Tag: Eternal Magpie

Making Changes

Right! Here we go. All of my sadly neglected Etsy listings have all now been moved into the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop. It’s rather flooded with felt flower brooches and hair clips as the moment, which is emphasising the fact that I really need to take some new photos of those “in action”, so that people can get a better idea of what they’ll look like being worn.

I have some new hats drying on the blocks at the moment, so while I’m waiting for them to be ready I can have a good think about what kinds of trimmings I want to add to them. After several months off, it’ll be nice to have some new hats to work on!

I’ll also be getting rid of the sewing patterns and haberdashery altogether. Once their listings expire, that’s it, I’ll be taking them down to my local charity shop. They’re taking up space, they’re making the shop look untidy, and I’d rather they just went to a good home.

The Inexplicable Emporium on Etsy is now almost empty. I’m allowing the remaining listings to expire, and keeping up one post which explains where all the hats have gone! The reason for emptying this particular Etsy store is that I’ve started the process of moving it to its own domain. As a result, Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium will have its own website, with a blog and a store, although it’s very much a work in progress at the moment. The purpose of moving this one away from Etsy was to allow us to have greater scope in the products that we’re able to offer. The ceramic oil burner, for example, goes perfectly with the soy wax tarts that I’m going to make. But because the burner isn’t hand made, I didn’t feel comfortable selling it on Etsy. (I know that I could probably have “got away with it”, under their new rules allowing third-party manufacture, but frankly I don’t think that’s what Etsy should be about. So there you go.)  There’s a lot of fiddling still to do (and a lot of blog posts and an entire back-story to write), but I will do a proper announcement when it’s all “officially” up and running.

It’s all slow progress, I know. But I am starting to feel as though it’s actual progress now, rather than just faffing about, so that must be good!

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.