It's cold Oop North!!!

Is it me or has winter suddenly just appeared? I don't just mean the weather as we haven't had any sunshine for ages but I found myself waking up at 6.30 this week and thinking it was an hour earlier as it was so dark outside! It was also pretty cold too so I did the only sensible thing... I turned the alarm clock off and went back to sleep! If that wasn't bad enough I woke up yesterday morning to go to work and found my car covered in snow!!! Blimey it's cold Oop North!!!

I've decided not to push my business until next year when I have a few things sorted out, (such as moving into my new house and creating a proper craft room) but I have noticed this week there has been a big increase in orders and the more I do the more orders I seem to get! Word of mouth seems to be working as they all seem to be coming from people who know someone who's bought/received one of my products.
I'm not complaining though, in fact I love it, the only downside is that I still have to fit my full time job in too, not very easy when its shift work!!!
I'm going to keep this post short as I have lots to do but I wanted to show you some more letters that I have done.
I normally paint with the lighter colours but this customer requested one letter in red and two in teal.

It took me a while to work out what 'teal' was, but after a search on Google  it appears it's a shade of bright blue.

I have also done a K for a new baby girl in pink but I haven't uploaded the photo onto my computer yet!

On the subject of photos... A few weeks ago Wendy over at Handmade Harbour had a give-away, the prize was a book about how to take great photos of your crafts.

Now I didn't win this but it made me think about just how poor my photography skills are so last night I went on Amazon and ordered myself a copy of it! Hopefully it won't take too long to arrive and then there should be a vast improvement in the quality of my photos!!

Next weekend I am off on a romantic weekend away to Bruges so I won't be joining in with Handmade Monday then but I shall try to do a post in the middle of this week.

Until next time,
Jem
x

A little trip Down South and a wedding

A couple of weekends ago I took a trip down south to the beautiful west-country (or as I prefer to call it - HOME!)
We went to Brean in Somerset, despite having lived just half an hour away from Brean for much of my life I never visited this place although I had heard a lot about it. We dropped really lucky with the weather, it was tipping it down on our way there and on the way back but for the time we were there we had sunshine, yes sunshine in October!
Although Brean itself is very touristy there are plenty of beautiful quiet little villages nearby. whilst travelling down one of the country lanes we came across this cider farm shop

Inside this Aladdins cave the lady serving was very friendly and as soon as we entered she offered us a taste of their scrumpy! Despite being from the area I'm not a big fan of cider but I'm assured this scrumpy tasted delicious! What I did taste was some of their butterscotch brandy, WOW, it was amazing! So much so we bought 2 bottles, one as a Christmas present and another bottle for ourselves at Christmas!

Something I noticed whilst we were driving through a nearby village was their bus shelters, not your standard metal and glass ugly looking shelters but stone ones that have clearly been lovingly hand-painted

How gorgeous are they? As a big fan of giraffes this one was my favourite!

The trip was over far too quick and it was back up north and back to work my day job.
When I returned I received a short notice order for a wedding gift. The order came on Wednesday for a wedding on Friday and all that was requested was 'something with the wooden hearts'
These are the wooden hearts referred to

With not a clue where to start I thought about trying to create some sort of hanging piece using craft wire... I soon discovered that me and wire do not work well together! Hats off to Wendy who makes it look so easy when she uses it on her plaques!
So after a tantrum creative thinking session I decided to stick with what I know - twine! The end result was some wedding bunting,

Bunting seems to be quite popular lately and I'm quite pleased with how this turned out, unfortunately the photos aren't great as the silver writing doesn't show up much but it reads Mr / & / Mrs / Lomas / Bagden Hall / 12.10.12

I've had some good feedback from it and I'm thinking about making some for myself in the Jam Dalory colours to go above my stall when I finally get round to doing a craft fair.

I'm working on several more of my free standing letters at the moment, thank you to all who commented on my last post about the teddy bears, the majority went for dungarees and so that's what I went with.

A lady at my other job also wanted an initial for her 1 year old grandsons bedroom and was chuffed with the teddy bear and buttons design

Until next time,
Jem
x

Dungarees dilemma!!!

It has been a while since I last showed any crafts off on here, I am however still working away, both at my full time job and at my new business.

The biggest development in the world of Jam Dalory has to be my new facebook page I hope that at least some of you will take a look and if you like what you see then please do click the 'like' button!
I will soon be doing a little give-away on there and on here for followers and likers so watch this space!

So what have I been doing?
I have had a few orders lately for my free-standing wooden letters, this was a gift to a new granddaughter from one lady

And this one is a Christmas present for a young girl

There are some more photos on my facebook page of other letters I have done. I have a few more orders that I'm working on at the moment, the letters above are great for little girls but boys are a bit more difficult. I'm working on some orders for little boys at the moment and could really do with your help for one in particular! One of the little boys is called JJ, he's 2 years old and his room is blue and cream. I've made and painted some little teddy figures but can't decide whether to go for the ones with dungarees or the ones with the heart. What do you prefer?

Dungarees

Hearts

Sorry about the colour quality, I took these photos on my phone in a bit of a rush!!!

If any of you are wondering these letters are approx 6" in size and are just £8 each (+p&p)

I'm going to be linking to Wendy's Handmade Monday which I notice has moved over to her other blog Handmade Harbour, I'll then be having a look at all the others who have linked up. Please do the same!
Until next time
Jem
x

I finally have a facebook page!!!

Where has the year gone? I knew I hadn't been blogging for a little while but I didn't realise just how long it has been!

So firstly I would like to apologise to those of you who were good enough to follow me for not giving you anything to follow! 

I haven't forgotten about crafting though, problems with my old computer meant it was taking at least 10 minutes to load a page then freezing for half an hour! Being that I am not at all technical my reaction was to keep turning it on and off. Then after this didn't work I tried ignoring it for a while only to return a few weeks later to find it still wasn't playing ball! The end result was to just give up and buy a new one!

So now I'm back, I have been designing some pretty money boxes, some cute little hanging hearts and more wooden letters. I will do a proper blog post on them soon but at the moment whilst I have a sparkly new computer (that's still under warranty) I have finally got round to creating a facebook page! I admit I am quite far behind the times but I'm getting there slowly!

Please visit and if you like what you see then please like the page! www.facebook.com/jamdalory 

Until next time,

Jem

x

New Zoo Range

As I mentioned last week I got a lot of inspiration from Longleat Safari Park and as a result I have created a 'Zoo Range'. At the moment it is a few door plaques but I have plans and designs more and for a few clocks too.
Last week I showed you the first in the new range which I have now named 'Zazzi'.

Zazzi

This week I've been finishing off a few more,

Max the Lion

Nelly the Elephant

Fliss the Flamingo

Chris the Crocodile

So what do you think?
I've also made Manny the Monkey

Manny the Monkey

I think he needs a little something extra as he looks a bit plain,
And finally Gerty the giraffe

Gerty the Giraffe

He is the wild cousin of Marty and Matilda and although he is one of my favourites his border takes ages to paint!
Its a short post from me this week for Handmade Monday, I hope you are all having a wonderful Easter, although my creations aren't Easter-themed i'm sure there will be a fair few over on HM that are so i'm now off to have a browse. I have also discovered a linky party over at Serendipity and Spice so i'm going to link in with them too.
Until next time,
Jem
x

New Zebra Plaque

Its been a busy weekend at work and at home thanks to my new fitness plan and the lovely summer weather meaning that once again I've not had much time for finishing my crafts.

I made several posts on my blog last week about my weekend trip to Longleat. If you haven't read them already please do, you can find the link to the last post here. Not only did I have a great time here I also found inspiration for a new range of plaques. I've decided to create a 'Zoo Range' and have so many ideas on paper, several half finished plaques but only one completed. There will be several more ready to show for next weekend including an elephant, a monkey and a flamingo!
The one I have completed today is the Zebra,

This plaque took much longer to paint than I thought, that edging took ages! I'm still debating whether to add a stitched edge to the border or leave it as it is, what do you think?
It's only a short post this week for Handmade Monday, please take a trip over to see what everyone else has made.
Until next time,
Jem
x

Longleat Part 4 - Monkey business

The final part in my Longleat series!
If you visit this place there is one thing you MUST do, the Monkey Drive-Thru. These little critters are not just cute they're crafty too. As soon as you enter their enclosure they're practically lining up to jump on your car and say hello

But don't let that fool you, these guys only have one thing on their mind - vandalism!
They start with your aerial...

Then they rip up the rubber strips on the roof...

Then they go for the lights like this car had...

What are they up to?

Pulling the wires out to chew!

I thought this little one was just trying to keep a grip on the car...

Turned out he was wrecking the wiper blade!
As I found out later when I looked at my own car they also pinch the caps off the number plate screws! Little rascals!
Some of the cars left with quite a bit of damage, I took my aerial off before I went through and I don't have those rubber strips on my car so apart from the number plate screw caps I escaped relatively unscathed! In spite of all that destruction they are undeniably cute

All together now "Awww!"

Whilst at Longleat we went for a couple of trips on this boat

As soon as it set off we were joined by these fantastic sea lions swimming along both sides of the boat.

After buying a couple of mackerel we held it over the edge and they jumped up to get it

The boat journey takes you around this island

which is home to their impressive gorilla

Jock

I couldn't remember his name but Pickle Lily reminded me on a previous post that he's called 'Jock'. I do remember being told he's 51 years old! That's pretty impressive in my book!
We saw a couple of hippos too but they were too far away to get a decent photo.

So that's the end of my Longleat tale, if you haven't done so already please read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. I look forward to visiting this place again soon.
Just as a side note this visit gave me lots of ideas for my crafts so do come back soon to see what i'm making.
Until next time
Jem
x