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

2 weeks to go...

...and Christmas will be here, where has this year gone?
Right so this week, as promised, I've done a bit more than last week. Firstly the little girls plaque that was ordered to go with the Fireman Sam plaque. I did post this a couple of days ago but I wanted to show it to the Handmade Monday crowd.

I delivered it to the lady at work this weekend and she was thrilled with them both.

My cousin who's baby was due this month gave birth a little early so I've made her a plaque too for her beautiful little girl,

I'm popping it into the post tomorrow so it should arrive sometime this week.

Now with so many houses and people to deliver presents to I always wondered how the big red man remembered where to go? In order to make sure he didn't forget my home I made a little reminder plaque for him!

I've almost finished my Christmas orders but unfortunately I can't put them up yet in case the recipients see them. I will post them after Christmas though.
Its been a bit like Christmas for me already with various parcels arriving through the door for various crafty bits and pieces but the one that got me most excited was my business cards finally arriving from Vistaprint

Ooooh its all coming together!
And finally another little decoration to add to the Christmas tree,

So what have you been up to this week? Are you ready for Christmas? Pop over to Wendy's Handmade Monday to marvel at what the others have been up to and the enormous amount of orders that poor Wendy is completing. I'm heading over there now and my mission is to leave a comment on every link!
I've also decided to join in over at Made It Myself Monday.
Until next time,
Jem
x

Sunday

So what have you been up to this week? I've spent most of it working the night shifts (boo) and being woken up during the day by deliveries and builders working nearby. As I work a weird shift pattern at my normal job when ordering things for delivery that I know won't fit through the letterbox I try to arrange for them to arrive when I have a day off or I'm working nights. 9 times out of 10 they arrive when i'm on nights so the postman gets greeted by me in the middle of the day in my PJs with crazy bed hair, I dread to think what they must think of me!
One good thing about this week though was that I told a lady at work about my new business venture and showed her some pictures of things I'd made. I handed her my camera then sat back bracing myself for criticism or at best a "Hmmm that's nice," instead I got "Will you make some for me for my neighbours children for Christmas?" I was so chuffed I was smiling for the rest of my shift! She asked me to make two plaques, one for a little girl and one for a little boy. She left the design up to me but asked that the girls plaque be girly (so pinks and purples) and if possible could I do a Fireman Sam for the little boy. All the things I've made have been from images that have popped into my head or from various doodles so to have a specific character to try to do was a bit of a challenge. After a search of the internet to make sure I got the colours and detail right I came up with this:

She couldn't remember the name of the little girl so I've not been able to finish that plaque just yet.

Also this week as I mentioned in my last post, I got my new logo:

I'd been trying to do it myself on the computer but with a complete lack of computer skills it was never going to happen so I sent a drawing of it to Verve Designs who not only made it a proper logo, they improved it by giving me that lovely swooshy style writing. Not to mention they did it in less than a week! As soon as I received it I got onto Vistaprint to have some business cards made up and they are (hopefully) on their way to me now. I have added it to my website too, which has taken a bit of a back seat this week, I've decided it will now go live in January to give me plenty of time to get it just how I want it.
I like this design as I can use it with or without the writing, I'm going to have some little round stickers made up too so that I can add them to the packaging.

I love money boxes and think they make lovely gifts, especially for babies so today I did a bit of a practice with a rocking horse design,

I'm not that keen on the colours for this one but I do like the shape, I think the next ones I do will be in just one colour like all pink or all blue. I do like the little heart gems though, I've used them on some baby plaques before and they're something I will make sure I've always got in my craft box!
Pop over to Handmade Monday to see how busy Wendy has been with her camper-van clocks and to see what the other crafters have been up to.
Until next time
Jem
x

Babies EVERYWHERE!

Is it just me or does there seem to be a bit of a baby boom at the moment?
At this moment in time I have one cousin pregnant, one cousin has just had a baby girl last month, at work I have one colleague who also had a baby girl last month, three colleagues who are heavily pregnant and two male colleagues have just had babies (well their partners did!)
It seems that everywhere I turn theres either a buggy or a bump. Now i'm not getting broody, i'm far too immature for that, but I am getting creative. All these babies being born deserve beautiful gifts!
I wanted to create a baby plaque that people could buy before they knew the name of the baby, or even before they knew the sex. So I came up with these:
For baby boys:

For baby girls:

And I did one very similar in cream for those who don't yet know if its a little boy or girl, unfortunately I haven't yet photographed it!
I think they're pretty cute but I'm still toying around with the facial expressions and debating whether or not to add some more embellishments, what do you think?
Now going back to my cousin and my colleague who both had baby girls last month, amazingly they were both born on the same day and their mothers share the same name, spooky! I wanted to create a little something special so for my colleague I made this:

and I made a similar one for my cousin

And then a matching money box as my mum wanted a gift to give her too

Here's the two of them together:

Myself and my mum travelled to London on Friday and delivered the gifts to the new baby, I also did a plaque and bag of sweets for her big brother and sister so they didn't feel left out, big sister had this:

And big brother had a similar plaque to the giraffe from the last post, again I stupidly forgot to photograph it (slaps hands)
The cousin who's still pregnant (due next month) had a baby shower today which myself and my mum went to, it was good fun and she had a whole table full of gifts. I haven't made her a gift yet as I'm waiting to see what she names it however my mum wanted a moneybox to give to her so I made her this:

I didn't get to see her reaction as we had to leave before the end to travel back however she did see the other moneybox and she loved it so hopefully she'll like hers too.
Anyway thats enough baby talk from me, its tired me out!
What have you been up to this week? Pop along to Wendy's Handmade Monday to see the other talented crafters and their wonderful creations. This is the second time I've entered as Jam Dalory and as well as picking up new followers i'm hoping to join in every week at least until the end of 2011.
Until next time...