the name 'My Small World' is going to be changing very soon. 
This is because of an email I received yesterday, which in a nut shell told me I can't carry on using 'My Small World' as my shop and blog name, the reason being is because the name was registered as a Ltd company name back in 2010. 
I'd started using the name on Etsy in 2007, then as an Etsy seller in 2009, at that time it wasn't a problem as I hadn't come across anyone else on the Internet using the shop name I had chosen (although the business sharing my shop name have told me they set up in 2005).

It's a shame to see the old name go, but I think I've been ready for a change for some time and let's be honest, the name 'My Small World' is very common on the Internet - I can hardly find my own shop or blog in amongst all the other people who've also decided that it's a good name to use for their blogs, so it's definitely time for a new identity for me & my creations.

"Well what's the new name?" I hear you ask. 
It took a few hours of umm-ing and ahh-ing to decide on something that's quirky, personal and is well, me! So my Etsy shop and blog will soon be called 'Kipper Tie and Cake'. "What?" I hear you cry, "that makes no sense at all..."
 Well, let me explain a bit more about myself. I'm a Black Country girl, being born in the old county of Staffordshire, which later became the West Midlands. 
My accent is more than a bit 'West Midlands', and one thing I like to do with people on the Internet who've never met me, is to tell them how to 'speak Black Country', one saying that's always been my favorite is "kipper tie...... with two sugars please" (translated as cup of tea with two sugars please). 

So that combined with my love of cake, tea shops and my accent, has turned my shop name into 'Kipper Tie & Cake', which is quirky enough for my tastes and gave me & DH a good giggle when I told him what I'd decided. 
We've been coming up with ideas for my new blog banner and of course my Etsy banner too, which is my next big change, along with my shop name and twitter and Crafting Connections, CRAFTfest and.... oh dear I still have so much to do, so I think I'd better get on with it then.

And after all this frantic typing I think it's definitely time for a nice kipper tie now, shame I don't have any cake though ;)
Katie.

Are you joining us for the next CRAFTfest events?

The lovely folk on the Creative Connections website have been tweeting and blogging like crazy for the past few days. This is because, the next CRAFTfest event dates have been posted and they are now taking booking for stalls. This time I booked both the September and November events, which are £5.00 for each event and I'm really excited to be doing CRAFTfest again.

As I've probably mentioned on an earlier post, I really enjoyed the last event and made lots of new crafty friends too. It's a really good way of getting your craft and art known outside your own circle of crafters and at £5 for a whole week and even if you don't make a huge number of sales from the event, I think it's excellent value. You do have to be ready to promote your stall though (and hopefully other peoples stalls too) but it's really worth all the effort.  The CRAFTfest team also work really really hard to promote the stallholders and they are a really friendly bunch of people too.

Oh and just to mention, in case you're not familiar with how CRAFTfest works, you link whichever items you have for sale on Etsy, Folksy or any other Internet site to your CRAFTfest stall. You upload a photo for each item, add a description and then when people look at your virtual stall, they can link directly to the item they want to buy.

If you don't want a stall yourself, please pencil the dates of both events in your diary and then pop over to see us all and to check out all the fantastic handmade goodies people are promoting and selling.  It's a perfect place to stock up on some gifts before Christmas (yes I know I mentioned the dreaded C word, but you can never get organized too early!)

The dates of the events are as follows:

Autumn event - 1st to 8th September &

The Christmas event is being held - 24th November to 1st December.

If you would like to know more, or are interested in having as stall for one or both events, please click here to go to the CRAFTfest events page. If you do want a stall you will need to be a member of Creative Connections first and if you have any questions, there's always someone ready and willing to help.

More later this week and happy crafting everyone! 

End of the week & a special offer!

Hello again!

I've been really busy this week, added a few more handmade goodies to my Etsy shop and I've also been tweaking photos and promoting CRAFTfest like mad on Twitter.

A quick peek at a few of my new goodies. I've had a lot of positive comments about my new brooches.

handmade freemotion applique bird brooch

handmade freemotion applique owl brooch

another of my handmade freemotion applique owl brooches

 

 

While I'm here, I thought I'd also mention that it's the final day of the CRAFTfest online fair tomorrow (Saturday 16th June). To mark the end of our fab week, I've decided to hold a freebie offer in my Etsy shop. The offer is only for CRAFTfest buyers and for readers of this blog.


The offer is as follows, spend £10.00 or more and you will receive a lovely free surprise handmade gift. Spend £30.00 or more and receive two free surprise handmade gifts. All gifts will be handmade by myself and the same lovely quality as shown in my shop.

Just click the link here to go straight to my CRAFTfest stall. From there you can go directly to any item in Etsy that I've listed on my stall. When you make your purchase from my Etsy shop, If you go via the CRAFtfest website, leave a note saying #CRAFTfest freebie or #Blogger freebie if you have visited here first. It's as simple as that.

Just to add that Etsy.com are having some 'downtime' for maintenance from 7am GMT tomorrow (Saturday). Although you won't be able to access Etsy while they are tweaking it, it will be open again later in the day.It's a bit frustrating to UK Etsy sellers but there isn't anything we can do about it.

That's it for now, I'll be popping back over the weekend to add the Craft Britannia shop of the week post! 

My name is Katie and I'm addicted to freehand machine embroidery!

Kirsty Allsopp was heard to say on one of her 'handmade' programs that freehand machine embroidery was the crack cocaine of the craft world and boy she wasn't wrong! Once I tried embroidering on felt I was hooked.
It's so relaxing and absorbing. An hour can go by like it's 10 minutes and as a result I've been late cooking our evening meal more than once this week (oops!)

Here are a few of the felt applique patches I've made this week, all were designed using my own sketches and traced onto quilters freezer paper (all except the bee, which I did without a sketch). I hope you like them.


Blythe doll inspired applique patch.

Skull applique patch and a couple of craft inspired ones.

Although I did the freehand embroidery on my new Silver 1040, the sewing machine patch was taken from a quick sketch I did of my faithful Toyota. I couldn't resist including a knitting theme patch too!

A camera design patch, taken from another of my quick sketches.

And finally, my skull and crossbones on silver grey felt. I also made a life sized English bee, which I didn't base on a sketch, I just had a bash at it with my machine and did one by memory - I think it came out OK.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how the freehand embroidery has turned out. When I get around to writing and posting my new machine review, I'll also put some hints and tips up for doing freehand machine embroidery.