Category: shopping

Doing the Sums

I’ve been running Eternal Magpie and the Inexplicable Emporium as a tiny business since April this year. I’ve been very good so far, and sitting down once a month to do the sums, rather than leaving it all until I have to have one giant panic about the tax return in January. (I have yet to make a suit out of my taxes, but I’m sure the time will come!)

Sitting down to fill in my spreadsheet this afternoon, I was disappointed to discover that this is the first month that I’ve failed to break even – mainly because I haven’t made as many sales as usual, and I still have Etsy fees to pay. The numbers are small, deliberately so in these early stages, but I was still slightly confused about where all the money had gone – not just this month, but since I started.

Each time I make a little profit, I’ve been buying materials to make the next lot of Things. Except, as it turns out, I haven’t actually been using those materials. I’ve been putting them in a cupboard and “saving them for later”. Well, it looks as though “later” might be here! I can’t afford to buy anything else right now, so I’d better start using up what I’ve got.

What I’ve Got turns out to look like this:

  • A huge bag of 2″ d-rings and steel rivets, for making belts
  • Three different kinds of mordant, for natural dyeing
  • A bag of linen buttons, for natural dyeing
  • Moulds for making scented wax tarts
  • Three large wool batts for making felt
  • Three different kinds of wooden buttons, for adorning naturally-dyed accessories
  • Three different kinds of powdered natural dyestuffs
  • Eight felt hoods for making new cloche hats
  • Craft felt and beads for making brooches
  • Wool felt pieces for making hat embellishments

Of course there have been other costs too – stationery , shipping, and Etsy/PayPal fees being the greatest of them. But I do have rather a lot of materials here, just waiting to be used.

Sadly the natural dyeing went completely by the wayside this summer, as the new garden simply wasn’t in a state where I could grow any useful plants. But I do have powdered dye, and mordants, and cream cotton fabric and undyed wool, so that’s something I can make a start on while the weather’s still nice. (It’s an outdoor/garage-based activity really, as the dyes sometimes smell very bad!)

The D-rings are waiting for me to actually finish my first experimental felted belt – I wasn’t sure it would be sturdy enough to carry the weight of the rings. That’s about an hour’s work, to finish off the felting and hammer in the rivets, so I’ve got no excuse for just getting that done! In fact, I could go and do that now.

The wax tarts have been put on one side until the winter, which I think is nearly upon us, despite the fact that today is glorious! I plan to melt down the old scented candles, dilute them with a little more soy wax (our overwhelming feedback was that they were a bit strong!), and pour them into shapes that can be melted with an oil burner. I’ve also now found a supplier of ethically-produced and imported oil burners, so I can put together a gift set for anybody who doesn’t own one already.

I haven’t done a great deal of felting lately, mainly because I’ve been a bit down in the dumps about it. I made lots of felted flowers back in the summer, which were widely “ooooh”ed at on Facebook and Instagram, but I haven’t actually sold many of them, and their Etsy listings are just about to expire. I tried turning one of the larger ones into a fascinator, but I wasn’t very happy with the way it came out. I think they might need a little more work (perhaps embroidery? or beads?) before they’re right.

Same with the hats, really – I’ve just been a bit un-inspired. It’s difficult to find the motivation for making lots of new hats, when the ones I’ve made already are sitting on a shelf unsold. Of course it’s been summer, which isn’t the right time of year for selling warm wool hats! I’ve been watching a lot of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, to get me in the 1920s hat frame of mind, and now that the winter coats are starting to turn up in the shops, it’s getting easier to see what colours and styles people might want to wear this season.

Trouble is, sitting around feeling uninspired turns out to be a terrible way of generating new sales. (Surprise!!) If I’m not feeling enthusiastic about my own work, there’s no reason on earth why anybody else should be, so no wonder my sales have been low this month. But, plans are in place for making improvements, and for kicking myself up the behind. And, of course, I’ve got lots of lovely new materials, all ready and waiting for me to make lots of new things!

Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Birthday Sale on Etsy – 41% off everything!

I am 40!

Today is my very last day of Being Forty. As of tomorrow I’m forty-one, which puts me officially In My Forties. Does that mean I’m supposed to start pretending to be a grown-up? I do hope not.

Anyway, for the third year running, I’m having a one-day Birthday Sale in both of my Etsy shops. If you’d like to make a purchase, you can use the code “HAPPYBIRTHDAY” at checkout to receive a whopping 41% off everything except the cost of shipping.

The Eternal Magpie shop can be found here…

…and here’s Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium.

Enjoy my birthday and your shopping!

Vintage Pattern Round-Up

Advance 8065

For a while now I’ve been buying a vintage sewing pattern each month, with a view to expanding my wardrobe into the realms of Things I Actually Want To Wear, rather than Things I Wanted To Sew. Apparently those two things are not the same, and it’s resulted in a very full wardrobe, and Nothing To Wear.

I made one of these to wear to the Vintage Night at work, and I’ve actually worn it rather a lot over the summer. Lightweight, cool, smart for work or all the parties that I never go to – I love this one, and have fabric set aside for another. It simply screams NOVELTY PRINT at me, and I have a huge list of fabrics that I want to buy from eQuilter, once I’ve saved up enough to pay the customs fees. (Bonus: their Lorax prints are all on organic cotton!)

1960s Sew Knit N Stretch 228

During my adventures in Me-Made May, I discovered that the key to making these dresses look properly smart is having the appropriate underwear to go with them. As the fibromyalgia simply won’t allow me to wear 1950s-style girdles on a daily basis (nor will my budget, sadly!), I thought this bra slip would be a good alternative. Fitted at the top, but not too constricting around the waist. Making it myself also means that I can choose fabrics such as cotton or silk, which will be much kinder to my skin than the expected nylon and polyester knits. This one will require a shopping spree to acquire the right fabrics before I can start, although I probably have enough powernet left over from my Structured Lingerie course to make a prototype first.

1960s Simplicity 5890

This lovely pattern, very sadly, didn’t work out. I used the blouse pattern with the last of the My Little Pony fabric, and it just didn’t fit me right, so it’s now sitting in the Etsy shop waiting to find a good home. I did make the dress, in a nice grey suiting, but when I tried it on to check the fit… it was awful. A perfectly nice outfit (I made the gored skirt version), just really not for me. It looked very uniform-ish… which it’s supposed to, I guess. It’s a smart working-woman’s outfit. It’s just that apparently I am not a smart working woman! Thankfully, at the Museum, I don’t have to be. The dress code is “smart-casual”, so there is absolutely no requirement for me to turn up in a blouse and a pinafore dress if I don’t want to. Phew.

Monkee Genes Slim Fit Chinos

A few months ago I did decide that I should probably head slightly towards the smarter end of the smart-casual spectrum, especially as I’m the first person that most visitors to the Museum see when they come in. To that end, it was time for my too-small and rather frayed old jeans to be retired – which meant new jeans. I could have sewn them myself, but I don’t much like sewing trousers or heavy fabrics, so I decided to go shopping. I’m very determined that everything I buy should (as far as possible) be handmade, organic, or at the very least ethically produced, and with jeans this is easier said than done. Eventually I’d saved up £130 to treat myself to two pairs of Monkee Genes. However, they’re described as “slim fit”, which I’m most definitely not, so I wanted to try them on before I spent my money. I discovered that my local branch of Sports Direct (a shop I’d never normally venture into!) was a stockist, so I wandered in and discovered two things. One: Monkee Genes Slim Fit Chinos were my perfect trousers, and Two: they were in the sale. For £8-£10 per pair. Not £65 each. (In fact, the last few pairs of these chinos are currently on the Sports Direct website for SIX POUNDS A PAIR!!)

So, I did what any sensible person would do – I bought every pair in the shop in my size, then came home and bought every pair on the Sports Direct website, until I found myself with NINE PAIRS of ridiculously-coloured organic cotton chinos, for less than the price of the two pairs of jeans I’d originally intended to buy. I’d say “oops”, but do you know what? I’d budgeted the money for this purpose, I spent less than I’d planned, and given that my last two pairs of jeans saw me through five years of wear, I can’t imagine myself needing to buy trousers again for a very long time! These chinos fit well, they’re very comfortable, they’re organic cotton, and they’re ethically produced. Perfect!

Simplicity 2148

Of course, what I need now, is shirts to go with them. I’d thought that Simplicity 5890 would be the solution, but for work the neckline was too low, and I just didn’t like the fit of the resulting blouse. So, I decided to use the top half of this pattern to make a smart short-sleeved shirt. Unfortunately I had a bit of a maths error, resulting in a blouse that was a bit too tight across the shoulders, and a lot too tight around the hips. Back to the drawing board. (I’ve since added the skirt from Advance 8065, to turn it into a dress. That’s now sitting on my pile of Things Awaiting Buttons.)

1970s Butterick 4376

I’ve spent a LOT of time on Etsy and Ebay, searching for the perfect 1950s or 1960s raglan-sleeved shirt pattern. The raglan sleeve thing is important, as it not only suits my very rounded shoulders, but also allows a much greater range of movement than a normal set-in sleeve. (This is one reason why I don’t wear my beautiful T.M. Lewin shirts as much as I’d expected – I always feel as though I can’t lift my arms.) I did find some lovely patterns, but never in my size, and after one failed shirt incident I lost my nerve at the thought of trying to draft one from scratch. So, I broadened my search to include 1970s patterns, which is when I spotted this.

Granted, it’s not a button-through shirt, which is what I was originally looking for. But, it has raglan sleeves, it’s styled with layers, which I like, as a dress it has the all-important pockets, and I can just imagine it as either a tunic length worn over the top of all of my ridiculous trousers, or as a blouse length that I can wear tucked in. I have to admit that I was also sucked in by the promise of “Fast and Easy”, but on reading the instructions it turns out that the way to keep this a fast make is by simply not bothering to finish the inside! So perhaps I won’t go for that approach after all. Slow and Easy’s far more my style.

Yet more shuffling about.

Ivory Hat

I’m still shuffling things about between Etsy shops, as I think about where they really need to live. This ivory hat has been really popular in terms of Etsy favourites, but it hasn’t sold in the Emporium, so it’s now going to live in the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop for a while.

The hats generally seem popular on both Etsy and Pinterest. They’re being included in Treasuries and re-pinned like mad (thank you!), but people seem very reluctant to buy. I’m hoping it’s just a seasonal thing – after all, who wants to think about wearing a warm felt hat in the middle of summer?! Now that the weather’s started to turn a bit more autumnal (I WILL NOT put the heating on in August, damn you summer!), perhaps people will be thinking more hat-related thoughts. I hope so anyway, as I have a batch of felt hoods in lovely autumnal colours just waiting to be turned into more hats.

Headscarf

These headscarves, made originally for the Vintage Night at work, back in May, are also now in the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop. I must take some new photographs of these, I hadn’t realised they were still on the polystyrene head – and in some cases, not on a head at all! There are eight of these left (two of the dark blue floral), and I don’t think I’ll be making any more once these have sold out. They were really just for that one occasion, and not something I want to keep going with. I have too many different ideas to restrict myself to making the same thing over and over again! I might consider putting together a kit or a pattern though, as these are very easy to make.

Four sash belts

And finally, these sash belts have undergone a make-over, and have also moved into the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop, out of the Emporium. The starry velvet one has sold, but the other three have had nice heavy D-rings added to one end, so you can just loop them through instead of having to tie yourself in knots. I made one for myself which fastened that way, and then immediately changed all the others, as they’re so much easier to wear – especially with trousers. No more having to wrestle with some nightmarish Gordian knot every time you want to go to the loo!

Once again, I probably won’t be making any more of these belts in precisely this incarnation. I started work on a prototype felted version weeks and weeks ago, I just haven’t quite got around to finishing it yet. I want to wear it a bit first, before I decide whether felted D-ring belts will become a new addition to the shop. I think they might.

I haven’t set foot into my craft room for what feels like weeks now – although I did sleep in there for two nights, while some friends were visiting! That was strangely comforting, to be sleeping on a little fold-out bed surrounded by all of my Stuff. Being the school holidays, I’ve been doing a few extra days at work (teaching wet felting and how to make bread and butter – not at the same time), and all of my spare time at home has been taken up with gardening and tidying and enjoying having guests to stay. Hopefully once we move into September (next week! already!), I can start to get myself back on track again.

An unexpected venture.

Oh, good grief. It’s a month since I last posted here, and I haven’t made a single one of the buttonholes I mentioned in my last post! I have made four in this blouse, though I accidentally made them on the left instead of the right. I decided it didn’t matter too much, as the blouse was for me… but then it didn’t fit, and now the blouse is sitting in the Etsy shop, waiting to find its new home. What you may or may not be able to tell from this little snippet, is that the print is covered with My Little Ponies!

I made the executive decision to split my Etsy shop into two, although at the moment they’re both selling a mishmash of the same things. Once the listings start to expire in one place I’ll re-list them in the other, and hopefully it should all be sorted out over the next couple of months.

The eternal magpie Etsy shop will sell bits and bobs that I’m clearing out from my stash, organic cotton clothing and zipped pouches as I make them, and the more “everyday” styles of felt hat. Oh, and my own sewing patterns, more of which in a moment.

Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium has become a little bit too explicable lately, so I want to have a bit of a tidy-up. This is where I’ll be offering some gemstone jewellery pieces, some of the more complicated-to-make styles of hat, and some corset belts and felt work, once I get around to making them.

So, I mentioned sewing patterns…

A little while ago, a customer who I’d made one of these tunic dresses for (way back in 2009!) got in touch. She wanted to know whether it was possible, as I no longer made these tunics for sale, for her to have a copy of the pattern. I thought about it for a minute, said yes, and set about writing up the instructions.

Since sending off the pattern, Maria has already made not just one, but three tunics – and in the absolutely most fantastic choice of fabrics! And proving that word of mouth is absolutely the best way to sell things, Maria has been very kindly sending everyone who’s admired her tunics over to the eternal magpie Etsy shop, where you can now buy the pattern!

It’s a bit of an experiment at the moment – I’m drawing out the patterns by hand onto brown paper, as I don’t quite have the technology to get them into the computer. I drew them by hand in the first place, and haven’t yet managed to replicate them accurately with my pattern drafting software, which is very frustrating. Also, my greatest bugbear about printing out patterns is having to spend ages sticking all the pages together, so I thought that sending out the patterns complete would be a nice way of saving other people from having to do that.

So, I’ll see what kind of feedback I get about the patterns – whether they’re the right sizes, whether people can understand the instructions, that kind of thing – and decide after a little while whether this is something I want to carry on with or not.

I seem to be pulled in so many different directions these days… I’ll have to see what starts pulling me most strongly.

Pleasure doing business…

Well, most of the time.

Today I woke up to discover outrage all over the Etsy forums, because a percentage of shops have been enrolled in an “experiment” without any prior warning. Okay, I’m sure it says somewhere in the T&Cs that we’ve all agreed to this kind of fiddling about as part of our contract with Etsy, but in this particular case a bit of advance notice would have been nice. What Etsy have done is to remove all information about shipping costs until after an item has been added to the shopping cart. This is resulting in loss of sales (who wants to faff about adding things to a cart to find out information that should be part of the listing?), and for European shops, anyone involved is now in breach of EU distance selling regulations by not displaying their international shipping fees up front. There’s no way of opting out, no way of changing the situation, we just have to ride it out until Etsy deems the experiment finished and hopefully reinstates the shipping information!

I have to admit that I’ve been thinking about moving away from Etsy for a while… not because of any problems I’ve had with Etsy (until this morning!), more because I’d like to have my own store with its own design and branding, which I can’t have on Etsy. One of the strongest points about the stalls I’ve done with the Emporium in Real Life has been the branding, and that’s lost amongst all the identical-looking stores on Etsy. I’m doing what I can with my product photography, but it’s not brilliant, and I’d like my branding to be stronger.

I’ve used Big Cartel before, and I’m quite tempted to try them again – although with around 100 products in the store at any one time, their fees will be more than I’m paying on Etsy. But then I can do things like adding the different styles of zipped pouches under one listing and still retain inventory control of each different print, which is something you can’t do on Etsy. The shipping information is set up in the same way, which I like – you simply set a profile for each object. This works well, as it allows me to charge exact shipping fees, whether it’s £1 for a sewing pattern or £12 for a hat.

I’ve also been looking at Shopify – a friend has recently set up a lovely gift shop on this platform, and my husband’s using it to launch a board games shop very soon. The fees again are more than I’m currently paying on Etsy (and Shopify’s lowest monthly fee is only 99 cents less than Big Cartel’s highest!), so I’d need to be sure I was definitely going to be making enough sales to be able to cover the cost of the fees. On Etsy you pay by item rather than by month – so at least if you don’t sell anything (depressing thought), you don’t pay anything. The other down side of Shopify is that you can’t specify shipping per individual product, you have to set a flat rate based on the overall total of the order, or by the weight of the products. This simply doesn’t work when Royal Mail calculate their prices by size as well as weight – hats aren’t heavy, but they’re big, and I want them insured!

Shopify is perhaps the most professional-looking of the three though, and allows a great deal of customisation. It would also allow me to import and maintain this blog, which would be a bonus! Both Shopify and Big Cartel would allow me to use a custom domain name if I wanted to, and they both have integration which allows direct selling on Facebook. What they don’t have, however, is the huge community surrounding them which is the biggest benefit of Etsy. Admittedly I don’t get too involved in teams and forums and groups, but the fact remains that almost two-thirds of traffic to my current shop comes from within Etsy itself. And that would simply disappear if I disappeared from Etsy, which means I’d have to do an awful lot more work on marketing – which frankly is not my forté. I want to spend my time making stuff, not running a marketing campaign to sell it.

I don’t do very many stalls in Real Life, and my products simply aren’t priced to be sold in other people’s shops, so I really need my online presence to work for me in terms of actually selling the things that I make.

If anybody has any suggestions based on their own experiences, I’d be really grateful to hear them. I’m so confused right now that I don’t know what to do for the best!

New mannequin, new photos

First glimpse of my new ghostly mannequin. Isn't she lovely?

Please excuse the grainy Instagram snapshot and the incredibly messy sewing room, but this is the first glimpse of my new mannequin. Isn’t she lovely? Much more sophisticated than my polystyrene heads.

Organic bow tie

The arrival of the mannequin has led to a day of product photography, which (as it turns out) is rather difficult. Especially when your “studio” is two pieces of wallpaper propped up on the bed, and a reflector that’s quite difficult to wrangle at the same time as the camera! Still, these photos are a definite improvement on the previous ones, even though they do still need improvement themselves. Work In Progress, and all that.

I wanted to showcase the last few bow ties, as I’ve added a coupon code to the Inexplicable Emporium. Simply enter “FATHERSDAY” when you check out, and you’ll receive 20% off your order. This is valid until June 15th – but don’t forget to allow enough time for your parcel to arrive in the post!

Purple cloche hat

I’ve also re-photographed all the cloche hats (some with greater success than others), to try and make them look a bit more tempting. I’ll finally be able to work on some new hats soon, as the lace I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! Although I had a slight incident with a vegetable slicer at the weekend, which means I can’t do any hand sewing until the hole in my thumb has healed a bit more. Oops.

(By the way – the code “FATHERSDAY” works throughout my Etsy store, not just on the items that your Dad might like. So if you’ve been coveting a hat, you can take advantage of the offer to buy it at a bit of a discount.)

I do love this pink and purple one. If somebody doesn’t snap it up very soon, I think I might just have to keep it.

Waterfall Jacket pre-orders

Orange Wool Jacket

Who remembers this jacket, that I made last August? I’d very much like to make some more, but in order to buy the fabric I’ll need to take pre-orders.

Don’t worry – your jacket doesn’t have to be orange! Though it does work best with wool or wool-blend loosely woven fabrics, like this one. The front, neck and bottom edges are not hemmed, they’re slightly frayed to show the nature of the loose weave. (Don’t worry – they’re also stitched along the edges, so they won’t unravel.) The sleeves are trimmed with a small cuff.

These jackets are pretty much free size, as there are no shoulder seams to fit into, and they don’t fasten across the front.

Orange Wool Jacket

Fabric Land suiting or t-shirting
If you’d like a jacket made from any of the suiting fabrics on this page, the cost will be £65
A plain cotton jersey version would cost £55
Or you could have a patterned one from this page, or this one, for £60
(The lower part of the sleeves can be made in a contrast colour, if you like.)

Organic Herringbone or Linen
If you fancy some heavy organic herringbone weave (scroll all the way down!), that’ll be £140
Organic herringbone or linen with flowers or swallows print will be £165

Organic cotton jersey
A lovely soft t-shirt style cardigan in a wide choice of colours can be yours for £120

Verity's Harris Tweed Jacket

Harris Tweed
For a really sumptuous jacket, why not go for genuine Harris Tweed? It’ll cost £235, and it will come complete with a Harris Tweed Orb label, to confirm its authenticity. It’s available in a stunning range of colours, from very traditional heritage weaves to incredibly bright modern shades.

If you’d like to choose your own fabric, I can advise you on what would be suitable, how much you’d need to buy, and how much the resulting jacket would cost.

UK Shipping will cost an extra £11, as I’ll send them out by Special Delivery.

If you’d like to pre-order a jacket, all you have to do is let me know which fabric you’d like to go for, and I’ll put together a custom Etsy listing for you.

You can either pay the full amount up front, or you can pay a 50% deposit. Again, let me know which, and I’ll create the Etsy listing for the correct amount. This will allow me to order the fabric and make a start! You’ll need to allow up to four weeks from the date of your payment, as I need time to order and receive the fabric and actually make the jacket!

You can contact me by leaving a comment below, sending an email to claire@eternalmagpie.com, or by sending me a message on Facebook or Twitter.

I really like making these jackets, and my orange one has been very popular (orange-ness notwithstanding!), but unfortunately I currently lack the funds for buying the fabric to make more that I can pop into the Etsy shop readymade. Hopefully these pre-order options will work out!

Fleecy Things

Fleece bolero

I had another mad day in the Etsy shop yesterday, this time listing three versions of this fleece bolero jacket, and three versions of the new top below. This afternoon I went out and bought some patterned fleece, so I can actually make and then take photos of the patterned versions that I’ve listed.

This is my own jacket, and it lives very firmly in my wardrobe. I love it, and it looks just as good with jeans and a t-shirt as it does with a smart dress. My friend Karen (whose wedding I made this outfit for) has the prototype, which is the same style but plain black. She says it “Makes me feel like some kind of thief/archer elf in a fantasy film!”, which is perfect because that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do!

The one change I’ve made to the design is to replace the hidden hooks and eyes with decorative frog fasteners – though I don’t have any pictures of those yet. The one problem with this jacket is the hooks and eyes slipping open as you move around, and the frogs won’t allow that to happen. Much better.

It’s now available to order in plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting.

Fleece drape top

This is a new top I made to wear to work, last week or the week before. It’s always cold on the reception desk, so I wanted it to have a high neck at the back to keep me warm. I also wanted to be able to wear layers underneath it without feeling constricted, so it’s longish, loose fitting, and has a draped cowl-style neckline at the front. The edges, like the jacket, are finished with bias binding which is hand-stitched into place on the inside. This top is so comfortable I’m going to have to prize it out of my own cold dead hands to put it in the washing machine… or of course I could always make another one! I’m quite a fan of having duplicates of clothing that you love.

Fleece drape top

This one’s available in the Etsy shop too, in the same incarnations as the jacket – plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting. I’ve got a piece of bright pink fleece with white spots to make another one of these, so if you’re a size UK 14-16 ish (size M), look out for that popping up on Etsy soon!

I’ve had a couple of requests for custom dressmaking projects lately, to which the answer I’m afraid is still no. I’m trying very hard to concentrate on sewing projects like these, from patterns that I’ve drafted myself, and also on the hats and felting. Because I’m also working part time, I simply can’t fit in anything else. I’m contemplating putting together printable PDF patterns for these items, so that you can go ahead and make your own, but I don’t even have the time to devote to that right now.

In fact, I shouldn’t really have spent two afternoons filling the Etsy shop with haberdashery and fleecy tops instead of working on the hats, but there’s only so much felting my poor arms can take. I’m at work-work for the next couple of days though, then it will be back to felting and hats at the weekend. I have so little free time before the craft fair I’m taking the hats to on Easter Sunday that I really don’t know when I’m going to get anything done!

Modern technology and a call to action.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

I’m still getting to grips with all my modern technology. I seem to have settled into the iPad quite easily, although it’s useless for writing a blog post – the keyboard takes up so much of the screen that I can’t see what I’m doing. Otherwise though, it’s been amazingly easy to use, and I’m losing every waking minute to adding things to Pinterest. (Follow me! It’s dangerously addictive.)

Paul’s also upgraded his phone, which means I’ve inherited his old one. I’ve spent a chunk of this afternoon switching over to the iPhone 4, which is lovely, but it looks different from my old one (thanks to a software update), which is discombobulating me more than it ought to. Anyway, while I was setting the photo above for my lock screen, I was reminded that I haven’t actually shown you my new bracelet!

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

I ordered it from Honey and Ollie at the beginning of the year, and it arrived (all the way from California) on the 12th of February – much sooner than I was expecting it to travel all that way.  It arrived accompanied by a little crow holding a star (perfect!), who is now pasted into my journal.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

This is the back – and the lovely box it arrived in. The back is so pretty that sometimes I flip the bracelet over and wear this side as the front. The silk ribbon just ties around my wrist.

Honey and Ollie "One Word" bracelet

Like this!

It’s a One Word bracelet (pendants also available), and this was my chosen word for the year.  I figured that putting it on my phone as well as on my wrist would give me a little kick every time I start procrastinating instead of working. Perfectionism and procrastination are my two biggest enemies (alongside getting distracted far too easily), and I have a tendency not to even start doing something unless I think I can do it right first time. This is my handy reminder to JUST DO SOMETHING, even if it’s something very small, and not very perfect.

Speaking of Not Very Perfect… today I was attempting to make a very simple cowl to go into the Etsy shop – just two rectangles sewn together. What I have actually made is a fully lined moebius strip, and I haven’t got the faintest idea how I managed it! Couldn’t have done it if I’d tried. I’ve unpicked the cowl three times, and I still can’t get it to turn right-sides-out. Definitely a sign that I wasn’t really well enough to approach the sewing machine today!