Some Pretty Little Sewing Projects...

Hi everyone! Thank you very much for all of the great comments on the button necklaces! it seems the white ones are peoples favorites....me and el are trying to get the colour combos right so your comments were really helpful.

El and I sold another monster on Folksy the other day, which is fantastic!!!.....except when we went to package him up (Hermes the elephant) we realised there was no way we could sell him, he was just a bit too scruffy!! so we messaged the person who brought Hermes and offered a refund or a new Hermes....the gentlemen who brought him said he did not mind sooo.....

I thought it would be nice to include the little elephant because of all the messing around we did...

They look kind of bemused here!

I also finished one of the gifts for silkie sue's free style swap....this is just a little sneaky peek...hope it doesn't give too much away!!...

And lastly....look at these really cute tins that Arth brought me today...

They were from a new charity shop which opened last week...these were only 50p!!!! I've no idea what i will put in them but i like paisley print so maybe i'll just put them on a shelf and admire them !!!

Right, off to the horrible place that us tescos...my tummy is grumbling.

See you soon!!!

xx

New Pretties...

Hi everyone. Ive had the day off today so El came over to make some button jewellery for the shop in Cirencester. We are going to take our stuff over there on Tuesday coming....eeek!! it still kind of scares me that they want to sell it. What if they change their mind? or What if they don't sell any of our stuff?
Anyways....here's the necklaces that we made today...

This one is actually red and blue..not the funny browny orange colour it has came out as here.

And this one is actually blue and dark orange but the colours didn't come out fantastically.

And this one is purple and yellow...believe it or not!!

This one is made from some of my shell buttons, which means some of the buttons are probably really old.

I like this one...its kind of nautical and the three buttons in the middle look cool because they are squares...i think they kind of set the whole thing off.

I quite like this kind of design for button necklaces. the extra line of buttons on the back gives it more of a structure. some of them look quite short here but they all rest at about collar bone height... the shell one is a little bit longer tho'. The necklaces were quite popular at the craft fair so fingers crossed these will go down well in Cirencester.

Ive had the day off of work today and I'm glad of it (it means i can hide from people). Last night we went to a staff preview of Wolverine, i absolutely loved it...don't get me wrong it isn't going to get any best film awards but i genuinely think that it was a good portrayal of the history of Wolverine. I love X-Men and do not call myself an expert in the slightest, nonetheless i thought that seeing never on screen before Marvel characters was fantastic. who cares if dead pool turns into some crazy unbelievable monster that can shoot lazer's from his eyes?? HELLO!! your watching a film about a man who has metal claws that come out of skin!! I dont think believable characters are a huge issue!! as you can probably guess....im one of the few people at the cinema who did enjoy it. Whats annoying is that people have asked me if i liked it and Ive said yes...but the people just turn around and say "yeah...but you only like it because of Hugh Jackman" THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!!

Phew, i hope that doesn't a) bore anyone and b)offend anyone from work!!

Right, I'm off to see if i can coax my sewing machine to work properly...wish me luck.

xxx

A Wonderful Weekend!!

Hi everyone, i hope you all had a great weekend. I'm just about rested after running around like a loon for most of mine. I promised that i would post about craft fair loveliness and boot fair finds! So here you go...

So you all know about the craft fair on Saturday. it went really well and there were only a few quiet patches. towards the end of the fair, when everyone was thinking of packing up, i managed to persuade some of the lovely ladies to do a swap with me!! boy was i lucky!!! here's a list of what i swapped....
A Fabric Shopping Bag from Sue (Top left), i love the pretty pink roses.

A Gorgeous Pair of Earrings from Liz(bottom left,hooked on the sparkly bracelet) the pictures not great of these but they are droplets and there is a small turquoise enamel globe with pink roses.

A Fantastic Green Beret with Green Buttons on from Scaff (middle Right). This is perfect for me, i love the big baggy beret hats that are around at the moment and green is my favorite colour.

A Pretty Little Lavender Heart from Cara (bottom left, inside the bracelet). Ive put this is my fabric draw which is see through so i can still see it and it will keep some of my fabrics fresh!!

A Whole Stack of Vintage Tea Towels From Sue (bottom right) Sue very kindly gave me these as a thanks for organising the craft fair! how lucky am i?

Last but my no mean least, i got an Awesome Sparkly X-Men Bracelet from Sophie!

I Love X-Men and i was going to buy this myself but she offered it up as a swap. How funky is it??!!

O.K...so that's all of the craft fair swaps mentioned.

My parents came up for the weekend. It was soo good to see them. i live a long way from them so i only get to see them about 5-6 times a year. it was great to have them here for the craft fair. mum was a great help and was outside the strand handing out flyers to passers by!! so it probably thanks to her that there were quite a few customers. Thank you Mum!! Mum and Dad also brought a huge load of fabric and buttons up with them. There's no way i can photograph them all,but rest assured there were some beauties!! Here's a picture of some of the awesome buttons...

some of the ones which mum brought up were my nanas so they are super old!!

On Sunday we went to the boot fair and i came back with some bargains. if you look at the top picture...

Middle Left: a funky yellow/brown colored dish for £1!! I'll probably use it at other craft fairs. Also next to it you can see a complete set of butterfly brooke bond tea cards, for £1 again! I'm going to use them to make gift tags out of...you can also see a great vintage Agatha Christie paper back (for those of you who don't know...i love Christie...especially Poirot ones!!)

Middle Back: a small red leather vintage satchel for 50p!! Ive been keeping my eyes peeled for something similar to this as the one i have is on its last legs. this is great replacement!!

There were of course button finds but i couldn't help myself and Ive put them all in the right jars now!!

Well i reckon i have chewed your ears off enough now...sorry its a long post but it was a busy weekend!!!

Take Care

xx

PHEW!!!!

Well Well Well!!! Everything went soo well yesterday! This is the first chance i have had to sit down and have a breather!!

The craft fair was fairly busy...but most importantly to me everyone who had a stall was happy. i was worried i would disappoint them in some way!

There was a lot of interest in the next one (in two months time).

I forgot my camera tho'...so there aren't as many pics as there could be but my dad was there and he had a new digital camcorder so he took a few, but some were blurry...heres mine and els stall...(we had sold some stuff buy the time it was taken..)

Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement about the stupid sewing machine! I'm just going to send her to the doctors and hope for the best! in the mean time I'm back on my one from the stone ages!!

I'm going to do a proper post tomorrow because i have some pictures of swaps that we did at the end of the craft fair and also pictures of the wealth of buttons and fabric that my mum brought up with her....ohh yeah and some car boot finds!!! i just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive!!

P.S. jo, you left cards at the craft fair, i have brought them back to mine.shall i post them up to you??

xx

A Broken Sewing Machine!!! A DAY BEFORE THE BLOOMING CRAFT FAIR!!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Stupid sewing machine has decided it is going for a career change., instead of being a machine that sews lovely neat stitches in lovely neat lines its going to become a horrible angry machine who likes to chew up the bobbin thread and make horrible catchy gratey noises!!

FINE!!! i didn't want to make bibs at half nine in the morning anyway!!!!

Phew....sorry about that....i feel much better after that tirade!!

I'm going to go off and price up the things which the sewing machine did sew nicely before this morning!!

Take Care

xx

Spare a Thought For My Poor Ol' Sewing Machine...

Phew!!! I've just finished sewing 11 coin purses...you should have heard the noises that my poor old sewing machine was making by the end of it all. but at least i now have a nice round 15 for the craft fair.I think there are some lovely combinations here...i just hope that the people who come on Saturday think so too!!

I had a late night last night....making jewellery!! ohh yeah!! i know how to have a good time!! hahaha...here are some of my favorite necklaces from yesterday...but there are lots more...

The one in the middle has buttons which are a lovely shade of green...i think they work well with the brown buttons. I think that the coral coloured buttons on the white necklaces are lovely too....i have a few of them left!!

Right...time to make the zip pull for the coin purses...i must have been wicked because i don't seem to be getting any rest!!

Here's a picture of a caterpillar i took today...i wonder what he will look like as a butterfly??See you soon!!

xx

Mice and Coin Purses...

Morning!!

I've been busy already today!! I cut the fabric for 11 coin purses....

My fingers are now have a scissor shaped indentations on them!! ouch!!
I also thought i would post a picture of some new creations i came up with yesterday. They are called button mice and they scurry along collecting up lost and forgotten buttons. They keep them all in pretty jars inside their little mouse holes. I'm quite taken with these...they are super easy to make and i think they look quite cute.

They have pretty buttons on their sides...this one has a heart on it...although it is brown and you cant see it too well here.

They have tails made from string and the tails have a button tied onto them. i think this one looks cute and a bit confused as to why I'm taking a photo of it!

Well....i don't think there will be any making in the park today, its a little chillier than yesterday...so i think its going to be button necklaces and bracelets inside.

Tomorrow is going to be all about sewing those coin purses together and sewing some bibs!

Phew!!!

See you soon

xx

Sunshine Sunshine Sunshine!!

Phew!!! Ive been taking full advantage of the lovely sunny weather we have had. All the windows in the flat are wide open washing is drying outside. lovely....

Ive been crazy busy for the craft fair. yesterday and today el and i took the sewing to the local park....

I look like a ten year old here!! short legs!!

It was lovely...although we did get some funny looks from passers boy and some lovely chavs informed us that we were boring!! As a result of our sunshine sewing we have...

(left to right) a stripey little monster, a little baby monster to go in the pocket of a bigger one, a happy cat, a super cute little plump, and a giraffe. not bad i reckon!! oh yeah...and there was a little bit of sun burn.

Today wasn't as productive...i took some dust bunnies to make and as they so often do lots of them didn't work and i ended up swearing lots...so i came back to els and made some mice and that made me feel a bit better.( hmmm that's a funny sounding paragraph) I'll post some pictures of the mice up tomorrow...so that you don't think I'm a complete nutter.

Right dinner time!!!

see you soon

xx

Boot Fair Finds!!!

we went to another boot fair today. as always i was on the hunt for more buttons.....and this boot fair came up trumps!!!i found this tin for FIVE pounds...There were soo many lovely ones in here...beautiful flower shaped ones, lovely metal ones, and some great basic brown and black ones which will be perfect for the new necklaces i have come up with.

i also found this beauty for 20p!!! Ive used it to put my pens, scissors and paint brushes in. its now sat quite at home on the sewing table! (please excuse the mess monster that lives under my sewing table...)

I meant to show you this little cup and saucer ,which i found in cirencester, in my last post but i forgot.

I think its soo cute and funny too....i can just imagine a surly dad getting given this on fathers day by his kids and then having to try and fit is big sausage fingers into the little handle!! The purple flowers are really pretty and i love the cursive writing on it too. it only cost 50p!!!

Lastly....my pass it on parcel arrived yesterday. it was great because i was pottering around in the flat waiting for arth to come back from work and so i hadn't heard the post. Which meant that Arth came through the front door with a lovely little parcel for me....

Thank you Sarah!!! i love them!! such a great idea!! Ive got one hanging up by our calender and the other is hanging under the button jar shelf!!

To anyone who is in my pass it on....i haven't forgotten I'm just really busy....who's clever idea was it to organise a craft fair...and then leave most of the making until the last week?....ohhh right...that was me!!

Righto'...I'm off to the cinema. we are going to watch Let The Right One In, its a Swedish horror film which is supposed to be great, and cineworld in cheltenham doesn't normally get films like this so we are going to go whilst we have the chance!!!

Take Care m'dears!!

xx

Two Episodes of Deadwood and....

Bonjour!!! How are you all??

I had a productive night yesterday. I finished work at 6 and neither me nor arth could be bothered to cook soo (Shhhhhh don't tell on me) we had fish and chips!!! YUMMY!!!

Afterwards i felt a bit lazy so i made these fellas...
in front of two episodes of deadwood! i love this TV series and it makes me grateful for arths love of all things western cos i wouldn't have ever seen it if it wasn't for him!!

I've finally brought some batteries for my camera so i thought id post you guys some pictures of mine and els recent trip to cirencester...

First stop was this fantastic,wonderful,marvellous shop....(did i mention that they are going to sell StuffedNonsense stock?!!) We dropped some of our stock in for them to have a look at and they asked us lots of question which we must have answered OK. we thought it went well so we stopped of here...

The Brewery Arts Centre for a celebratory cup of tea and coffee.....and cake....and a scone...

We were still on a bit of high after this so we went for a wonder around the shops and we came across one called Lexy Loves.....ohh my god!! i don't know about Lexy loving it but Bex definitely does!!!!

Look at this!!!!

O.K. the picture isn't too good. but those jars you see there?? they are packed full of lovely bright funky buttons!!! the idea is you take a scoop....pick out your favorites....and take them home for 3 pound a scoop. i don't think its too much really...the buttons are really unique and half the fun for me was picking out the ones i wanted. the shop also stocks great trimmings, fabrics and books as well as lots of homemade cuteness. if your local i would strongly suggest popping in...although hands off the buttons!! they are mine OK??

Righto'!! time to go and have a cup of tea and some millionaires short bread. I should be posting quite a bit over the next week, Ive booked it off so i can make and get ready for the craft fair (sorry to mention it again!!)

xxx
P.S. Eloise...if you are reading this...Ive done the pay it forward thing to the people who commented after you but do not fear!!! i have a little something for you....i was going to offer you 25% off of stuff on the stuffednonsense stall next Saturday?? sound OK to you??

x

Ohhh WOW!!!

Afternoon Ladies. How are you all? I hope your ready for this post....its kind of groundbreaking (for me anyway.)

I don't know if any of you remember but a few posts back i mentioned that El and I went to Cirencester to hand out some flyers for the craft fair, and that one of the shops we went into asked us to bring in some of the stuff we make as they would probably be interested in selling it for us?

Well.......we took some up yesterday and they loved it!!! we took quite a big selection...dust bunnies, tartan tearaways,little snoozes,necklaces,brooches,gift tags,bibs,purses. The only thing they said they wouldn't take was the purses as they all ready have a lady who makes them. The people that work there said the nicest things about our stuff...'beautiful and stunning' were used! I'm so very happy for this opportunity. Its another step along the way to owning our own shop for me and el. i really am soo lucky to have someone like el to partner up on this with. a big thank you to her and a huge thank you to arth for encouraging me every step of the way.

after finding this info out Ive come to a conclusion regarding this blog and where i want it to go. I'm going to use this blog to show pictures of the StuffedNonsense products but if people want to find out more info then they should pop over to the StuffedNonsense blog.

I'm still going to post here all the time like i normally do...just I'm going to try and separate StuffedNonsense stuff from my general craftiness....make sense??

On other news....i had a little meeting with the local newspaper about advertising the craft fair. i really only went in to find out what the deadline was to put an advert in but the lady was sooo friendly....she even took some flyers to hand out and said if she needed anymore she would photo copy them. how nice is that??!! I'm pretty surprised at how quickly i seem to have developed organisational skills!! i cant believe that it only 8 days away! I'm soo nervous that no one will come and keep racking my brains to see if Ive missed anything!!

Well, i guess Ive chewed your ears off enough by now! i haven't got any pics today as I'm on arths laptop...mines gone a bit squiffy so I'm hoping if i leave it alone for a day or two it will stop sulking and start working properly...not that I'm an I.T. specialist or anything.

See you Soon

xx

oh...a massive thankyou to you guys too, your comments have given me soo much more confidence in the stuff i make too!

I Love Car Boots!!

Hello!! I'm back after a busy Easter weekend at work!! whilst working over the weekend a friend told me that there was a car boot on Monday and that it wasn't too far....just by the race course. so we decided to go...we got to the race course but couldn't see a car boot...we wondered around in case we had missed it but still couldn't find it....so i pounced on some passers by and asked them for directions. it turned out that they were going to it too, and new the way. turns out that we had to walk out of cheltenham to get the car boot. but it was well worth it, and the exercise did me good!!! look what i found!

of course....buttons!!

and fabrics, all of them have patterns on them but most of the patterns are little flowers so you cant see them too well here. i think the lady who was selling these had just recently lost her mother and was selling her mums patchwork supplies, i told her that i would put them to good use. i got these lovely green/grey buttons, and little card of pearls from the same lady. it all came to 1 pound!!

a pretty book of poems, i love the yellow and black print.

arth found a copy of clever Polly and the stupid wolf, a book he loved as a child...and still does love. his mum uses it when she is teaching and her copy is getting a bit tatty so we brought this too. both books cost 50p!

Then i found these white converses with a white and pink tongue for....1 pound!!!!

i also got a little guillotine but i didn't think it would make a very interesting picture so i left it out. all in all we spent...4.50p!! well worth the long walk.

well done to Emma loves stitching, shabby chick and Katrina. if you can email me your addresses i will send them out to you, its bexsbuttons@hotmail.com.

Righto' that's all for now, I'm glad that all you lovely people had a great Easter!! I'll be back soon with some pretties hopefully!

xx

Pay It Forward!

Just a quick one, i'm doing this thing called pay it forward....heres how it worksFor those who don't know, it goes like this - the first three people to leave a comment will receive a hand made gift from me! The only thing you have to do is participate and carry on the gift giving to three more people...as soon as you have left a comment do a "pay it forward post" on your blog and continue the giving. ive signed up for the one over on Sarahs blog. its such a great idea!!

im off to go round a pals for dinner and then some drinks...could get messy!!

happy easter!!

HAPPY EASTER!

I figured id go ahead with my happy Easter message today because I'm working all weekend...its alright tho' because i have Monday off and so does arth too!! I'm sure that many of you lovely organised people have done the Easter egg thing (or the crafty equivalent) but i thought id post about a great offer on at whitards. if you buy one of their mugs you get a free Easter egg and it comes all wrapped up. arth and i went their today and brought one for each other...id been sneaky and already decided which one i wanted. Take a Look...

(please ignore the fluff on the sofa!) i chose the cute pink polka dot bird mug and arth chose one with a funky rainbow pattern!! i think this is a great deal because you pay around 4pound for a cadburys one that comes with a mug and the mugs are no where near as cool as these ones!!

see.. mmmm chocolate doughnut!! you can see a new tartan tearaway in the top right corner of that picture! i made another 3 today, phew!!! I'm panicking about not having enough stuff for the craft fair so for now arth has to live with whirlwind type thing sitting at the sewing table in the corner of our living room...spare a thought for him!

Right...you know what I'm going to say....

Ive got to go to work soon so im going to sign off.i think tomorrow i am going to make Easter cornflake cakes for people at work....and for me of course...

xx

Im Still Here...

Alright everyone?

i had to work all of last weekend so i didn't get too much time to do any stitching...i managed to make another 10 dustbunnies for the craft fair....i had to take them into work to finish tho'! i started to get a bit worried about not having enough stuff for the craft fair but then i decided to take a week off work before it soo fingers crossed...i can get a shed load done then!!

i finished these two today...(i haven't got work until 6) El and i have decided to make a few more like it and i think we are going to call them 'tartan tearaways' what do you think to the name? anyway without further ado... i give you

Robert the Tartan Tearaway....and

Frederick the Tartan Tearaway.

I think their stories are going to have something to do with being mischievous little monsters who often get into trouble but don't mean any harm. they are all going to be made from tartan or have tartan on them somewhere.

That's about all Ive been able to manage around here!!

Ive put my name down for this swap over at Silky Sues.

i like the idea of it being free style!! why not put your name down?

I was given an award today but I'm going to sort that out tomorrow if you don't mind!!

Right, sausages are cooking and my belly is growling!! see you soon

xx

I've Been Busy...

Happy Saturday Everyone.

I had a day off yesterday (which was good because it came round quick but i don't think its going to feel so good by Thursday when Ive gone insane from no day off in a while on the Easter holidays....i think I'm going to have to think of my happy place...a lot)

I was very productive yesterday and made a whole stack of stuff.

'BRING ON THE PICTURES...!'

First i made these cards from some great (and cheap) charity shop finds...

I think the buttons finish them off nicely.

i found a little stamp set for 3 pound! yesterday so i put it to good use.
Then i made these little fellas....

They are for the stuffed nonsense stall at the craft fair (if you look close you can see our new tags on their sides!! how exciting!) they are lavender scented plush hangers....to go on a baby's cot or door handle in their room....the lavender will help them sleep...in theory.

here's this little fella practising his new job. i like their sleepy eyes. i hope that these will become one of the designs that is unique to stuffednonsense, like the plumps and dust bunnies. (woah...that sounded a bit professional.)

Lastly...i made this little monster...

He is called Sting because he is yellow and black like a wasp,but he is not mean and nasty like a wasp.

Well that's it. the fruits of my day off. i learnt one very important lesson yesterday....don't get lavender oil in your mouth....tastes nasty!! Oh, what do you think of the cards and snoozes....their new to me and i want to make sure that they have some appeal before i go on a making binge and make loads!!!

I'll be back soon...I'm not at work until five...who knows whats gong to spring out of the sewing corner by then???

xx