Folksy Five #6

Hello and welcome to the sixth Folksy Five. I've got some lovely Folksy shops to show you today. Click on the shop banner to see all the goodies they've made.

But just before I show you who I've found this week I'd like to let you know about Folksy Five #8 which is going to be a bit special (hopefully published in about a month's time). This one is going to be YOUR favourite five folksy shops! Leave a comment to let me know your number one seller on Folksy, and I'll get in touch with five of them to see if they'd like to be featured. The only rules are 1. They must have a wonderful shop on Folksy, and 2. They can't have been featured on folksy five before. Get your nominations in now!

Right, on with today's top folksy folk.

Your name: Martha

Shop name: Tea with Martha

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Individual, textiles, Yorkshire-made

How long have you been selling on Folksy: 10 months

What materials or resources do you use most of: I'm lucky to live amidst the dark satanic mills of Yorkshire. I use what I find in local mills - I'm very partial to fine wools, felts and tartans. In the Spring/Summer I've been working with Liberty prints, cottons and linen too.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Mandy

Shop name: Mandy Hills

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Nature inspired artwork

How long have you been selling on Folksy: 10 months

What materials or resources do you use most of: Paper / masking tape / pva / scissors

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Jill

Shop name: Clootielugs

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Characterful textile art

How long have you been selling on Folksy: About 2 years

What materials or resources do you use most of: Textiles – all sorts but most are reclaimed or vintage, many are clothing fabrics although I have a bit of a retro tablecloth habit circa 1960s-70s!

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Suzy

Shop name: The Leaf Press

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Bespoke wedding invites

How long have you been selling on Folksy: Since the end of 2010

What materials or resources do you use most of: Mostly paper of all sizes, colours, thicknesses and finishes. I have paper EVERYWHERE! In terms of equipment I couldn’t be without my guillotine, paper trimmer, printer, book press and good old trusty Stanley knife!

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Teresa

Shop name: Creative Treasures

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Jewellery for all

How long have you been selling on Folksy: It's my 1st anniversary on 20th August

What’s your top tip for someone selling on Folksy: Promote promote promote and then promote some more.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

And their favourite items from the say it shop were:

Huron pink shell necklace chosen by Mandy Hills

Phoenix notecards chosen by Tea with Martha

Jakarta personalised card chosen by The Leaf Press

Sarajevo postcard chosen by Creative Treasures

Ottawa personalised notebook chosen by Clootielugs

Postcards

I'm trying to show you something I've made at least once a week. I love doing folksy fridays, the mini interviews and sharing things I've been learning, but I realised I was lacking a bit in actually showing you crafty things. So here, for the third week in a row, I've got something that I've made.

Postcards. 

These are a little bit different for me, I usually like making things that involve lots of double sided tape and ribbon. The postcards involved lots of hours sat at the computer.

I designed them back in September. In fact, I designed loads and got people to vote on which they liked best. The top designs were then professionally printed onto postcards. 

The design above was voted the favourite. I also did a green version which was popular too.

So why am I showing you something I made back in September? I initially put them in the say it shop in packs of four, either four the same or four assorted. Then I took them out of the shop for a while. 

But now they're back! And they're available individually. So you can buy just one, or as many as you like. They're £1.20 each - see them in the say it shop. 

Thanks for taking a look :-) 

I'm linking this post to Handmade Monday again. Why not pop over and see what other people have been busy making this week? 

Folksy Friday: Wool

Ok, so August might seem like an odd time to be searching for things made from wool. But it always seems to me that you have to shop for your summer clothes in winter and your winter clothes in summer! This week's Folksy Friday was inspired by my recent attempts at needle felting and my new love of wool.

All these amazing items are handmade and are for sale on Folksy. Click on an image to find out more about an item.

Merino wool felt brooch Soul Spaces

Wool felt flower brooch Buttercup Designs

Hand knitted beanie Mrs Oh

Merino wool wrist warmers Crazy About Gloves

Starburst purse in beige wool SewYou Handmade

Handmade bag Tea with Martha

Wool and leather baby boots Bamboots

Crochet flower hair clips Daisy Chain Designs

Bag of rainbow felting wool Sweet Cute Handmade

Needle felting taster kit Rachel Henderson

Felted bowl Ali Dufty

Wool blanket felt Bee Inspired

My first bricks and mortar outlet

I have some very exciting news to tell you. I've been wanting to blog about this for a few weeks now, but I couldn't tell you about it until it was all actually happening. Say it handmade items are now available in their first bricks and mortar stockist. A proper shop. Like, you can actually walk in and buy them!

What? Where? How? I hear you ask. Well, you can now find say it notebooks and button magnets in the DART gallery in Darwen, Lancashire. It's a brand new gallery that only opened on 21 June 2012.

They approached us through Folksy to see if we would be interested in supplying some items, and after some consideration of commission charges and postage costs to get the things there (it's not exactly local), I am very excited to say that it's all worked out.

I sent them some of these

and some of these

and some of these

I can't wait to find out how well they've sold in the first month. I already know that a few packets of magnets have been snapped up. 

If you're in the area, why not pop in and take a look at the new gallery. I know there are a few other Folksy sellers exhibiting their work there too. But if you can't get to the gallery, you can purchase the map notebooks, music notebooks and button magnets in the say it folksy shop. 

New Year New Craft #3 - Needle felting

At the beginning of the year I picked four new crafts that I'd like to try this year. I quickly had a go at some button jewellery and fimo modelling. The year's not quite so new any more, but I am still pursuing the other two crafts and have recently bought myself a needle felting kit :-)

It came with a brief page of instructions, that basically said 'stab it lots'. So I did. I tried stabbing wool onto a felt backing and then cut it out to create a heart shape:

Not too bad for a first attempt. Then I tried making a flower:

Somehow it doesn't look quite right and it's quite flimsy. I'm not sure it would last very long if I turned it into a brooch. Perhaps I didn't stab it enough??

Then I had the brilliant idea of including ribbon to try and make a flower:

Disaster! Stabbing the needle through the ribbon just pulled the threads. I almost didn't show you this one as it's so bad it's embarrassing! 

But I started to get the hang of it and made another flower:

Finally, something I can be proud of saying "I made this". I'm going to turn it into a brooch I think. I shall have to see if I can repeat this success - if I can I'm hoping to have a few little flowers like this in my folksy shop soon (ish!).

I have thoroughly enjoyed my attempts at needle felting so far and hope I get chance to experiment a bit more soon. It's quite therapeutic repeatedly stabbing at something! 


I'm linking this post into handmade monday again. It's a fab link party where you can find out about what all sorts of crafty people have been making recently. Do pop over and take a look at some of the other blogs that have linked up.