Iris – rainbow sock creature

Iris thinks of herself as a Greek goddess with her lush lips and impatient stance … it’s why she always seems to have her hands on her hips, no doubt tapping her toes. The truth of it though is that she is more messenger than goddess, her purpose being to take those dreams that are lovingly whispered in her ear and help make them come true, she’s on first name terms with the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and, most important of all, the Fairy Godmother. Of course the more cuddles and love she gets the more likely she is to pass on your hopes and dreams.

Available from the shop.

Eating Daisies …

Seemingly daisies are edible, yum, they have very light peppery flavour and there are loads of them around.  Which is handy, since the kids seem to be permanently hungry … or at the very least bored which seems to inevitably lead to cries of:

“I’m bored.  Can I have something to eat?”

Now I have the answer:

“YES!  You can eat daisies!?”

In light of this revelation here is a wee homage to the humble Daisy (clicking on the images will take you to the artist or crafter’s site):

Daisy Flower art poster by Derek McCrea

Daisy by chavez666

tiny daisy post earrings by peculiar forest

Daisy and ribbon by Sighs and Whispers

Taking Inspiration: The Peacock

Peacock’s are well known for their fantastic plumage and for proudly strutting their stuff, they’re also an immense source of inspiration for a huge number of people; as you’ll discover if you type ‘peacock art’ into google and look through the image results.  It’s easy to see why they should act on the imagination and why artists and crafters alike should wish to include aspects of them in their work, I was reminded of that recently when we visited a local farm park – see here – with the kids and there was a couple strutting back and forth, all the while studiously ignoring each others existence.

Their arrogance and aloofness reminds me of ‘those people’ who have an arrogance born out of forever being told how handsome or beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, how perfect … at least the peacock’s have reason to believe it of themselves.  Here are a few pictures I took while we were at the park:

click to full view

I’d love to do a Bonnie Bird drawing inspiration from these birds although I think I need to carefully consider the execution of such an exploit. So, in the mean-time, here are a few samples from around the internet of what others have been up to recently:

by Deadpan Alley

by Jen Skelley

by Verabel

by Sally Boyle

MadeStuff News

For a long time now we’ve been frustrated and, in some cases, downright exasperated at the increasingly poor performance of Etsy.  To start the year we decided to make a few changes and this weekend we’ve started by opening a new shop with Coriandr.

Not only is Coriandr easier to use, more reliable, and nicer to look at than Etsy, but this move means that we can now list our crafts for sale in UK currency, which is a massive bonus for us. Payment is still through Paypal, which is one of the most secure ways to pay on the web and we are now also able to accept personal cheques for those who would prefer not to divulge credit or debit card details to a computer.

To coincide with the move to Coriandr, you might have noticed our new banner and updated colour scheme, well the start of it anyway.

As if that wasn’t enough, Alasdair and I have had a confab and a brainstorm, engaged ourselves in some ‘blue sky thinking’ and a series of other overused business cliches and have decided on a number of intentions for the year that we’ll share in due course…all of which will be worth the wait.

We hope you like these changes but please feel free to comment if there’s anything you’d particularly like to see here.