Sunshine Award!

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blog world. The rules are:Put the logo on your blog.Pass the award to 12 bloggers.Link the nominees within your post.Let them know thay have recieved the award by commenting on their blog. Share the love and link to the person from whom your recieved the award.

Before I accept this I should point out that we also received one in January from Leigh Shepherd, a fact that I was reminded of when I just went to nominate HER for one! I am sorry for my rubbishness Leigh and THANK YOU very much for the award.

This one is from the very lovely UK tatter, Tatiana Rosa so thank you very much for this Heather. We heart your jewellery the MOST :).

I am aware that this is a fairly finite system as a lot of the people I would like to nominate for awards have already received them and twelve blogs is quite a lot to choose more than once! (Which is Leigh and Heather aren't incuded!) I am doing two nominations in one go and participation is not compulsory - just sharing the lurve! Here we go :

UK Handmade - Ok, they no doubt have lots and lots of nominations but UK handmade rocks and features Wychbury so I simply must!!

Gracie's Garden Bazaar, beautifully presented, ethereal blog - regularly updated and, well - just gorgeous!

Swirly Thoughts, by Lynsey the fabulous author of Cuteable. Swirly thoughts is her personal blog including her wonderful chickens!

우리Uri-Craft Collections, Three Malaysian cousins whose current range of hair accessories are so beautiful that their photos alone make this blog captivating.

Incy Wincy Stitches - Just so good! Tutorials, patterns and generous, unconditional sharing of the fabulous textile work of Sam Gillespie.

Wild Woman Jewellery, for having the subtitle 'For the Whimsically Audacious', a totally addictive soundtrack and featuring lots of lovely, lovely things!

Le Fresne's Castle with Rowan DeVoe, Art, photography, red hair and black cats! LOVE Rowan's photographs so much :)

Smitonius and Sonata, Mum and Daughter based in the UK and Holland, making jewellery and miniature quilts. LOVE this blog, so many fabulous things in it!

It Is What It Is by Lynn Whelan, wonderfully chatty insights into her life and her lovely, bright work.

What Does Your Heart Desire? - The Heart Gallery of Hebden Bridge. Approaching its first birthday, the Heart Gallery's blog is full of lots of things that I love about

Yorkshire and the talent therein!

Kayla Coo, Goddam, this is beautiful stuff! LOVE Michela's work.

Big Blue Bed, Dorset buttons, family and a really lovely blog!

Paula x

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, so I failed completely to create any new products for Vally's Day! However I will point you in the direction of Lesley's Poison Heart Locket Ring from our Folksy shop.

Sticking with Folksy for a minute, here are the top picks from my lovely Folksy friends that popped into my head straight away when I started typing this! Leigh Shepherd, Rowan Grant and Tracy Connell are all West Yorkshire ladies and all just happen to have heart themed items in their shops right now!

LEIGH SHEPHERD DESIGNS

Love Heart Tattoo Brooch

£12.00

Leigh's brooch is 'A truly removable tattoo'! A print of her original painting of a rockabilly style tattoo on a gold background made onto a vintage draughts piece, also available in 'Life' and 'True Love' version.

RUBY SPIRIT DESIGNS

Overture Bracelet in Amethyst

£12.00

Tracy also has earrings and bracelets available in this gorgeous lampwork heart design in her shop, there's a pretty clear version too but who can't love a purple heart?

KITSCHEN SINK

'WhAt KiNd oF GirL aM I?'

ViNtAgE CoMiC NeCkLaCe

£14.00

Rowan has a few more of these fab vintage comic designs featuring kissing couples in her shop but this was the one that stood out for my Valentine's feature. Possibly because the description says 'What kind of girl am I?....I don't even know his name...and I don't care...I just want his kisses!' That in itself makes it irresistable in my opinion!

See? We are talented up here in the North and not at all Grim! However, some grimness exists in my neighbour's garden right now which I won't go into for fear of spoiling your lunch. In order to sweeten the pill of having to live next door to such horrors I went a bit overboard on our Valentine's breakfast this morning - yup, I made heart shaped blueberry pancakes and am not at all ashamed to admit it!! I used up the blueberries and blackberries in Nigella's American Breakfast Pancakes and just had to turn up the faff factor by a bit of heart shaped pouring!

Have a really great day and happy Chinese New Year too :)

Paula xxx

Getting Caught up....

...in things that I hadn't expected this week. I fear this will be another fragmented post containing all the things that went 'Blog that' and I never got around to it! NTS: Do homework as you get it!

First off the Hidden Eloise shocker! I won't go about it as I am fairly sure that thanks to Neil Gaiman and his Tweeting prowess the whole world now knows! Suffice to say though, Eloise rules the most and has conducted herself with the same poise and grace she displays in her beautiful work throughout this whole *unpleasantness*. I hope that the designer in question recovers from the fallout from what was a disastrous error of judgement on her part and that Eloise's sales go through the roof! Good luck to both :)

For those who have been working hard rather than spending the last few days on blogs and Twitter, you can catch up on Eloise's blog here (also in most national newspapers!).

Next up - UK Handmade! Fabulous magazine and blog that I though we had joined yonks ago but actually hadn't (Shop UK Handmade instead - pay attention Paula!) Karen Jinks has asked us to do an interview for a feature on the blog that will be posted soon. A lot has changed for Lesley and I over the last couple of years and it was really interesting for us to think about the questions we were asked about how we started, how we currently work and how we would like to progress in the future.

This had got me thinking about how many different 'hats' I wear in the course of an average day. Although, I flit fairly easily between the various roles in my life I rarely spend more than a couple of hours doing any one thing before I am off the the next.

Although I am acutely aware of the importance of promotion and networking, most will have fallen foul of the hidden tangents that the evil temptress 'internet' can't wait to take you off on! It's becoming fairly evident that designing/making is the area that is suffering most from this - especially when I am so easily distracted by unexpected things! I am hoping to find a few more shops in Yorkshire to stock our items over the next few weeks and have realised how much stock I will need to produce to make this happen - if anyone has a solution to this I would LOVE to hear from them!

Given the problems of time management we wahm's face every day it's easy to forget to treat ourselves! Oooh that reminds me...WE'RE in THE STORQUE! (Hahaha, yup - seamless!).

Etsy's new UK blogger Amity Roach of All Those 3hrees on Etsy has included my Purple and Crismson Pansy Corsage in her article, UK Etsy Finds : Self Appreciation on Valentine's Day. Amity is an amazing jewellery designer and if anyone wanted to treat me to her Silver Stitch Texture Ring for Vally's day than that would be lovely! Thanks so much to AMity for the inclusion.

Right, I absolutely must go and sew now.....Oh no, Twitter is rallying to Eloise's side once more - looks like things are taking a turn! Ooh look at those shoes....do I want a coffee? Damn!!!

Paula x

Colour Me Guilty!

My post today is by way of apology to Fleas of Roots Deity Poems. Fleas has been our myspace friend for an age and a tireless supporter of our work. He has been making picture videos to go with his music and uploading them to myspace, youtube and Wordpress. Back in December he asked if he could make a vid featuring one of my textile art cards featuring the Three Hares symbol - of course I agreed and promised to link to the vid and Fleas' sites...................I forgot *cringe*!! So I am doing it right now!!

Thank you so much Fleas and sorry again for my slackness!

Paula x

Catching Up.

Just a few bits today, I've been ill on and off for a fortnight and am desperately trying to catch up with work now that I have FINALLY filed my tax return just in time!

This evening I am taking a condensed version of our stall to a Ladies Pamper Night at one of our local primary schools - Myrtle Park in Bingley. I have done one of these at my children's school before and love the opportunity to get a bit dressed up and treat it as a proper evening out. I really hope that the mums there that haven't seen me or our work before like what they see. It's always mixture of excitement and trepidation when selling right on your doorstep. I mean I will most likely see some of my customers again! I want the right word inserted in the sentence 'Oh, look Agnes, there's that red-haired woman who sells those ***** accessories' if I am ever spotted on the zebra crossing!

Next on my scrappy agenda today is to say a huge THANK YOU to Cassandra of Gracie's Garden Bazaar for her wonderful feature on us this week. The image is a screen cap from her page and as someone who would occasionally sign off letters as 'Rapunzel Badlash' I am so so chuffed with this feature on my hair accessories. The blog itself is gorgeously and romantically written and I strongly suggest that the wistful and fey amongst you click 'follow' forthwith :) Her Folksy shop is equally lovely!

Finally (before I leg it upstairs to the studio to try and do a week's work in five hours!) we are listed on this fab new blog Folksy Weddings. It's a great resource for handmade weddings in general and a brilliant showcase for Folksy. The success of my Poppy Corsages in November shows the potential of Folksy and the more promotion it gets the better. Especially since we don't have Martha Stewart to sing its praises here in the UK!

Paula x

PS The selling event ended up with me tottering up and down a makeshift catwalk in mismatched high heeled boots! Since I am already 5'9" tall I think it is safe to say that most of the ladies there will remember me now!! I also had to stand up and tell everyone all about Wychbury - OMG! Luckily the response to our work was overwhelmingly positive so it's all good :)