Somewhere Over The Rainbow...

My Tamara Fascinator was used in an Etsy Treasury this week by a lovely seller called Rachelaakmama who sells THE most amazing party favours. She says:

"Paper Cakes are great because they are both a centerpiece and a favor for your guests to take home with them! You can fill the cakes with anything that you like! For example, party favors, candy, stickers, little toys, small gifts, snacks.... etc! "

They are SO cute and a brilliant way to be unique.

This one is called Paper Cake Red Hat Society Cake and costs $16 and I love it! -



This was her Treasury with my Fascinator in it. It was made up of Etsy Wedding Team members, of which I am one, and you can see it here live until Saturday.


I'm hoping my pot of gold is at the bottom of this beautiful rainbow that I could see out of my lounge window earlier today. It was even better when I got into the school playground as the clouds had cleared a bit and it was a full semi circle and really bright. Unfortunately we had to have the rain to go with it and I got soaked but it gave me a smile.


I sent off my fascinators to Dubai and Somerset and as our Post Office has closed down (*sob) I had to find another one to use. It's so strange when you use the same Post Office for years and know everyone to have to start again. It felt really sad, and I didn't like it!

Viktoria Fascinator - To Dubai


Jane Fascinator - To Somerset


P's school has their Christmas Fayre tomorrow and all the kids have been in Christmas themed clothes today. P wore jeans and a red top with a white cardigan and Rudolph ears! There is a catch though... as always. To qualify for Christmas clothing you had to take a mug filled with something in for the Fayre so that they can sell them. We decided on a Christmas mug filled with Christmas chocolates and a Rudolph on top. He looked quite happy! I also had to send in a gift for the Girl's Lucky Dip. I sent 3 stretchy headbands tied with a pretty ribbon.


I've been getting crafty with felt and made some decorations for Christmas presents. I've LOVED doing these and want to do more. It's so relaxing cutting and sewing and been lots of fun. Now I just have to part with them and decide who to give them to!


Kris and I are off to look for a new sofa tomorrow. It's all sales here so hoping to grab a bargain!

N x

Uber cold

I had a really lovely message from an Etsy seller the other day. She was complimenting my fascinators and said she was inspired by my class. I am so happy to think that I could inspire someone that I was all puffed with pride. I thought about all the hard work that went into my website, the photos and the write ups and how I'm so lucky to have some wonderful friends who helped me, and are still helping me to create bigger and better things and for someone to actually take the time to mail and say that's inspiring is inspiring in itself! Thank you, Kathy.

Kathy makes and sells bridal veils and has an Etsy shop called VeiledBeauty. This is my favourite one and is called Half Moon Lily and is $70. I love birdcage veils and have thought about making some myself and incorporating my crystal haircombs so Kathy's ended up inspiring me! That's what I love about Etsy!



Today has been freezing. It's been 3 degrees but felt like -3 so today has been sloppy-knit hat day. I brought a blood red one for me with a matching scarf and a purple one for P. She promptly told me that I had to make her a felt flower to go on it so that it would be like her friend Daisy's or she wasn't wearing it. So, being a sucker I did, and it looks great although there's a scary similarity to Frank Spencer and she did her 'Ooooooh Betty' impression and had me crying with laughter. Bless her. She should be on the stage...



I went with Ed into Birmingham to have a mooch around, and we went to the Rag Market, one of my favourite places. I want to get some material to make a roman blind for my front door as it's glazed and has an awful pink roller blind up at the moment which has resided there for 5 years and needs a change! I saw some gorgeous silk patterned material which would look amazing but I have a feeling it will pull so ended up just looking today. We went into St Martin's Church which is in the middle of the new Bullring. It's one of those things that you pass everytime you go into town but never really look at, but it is absolutely beautiful inside with huge vaulted ceilings and amazing stained glass windows. It's great that they cleaned it up and made it a focal point when they regenerated that area a few years ago. It's amazing how such buildings were built all those years ago with such precision and stability.

We managed to divert and get some German pancakes from the market too... Yummy!


I am having a creativity downtime at the moment. I've got lots of materials and know what I want to create but my brain is on a bit of a holiday and needs crank starting. I think I need more sleep!

N x

Colour Me Happy!

I had my bead order through the post this morning. I'm really excited. I'm a really visually stimulated person and to have all this in one place, all colourful and sparkly makes me really happy!

I have some great crystals which are smoked on one side and silver on the other, a really fab Christmas colour mix, some Capri Blue and Light Sapphire crystals for Jo's brother's girlfriend who will be getting a sparkly hairband off Santa, and some great freshwater pearls in white, coral and a petroley purple colour, along with some other lovely stuff. All are going to be made into jewellery of some sort to go on my website and onto Etsy.



P and I decided to sort out my shoes on Tuesday when she was still poorly and off school. I am ashamed to say that I have 43 pairs. I must add that I hardly ever throw shoes away though so they've just accumulated over the years and sit in my wardrobe waiting for the special occasion when it's their turn to get an airing. They are mostly summer shoes and considering our summers have been totally rubbish in the last few years they have been kept in the dark!

At least my wardrobe is tidy now and I managed to part with 6 pairs that I'll be selling on ebay soon, when I have to energy to list them all.



Rob is coming up tomorrow for the weekend and apparently we're in for some blizzards and snow so I'm envisaging Wii tournaments and hot drinks and not going out of the house all weekend! I'm still waiting for summer and I just can't believe it's only 5 weeks until Christmas!

I opened one of my notebooks the other day and P had left me a lovely note in there. Her writing and reading is really getting good now. I was really emotional when I saw this. She always tells me she loves me but for her to write it really touched my heart. Now that really did colour me happy. I love being a mommy. :)



N x

I've just found a great blog called Art of Dealing, written by a lady who says "this blog is made up of all things that inspire and make me happy." I really love that. She mentions my fascinators and Etsy shop in her post of 31st October and says some really lovely things about me. Thank you Rose :) See her post here.

That got me thinking about what inspires me and makes ME happy. It might be a colour, or a shape, or a person or a view, but all of them are special to me in varying degrees. Here are some things that spring to mind...

My daughter. Having her is the best thing that's ever happened to me. She allows me to be totally me, unconditionally. I've never felt anything like the love I feel towards her. I'm proud to know her.


My family. We call ourselves the Famous Five (although we're actually 6 and a half now really including Mat and P). We ALWAYS pull together when times are tough and we love eachother very much.My parents have been married for 36 years and I really respect and admire them for that. They are friends and still laugh together and the most important thing to them is their family. Lucky for me!


My best friend, Ed. We have the same sense of humour and always laugh together and he's always there for me no matter what. There's 17 years difference in age but when we're together it's like we're both kids. This is us at a party somewhere.



My cat, Charlie. I love him. He's converted me to a cat person when I always thought I was a dog one.


This photo. It recently won an award with National Geographic. You can see a horse upside down in the raindrop. Beautiful.


These colours. They do something to my brain.


This was my first published model shot in 2006 for Dental Update, a trade magazine for dentists, and my friend James took it. I have really happy memories of the shoot and we had the front cover of the same magazine the year after too. It was very exciting as it went to dentists all over the country, including mine!


Just looking at those photos make me smile. :)

N x

Friends

This week I've been to see friends. I dropped in on Rachel with her daughter Jodie's headband that I custom made for her. She asked for a blue band with love hearts in red, pink and lilac for school. Rachel's just had her living room redesigned and has the most beautiful furniture in it. I've also been to my friend Hayley's house and it's gorgeous too, so it's inspired me to get creative with my living room. I need a new sofa which will be the biggest expense, but I also have a stone fireplace that is really old fashioned with a marble top and hearth which my dad can't wait to knock out!

I'd love a corner group sofa in this colour, all snuggly and warm. This one's from M&S and a bit out of my price range at £1,400, but I can dream!I've been in an Etsy Treasury with some great sellers again. The curator is muapurses. She sells some wonderful things including this great Multicoloured Pouch for $15. I love the colours on this.



Here's her Treasury which is live until friday:

N x

Hold The Front Page!!

Wow, one of my items that was in a recent Treasury was on the front page of Etsy last week!! It was the Treasury from UrbanKnits that I wrote about on Thrursday and it made it onto the front page!! I'm so excited! (thanks Natalie for letting me know, I'd missed it!)

The item featured was my Viktoria fascinator. It's available in red and blue in both my shops www.tiarasandfascinators.com (£), and www.pinktigersden.etsy.com ($).

N x

Cuppy Cakes!

I bagged myself an Etsy Treasury yesterday and decided as I'm trying to cut down on eating so much sugar, I would satisfy my sweet tooth by making it all about Cupcakes! I love it! There are some really cute things around and I'm a sucker for anything cute and felt. Check out the dog jumper too, way too sweet!

See it here live on Etsy until Saturday 1st November.


I have also been featured in a great Treasury alongside some of my favourite Etsy artists. DalenaVintage inclueded my Sarah fascinator in her Fascinaton Treasury which is a great selection.


See it here live on Etsy until tonight.

DalenaVintage sell some fab vintage clothes, my favourite of the moment being this great

60s Inspired Brown Gingham Button Up Blouse. I love the shot too. Cowgirl Chic!

P went off to her Halloween Tea Party this afternoon at her friend's house. We had lots of fun painting her face green with blood dripping from her mouth (with sparkly glitter accents, of course!) and black streaky hair with black sparkly nails! We walked up the road with her black cat tied to her broomstick and her bag of pumpkin chocolates. Scary cute!

So, I've left her with 2 other witches, 2 pumpkins and a witch's cat playing pass the parcel. What's the bets that she won't sleep at all tonight...


N x

Hats, Hats, Hats!

My April fascinator got featured in an Etsy Treasury by a great seller called WillowBranchJewelry. She does some fantastic resin pendants, check them out at her Etsy shop by clicking on the link to her name. P and I love this one. SO cute!!

Blue Hoot Resin Pendant, $16:


The Treasury is all about hats and I'm really grateful that she chose my fascinator as part of this great selection. You can see it live on Etsy here until Tuesday 28th October.


We're all on come down from the wedding here and can't believe it's been over a week already. Time really does fly when you're having fun!

I've been working hard on my winner's tiara for the Model of the Year competition after getting my new bling through the post that I was waiting for the other day and managed to complete it last night. It's got over 320 Swarovski crystals in it and its really heavy! A proper winner's crown. I hope the lady who commissioned it likes it. I have to take some photographs and send them to her. I'm actually really really pleased with it. It went from being something that I thought wouldn't look right at all to something I absolutely love!

I'm going to ask Ed my photographer friend to take a pic of it on my head so I'll post it when he's done that for me.

We got an extra hour in bed this morning due to the clocks going back and P slept the extra hours so I really did get a lie in, althought The Times has a really interesting article on why we shouldn't do this. See it here.

N x

Mermaidea

I got selected for an Etsy Treasury yesterday and my Claire Fascinator was in there alongside some amazing vintage stuff chosen by Tigerluxe. Lots of thanks to them for including me.

My friend John at Waterham Studios where I had my website pictures shot wants me to send lots of fascinators to him for a retro/burlesque shoot he's doing on Friday which should be cool. I'll see if he'll let me have a pic or two to put on here. I'm very excited that they are going to be used for that. I'll keep you posted.

It's been book week at school this week and P and her friends had to dress up as their favourite book characters. Here she is as Ariel the Little Mermaid with some of her friends. There were lots of Disney Princesses and their teachers dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf and the woodcutter and ran around the playground, which scared P half to death. She's not into wolves or anything scary. So cute!


The Ginger Ninja has been mousing again. I actually locked myself out of my house at half 11 the other night rescuing a tiny mouse and putting him outside. Luckily I had my phone on my so I rang dad and got him out of bed to bring the spare set of keys! Next day he'd got one and I found it in P's welly boot!, then one ended up running up my flared jeans yesterday whilst trying to rescue it! Honestly, he should be hired out as a mouse catcher. He never kills them, just carries them around and plays with them until I rescue them or they run outside. He's so cool.


Happy days!

N x

I Do...

I just got accepted onto the Etsy Wedding Team today! It's a group of creative and supportive Etsy shop owners who actively promote each other and their quality, handmade, wedding items. Memebership is jury selected so I am very chuffed that I have been accepted onto the team. It's great exposure for me and there are some very talented people there.

They have a blog here that you can keep up to date with and a Myspace page here. I'm really looking forward to being part of this community of artists.

Here are some of the goodies these wonderful people are producing to make people's weddings really special.

Beautiful Bliss Collection Silk Flower by Mikiye Creations (Mikiye.etsy.com)


Custom pillow box favor by Shopbub (shopbub.etsy.com)


Alessandra - Feather White handbag/bouquet (leighannkline.etsy.com)Amazingly talented people.

I sent another double band tiara off to Pennsylvania today for another great Etsy customer. I've had some lovely feedback off people too which I've collated to put onto my T&F site and it should be up there soon.

Out for dinner now with my parents. :)

N x

Oooh Lots!

I have lots to tell you!

We went out to Frankie & Benny's for my birthday dinner. It was lovely. I had a cake at the end and the lights went down and they sang Cliff Richard's 'Congratulations'. It is hysterical. I got balloons too! The cake lasted approximately 3 and a half minutes...


I've finished off R's tiara... I am SO pleased with it. It's the most intricate thing I've done and it's turned out just perfect. She's thrilled with it and we've all had our hair trials this week for the wedding so it was so great to see it in her hair. I'm so pleased that my little sister will be wearing something that I've made especially for her on her big day. It really means a lot to me that she wanted me to make it and that she likes it enough to wear it.

I've included crystal and diamanté butterflies as this ties in with her theme, and the pearl and crystal flowers just look amazing. The best thing was that I really enjoyed making it. I am always a bit nervous when I make things for people close to me. I worry that if they don't like it they won't speak up so I can put it right and end up with something that they're not quite happy with, but I know R and she would DEFINITELY tell me if it wasn't right, so it must be! I will post a pic when I take a good one!

I've had lots of enquiries this week from Etsy which have all turned into orders which is brilliant! My fascinators seem to be a hit in the US and the majority of my business is there at the moment which is so cool! I love America. Rob's gone over to Florida for 3 weeks and we were joking that it would have been brilliant if he could have taken over the fascinator I'm making at the moment for a lady over there. Personally delivered by a 6ft 2 english man. That really would have been so cool!



I've been hand rolling sinamay leaves today for that fascinator, the pic shows them half done. It's a killer. First I cut out the leaf shape, then i spray the edges with water, roll the sides in then hold them tight whilst blasting them with the hairdryer. The sinamay I buy is stiffened which means it's been soaked in a solution of basically watered down PVA glue then dried. When you re-wet it, form it then dry it again, the glue softens then resets into the position you've moulded it into, hence how you get the edges of the leaves rolled so neatly. It takes ages and makes my fingers feel funny after a while but it's a really professional effect which I love.

I sent a gorgous crystal haircomb to a lovely lady in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday. I was in love with it! It just looks SO sparkly and she can wear it either as a tiara or push it into her up-doo and you just see 4 rows of the sparkle. I might have to make one for myself I love it that much! There's nearly 100 Swarovski crystals in this...


I wanted to get JoJo's hair pins done this weekend as she's back home but unfortunately the suppliers were out of stock so I can't get them until monday. She'll have to wait and get a lovely present in the post instead!

Spent the rest of the week playing on our new Wii that Kris bought for P the other day! She's scarily good...

N x

Spa Ritual

I just logged onto Etsy and saw that my Dita Fascinator has been included in a Treasury by ThePendantBoutique which is great exposure. I love it when people like my stuff enough to mention it in their creative compilations. It makes me feel like people acually look at my products and all the hard work is worth it and it's great to see my fascinator next to some other lovely hand made things.

My sister's hen doo went down well. I wore my gorgeous shoes and my lovely 50's prom dress. Everyone looked fantastic and my sister had a fab time. The spa was wonderful and so relaxing. My little sister was poorly though today and had to go home but my mom took her place so she had a great day!

When I got back, my friend Kris had set up our new Wii so P and I had fun playing on that tonight although her auntie R has taught her far too much and for a 5 year old she's worryingly good!

I have a big to do list for next week, including ordering some beads for J's hairpins, making some more tiaras for my upcoming tiara shoot with John at Waterham Studios and listing some more items on Etsy.

No photos tonight, my camera USB wire has gone walkabout... that signals a need for a tidy up!

N x

Feathers and Hens

This week's flown by. I've been busy making a fascinator and waiting for a feather order, which when it arrived was damaged so had to wait for new ones which delayed my shipping but it's all gone off now to Surrey in its lovely box.

I've had quite a few enquiries through Etsy and my website this week. All for weddings so hopefully they will transform into orders.

I've been commissioned to make my friend JoJo's mother-in-law's fascinator for her daughter's wedding which is in Australia on the same day as my sister's is here. Jo and I are bridesmaids on the same day! How strange, and I'm making her some freshwater pearl flower hair pins to go with her dress. The fascinator is going to be like this.

I've also made J something cool for her birthday but I can't show you a picture yet because she might see it! It's cool though and I want one!

It's my sister's hen weekend this weekend and we're all off to a spa to do some chilling out and pampering of the bride-to-be. I'm looking forward to it. It's a 50's prom theme and I have a great teal coloured dress with black netting underneath, and a little black bolero and black patent round toed wedges which were a bargain from TK Maxx! Lovin' it! These shoes make me swoon!


N x

Fame!

How exciting. I logged into Etsy today and a lovely lady called Christy from Junebug Weddings has used one of my fascinators on her internet wedding site which she calls 'Seattle's Exclusive Wedding Planning Resource' to promote vintage wedding accessories. I am thrilled!

See it here:

http://junebugweddings.com/blogs/what_junebug_loves/archive/2008/07/30/vintage-inspired-wedding-jewelry-and-accessories--.aspx

I've finished my fascinator for Seattle, I got some amazingly beautiful blue feathers in two tones which I incorporated to give a great depth. I am really pleased with it and I hope the bride will be too. This picture really doesn't do it justice as it's just about to be posted but it look fabulous in situ. Click on the pic to make it bigger.



Oh and I made a great flower hair clip to send to Helen at Waterham Studios after her and John took my new website photos. I love it!



N x