Vintage Floral Shawl or Hair Sticks

Here is a shawl or hair stick version of our vintage inspired sculpted flowers.  So far they have been a real hit with the yarn shops that sell our work and every time I make a batch, we end up selling out.  I love making them in all the different jewel-tone colors.  The centers are from a mould I created from a vintage button with Swarovski crystals embedded into the centers to add that little extra sparkle.

These are available in both the clay covered steel pin or the longer silver plated steel pin which are a better fit for those tighter weave or bulky knits.

These sticks also look great in the hair.  We tested one out in my friend's hair braid the other day.

Shawl Sticks

Some of the stores that sell our buttons and shawl pins had requested that we make some shawl pins with the "stick part" only.  They fit nicely in a thick scarf or knitted cowl in place of buttons or where you do not want a regular type large shawl pin.

Here are a few samples of what we have created so far:

Experimenting with a Faux Knitting Technique

When I came across some some of the faux knitting techniques in polymer clay on the internet, I was certainly intrigued.  I finally pulled out some scrap clay and my extruder and gave it a try.  Here are some heart brooch pendants that I created using the technique shown by Claire Wallis on her flickr site and Meg Newberg on her blog.

These were certainly fun to create with lots of possibilities for further experimenting.

Westwold Christmas Craft Fair

We had a really nice time at the Christmas Craft Fair in the little town of Westwold yesterday.  We are in only three Christmas shows this year as our selling wholesale to the local stores has been keeping us rather busy.  It was really great seeing some familiar faces and regular customers.  Our scarf jewelry as well as our interchangeable earring system were both a big hit.  Some of our repeat customers were quite pleased that they could purchase more art beads to interchange on the ear wires they had bought from us previously  making it more affordable.

We will be adding more of our art beads for our interchangeable earring system to our website over the next week or so.

Kitchen Towel Kit at Katja's Quilt Shoppe

Our vintage style teacup buttons using Joan Tayler's texture sheet, were a perfect match for some gorgeous towel fabric that Katja had in her  shop in Kamloops.

She created a kit to make this kitchen tea towel to hang on your stove or cabinet handle complete with the button.  It is now available at Katja's Quilt Shoppe and will make a great hostess or Christmas gift for someone special.

Expanding

We delivered some new jewelry pieces last week to Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique here in town.  The pieces were to replace items that have sold along with some new designs including our fall line of scarf jewelry.  The Little Shuswap News Office next door moved out and so Chum N' Luba's expanded into that space resulting in a charming room packed with more gorgeous vintage plus new items.  This is a partial view of that room where Darlene, the owner, has it tastefully decorated.

That is one of our necklace and earring sets sitting on the antique cabinet among the vintage accessories and collectibles.

I've always had an attraction for vintage jewelry with all the rhinestones and jewel-tone colors.  Here are a few of my vintage inspired pieces that are now for sale at Chum N' Luba's.

(above photo by One Love Photography)

New Stores

Dave and I are both relieved that the largest Christmas show (Kamloops Craft-a-Fair) of the year is now over and we only have two more smaller type shows left for the season.  We can now go back to focusing more of our time on servicing the yarn and quilt shoppes that sell our work.  This is even more important now that we have recently added two more shops to our wholesale list.

One of the stores is the Nee Nee Girl's Yarn Shop which is located in the General Store in the quaint little town of Falkland.  We pass through this town on a regular basis when traveling over to the central Okanagan area and sometimes enjoy stopping in at a local cafe for some tea and coffee or brunch.  We are excited that a good assortment of our buttons, shawl pins and other accessories are now available in this shop and we are looking forward to creating new ideas and pieces for Kelli, the owner.

The other store we have just added is a new yarn shop that just opened in Vernon called "A Twist of Yarn".
It is located in this beautifully restored vintage home just one block off the main highway.

The photo below shows one of the cozy rooms with a dining table and chairs for sitting at.  Our buttons and shawl pins are on the rack in front.  You can see the gorgeous hardwood floors throughout that have been all refinished.

This is Camella, the owner, standing in front of the beautifully restored fireplace and skeins of her own hand dyed yarn above.

One of the rooms is filled with an assortment of looms and spinning wheels.

A Twist of Yarn has only been open a few weeks but is already buzzing with lots of excited knitters in the area.  We wish Camella and her shop great success!

A Long Weekend

This was one of our busiest weekends for the season and we spent today recovering.  Thank goodness for our new hot tub jacuzzi which has helped me get through it.

It started with a Ladies Night charity fundraiser at our local Home Hardware store where I had a display featuring our new scarf jewelry and interchangeable earring system.  I was so busy I completely forgot about taking a photo of my table set-up. I did manage, however, to take a picture of Laura in her gorgeous gown and wearing one of our scarf jewelry sets.

It was a fun evening with lots of door prizes, activities, punch, wine and lots of yummy appies!

We were up early the next morning (Sunday) for the huge Kamloops Craft-a-Fair.  It was a very busy show as usual and very successful.  Our new scarf jewelry and stick shawl/sweater pins were well received and we nearly sold out before it was over.  (This photo was taken later on so was looking pretty slim after selling more than 2/3's of our inventory!)

The main drawing feature was the slide show we put together on a digital screen with the photos taken by Natalie of One Love Photography. (see photo below)

Our new Interchangeable earring system was also a big hit.  I came up with the idea when I was experimenting with some new ear wire designs where all the art beads can be easily interchanged.  I was getting weary of making so many ear wires for every pair of art beads and then having to change them when a customer would prefer a different style.  With this system, you choose the style of ear wire as well as your art beads which can be easily interchanged.  I am in the process of updating our website which will feature this system very soon.