It’s been a wee while since I last posted here, and yes! I know I always say that.

As you may know I had my first child ‘Noah’ at the end of October. I had a nice couple of month’s relaxing in front of the TV clearing the backlog on my Sky planner prior to the birth.

I can’t believe how time has flown. Noah is now 12 weeks old although it feel’s like only day’s have passed. I was hoping to use the time to really turn the heat up on my business but so far have had little time to myself. Thankfully business has picked up on my website as I decided to hold back on craft fairs and such due to time restrictions and the cost’s involved in attending these events, due to the fact that my husband would gorge all our profits on the cake and coffee stalls around us.

I thought I’d share a picture of baby Noah and myself and promise to return soon with some fantastic new products.

Me and Noah when he was a few days old

It’s amazing how fast he has grown. He has my looks, as he is so cute, but definitely takes after his dad in the size department. At 12 weeks old he is in 6-9 month clothes. There is a massive pile of clothes at the bottom of his wardrobe that no longer fit him. I feel that I may have to get sewing them together to make new items as it seems such a waste. Some item’s were literally worn once.

Noah aged 6 weeks

One last note, one of my latest products, Children’s Apron’s have been flying of the internet shelf. I can make these in a wide arrange of fabrics although currently my website only shows a cheeky monkey fabric. Check them out here and help me spread the word about my website.

Congratulations Sally @Bang_Drum, you are the Winner of the 500 follower Giveaway.

Sally chose http://www.vickievans.co.uk/Accessories/Keyrings/Blue-Heart-Keyring and an  excellent choice it was.

Can I thank everyone who re tweeted me today, and a big thank you to all those who took part.

The next one will be bigger and better

Hello All,

Sorry I haven’t blogged much recently, I’ve had some fantastic news, but I cant let you all in on it for a few weeks yet. If you know me, Its probably not too hard understand what I’m talking about.

Anyway, thank for following me, showing some love and reading this blog. I’ve finally made it to 500 followers and it’s high time I rewarded one of you lucky lot.

It’s a quite simple process. Simply browse my website by clicking the ‘Shop’ button at the top and Tweet your favourite item to me @VickiEvansCoUk with the #VE500 by 8pm this evening (Monday 9th April 2012). Theres a handy Tweet button attached to every item so you can simply click that. You may need to delete some of the info off to include the hashtag and my address.

Goodluck everyone.

It’s been a busy old week again. I’ve been overwhelmed with orders and playing around with new projects, Particularly Fimo clay. Well apart from being slightly messy and a blast from the past with plasticine it became slighty addictive.

Blue Fimo Beads

The main project I intended using the Fimo for was men’s bracelets. I haven’t yet found a great selection of beads out there that I could use for men’s bracelets. I made some simple leather bracelets that sold well, and wanted to expand the range a bit.

So bead roller in hand I set off rolling, and rolling and rolling. The bead roller is a simple tool, basically 2 pieces of plastic that you rub together with some fimo inside, It comes with a little measuring tool but I found this a little fiddly.

I made quite a few beads, like I said it was slightly addictive and I got carried away. Only simple colours, 2 blues, white and red. I found the white quite difficult as it picked up the other colours really easy.

Cutting Out

Lettering Ready

For one order the customer wanted a bracelet with RANGERS on. I flattened out some of the red, and delicately cut out the lettering, I was using a simple snap off knife and could of got a better result with a craft knife. Once the letters were cut I simply applied them to the beads using some bake and bond glue.

One of the pitfalls of rolling lots of beads, is putting holes in lots of beads, quite a lengthy process as I required holes large enough for cotton cord. The last part of the process was to simply bake in the oven at low temperature for 30 minutes.

Ready to Bake

The results were great, although I wasn’t too keen on the beads with the lettering on.

Hello again,

One of the hardest elements with my business has always been, How much do I charge? Many people have said that my prices are too low. I can agree with them in some respect, of course id love to earn more from my products, but there is a line you have to draw, I feel that pushing prices up pushes customers away. It’s not exactly the best time to be setting up business with the global recession taking grasp, therefore I’m not pushing my business out as much as I could. I’m happy to sit back and make good quality products. I’m fortunate that I can afford for the business to tick over without it costing me an arm and a leg. Therefore I have given myself the time to make the inevitable mistakes and nail down the core aspects of the business’s future. I can’t wait for the day I can run it as a full time venture.

The whole pricing debate came up recently when I finished making a bunting. I made 3 prior to Christmas as gifts to family members and took an order recently from a work colleague. I made the bunting double sided with top quality 100% cotton. I appliquéd the name of the child onto the flags to personalise it.

I researched around other sellers on Folksy, Etsy and Not On The High Street, to be confused further. There is such a vast price range from cheap to expensive. There are also lots of other aspects involved in the pricing strategy for example, quality.  I feel confident that my bunting is produced to a good standard but have decided to keep my prices as reasonable as I can. I decided on £1.75 per plain flag, and £2.50 for a personalised flag.

It must be time for me to stop typing as Molly the cat has jumped on my lap, averting my attention away as she purrs to the high heavens.

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog, yes I couldn’t believe I have one too. My husband likes to tinker about on his computer and decided I needed a blog, although I think he’s just trying to make use of the space on the web server he just set up.

Well maybe I should start by thanking my husband as he has edited the blog design to match my website. I think there is an alterior motive deep down that is intended to keep me extra busy and therefore he has more TV time.

I’m going to use this blog to showcase some of my projects as they happen, with photo’s and maybe some tips too! I do hope you’ll comment and interact. I also want a place to share my love of all other things crafty so prepare to be overwhelmed with all things pink and flowery.