Etsy Weekend Deals Sale and Treasury!

There's a lot of dust blowing around this country at the moment so it is quite fitting that the Etsy Street team I belong to is called DUST or Down Under Street Team.
This weekend a bunch of DUSTers have got together for a weekend sale including discounts across stores of up to 50% off. Checkout this blog for participants.
People who purchase from my store this weekend (25th-27th) will get 10% off their combined purchase (excluding shipping) if they mention Weekend Deals at checkout. The discount will be refunded via paypal after the purchase is complete.

I am working at listing more in my shop this weekend so keep checking back for new items.

Plus (ok tooting my own horn here) I made it into an Etsy Treasury! I was pretty excited to be selected!

Buttons and doilies. 3 shelves tidy, 30+ to go!

Here are some of my favourite vintagey and crafty things. I decided it was time to give my buttons a showcase. They had been sitting in a box in little plastic bags of colours. Now I can see them in all their glory. Plus I now have my favourite beaded doilies on show.
I thought I would do a Nanna and toss a doily over the utilitarian cuttlebug die-cut machine :)

Giveaway Winner!

And the winner is...... Picannini! YAY! The crowd goes wild! haha Email your address (again) and the rainbow clippies are yours or let me know what you would like.

Thank you to everyone else for your positive comments. It's a bit of a fizzer so far as Grand Openings go. One poor little pini rattling around in the middle of a big vacant shopfront with the wind whistling around and a few tumbleweeds rolling aimlessly through rofl!

I promise I WILL get more up, I just need a big injection of....umm....whatever you call that stuff that makes you do stuff you really want to do but are too chicken to.

Then maybe I'll have a real GRAND Opening with a really GRAND prize! :)

BTW Picanini I checked out your store and love your stuff.

Going Shir Crazy!

Maybe you should call me Shirley?
I'm having fun shirring up lots of skirts, dresses and tops for Pearl and for market.














This dress is my favourite so far. It is an Enid Gilchrist design in printed muslin with voile lining. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Especially as there are so many of them.


















































































































































































This is Pearl letting Michael know he isn't welcome in her photo shoots.

Pearl woz here..

I meant to post this earlier this week and just found the pics again. Pearl is 2 and looking for trouble and very often finding it.
Beccy made a victoria sponge for Michael's birthday cake and left it to cool:
Pearl woz here.













Pile on the cream and strawberries to make a googley eyed monster with blue antennae and no-one's the wiser!














The kids made cards at church for Dad and before he saw them...















Pearl woz here.













Michael and his cousin share a birthday and Father's Day this year.













Cupcakes galore by my sister. The teddy cakes were gingercakes and were so good! Dad's trifle! YUM!















I

Video tute for rolled hem on outside corner/curve using overlocker (serger)

Recently on Crafty Mamas a member was having trouble getting a consistent rolled hem on the outside curve on a ruffle corner so I made a little video to show how I would do it. Maybe you would do it differently or better but this is what works for me.

Cut the curve first, it is harder to use a square cut corner and try to round it while overlocking as the excess fabric creates drag and will slow the turning of the curve.
















Keep your fingers flat across the piece so you are creating a circular pull as you sew. It might create a pucker across the bias of the fabric but shouldn't be that noticeable on a ruffle. If it is a problem use some sort of iron on removeable or washable stabiliser and that should stop that happening. I did cut off a bit of the curve but again, using a camera with one hand while doing this was a bit tricky.

The finished result:














Rolled hem on an outside curve. Forgive the little glitch seeing as I was going one-handed holding the camera at the same time.
For a tighter curve then I need to go slow, stop and lift the foot with the needle down a few times to ease around the corner.
I hope this is helpful and works for others. Let me know how you go.

Weekend End Giveaway!

Sorry, it was a BIG day yesterday and it must be the weekend still somewhere in the world! I am pretty excited about opening an Etsy store. Pretty nervous too. But I would love to share something with the big wide cyber world as a thank you for reading my blog and checking out my Etsy store. Just keep checking my store between now and next Sunday and comment here on what you see.
I will pick a winner at random. You can enter more than once but no more than once a day.

And the prize? A set of rainbow clippies as seen 3 posts ago. If you are lucky enough to already own a set of these, or you really prefer other colours, you can choose your own custom pair of felt clips similar to those already shown.
Thanks for looking and good luck!

Fathers Day and a birthday

Today my littlest boy turned 4yo. Ben10 was high on the birthday hit-list with a chunky "watch" becoming a newly prized possession. I also acquired a t-shirt from Sam at Jetta's Nest for him. Looks like it should fit for a while which is lucky as apparently it is "the coolest t-shirt I ever haveded"












































































So poor Dad get's a second rate Father's Day. It was a bit hard to sleep with excited baby elephants galumphing around the house at the crack of dawn. He did get a special toasted sanger with bacon, eggs and hashbrown layered inside.
DD10 painted this lovely modernist portrait of him:

Etsy store celebration Giveaway!

This is just a teaser, but I will update soon with details.

Where do I start? Felt Clippies.

I have had so much fun with felt the last few weeks. I know I showed my felt food efforts earlier but since then what I thought would be a felt stash depleting exercise has typically become a stash building exercise and a new obsession. Hairclips and brooches in particular. Using some simple dies to cut the felt shapes uniformly made it easier to and faster to put together some cute combinations. Of course, that then led to the need to accumulate dies in all shapes and sizes. which led onto, "what else can I cut with these dies?". Hmm, I've cut just about everything except what they were intended to cut. :) So I have been merrily going with the flow and my crafty stash snowballing along side me as I go.
Here's where I started with hand pinked felt edges and yo-yo hearts. (did I mention the need to acquire every shape and size of Clover yo-yo maker? Bought at sale time of course!)
















Next came the die-cut clippies starring vintage/upcycled buttons, along with some sales to help feed the hungry stash-monster.














































































Along came some custom orders.




















And the very popular rainbow clippies..




















and my personal favourites, the bluebirds.





















I was surprised at their popularity with older girls and young women at one of my recent local markets.
I will be making more for my etsy store and of course for my little and big girls!

Stay tuned! It will be a big bloggy week.

A big blog is coming Watchout!

There has been lots happening here and I have been remiss in keeping you all in the dark about it. I'll endeavor to get you all up to speed over the next week.

In the meantime, I will have another giveaway this weekend to celebrate my new Etsy store at www.stitcharooney.etsy.com ! I finally took the plunge into that huge vortex of craftiness, possibly, no probably, into oblivion, but I hope I can surface every now and then and share some of my craftiness with others, maybe even sell something lol.

I will add things slowly over the next few weeks to get maximum exposure (or so I am told by those more knowledgeable than myself).

I'll be back with more soon!