An Etsy Treasury

I"ve been spending quite a lot of time on Etsy this week. The new British Emporia team are super friendly and chatty and I've been talking away with lots of people there. Rather brilliantly though, we've been doing shop critiques and this week my shop was being critiqued by 4 other teamies. I've been given some really positive feedback and ideas of where to go from here. As a result, I've spent quite a lot of time adding things, tweaking things, changing things and generally doing more with my online presence. Please go over and have a look at my present 'look' and let me know what you think!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/creatingtrouble

As a 'Thank You' to some of my team members, I thought I'd make a treasury featuring some of their work. It's been freezing cold around here (thought I'd get a snow day on Monday) and we've had lots of the white powdery stuff. So a frosty theme seemed appropriate. What do you think of my latest treasury? Please click on the picture to go to the actual site and browse the shops featured.

New Year, New Website!

Well it's finally happening. After years of being a blog with some added on extras, Creating Trouble is finally moving onwards and upwards and becoming a website! It's not quite ready yet and there's still a long way to go but I thought I'd show you are few sneaky peeks at what is going to be the brand new Creating Trouble site. I can't wait to get it all up and running!

Don't worry, the blog will still continue to run as it always has. But the web address for my blog is going to change - I will be unlinking it from my domain name over the next few weeks and linking the domain to the new website. There will be links in this blog to get back to the website and links in the website to get to the blog so hopefully it will all work itself out at some point, although at the moment my head is going round in circles trying to work this all out!

Do you want to see what it's going to look like? Here you go:

It's going to be my Home Page - still a few bits to do (like customise my images) The main image is actually a slideshow. 

Creating Trouble has 2 main sections - Mosaics and Textiles. This is the main product page.

The Mosaics product page - I really like how if you hover over a product, you get some details about it! 

So what do you think? I know I need to re-look at my photos (again) and there are lots of little things I need to tweak, change, add to etc. But as a work in progress, I think there's the beginnings of something here. Any comments or suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Paper Cutting Fun

Ooh oooh oooh! I'm like a child with a new toy. It's called a scalpel and I've been putting mine to good use this week. For ages I've been more than a little enamoured with paper cut designs. There are a few people I know from the crafting community who make the most stunning cuts which I am so impressed with. Anyway, this week I thought I'd have a go at making a paper cut myself.

As it's Valentine's Day next month I thought I'd make some love hearts. Here are some of my first attempts. What do you think?

I'm actually really pleased with how these turned out. I still have a lot to learn about the art of paper cutting but for a first few attempts, I think I've done OK. This week I'm going to work a little bit more of the design aspect - I'm generally more of a blocks of colour type of girl as opposed to a delicate design person, but you never know, I might suddenly discover a new talent... Wish me luck!

Etsy Treasury

I've been over on Etsy almost all day today. I finally got around to taking some photos of jewellery this morning and spent quite a long time editing and trying to get some listings up. As a bit of a break from photo editing, I had a bit of a browse in some of the shops belonging to members of the new team, British Emporia, that I was invited to join yesterday. British Emporia is still in its very early days (as in it only came into being yesterday) and at the moment all the members are crafty folk I already know from the Etsy community which is great - lots of friendly faces. Anyway, I decided that I would make a treasury today as I haven't made one for ages.

I do have a bit of an issue with finding the time to make treasuries and I'm not sure if I am the most talented when it comes to colours and finding things that work together. But here's today's attempt. If you click on the picture, you'll get sent to the treasury on Etsy from where you can browse the individual items and see some other things that these lovely shops have to offer.

I managed to post up a few listings today as well... 

What do you think? (Click on the pictures to go to the Etsy listings) 

I've got a few more photos up my sleeve to list over the next few days, so please go over and have a look over the next few days! http://www.etsy.com/shop/creatingtrouble 

Exciting News

You will have to forgive me for not publishing this earlier. Something went wrong with the photo uploading at the start of December and I haven't been able to publish any blog posts at all for weeks. For once it isn't actually that I am too busy, too forgetful, too...

Anyway, this is quite exciting news for Creating Trouble!

A few months ago I was at a craft fair with a lovely lady called Jules who sells the most beautiful vintage furniture and re-loved pieces as well as some smaller pretties such as lavender sachets, chocolate lollipops and vintage china. And then in November she came to visit some of us at A Vintage Tea Party, a craft fair I was at in Highgate. I was really excited when I got an e-mail from her in late November... I knew she loved my mosaic pendants but I hadn't anticipated that she would ask me if I'd like a shelf in her new shop! 

Early in December I went over to Forget Me Nots Vintage in Highgate to see the new shop and find out more from Jules in person. I took some of my pendants with me and we had a cup of tea and a lovely chat. Which ended up with Jules choosing 15 of my pendants to showcase in one of the window shelves! How exciting is that?

I went over to the shop launch on the 11th December as well for mulled wine and canapes so it was nice to be able to talk to potential customers and see them talking about the shop as well. As it is still quite new, there are new things being added every day still and I'm really happy to know that some of my other crafty friends have shelf spaces as well. 

So, I'm looking forward to an exciting 2013 with new outlets, new fairs, new products... I'm definitely quite excited by everything! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you have all had a wonderful 2012 but that the New Year blows all those old cobwebs and dusty bits away ready for a fantastic year ahead! 

Do you have any New Years' Resolutions? And what are they?



I'm really sorry I haven't been blogging for a while - I've had a bit of an issue with blogger and images and haven't actually been able to upload or publish anything for a while. I'm hoping that's all sorted now though so I can get back to my usual posts and updates. There've been quite a few exciting developments at Creating Trouble HQ so I'm looking forward to updating you all!