Blogtacular 2014 ::

This past weekend was finally time for the event I've been so anxiously looking forward to it since it was announced last year-Blogtacular.
I've admired both Kat and Kat's blogs and work in general for a long time and it seemed so apparent from the beginning that this was going to be a truly great event.  I certainly wasn't wrong!

I roomed with the lovely Joanne of NotSoGranny, we headed down to London early on Friday to meet up at the Victoria and Albert Museum for lunch and browsing.  After that we checked ourselves into out hotel and after a few small errors in map reading on my part, arrived at the Blogtacular venue (the beautiful Royal Insititute) just a few minutes late, for registration, goodie bag collecting, drinks, and chatting before the opening keynote speaker. The venue itself was so beautiful and absolutely perfect for this event.

Joy Cho of Oh Joy opened the event with an incredibly inspiring talk on how she made her way to where she is today.  She was so personable, positive and knowledgeable in her field.  Her talk really left me with a head full of ideas and goals for the future of my blog and business.

Joanne and I headed off for some dinner, after a little more exploring on foot, before attempting to get some sleep.  My mind was so preoccupied with ideas and I was so excited about what the following day would entail that I managed very little!

Saturday kicked off with a video interview with Will Taylor of Bright Bizarre.  One of the things I most enjoyed about all the talks was hearing how these wonderfully successful bloggers had come to find themselves doing what they do.  Something that really struck a chord with me from Will's interview were his points on doing what's right for you as a blogger and retaining your own voice and the original feeling of your blog, ignoring what everyone else doing and sticking to what feels right for you.

Anne Ditmeyer of Pret a Voyager followed with a really great talk on values and the importance of getting paid.  Something that is often so underdone in the creative industries.  Her blog is fabulous and her skillshare courses and vayable tours also look really interesting.

After a short break for coffee and a chance to browse the workshops and market place and sample some super delicious meringues from the meringue girls (gin and tonic meringues are basically everything I love in one amazing mouthful!),  Joanne and I headed to Tilly Walnes and Vicky Orchard's talk on turning your blog into a book.
Joanne and I had met Tilly the evening before, where Joanne showed off the beautiful Coco dress she had expertly made from Tilly's pattern and purchased her new book.  So inspired by Joanne's success at sewing I ordered a copy of said book from amazon as soon as I got home!

As writing a book of some kind or other has been on my mind forever, I found these ladies opinions on the matter super interesting.  I imagine impending baby will probably put any plans of book writing on hold for a while but I cannot wait to attempt to put some of this advice into practice in the future.

Next was Hands on Styling with Ellie Tennant.  I'm so useless at this kind of thing, so it was really great to hear some of Ellie's tips and have a go at styling ourselves with the wonderful array of props that had been provided.

After lunch it was the Blog Business Panel with Courtney Adamo, Annabel Beeforth, Joy Cho and Allison Sadler.  I think this was one of my favourite talks of the day.  Hearing how these women have made incredibly successful careers for themselves through blogging was just so inspiring.

Keith Stephenson and Mark Hampshire of Mini Moderns did a really interesting talk on branding, I was really torn between this and the Social Media with Intention with Cathy James that clashed, but I'm so pleased I choose as I did.  Keith and Mark were great, so funny and interesting on a topic I generally find a bit daunting.

The last part of the day was, Secrets of the Editors wtih Kate Carter, Caroline Rowland, Lara Watson and Heather Young.  It was so interesting to hear from magazine editors about the way in which they choose content, structure articles and build reader loyalty and definitely some key points to keep in mind when blogging.

The closing keynote speaker was Natalie Lue of Baggage Reclaim and Bambino Goodies.  Her talk was so wonderfully empowering and full of great advice for life in general as well as blogging!  So many of her words are still ringing in my head as I go through my day, but something that I'm sure will stick with me for a very long time to come was 'you will always have more ideas than time and that is OK'.

The whole weekend was just so wonderful, despite being incredibly exhausted I'm so full of ideas and inspiration I just cannot wait to put into practice.  I'm so thankful to all the speakers who attended and especially to Kat and Kat for putting it on.  I cannot wait for next year!

If you missed the event, fear not, the whole weekend was filmed by CTV and you will be able to purchase access to the talks at some point in the future, sign up to the Blogtacular mailing list to be the first to know when this service becomes available.

Some of the photos used in this post are the official Blogtacular photos taken by Will Ireland and are provided courtesy of Mollie Makes

Absence ::

Oh my, it's been a while, I'm sorry to have disappeared so suddenly and without any explantation.
The beginning of the year did not exactly go as hoped, there were losses and upsets and dramas, that put a stop to all my well planned New Year resolutions and then I got very ill, super tired and to our great surprise we discovered we were expecting another baby!  Milo is beyond thrilled especially since we discovered it will be the little sister he has been so keen to have.

Those first 3 months were super tough, I was so unwell and so unbelievably exhausted, all the time. I got way behind on work and am really only just managing to catch up.

However I'm now safely in my second trimester, the nausea has long gone and I don't nod off every time I dare to sit down for more than a minute.  I'm finally feeling like I can get back to work and after an incredibly inspiring weekend in London for Blogtacular, I'm hoping to find the time to get properly back into blogging.

Experimenting with Yarn and Kool Aid ::

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, last week I dappled in a bit of yarn dyeing.

Nothing remotely fancy, I used some sachets of Kool Aid I purchased at Wonderwool last year, some white sock yarn I purchased from my local yarn store, a frame I knocked together using bits of wood I had around the house and an evening of my time.

But from that I managed to produce something in 6 colours, that stripes (fairly evenly too!).  It's not perfect, there are a few patches of white and I think the sock itself looks a little like someone's taken a white sock and coloured it in with a bunch of sharpies, but hey, it was my first attempt at self striping yarn and only my second ever attempt at dyeing so I think I did OK. Plus I learned a whole lot to improve the process next time.

Unfortuantely I have much too much work to catch up on this week to spend much time on these socks, but I'm managing to sneak a stripe in here and there throughout my days.

Happy New Year ::

A belated Happy New Year to you!  I hope you all had fabulous festive seasons, full of family, food and fun.

We're only just starting to return to normal here, Milo goes back to school tomorrow then there will be a whole lot of catching up to do on my part! The school holidays and general festive chaos have meant I don't really feel I've started my new year proper. The slates aren't clean (ie the house and workroom are as far from tidy as can be) my thoughts and plans have yet to be properly put into place and my diary remains as empty as the day I bought it (that's not to say I am free of any commitments for the upcoming year, I just haven't had time to put them neatly away within the pages yet).  

What I do have have wistful thoughts and hopeful plans for the upcoming year, zooming around in my mind, waiting for a peaceful moment to be put into words on a page.  I don't really have much success at resolutions (who does?!) but I do like to put onto paper all I would like to achieve over the upcoming 12 months, whether that be work or personal achievements, realistic or less so.  I find that writing them down and returning to those words regularly helps to keep my hopes at the front of my mind and hopefully this means I'm less likely to forget what it actually is I'm striving to achieve once the regular routine of work gets back underway.  

Over the past 3 years I've also been using Susannah Conway's Unravelling workbook to help me look back over the 12 months just gone and plan through the 12 months ahead.  I love these little books and keep them all in the same little binder, it's nice to be able to look back at the dreams I dreamed and see how many have become a reality.  You can download the workbook here.  I'm still slowly working my way through mine for this year.

A few of my hopes for this year are ::

• blog more regularly and with a better routine (I'm really looking forward Blogtacular in May which I'm hoping will help me advance further with this)
• create some new lines for my etsy shop (I really want to create pieces that are much more 'me', items I really want to wear and am really proud to sell)
• learn more fibre arts (I've dabbled a little in yarn dyeing but would really like to do more of this and advance on from using Kool Aid!  I'd also like to get my knitting machine working and explore what this has to offer)
• visit more friends and family
• make an actual proper decent income from my craft businesses!

Wishing you all much success and creativity in 2014.

Christmas Crafting :: Crochet Bobble Hats ::

Another speedy little handmade gift project.  This time bobble hats for little ones.

I love these little hats, destined for a pair of twins, I used Red Heart Soft that I had left over from my Rainbow Slipper Socks, which is fabulous for this sort of project, soft, washable and available in a great range of colours.

I made the pattern up as I went along, working top down in half treble stitch (possibly my favourite of the crochet stitches!) I worked in continuous rounds and then added a contrasting band of treble crochet as ribbing along the bottom.  And of course a pom pom on top!

To make my pompoms I just use my hand and then trim the up to make them even.

Quick and easy each hat took me an evening, but they're super cute and fun.

Christmas Crafting :: Stamp Making ::

Last night was Craft Night In at Cafe Moochoo and for a bit of a change I thought I would leave the knitting/crochet to one side and work on something different.

Inspired by a picture I saw on pinterest of these lovely bauble stamps from etsy, I decided to try my hand at some of my own.

I purchased a set of engraving tools (I think from Hobbycraft but I can't see them on their website now) quite a while ago, to make some stamps for my etsy shop, so I took those, a newly purchased set of rubbers along with me and with a little creative inspiration from my friends this is what I produced.

I'm really quite pleased with my little festive stamps, they only took me a couple of hours and were so much fun to make.

Next job is to get Milo to adorn the wrapping paper using these and a some colourful ink!

Christmas Crafting :: Magic Yarn Balls ::

As Christmas nears, far too quickly for my liking, it's becoming fairly apparent to me, there won't be as many handmade gifts under the tree this year as I would have liked. So I'm looking for quick ideas, that are just as thoughtful to fill in the gaps.

These magic yarn balls are wonderful, I made one for my sister a couple of years ago, but as my nieces are now both in to yarn crafts (one knits, one crochets) they seemed the perfect gift for them.

The premise is a simple one, take some yarn and wind it into a ball full of gifts! The gifts need to be fairly small, but you'll be surprised what you can hide in there.

I forgot to take photos before I started the first one, but I managed to wrap up, a lip balm, some hair chalk, a bath bomb, a few little owl shaped rubbers and some chocolate coins. I also made some macramé bracelets, using my skills learnt at the By The Yard workshop I attended and some of my loveheart beads.

I really think they'll love these, I know I would be utterly thrilled to receive one of these.

In fact I was thinking it would be really wonderful to organise some kind of Magic Yarn Ball swap, pop a comment below if you think this is a good idea/something you'd like to take part in and if there's enough interest, maybe I'll organise one in the new year.