things i'm loving 'baskets of happiness' & my Gifts of Serendipity 'Six Senses Tour' feature

Greetings all,

Phew, what a week of market preparation.  If you could imagine the most fantastic market, only on once a quarter, 12 000+ people come-a-shopping in a massive, highly anticipated surge of handmade & handcrafted passion . . . well you'd understand the time i invest in production for such an event. 

Playing along with Paisley Jade's Things I'm Loving this Friday . . . basically it's 'basket porn'.

Mid week i picked up some new baskets from Provincial - picture French Provincial style at affordable prices, then 30% off this basket range = shopping spree!!  You can't present handmade goodness at such an upmarket event in broken down old baskets.  Ok, i might have broken/ stepped on a few baskets to make way for new ones, shhhh.  Presentation is everything, right??

 There are bread baskets, laundry basket, fruit crates, caddies & even a bicycle basket (with actual leather & brass fixings for your bike but i saw beyond that - i saw the perfect basket for my Liberty of London brooches).  All in that French-country-living shade of grey & linen, what is not to love??  Better yet, not a single thing i wouldn't use in my home, after market use.

 The charcoal tissue had these wrapped up inside - tea light caraffes.  I lit them tonight with some of those IKEA smelly fruity tea lights, quite pretty. 

 The glass carafes remind me of the wine my mother would buy in America, it had a jam jar kind of pull off lid.  She'd bring the carafes home in our luggage, they are EXACTLY like this, only with a base - these ones are bottomless & you place them over the lit tea lights.  Clever.  Just don't hold the wire holder by the handle, it's a bit, er, drunk, unbalanced & tipsy.

 I couldn't resist checking in on Revolve at the Tip just in case they had any decent baskets for my market wares.  Et voila, check out this bundle - one is even in the shape of a heart + another wooden caddy, perfect for my badge display.

 You see correctly, $10 for the lot, ten buckers!!

 Now i can't think of a single thing my husband will like in this post, he loathes my basket obsession, yet happily tosses his keys in them, socks in another, boots in the garage one . . . he'll come around.  To him they are like Tupperware, he insists he'll bury them with me. 

Have a gorgeous long weekend if you're in Australia, celebrating the Queen's April birthday in June, because that is when it suits us.  

If you're in my 'hood, join us on Saturday for the amazing Handmade Market at the National Convention Centre 10a.m. - 4p.m., which is just a short walk from . . . ANZAC Parade where at 10a.m. the Trooping the Colour is on, open to the public for the first time (it's a wonderful historic Royal Military College Parade honouring our Queen, normally at RMC by invitation only).  Oh that's a point, watch out for road closures around ANZAC Parade & Constitution Road Saturday morning.  Community Service Announcement over.
For those of you at the Handmade Business Summit, i'll see you at lunch.
Special mention that darling Felicity Serendipity has featured my Six Senses Tour of Canberra, check the post out, check her blog out, check out how wonderful Gifts of Serendipity makes you feel about your own dollups of lovely in your own life.  Thanks Felicity!!
Have gorgeous weekends everyone, love Posie

i can sing a rainbow, um, i can make a rainbow

Greetings all,

Well i can't sing a rainbow, i have an awful singing voice (tone deaf & fortunately i know it) but i can see all the colours of the rainbow around me right now . . . which is handy as it's ONE stressful week with major production for Handmade Market on Saturday.  An impressive list of bloggers are coming as new stall holders or visitors, including Maxabella Loves - thanks for your support!! 

Last night i picked up my girls from a sleep over at a friend's farm in Murrumbateman (thanks for all the lovely comments about the last post on twins, yes, i embrace my good fortune!!) & look what they have been busy picking . . .

crabapples in varying degrees of ripeness & . . .  

 quinces, my nightime photography not doing their greeness justice.

 Then home to finish off a rainbow of products for the market, like children's necklaces.

 Just in time, a shipment of amazing craft-enabling Tasmanian Oak knitting needles.

 Lounge craft = hand stitching penny wheels & buttons onto headbands.

 A splash of pastel, i'm thinking of doing up lucky dip jars with pom poms, bias, ric, rac, ribbon & other trim, plus buttons for a basket of fun on my stall.  Brilliant way to share the love & offer up cost price haberdashery i can finally part with.

 Today was spent making . . . 300 Liberty of London badges.  I cut the fabric sitting in the car park outside school each afternoon last week & now i've sorted them into sets, plus some singles.  I have this fabulous 1950s travel case to display all my Liberty printed goodies in, including hair clips, hair slides & buttons too.  Kind of hoping it will be a show stopper. 

 I've made 16 tulle ruffled bottom bloomers, they took ALL Saturday & i'll thread the elastic in the carpark outside school this week (you safety pin the ends together, then do a mega elastic sewing session in one hit when you're next at a machine).  Pricing these is difficult, they use expensive materials & take at least an hour a pair to create (as i restitch the tulle ruffles to the actual fabric).  I've done 3 sizes but want to try to do another dozen, especially in the larger sizes.

 Last market i didn't take headbands, new hair clips, coin purses or cosmetic purses - um, 4 of my biggest sellers, so this time i've come prepared with a tonne of each.  The Hello Kitty fabrics sell well at Shop Handmade & the new hair clips will all be in Liberty prints!!

Another no brainer product i've managed to neglect for a while are simple gift tags, i normally have them with fabric but this time i'm doing stamps - vintage, Euro & quirky - in an 8 for $5 pack, mixed up colours & styles.
Phew, yes, exhausting & a very busy week ahead, but making the most of my rainbowy outlook, or i'd crack under the pressure i put myself under.  I need to cut about 100m of fabric to feel like i have filled up my baskets from the last market.  Have a beautiful & colourful week too, love Posie
PS the winner of the Handmade Business Summit All Inclusive Pass for this Friday in Canberra is Fiona, who is just starting up a small business now, Congratulations, you were randomly selected by Julie, Queen of Handmade, thank you to everyone for entering!!

EDIT: just found this drawing on my sewing machine from my rainbow boy!!  The children were drawing & painting up a storm today.  Bliss.