Looks like it's going to be the pink ones!

After a few more comments on my fan page, it's looks like it's going to be the pink wrist warmers!
So who wants to win them?

post your comments to enter!

So I've been thinking.......Blog Giveaway pt 1

I was just wondering... what will get me back to my blog? which has been long forgotten since I moved house..... So I've been thinking of doing another giveaway, only this time I want you to tell me what the prize will be......... got it so far........now don't be getting all greedy and wanting the most expensive item in my shop......that just wouldn't be playing the game now would it? but you can pick something from my shop and whatever item gets the most requests will be the prize.


Are you all with me so far?

So this is going to run in two parts, the first part will be to pick one item from my shop which you would like to win, and post a comment with the link to the item at the end of this post, or on my facebook fan page

you don't have to post on both places, just one will do. One comment is one entry to my blog giveaway.
Then in about a week I will announce which item was the most popular choice, and that will be the giveaway, to win it you will have to post a comment on this post, my fan page, or part 2 of this blog giveaway.

I hope that is explained well enough. I will explain it again on the 2nd post, so watch out for my Blog Giveaway pt 2.

Let me just clarify a little, any comment on any post of this giveaway, or on my fan page will get your name in the hat, so to speak, if you comment once on this post, and once on my fan page and then again on the 2nd blog post, then you will have entered 3 times. Is that clear? If in doubt just ask me, because I've confused myself Ha Ha!
Have fun and good luck to everyone who enters.

moving house and moving on

I've been abandoning my blog just lately as a lot has been going on in my life.
I am moving to a new house in a week and I have a ton of packing to do! Can you even guess how much yarn I have?
So I will be busy packing and moving, I will also be without an internet connection for a while, as here in France they don't rush anything, I'm hoping I will be connected again within a week of moving, but I'm not holding my breath.
When I return I will be back in full force, with lots of new goodies to list in my etsy shop, so look out for my return.
I will also be tweeting and catching up with all my friends on facebook.
I'll still be around for a week, but I won't have much time to be very active.
I'm gonna miss you all, so don't forget me.

I won a blog giveaway

I still can't believe it!!! Kristina from Wash When Dirty just sent me an e-mail to tell me I just won 2 scrabble tile pendants in her blog giveaway!!! they are from the lovely jessejanes Etsy shop
I am so thrilled, I want to thank Kristina for running the giveaway, and I also want to thank Jesse for giving away 2 scrabble tile pendants:0)

This is my favorite item in her shop

cropped photographs

Ok so these are finished pictures, and I will use some of them in my new listings, I'm quite happy how they turned out, but there is still room for improvement.
Not quite sure what to do about the pink ones, maybe I won't list them and I'll keep them for myself.

are they any better?

I have taken a load more pictures of the washcloths and scrubbies, I think they are better, but are they good enough?
Now I know the pink one's are horrible and I still can't get them to look right, they seem to glare the camera, so I am going to try and take some more on a grey background as advised by an etsy friend who is helping me out, she is photographer and you can find her here she also suggested I read the instruction manual for the camera and it really helped, I had no clue what the camera could do let alone how to do it, so after reading the instructions for it I found loads of useful advice and instructions.
These are untouched images, I have yet to take them to Picasa3 and play around with them, and crop them, which I will do now and show you the difference.The brown and cream are quite good I think, I don't think they will take much tweeking, but the blue and purple might need a bit of work. Although I'm really pleased with this first one and I will probably leave that one alone

my 1st blog giveaway

My very first blog giveaway!
I am giving away to one lucky winner, who will be chosen at random, a pair of my $16 rib wrist warmers in any colour of your choice available in my shop.

The pictures of each are below, you will receive one pair free.

All you need to do to enter is go to my Etsy shop and choose your favorite item, then post a comment here telling me what your favorite item is in my shop, and then go to my fan page , click on the discussions tab and you will see a topic called Blog Giveaway, post your favorite item there also. You may also like to become a fan while you are there too.
The more times you enter them more chance you have of winning.

******You must post your comment here on my blog and also on my fan page to qualify entry, if you do not post in both places then you won't be entered to win.

So good luck everyone, the draw will take place on Sunday 14th June, when the winner will be notified.

Drawstring Pouch for your sunglasses

This is a brand new item for me, I just sat down with my knitting needles and some yarn and started to knit, I wanted something not too big that wouldn't take me too long to make from start to finish, and would be useful during the summer months, and this is what I came up with.

Simple, practical and a must have accessory for the summer, now it's getting to that time of year when the temperature is beginning to rise and the sun is out, we all need our sunglasses, and we also need something to put them in.


This handy little sunglasses case is knitted in acrylic yarn so it can be thrown in the washing machine at 40 degrees, so it's easy to keep looking new.
A lovely pale baby blue yarn knitted in moss stitch, (or seed stitch) with a drawstring cord and a wooden bead for closing it up.
see more details here

daisy chain scarf

I absolutely love crocheting flowers and I have made many of them, so what do I do with all these flowers?
Well I came up with this lovely accessory which you can see in more detail here, it's more of a decoroation than a scarf really, it looks lovely just draped around, with the flowers trailing down, it can be wrapped around your waist, or around your neck, I think it makes a lovely accessory for spring and summer.

This is a one off item that I probably won't repeat very often as it was so time consuming, but I did love making it.
It's a real whimsy accessory that trails around your body.

There are a lot of varying colours in this scarf ranging from yellow, pale peach, to an orange, blue, brown, grey, rust.

It measures 69 inches (176cm's) long
The flowers measure 2 1/2 inches (6cm's) across
there are 11 flowers in total and 2 little circles to finish the ends off.

New Pictures

I have started to take a different approach when taking pictures, I'm trying to achieve a more natural look, and I think that I have vastly improved from when I first started. I love using picasa3 it's great for cropping and editing, and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome, I even made my Etsy shop banner using it, it was so easy.

Anyway now for a look at the pictures.This first one I love, it's been sitting in my Etsy shop for well over 6 months, so we'll see if the image change makes a difference, you can take a look at it here
This one has had the most interest you can see the full description for it here

I also listed a new pair of Long Cable knit wrist/arm warmers - fingerless gloves.
In varying shades of pink, in a self striping yarn, making them unique, if you look at the pictures hereyou will see that although they look alike, they are quite different in a subtle way.



So do you think I have made improvements to the way I take pictures? I would love some feedback as to what you think.

Making use of all those crocheted flowers

I have come up with a lovely little spring and summer scarf, it's like a daisy chain, I'm just doing a test one now and I will post pictures of the finished item, hopefully modelled by my lovely daughter.
I'm quite excited about it because I so love making the flowers, just need to decide whether to keep it all one colour or to do contrast colour centres to the flowers.
I will keep it all one colour for now, but I would appreciate some input as to whether people think it would look better with a contrast colour in the centre of the flower.

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

I have been working on some crochet flowers, I'm really pleased how they turned out, but I now have a problem.......I have made so many!
I just love making them, and don't know when to stop, you can see them all here .
I'm thinking of doing some solid colours next, but I'm going to practice joining them to a skinny scarf so it will look like flowers trailing around your neck and draping down your body, so watch this space!

Thinking about spring

It's come to that time when I must start thinking about creating things for Spring. I am working on some new items, and need ideas for more, the wrist warmer sales are slowing down now and I need something to replace them with for Spring.

I have been doing a little crochet and made this cute little newsboy cap, I'm really pleased with it for my first effort. Just need a better model, I have to sack that lamp!


I need to buy some cotton yarn to make some more hats for spring and summer, which means another trip to buy yarn, which luckily is my favorite thing to do.
I am also thinking about making some reusable cotton make up remover cloths, and some dish cloths, not sure if they are in demand enough though, I need to do some more research on that one.
I may even knit some more bags, but I'm trying to avoid that until I've sold the ones in my etsy shop

Etsy site is down for a while:(

I'm a little fraustrated as Etsy is down, and I wanted to list a few more things, oh well.
I have been doing pretty well selling lot's of wrist warmers like these.Grey and cream seem to be selling the best.
You can take a look at my shop to see more http://bijouxboutique.etsy.com

I only wish I could knit them faster, they take around 6 hours to knit a pair, and I have been getting sore, stiff fingers that feel like a bunch of banana's!

I had to buy some arnica cream and that seems to be doing the trick, thanks goodness.
I don't know what I would do if I couldn't knit, although I did have to take one day off to rest them, which I spent doing nothing at all, as what else is there?

I also have an order for 2 pairs of socks, I'm just waiting for the yarn to arrive so I can start them, maybe it will come today, and I can take it with me to the knitting group this afternoon.

run up to Christmas

I have been so busy with the run up to Christmas, we have so many events on I can't keep up.
I have been knitting wrist warmers, hats and scarves and I still have loads to do.

We have an exhibition for the whole of December at the Chambre des Metiers in Limoges, a shop window display, which we did at the beginning of November and will be running until January, in Bellac, as well as all the craft fairs and Christmas markets we are doing.
I am just about knitted out, well..... not quite, I do love knitting.
I am no longer doing key rings because I made so many I am sick of the sight of them, so hopefully they will all sell.

I just have one major problem, my camera died and I need to invest in a new one that will take the picture without me having to be a photographer, I am a bit of an ameture where pictures are concerned, basically I'm rubbish at taking photo's!!!!!!!!
I have loads of stock to list in my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5536123 and I can't because I don't have any pictures, so I'm a little fraustrated to say the least.

I really must learn how to add links underneath little words, I have it in an email somewhere which someone kindly sent me, but it's lost and I can't find it. Oh well.

Free Shipping

Ok so I decided to jump on the self promotional band wagon and offer Free Shipping until the end of March......That's a $5 saving on most items in my store
So why not take a look and see if anything grabs your attention while the offer is on.

OK so that's the sale pitch over, I don't know if it will increase my sales or not, but it's worth a shot, it's been pretty slow since I opened my store in January and I'm hoping that the free shipping will pay off.

I am also knitting bags like crazy for spring and summer. Here in France we have the spring fairs starting at the end of March and I want to get as much stock together as I can manage, so I have 2 bags ready to sew up, 4 need the handles knitting, and another one on the go, so I have been really busy. My hands are paying for it though, boy do they ache!

A few of my favourites on Etsy

This is something I've been meaning to do for ages, this is my first favorite item and it's by BeaG she does the most amazing key chain holders that are so useful, this one is a
keychain cell phone holder
She also does lip balm holders, shown in the picture, coin holders, even inhaler holders, they are so ingenious.
She sells pdf's of some of the items, if you want to have a go at making your own.

Pinkdoodle another place to sell

I joined pinkdoodle, it's similar to Etsy only it's in the UK, another place to buy and sell all things handmade.
Listing is free until March 5th and after then it's only 5 pence per item with 6 picture slots and the listing is on there for 4 months, they take 3% when you sell an item, so overall it's another great place to promote yourselves.
It's still in the early days with little problems popping up now and again, which are solved pretty quickly, but it's worth taking a look.
Anybody, anywhere in the world can set up a shop, which is really easy, only it's in £££££ and not $$$$$, so it may take some of you some getting used to.
Anyway it's worth a shot so take a look and see what you think.