Giveaway Winners!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered my Giveaway!

The response was fantastic and after writing out ALL the names and putting them all in my hat (Handmade by Maria at Creative Bumble Bee) the winners are ..............

Michaela Carrington

Kirsty Southwell

Sue Harris

and

Michelle Rivera!

All the new prints, sketchbooks, notebooks and cards are now available in both my Etsy and Folksy shops.

I'll be back next week with some more new makes to share! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

January Sale Continues

Thankfully I'll be getting back into my work space this week and hope to be producing some new felt art and jewellery over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, my Half Price Sale continues over in my Folksy Shop. Thanks to everyone who has already snapped up a bargain, I am enjoying the top spot on the Folksy Best Sellers list this week! 

All these pendant pieces are £10 including the chain.

I also have a few felt pictures in the sale.

This felt abstract piece is reduced from £40 to £25

This piece below comes framed in a white box frame.

Was £45 now £30

 and this little box was £20 and is now £12

All of these can be found in the Sale Section of my Folksy Shop here

Makers Market at The Steeple and The Handmade Show

My events marathon continues with the Makers Market at The Steeple in Newburgh this Saturday and The Handmade Show at Perth Concert Hall this Sunday!

 

Perth Concert Hall, Mill Street, Perth (behind M&S)

Sunday 4th November, 10-4pm

FREE ENTRY

 

 

I am working flat out this week to keep a full range of everyone's favourite

Aileen Clarke Crafts makes, enough for both events so apologies for the short blog post.

 

Lots of photos and tales from the fairs coming soon!

I will also be listing some new things in both my Etsy and Folksy shops next week.

 

Hope to see some of you at these events.

Little Landscapes and Latest Leaves

It has been all about pictures and brooches this week. I've had a real run on pictures since we got back from our holiday in August. Lots of commissions and these little landscapes flying off the shelves as soon as they are listed.

 

 

Wildflower Meadow Cottage

£55 Framed

 

Available now Here

 

Fraoch Cottage

£55 Framed

 

I have also been busy building up a stock of brooches.

I love making these as each one is different. Choosing just the right area of felt to cut the leaf shape from, stitching it up then sitting by the fire of an evening sewing all the beads, wires and brooch bars on is a never ending project. I'm not good at sitting doing nothing so always having a wee stock of brooches to work on is very satisfying.

 

Ivy Leaf Brooch Pin/Cloak Clasp

£15

 

The Ivy Leaf design is loosely inspired by the cloak clasps given to the Hobbits by the Elf Queen in Lord of The Rings. If I remember rightly, the clasps in the film (which I only saw this year and fell asleep half way through), were green enamel and silver. Mine have extra long brooch bars on the back making them perfect for keeping a cloak, shawl or cardigan closed. I often wear a brooch on my bag as well and they would also work on a hat.

 

 

 

 The red Ivy Leaf has sold but all the rest are available in my Etsy shop here

 

 

The Birdie Brooches are Harris Tweed with little handmade felt wings.

 

Hopefully I will have some new sheep pendants and earrings available next week.

Notebooks

I love notebooks. In fact I have a bit of a thing for paper products and stationary in general.

When I was a girl a got a big desk as a present one year and oh my goodness how I loved to arrange my notebooks, pens and papers on it and keep it all tidy. You'd never believe that if you could see my work desk now!

I also like the idea of my art being useful and so I had a couple of my favourite designs printed into notebooks.

 

The books are high quality, professionally printed and spiral bound. Measuring 12x12cm with 38 paper pages alternating between plain and ruled. Perfect for sketching and journaling.

To make them even more extra special, each notebook comes wrapped with a pretty ribbon and little tag making them the perfect gift or treat for yourself.



Available in both my Etsy and Folksy shops now or from me at any of my upcoming events.

Next event will be the Open Day at Gillies and Mackay, Errol. Perthshire.

I will be exhibiting my full range of items and demonstrating with the embellisher machine as well. Hope to see some of you there!



A Mosaic of Makes from 2011

2011 has been a fabulous year for Aileen Clarke Crafts.

My work has sold really well through various gift shops and galleries here in Scotland and gone all over the world thanks to the wonders of online shopping sites like Etsy and Folksy. Apparently my shop is among the top 250 sellers on Folsky which truly amazes me. It is one of my goals for 2012 to keep both of my online shops well stocked with a full range of items.

Events like Open Studios North Fife and The Handmade Show have also helped me focus and given me the opportunity to meet so many more people face to face, both customers and fellow artists.

Textile Trinket Boxes

My little boxes were an instant hit and have all gone to new homes over the past couple of months. Only two left in stock.

I do hope to develop new ideas for these and make them regularly available.

These photo mosaics are just a snap shot of pieces I have made during 2011.

Textile Wrist Cuffs

My range has certainly expanded and will hopefully continue to grow throughout 2012. I have enjoyed making a few commission pieces this year including pendants, earrings, brooches, wrist cuffs, handmade cards and art work. 

Fibre, Textile, Glass and Resin Pendants

Earrings

Brooches

New to my range this year have been these rings. I love wearing them myself and have to admit to owning at least five in all different colours.

Also new this year have been the Sheep Pendants, Earrings and Rings.

There are so many different colour combinations and different fibres that can be used that the possibilities are endless! It means that every single design is different. It also means that it is sometimes hard to choose. I've had customers at fairs swithering for ages not knowing which one to get for a friend and ending up buying one for themselves instead.

A variety of Sheep Jewellery is still available in my Etsy Shop

Card making was my first love and really how my whole Aileen Clarke Crafts business came about. I still make hundreds of cards but most of them go out to local shops and sell at craft fairs. I find them difficult to photograph for selling online and the time taken to get the photos just right is worth more than what the card will sell for. One of my plans for the new year is to buy a  new and better camera during the sales so hopefully that will allow me to make more of my cards available online.

The bookmarks continue to be a hit but again, I have struggled to find time to make more of them in recent weeks. Much of January will be spent making back ground felt for lots of different projects so hopefully I'll get some new bookmarks made in the new year.

Over the past year I have met people in real life that are regular visitors to my blog and fans of my page on Facebook. They have all helped and inspired me to come up with new ideas and make more of everyone's favourite items. Thank you to all of you who take the time to leave comments. It's such a great source of feedback and encouragement especially for someone who works from home. 

It's great to be part of such a wonderful creative community as well. So many of us are busy making and creating trying to make a living doing what we love and the internet has certainly provided us with a fantastic way of helping and supporting each other.

Felt Art Work

I'll leave you with this little selection of cosy cottages.

Bonnie Wee Hooses

 I think it's fair to say and obvious through my work that I have a bit of a thing for wee cottages.

I was brought up living in a cottage on the outskirts of Perth and I've lived in a few different ones over the years including the one I live in now with my husband and two children. 

This is the cottage I grew up in as a teenager. My brother lives in it now.

Painting By Jim Douglas

This is the cottage we live in now.

You can just about make it out behind the trees! The trees provide a nice bit of shelter and are home to lots of Greenfinch in the summer. Thankfully they are all still standing after yesterday's gale force winds! I felt like I was in the opening scenes of a disaster movie yesterday when I went out for wood and coal!

 I found these old photos taken in 1996 on a visit to Donegal with my Mum. I can remember we were ridiculously over excited with these cottages much to the bemusement of the old fella we met in the driveway.

 We were even more over excited when we saw that this one was a florists!

Mum and I both worked as florists for years and we thought this our absolute dream place.

A few weeks ago I spotted a photo on Craft Blog UK that really intrigued me.

It was of a knitted cottage against the backdrop of the beautiful Scottish Highlands. I immediately went in search of it's maker and got chatting via email to Julia Marsh, owner of Hand Knitted Things based in the north west of Scotland. 

Julia sells knitting patterns for her little croft house cottages but seeing as knitting is not one of my talents she offered to knit one for me!

 Drum roll please.............

Ta da!!!

 I am so delighted with it! I think it's the cutest thing ever.

It reminds me of some of the wee hooses we saw on holiday this summer out on Harris.

And of course it's like a 3D version of one of my own little needle felted ones.

Sunset Behind The Croft

£40

You can find out more about Julia and her Hand Knitted Things here

So we had an unusually wild and windy day here yesterday with the children off school and the fire needing fed like a hungry animal.

My postie still got through though and brought me some new supplies to play with.

 These new Felt Flower Pendants are now available in both my Etsy and Folksy shops priced £20.

More colours coming soon.


I also have these new Sheep Earrings available in both my shops. Just click the images to go to the listings.

Art Tokens and Other News

The lovely people at ArtTokens.co.uk are working very hard to promote their new site.

Art Tokens are like Book Tokens, but for art!
Go and check out the site and sign up if you are an artist or designer/maker looking for more outlets for your work. (You can also play 'spot the sheep' on the front page!)
ArtTokens.co.uk


Talking of sheep I am working as hard and as fast as I can to produce more pendants for both my online shops as well as some of my outlets here in Scotland.

One of the sites I use to sell online has undergone a massive overhaul and is looking fantastic.
You can visit my shop at Folksy.com here and see how snazzy it is looking. 
Among other new listings are a set of ten printed cards including two new designs.

The cards are selling for £2.50 each or five for £10. When you buy ten, however, you save a bit more by getting them for £19.50. I have had customers telling me they look great framed and others giving the set as a gift.


On a completely different note, I found this map of the world the other day and was showing it to my children. I found myself saying, "Oh, I've sent one of my pieces to that state and that state and that state" so I thought it would be fun to trawl through my Etsy sales and put a dot in each state that I have sent things too. Wow!

It has certainly improved our geography of America. Now we need to find a map of the world!

A Bird In The Hand

This week I'm working on some more new brooches. I've always liked bird shaped brooches and have made many over the years. 

The garden flowers I'm using as props are being very obliging with their matching colours.

I really enjoyed sitting in the shed doing a little sewing at the weekend. I'm delighted that these Vintage Table Linens have found a perfect home. Don't the colours go so well!

I find it very time consuming hand stitching beads and brooch bars but it is also very enjoyable when I can do it sitting in my little garden hideaway. 

 

Here are some finished leaf brooches. I have some listed in both my Online Shops.

 

I'm very careful when I'm sewing outside not to let any bits of thread fly off in the wind. I found this little fellow stuck in a Cypress tree and couldn't really understand why. I had to get a chair and a broom and very carefully pull the branch down low enough to see how I could help. Turned out there was a fine thread tangled in the tree and caught round the birds ankle. I managed to free him easily enough and snip the thread off without harm to the bird. It wasn't a sewing thread, more like a string fibre or something but even so, I'll keep a little bin beside me while I work for all those snippets of thread and wool.

There are a whole gang of Goldfinch enjoying all the wild thistle seed at the side of the farm track near our cottage. It's lovely to see them flit from stem to stem, bush to bush then fly off in a flock over the field.