New Craft Supplies in My Shop!

As I mentioned last week, I've re-opened my craft supplies shop and am busy stocking it with lots of colourful, crafty goodness.

I've been busy photographing, measuring, and listing a whole bunch of lovely new things. Wanna see?

There are felt rainbows (and pick-you-own-colour felt squares), rainbow ribbons, pretty rainbows of pins, and bargain rainbow embroidery thread bundles. So much lovely colour!

I've also got some fab ribbon that's printed to look like a measuring tape, some black elastic for mask-making, cover buttons and a super-useful button covering tool (perfect for making felt buttons), and some GORGEOUS shimmery two-tone buttons.

Then there's embroidery scissors (so useful for cutting out small felt pieces!), lovely wooden cotton reels, big card bobbins for organising your yarns and ribbons, and some white elastic.

I've also bought some cute and colourful stickers. These are great for crafty projects, gift wrapping, journalling and scrapbooking, and for sticking on your snail mail.

There are cute woodland animal stickers (I've been sticking these on my shop parcels lately, I love them!), rainbow star, dot, and heart sticker sheets, and lots of colourful dots. I think the dots would be wonderful for creating bullet-pointed lists in your journal or diary!

I've also got colourful retro vinyl stickers featuring rainbows and unicorns and other fun stuff, and I've got some bargain books of mini stickers: cute kitties and happy stars.

Pen-wise, I've listed some fun colour-changing pens and a pair of metallic markers (I love a good metallic marker!). Then I've got giant wooden pegs (because why not? Oversized stuff is so joyful!) and packs of gorgeous glitter card (sooooooo shiny).

If you'd rather have tiny pegs than giant ones, don't worry - I've got you covered. I'm also selling a fab pack of luggage tags (I just adore those bright colours), a useful pack of coloured card, and some flower press kits.

I'm particularly excited to be stocking the flower presses as I feel like they're just the kind of relaxing, nature-loving craft we all need right now! I've got three sizes in stock, ranging from a mini press to the biggest flower press I have ever seen in my LIFE (seriously, it is HUGE). The boards are blank for you to decorate with paint, decoupage, stickers, etc, so one of these kits is basically two crafty projects in one. 

Click here to visit my shop and see everything that's in stock!

Craft-Themed Jigsaw Puzzles for Sewing, Knitting, Quilting, and Crafting Fans!

I have totally fallen in love with jigsaw puzzles and was delighted to discover recently that you can buy crafting-themed jigsaws. They're so colourful and cosy, I adore them.

Obviously, when I set up my new Amazon Influencer page (a little "storefront" where I can curate lists of things I love and where if you end up buying something I earn a small amount of commission for the referral) a list of craft-themed puzzles was one of the first things I had to put together!

(In the US? Click here to view my page on Amazon.com)

There are puzzles decorated with art and craft supplies...

 

... sometimes with the addition of cats!

Puzzles featuring quilts and quilters...

 

 ... granny squares...

... and haberdashery shops.

There are also puzzles depicting dream creative workspaces, including a lots of cosy craft-filled sheds!

 

I want to move into that last picture immediately.  

Click here to view the whole list of puzzles on Amazon.co.uk, or click here to view a similar list I've put together on Amazon.com. (All the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links).

Merchant & Mills + Uniqlo = Awesomeness!

Just before Christmas Katie tweeted about an awesome new range at Uniqlo, designed in collaboration with Merchant & Mills. Sewing-themed clothing? Awesome!

The range was only available in Uniqlo's Asian stores at the time... but it's now reach the UK stores. Hurrah!

There are womens t-shirts and sweatshirts printed with sewing- and making-themed text plus lovely vintage illustrations of scissors and sewing machines...

 

...  all in muted colours that match the kind of shades Merchant & Mills tend to use for their products and packaging.

There are also t-shirts for the guys...

... plus a range of tote bags.

Aren't they great? No prizes for guessing what shop I'll be visiting next week!

Click here to ooh over the full range in Uniqlo's UK store, and click here to visit Uniqlo's US site.

(All images taken from Uniqlo's website.)

My Grandmother's Sewing Box

I was a guest blogger over at &Stitches yesterday - writing about the treasure that is my grandmother's sewing box.

Click here to read the post!

Something New: Cards!

Do you remember back in the summer I posted a quick snap of something new I was working on?

Well, it turned into a design for the first ever batch of  "Lupin Handmade" Christmas cards...

 

What do you think?

I'm really pleased with how the design turned out (I can't wait to send some of these to my friends this Christmas!) and the "taking a photo of my work and getting it printed on cards" process went okay for a first try.

When I got the cards back from the printers I unfortunately spotted a small bit of fluff that was sitting on the design when I photographed it (oops!). It's pretty small but still, I'd never want to sell anything at full price that wasn't 100% perfect so I'm listing this first batch of cards in my shops at bargain prices.

Single cards are available over in my Big Cartel shop for £1.50 each, and sets of 4 cards are available from my Big Cartel shop and my Etsy shop for £4.50. 

While I was ordering the 'Winter Robins' cards, I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally get round to something that's been on my "to do at some point" list for simply ages - get some cards printed with some snaps of some of the gorgeous haberdashery bits and bobs from my grandmother's sewing box (inspired by this photo).

One card features some gorgeous vintage spools of thread...

 

... and the other features an assortment of scissors & shears:

As with the Christmas cards, the first batch of these unfortunately aren't 100% perfect. In this case, the images printed out a bit darker than I'd expected (the background is more grey than white). I'll be tinkering with the images and getting them reprinted, but in the meantime these prototypes can be found in my shops at the same bargain prices as the Christmas cards.

Single scissors and threads cards can be found in my Big Cartel shop, and mixed sets of 4 cards (2 scissors, 2 threads) can be found in my Big Cartel shop and my Etsy shop.

Pretty Nostalgic

Have you heard about Pretty Nostalgic yet?

It's a lovely new independent magazine, published in the UK, with a love for all things vintage. According to their website....

"Petty Nostalgic is a bi-monthly home and lifestyle magazine that celebrates vintage, traditional and sustainable ways of living. We passionately support independent British producers and love seeking out unique, eclectic homes and meeting people who love life and live by their own rules. The magazine is packed with inspiration to help make your house a home, to fill your kitchen with homegrown and foraged food, to inspire you to reuse and upcycle and to make every day an adventure. It is a handbook for creative, curious and resourceful folk who yearn for a simple, stylish and sustainable lifestyle."

I love the motto on the cover of the first issue: Spend wisely, Waste less, Appreciate more.

I got sent a contributor copy as one of my photos is included in a lovely A-Z of haberdashery:

Those vintage threads belonged to my grandmother :)

It's lovely to see them in such a nice magazine alongside so many pretty photos and illustrations...

Pretty Nostalgic is available to buy online, or from these independent stockists.

A Rainbow of Embroidery Thread

I finished winding all my embroidery thread onto those cardboard bobbins...

Next came the fun part: sorting it into colour order to make an embroidery thread rainbow!

The rainbow is pretty (oh so pretty!) but also practical as I can see at a glance what colours I've got in my stash.

If you fancy organising your own embroidery thread stash, I've added some boxes to the craft supplies section on my website. There are large boxes...

... and small ones too:

Each box comes with lots of card bobbins for winding your thread, but I've also got packs of card and plastic bobbins you can buy separately if you fancy organising your threads neatly but already have a box to keep them in.

Over in my Etsy shop you can buy sets of boxes + embroidery thread: a large box & 72 skeins of thread, or a small box and 36 skeins of thread. Here's one I wound earlier:

Keeping Secrets

I'm working on lots of projects at the moment that are TOP SECRET.

Well, perhaps that's a bit over dramatic... but I can't show them to you yet, anyway!

So instead, here's a peek at a few of the things I've been sewing with lately, including some fab silver embroidery thread:

Coloured Threads

In an attempt to help me be able to find things a bit more easily I've been re-organising my sewing supplies.

I've got two mini chests of drawers from IKEA that I (like many crafters around the world, I suspect!) use for storing my small bits and bobs for sewing. Some of the drawers didn't even close any more because they were overflowing with ribbons and miscellaneous haberdashery gubbins... but now they're neat and tidy and there's a place for everything! Hurrah!


This neatness has mostly been achieved by clearing out lots of the random stuff I'm hoarding for mystery Blue-Peter-style craft projects in the future (now safely tucked away under the bed in the spare room), leaving room for the day-to-day supplies I need regular access to like buttons and beads and tape measures and sewing thread (sorted by colour, of course).

Pins + Pressing Pause

Yesterday I counted lots of wheels of pretty pins...


... so many yummy bright colours...


... pictures were a must!


Unfortunately the pins will soon be vanishing from my shops as I'm down to my last few boxes and will be discontinuing them after that (hence the need to carefully count up the ones I've got left!). You can buy them from my website, or my Etsy shop while stocks last.

I'm going to be closing all my shops for a couple of weeks (22nd Oct - 4th Nov) to take a break from the day-to-day running of my online business (sending emails, sorting orders, listing and relisting products, sending more emails, etc) to work on a couple of other projects and take a bit of a breather before the festive season begins in earnest.

I'll still be blogging though, so you won't have a chance to miss me :)