Handmade Takes Time

I have got to the point where I am blessed with being really busy.  I have lots of orders and request for custom items.

Unfortunately, people may have to wait a couple of weeks for items. Obviously I inform them at the time of request, but some people still think I can get them there tomorrow.

I could employ someone, but this means increasing my prices and I feel I like to keep prices reasonable so that Handmade Special Items are still affordable.

I could try and rush everything, but each item and order is special to me and I like to make sure it is made with attention to detail and to a standard that I would want for myself.

Handmade takes time.

Sam x

Happy New Year

Its about time I posted on my blog again, it seems to have whizzed by since my last posting in August, which was about our new chickens.  They are doing well by the way, and we are just waiting patiently for an egg.  I rather thought they may have blessed us with one for Christmas Day, but nope, we are still waiting.

I have just invested in a new sewing machine, as during my Christmas rush of orders, bits started to fall off of my old one and it was a constant battle to keep it going.

I have found a bit of time to play in the last few days, which is what I enjoy doing most.  Experimenting with fabrics and lace and adding bits and bobs.  Nothing is safe when I am having one of those moments and the latest victim was a pendant that I still had for sale.  I had made it earlier in the year and had hung it from a ball chain.  I took this off and experimented with placing it on  a lanyard style hanging instead and I am rather pleased with the finished piece.

I shall be popping this in my Folksy shop shortly Pants & Paper Shop This Way.

I hope you have all had a fabulous year and wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Pants xxxx

Chickens

Some time ago I told you about my daughter and her desperate wish to own some chickens.   The idea was that she would help me make my mirrors and for everyone sold 20p would go in the chicken fund.

Thankfully, we live in a village and have a lovely landlord, who does not seem to mind us turning our garden into a small holding, just got to work on him for the pigs now.

After mentioning the chicken wish to a very kind neighbour, he  made a few phone calls and we were donated a coop and run and three chickens to go in it.  My daughters chicken pot had enough to buy all the equipment and food needed for happy chickens and last thursday they arrived.

The chickens have been named Hershey (left), Peanut (fore) and Twizzler (back).  They are eight weeks old and already have very different personalities.  Peanut is definately in charge.  Hershey is much bigger than the rest and likes a cuddle.  Twizzler is the friendliest and loves a stroke and cuddle and digging holes.

Just got to wait a while for our first egg.  The chickens are cream legbar's and they lay pale blue eggs. 

Of course, its the summer holidays and as I am a early riser, it has been down to me to crawl up the garden early hours, in my P.J's to let them out.

I shall keep you informed of their progress and hopefully some news of egg laying around Christmas time, fingers crossed.

Sam x

And the winner is ....

Firstly, I must apologise for the delay in announcing the winner.  I was up the hospital saturday night with severe pains in my head.  It turns out I have a nasty infection in my ear canal and have been dosed up with pills, painkillers and drops.  Last night the pain got a bit too much and I took to my bed with a heat pad.

Anyway, this morning my daughter pulled out a name and I am pleased to announce the winner is MARGARET.

Well done.  I have messaged you and will pop your prize in the post.

Thank you to everyone that entered.

Sam x

Just Because ... its giveaway time

Hi

Not been blogging for a while, so its nice to see you again :).

I was recently asked to make a little bag as a thank you gift for someone.  Somewhere in between my phone cases and kindle cases.  I proceeded to sew one and then another and then another, now there is no stopping me.  But, before I list them up for sale, I have decided to offer one as a prize in a giveaway.

It's not a bag for anything in particular, just a hanging bag for your door, a bag to pop your phone and lippy in for a night out, a bag to hold your sarnies, a bag for giving to someone special.  I call them 'Just Because Bags' .... just because.... well I can.

To get your hands on this one,  all you have to do is to follow this blog, pop over to Facebook and like my page or  pop along to my Folksy Shop and give it a tweet.  If you could leave a comment below to let me know you have tweeted/facebooked etc, I shall then pick a name of hat and announce to winner on Sunday 8th July 2012.


Good Luck


Pants xxxx

Mirror, Mirror and Chickens too,,,,

My daughter is desperate for some chickens in the garden.  So she is helping me with my new range of mini mirrors.

I have created some fabric ones and also some made from prints of my favourite brooches.

Each one is sent in its own little felt pouch.

From every mirror sold, my daughter gets some pennies put in her Chicken Fund.   I shall keep you posted.

I shall be listing some in my Folksy, Etsy and Notonthehighstreet shops.

And the Winner is ...

Thank you so much to everyone that entered my Lavender Bag giveaway.  My daughter, Bayley, has just done the picking out of the hat.  The winner has been chosen and is....

LITTLE BRICK HOUSE.


Well done.  I will in touch shortly.

Hope you all have a wonderful Bank Holiday, despite the weather.

Sam x

Lavender Bags

It has rained and rained here the past couple of days.  Time to build an ark I think.

Anyway, I thought I would pop a quick giveaway on here today.  I have these little Lavender Bags in my Notonthehighstreet shop.  If you would like to win a couple of them, one of each colour, just leave a comment on this post.  Winner will be picked from the hat next Sunday 6th May at 6pm.

Good luck and thank you for popping over to read my blog.

And the winner is....

Thank you so much to everyone that entered my Spring Giveaway.  I loved reading through all the comments about spring.  The winner has been picked out of the hat and is..... Jenny Arnott.

My teenage daughter loves Nature and Gardening. For Easter our gift to her was money to spend at the garden centre, so she could plant her vegetable patch.  She has decided to start a blog about the garden, her pets, nature and her vegetable growing.  She would love some new followers on her blog.  You can find it at Bayley's Blog.

Its Spring Giveaway Time ....

In the spirit of the lovely weather we are having and ignoring the forecast for next week, I have decided to do a Spring Giveaway.

This brooch is the prize and if you would like to win it just leave a comment, tellling me what you love about Spring and I will pop all the names in the hat on Good Friday 6th April.

Good Luck

Sam xxx

To Err is Human

I do make quite a few mistakes during my sewing days and quite often end up chopping up bits that I don't want to go to waste. Yesterday, whilst in one of my tidy up modes (which does not happen very often), I came across a stash of such mistakes. Of course, not wanting to tidy I immediately started playing and experimenting.

I had been cutting out my brooch tags earlier in the day and soon was busy sewing said mistakes to brooch tags to create a little bunch of tags.

I also managed to make a little fabric tag whilst I was at it.  So much for having a tidy up, will leave that for another day.

Sam x

New Treasury

Etsy Treasury

'Wedding Day' by pantsandpaper

Feeling romantic. Hope you enjoy this selection as much as me x

Bridal Garter Set V... EllaryeBoutiqu... $24.99	Fine cream lace cuf... MySecretFace $26.50	Floss Wedding Photo... Anyeska $85.00
Wedding Guestbook P... SweetWeddingDe... $12.00	Vintage Suitcase We... mudpiesandmari... $42.00	Victoria Wedding Sh... pink2blue $165.00
SALE: 250 Wedding F... RhinoFeathers $125.00	Natural Vintage Ins... braggingbags $16.50	100 Standup Wedding... ExtravagantExi... $139.99
Pale Pink & Vintage... WildRidgeDesig... $50.00	Bridal hair clip fo... serenitycrysta... $30.00	Handmade Bridal Bou... rosebudlipsbri... $155.00
Happily Ever After ... FayesAttic11 $19.00	DOZEN TABLE NUMBERS... SapphireMounta... $23.99	Ivory Romance - Rus... BeaconLane $14.50
Place card holder, ... BrookeHowie $4.95

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Wedding Time

I love this time of year when I get lots of Wedding Orders.  Today I have been creating some new Lavender Favours.  You can order these here Lavender Wedding Favours.  They are £20.00 for a set of 10.

Press

Some time ago I was contacted via Notonthehighstreet.com to ask if I could send some brooches for a possible feature in You and Your Wedding Magazine.  I was super excited as I posted them off.  The feature was to possible appear in Jan/Feb issue.  But, was disappointed to find that it was not included.

Then just the other day I was tweeted to say it had been spotted in the March/April issue which has just come out.  I rushed off, buying numerous copies and there is was.  Whoooo hooooo.  I love the fact that they attached it to a bouquet, it looks so pretty.  Makes me realise that perhaps I should be more inventive with my photography.

Here is the photo from the magazine.

Thank you Theo

Thank you to Theo Paphitis of Dragons Den for picking me this week as one of the winners of #SBS (small business sunday) on twitter.

Every week between 5 - 7.30 you can tweet @TheoPaphitis and include #sbs with a link to your business and he picks his fav 6 and retweets them. If you have not done it yet, have a go this sunday.  It gets you lots of new followers and new people to look at your blog/shop/facebook etc.

And the winner is ....

The winner of my Giveaway, as drawn out of the hat by my daughter, is Rosa Lily.  I am just off to contact her.

Thank you to everyone that entered and for all the lovely comments.

Pants xxx

Giveaway

So its July, where has the sun gone?.  Not that I seem to have much time lately to escape outdoors.  I am busy sewing away ready for Christmas.  I have been lucky enough to gain 2 new stockists this month and it is always an exciting time getting stock ready to send to galleries.

I thought, as you do in the middle of summer, that it was time for a Christmas Giveaway.

This year I have made some Shabby Chic style Christmas decorations and you can get in early before I list them in the shops by entering this giveaway and winning a pair.  They are hand stamped and finished with vintage Mother of Pearl Buttons and have a twine hanger.

 

To be in with a chance of winning go take a look at my Folksy Shop and leave a comment below telling me what your favourite item is.  For an extra chance tweet this giveaway.  I shall put all the names in the hat and draw out the winner on Sunday 31st July 2011.  Good luck.

Pants Shop this way .... 

Pants x

Bring on the Views

A lot of sellers on Folksy have talked about viewings lately, what time is best to list, how to get more views etc.  I have been lucky enough to be one of the top most viewed shops on Folksy for the past few months so I thought I would try and share some of what I do to get those views.

I am not the worlds most technical person and getting to grips with social networking has been a struggle for me, but Im getting there.


For me my first challenge was Twitter.  So I signed up and started following a few people and having a chat.  Soon I got some followers and then some more.  I have over 2000 at present. Now not everyone is going to click your links, but lots do.  I have had quite a few sales from there.   And if only 1 of each of the followers friends then follows me I would be up to over 4000.

Try and be sociable, dont just tweet links and do help other people out by re-tweeting their links too, soon people will be retweeting yours and thats going to all their followers too.

I signed up to Tweetdeck as it is much easier to see what is going on as you can have lots of columns open for different things.  I have the timeline, my mentions, my followers, a search for #folksy, #junebugs (the folksy listing club this month) and I do sometimes open a column and  search for people mentioning things that are relevant to my shop ie. #purses.   If someone mentions they are looking for a new purse I tweet them a link to mine.

Once I felt I had got to grips with twitter it was time to concentrate on Facebook.

I already had a personal profile, but had seen that some people had a business page too.  So that seemed like a great idea.  I created my Pantsandpaper page.  Each time I list I pop a link on facebook, again this has brought in lots of views and sales.  I enjoy looking through peoples pages and like those that appeal to me. The more pages you like, the more that will probably like you back and then their followers like you too, again its rolling.    Now I have over 1000 'likes' and more followers each day.

I also use Craftjuice.  You sign up, and submit an item.  It then can be seen by others who click if they like it, when it has had so many clicks Craftjuice then tweets it.  You can also re-tweet it and other peoples.  Craftjuice also has a facebook page, so your item will also appear on there.  Dont forget to click on other people items and that will build some followers and people who will then click on yours.  Dont forget each of these sites are about networking, so make sure you help other people out too.


The latest site I use is Pinterest.  You can have a number of boards which you fill with whatever takes your fancy.  I have a board for Folksy Shops and add things that I have seen that I like.  I have another which is things from my shop.  I have one for things I see that are gorgeous etc etc.  Again, dont just pin your own items, pin other peoples and not just other Folksy shops, but try looking through Etsy etc.  If you pin something from etsy and people like it, they look at your boards and they follow you maybe and then you have perhaps some international followers.

This is also true on other sites.  Dont just think GB think global.  I have just stocked a shop in Portugal, which I believe found me on Facebook.  You have the whole world to socialise with.

I also use Stumbleupon I am just getting to grips with this site and am not quite sure what to do, but there is some advice and info about it to be found on the Folksy Blog.

Advcrtising.  I do also advertise.  To do this I use Project Wonderful.  This is a great site where you can place ads on other peoples blogs, websites etc.  It can cost very little.  You can also arrange advertising space on your own blog, which people pay for, it then gives you money to spend on your own advertising.  You dont need to be a wizz kid to set up an advert.  Mine is simply a photo which links to my folksy shop.  I only advertise in a couple of places at weekends, when I think most people have got time on their hands to sit and browse some blogs.  This usually brings in around 100 views.

There are lots of handmade directories.  Have a search around and add yourselves to the lists.  There is sometimes a very small charge for this.  Try this one Shop Handmade UK.


Of course there is also blogging, which I am particularly bad at doing.  So cant give much advice in that direction but today there is a great bit on the Folksy Blog all about getting more comments and followers to your blog.


When you are doing all of the above think about timing.  Dont just charge in stumbling, tweeting etc.  It is no point tweeting early morning if your followers are all asleep.  Again there are very quiet times throughout the day, like school run and tea time.  Think about when people are likely to be looking.  I use craftjuice around lunchtime on the basis that by the time it is tweeted it will be evening and busier on twitter.


Also, if you are looking at USA viewings on your shop, then dont tweet when they will all be asleep, remember time zones.


The best thing to remember is have fun,enjoy chatting and meeting people.  Dont try and do it all at once if like me you struggle with working out how to do it all.  Concentrate on one thing at a time and build it up.


Join in, there are plenty of giveaways, chat forums etc to meet like minded people.


If you want to see how your doing check out this site Social Mention.  Pop in the name of your shop and see where you have been mentioned.  It is great fun. I have found out that I was on The Altoid Mint Website for a while.  I am listed in Ben & Jerry's top fav twitter names and one of my silly conversations I had on twitter was even mentioned in the Seattle Times.  


I wont offer any advice on how to use all these sites, but there is plenty of help out there. 


Have fun, enjoy chatting, and see those views go up and hopefully more sales as well.


Sam x