It's all Wight...

Soon we are going to be visiting the lovely Isle of Wight for a bit of a break and a chance to meet up with the other half's family.

I can't say I'm relishing the drive (Yorkshire to the Isle of Wight seems an aufully long way when your car is as unreliable as ours is!) but I'm really looking forward to heading southwards and seawards once again.

Although I have loved living in both the East Midlands and South Yorkshire, hailing from quite near the Kentish coast I do miss the chance to just pop down to the seaside (especially on stormy days!)

So todays Folksy Friday collection is seaside inspired and features some of my favourite designers and craftspeople (some of whom I have actually met!)

Just click on the pics to be taken to that seller's shop.

Now I'm definitely in the mood for a holiday! I can smell the sea, hear the gulls and feel the (very cold) sea trickling betwen my toes. Anyone for fish and chips followed by an ice cream?!

The ultimate day off...

Today is the first Friday that the other half and I will both not be at work for a very long time!

We have spent all week planning and as the days have ticked our excitement has mounted... but there's no need to get over-excited - we haven't got anything spectacular booked, just a proper old fashioned 'day-off'!

I thought I would use my Folksy Friday this week to illustrate a few of the things we are planning to do...  

(just click on the descriptive caption to be taken to that particular item)

A nice long lie-in... if only my bed were this beautiful!

Have a lovely cooked breakfast - hopefully ours won't be so mini!

Do a spot of shopping...

Watch some cricket...

Have some afternoon tea...

And generally just chill out!

Sounds perfect to me!

Hope you all have a lovely day too

Laura x

This post has been brought to you by the letter....'P'

After last weeks post about looking to the future, I stumbled upon a forum post on Folksy asking What does april hold for you? I thought - I know the answer to this! And so I got chatting with a few people who were sharing their plans and setting themselves particular goals and targets for the coming month(s).

Later on in the day, after catching up on some of the blogs that I follow, I popped back into the forum to add another post which said:

I'm going to try to be a bit more personal and share more about my life in the blog posts that I write. I’ve realised that my favourite blogs that I read, and the posts that are the most enjoyable to write are the ones that are all personal, positive, pretty and professional!

I also decided that this would probably be a good mantra to live life by!

But, dear friends - it didn't end there! The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the letter 'P' has a lot to offer to my life philosophy! So especially for you I have put together a page of pictures that illustrate particularly well the power of 'P'!

Personal

 Yes - this is me! I missed 'face behind the business' day on Facebook so I thought it was time to share a personal picture of me - just so you know who you're dealing with!

So... Am I anything like you imagined?

 Positive

Yes - that is a giant onion!
I'm giving a thumbs up to staying positive and to thinking big!

 
 
Pretty / Pride

This was the result of my first attempt at producing some really clear product shots.

An unashamedly pretty collection!

I was really pleased with the outcome and feel proud of what I have achieved and how far I have come since last June when made by lolly x first started

 
Professional / Presentation

I think a job worth doing is a job worth doing well! There will always be limits to what can be achieved - time and money are not infinite (nor is the amount of space in my craft room!)
Whether it be my professional business branding, the presentation of my stall, or my approach to life in general, I want to take myself seriously (but not too seriously!)

  

Profit / Planning

I really want to make sure I give 100% to the business from now on (after all it has to go some way towards making up the shortfall since I have lost a day of paid employment!)

This means more planning - booking more craft fairs, setting up online shops etc but also being slightly stricter with how I spend my days - making sure that what I am doing helps make some more profit!

 Purple

I'm not sure whether it's just a phase I'm going through,
but the colour purple is featuring even more
heavily than usual in the made by lolly x colour palette!

So much so that I decided that all my passion for this particular colour needed a special outlet.


I can now formally launch my new collection
'A Passion for Purple' available exclusively in my new etsy shop www.madebylolly.etsy.com

Please feel free to post any comments - I'm sure you'll all have some ideas for 'P' words that I've forgotten that I can add to the philosophy!

Looking to the future!

Apologies for being AWOL for a little while - I promise I haven't forgotten all about you!

Life has been busy with lots of real-world concerns crowding in and interfering with the creativity. Fortunately most of these issues now seem to have resolved themselves and I have been able to dust myself down and start planning and plotting.... (cue evil genius laugh!)

Basically, due to funding cuts and the subsequent re-structuring process, my real-world job has been relocated and been reduced to just two days a week. Financially this is not ideal.

BUT... it does have lots of advantages!

• Less days out working means more days here at HQ designing and making!
• Not working Fridays means I can reinstate my regular Folksy Friday blog spot
• I will be able to devote more time to Yorkshire Made
• I will now have an extra day off with the Other Half 
• If we get a nice summer I will be able to enjoy it while it lasts!

All of these positive outcomes mean I will be able to make more products and therefore commit to attending more fairs too! I've started to make more bookings and the made by lolly x events calendar is starting to fill up nicely! The next few events are:

Reetsweet Art Design and Neo Craft Fair at the Corn Exchange in Leeds - this Sunday 3rd April!

I'm really looking forward to this one! It's my first event in Leeds and my first visit to the Corn Exchange for about 10 years. I can't wait to see what they've done to the place. You can find out all about my fellow stall holders by reading the reetsweet blog 

After that I am booked in to do Montgomery Hall in Wath-Upon-Dearne on the 16th April, The Glasshouse in Doncaster on the 1st May, and Beighton Lifestyle Centre in Sheffield on 25th/26th June, as well as a couple more that have not been confirmed yet! 

 I've also started testing the waters with a new range of gift wrapping. It's currently only available through made by lolly x on Facebook or from me at craft fairs. You can see the full range in the photo album on FB. If it proves popular I may start selling it in my Folksy shop. Let me know what you think!

And this is my big exciting news...

I'm also planning to open a new made by lolly x online shop! 

This one will be on Etsy and will be a little bit special - a place for me 

to indulge my passion for purple! 

The shop will showcase some of my favourite purple designs that are currently available through my Folksy shop, but will also allow me to experiment with some more unusual and unique designs! I'm hoping that the range will be incredibly diverse, taking in lots of different items, styles and materials. Everything that the lover of purple could need! I'll keep you posted on my progress and let you know when the shop is ready to be launched!

So really, I've got enough to be keeping me busy for a little while! But I've always 

got time for custom orders ;-) 

Have a great week. 

Laura x

Clumsy Girl Folksy Friday

And I managed to complete the challenge!
Not only have I managed to find 6 items from Folksy on the theme of clumsiness and accidents...

...but I have also got through the week without doing myself any further mischief!

I hope you like my choices, and forgive me the last picture
(which on first glance may not exactly be connected directly to accidents...)

I absolutely love this picture by Alissha Lissha - it was one of the first things I saw on Folksy and I keep coming back to it again and again. I think it is absolutely adorable and can just imagine that just out of shot, on those spindly legs, with their tumble down socks, slap bang in the middle of the left knee is a great big plaster!

The result of some great adventure and the scrapes that followed!

Here's hoping you have a fantastic week, full of adventures but very few accidents! Take care, it's a big dangerous world out there!
Laura x

Clumsy girl...

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a Stylish Bloggers Award - a great honor, but also a great responsibilty. One part of the challenge was to nominate another 15 blogs that you thought deserved the award (you can see my choices here),and the other was to tell your blog readers 7 things about yourself.

To start with I found this quite difficult, but I was soon on a roll and had lots of things to say!

The first thing I added to my list was that I can sometimes be clumsy - a fact I have neatly demonstrated only this week when I cut the top of my finger off whilst working on a custom order for a Baby Journal.

Luckily I don't seem to have done any major damage - either to my finger or the Journal!


I thought a good way to make light of my little accidents, and to find out a bit more about me and the things I like, would be to try to pick 6 items for this weeks Folksy Friday that fit in with the theme of accidents! I have no idea what I'll be able to find - or indeed whether it will even be possible!

But I like a challenge, so I thought I'd post this to the blog today so you all know about it 

and I can't back out by Friday!

Wish me luck with my search and fingers crossed I don't have any more accidents before Friday!

Lots of Lauras!

Logging on to the Valentino's daily listing thread on the Folksy Forum last week, I might have been forgiven for thinking I had multiple personality disorder - for there was not one, not two, but three people posting comments, and all signing off as
'Laura x'

Luckily we were all also signed in using our shop names, so provided you stayed awake you could just about tell us apart!

But this got me thinking... (always dangerous!) If there are three of us just within the small group of the daily listings club, how many crafty 'Lauras' might there be on the whole of Folksy? Well, don't fret yourself with this conundrum - I have done a little bit of research! According to the Folksy search engine there are 17 pages of people that are listed with 'Laura' as part of their profile! That's approximately 170 individuals!

So... As you can never have too much of a good thing, I thought that I would share some of these other 'Lauras' and their work with you!

TOP: Left to Right

littleredstar, laurakatedraws, laurajayne,

BOTTOM: Left to Right

shedraws, lauraslittlelovelies, LauraFaye

Well we may all be called Laura, and all have a passion for making, but it seems that is
where the similarity ends! 
Click on the pictures to be taken to more information about that item,
or use the links to be taken to the different Lauras' shops!