Pre Break Ramblings

Days are really starting to fly by at a rate of knots, which whilst a little daunting when you still have so much to get done before Christmas, there is a flip side because it means it's nearly here! And that also means it's closer to my rather overdue holiday. Having moved house and dealt with so much this year it's rather needed. 

At the weekend I wrote and sent out my last newsletter for 2013, it was a brief little nugget of news informing that I am winding down for the impending break, my store on Etsy will be closing for the holidays this coming Sunday evening. 

Which on a side note if you do wish to grab a quick present then do nip along. If your in the UK I'll even throw in free shipping, 2nd class, if you use the following code UKLUVXMAS.

I also mentioned my desire to do an early spring clean of the website, start tinkering with designs I want to work on, and in some instances start them. 

I did mention last week that I was going to talk about these plans, and having spent some of yesterday in the company of a very good friend, Laura Howard of Bugsandfishes, it made me think that for me personally that I am better of remaining flexible with my 'goals', have them but not to become too fixated by them, accept that sometimes things don't work out the way you want them too. I admit it nearly crushed me over the summer that I wasn't doing half of what I had planned, and that it was likely I wasn't going to do any fairs this year either...eventually I got over that and the lack of stress was a relief. 

So back to what I have already began to plan to do:

1. Working on the website and getting that tidy is likely to be one that I achieve before I head back to work mid-January. I'll be condensing the gallery, press section, updating about me and making the site a little more user friendly, and I'll be looking closely at making more use of the shop function on the site. 
2. Getting out and meeting/networking with the folks that I have come to talk to rather regularly on Twitter etc, crafty folks. And it's something I am working on with Laura Howard, and hopefully dragging along other waifs and strays we know to pull ourselves out of our little comfort zones. It also gives a great excuse for eating cake.
3. Typography is really going to feature in my designs, and they will be intricate designs that I love to do, think Paradise Bird but lettering instead of feathers. I have the design already in progress for the first piece and will be starting before the year is out. I hope that I will be able to start doing a WIP blog posts about this very, very soon!

For a start of a plan that's not all that bad, what about you guys are you thinking about what you want to do, achieve next year? Or are you going with the flow? 

I promised you also what I thought of Bust Craftacular, where I met up with Laura. Out of the three fairs I've been to over the past couple of months it was the more promising. Quite tiny in comparison to the others but at least I felt like I want to buy, and I did. Admittedly I had gone with the attention to buy the remaining christmas gifts for family and whilst I did buy one gift...I also brought a picture for the flat. In my defense it had a hamster on it and it's for the Hallway which I am going to be decorating in the New Year. 

 

Isn't he smashing?! He's by Jimbob Art, Christmas Fox. I'm going to get him framed professionally, thinking a double mount, one crisp white the other rich red, framed by ebony/black wood. I know the exact spot to put it in too. Can't wait! 

I suppose I should add that goal number 5 should be to get out to more shows, I really would love to go to one of the Cockpit Art open studio days, and Renegade by all accounts was brilliant. I also want to go back to the Knitting & Stitching show in London to find some new suppliers and catch up with folks I know that either exhibit there or attend.

Cor I hadn't really set out to write such a long blog post, I hoped to have pictures to show you of pieces I've been up too...but I didn't actually get up to much stitching this weekend, just lots of tidying up loose ends and doodling. I have a crafting day with my best friend on Saturday so that means there will be more pictures on Sunday!