Moo samples

A couple of weeks ago I sent off for a free pack of 10 business cards from Moo. I had each card printed with a different image and uploaded my own design for the backs (as they were free they also had the moo logo across the bottom). I tried the Moo Green card - 100% recycled, 350gsm. I was very pleased with the print quality and how quickly they arrived!


I've also been thinking of having some greetings cards printed with my work on, so have been doing a bit of research. I found Tesco photo printing to be the cheapest, so sent off for 4 cards to see what they were like. Although I was pleased with the quality of the print (and they arrived quickly) I did feel like you get what you pay for as the cards seemed very thin and I could only choose one image per set of cards.
Although Moo isn't the cheapest place, I was impressed with the quality of their cards and the ability of printing many different designs. So I contacted them to see if they could send me a sample card before I decided to order... and I received this exciting package a couple of days ago!

Inside were samples of greetings cards, postcards, business cards, mini moo cards and stickers :D

So very soon I am planning of having a set of greetings cards printed and maybe some stickers too!

I thought I'd do a little market research, I've just got a couple of questions:

What sort of things would you be interested in buying with my work on - postcards/ greetings cards/ stickers? - and would you prefer to buy sets or individually?

What illustrations would you like to see printed - Hexley work/ animals..?

Any feedback would be welcome! Thank you :)

Sunshine Blog Awards

A while ago I was awarded a Sunshine Blog Award by Nat of 'Tales from Nats Nest'. Thank you Nat for the award - it's really nice to know that my blog is appreciated :) I'm sorry for taking so long to post this, there are so many great blogs to read it's taken me a while to decide which 12 to nominate to pass the award on!

Here are the rules for accepting the award:

Sunshine Award Rules

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world.

To accept the award:

Place this award on your blog or in a post

Pass the award on to 12 bloggers

Link the nominees within the post

Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog

Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award.

Here are the blogs I have chosen to nominate (in no particular order), they are just a few of the blogs I follow and enjoy reading - I hope you enjoy taking a look at them too!

1) Cabin and Cub

2) The Ardent Sparrow

3) Ponder and Stitch

4) Nakisha is Blue Dog Rose

5) Brandi Girl

6) Gooseberrymoon

7) Little Kitten

8) My Lazy Apples

9) Purple Sparkle Crafts

10) Charlotte Hupfield Ceramics

11) Quite Contrary Crafts

12) I Love Handmade

Rabbit ACEOs No.32-37

A new set of rabbit ACEOs! All drawn in pen and pencil and painted in watercolours these were great fun to make :)

These are all part of my series started this year and are numbers 32 to 37.

I've started adding these original ACEOs to my Etsy shop, so if you don't see them there yet they should be soon.

Treasury East

Just discovered Etsy's new Treasury East today so thought I'd have a go at making a treasury since it's been so long since my last one! With treasury East there's no waiting for hours to catch a slot and I like the new layout. Not sure how it will work in the long run if there are no expiry dates - but it's still in testing so I'll have to see how it goes!

My new treasury started by picking a couple of favourite items and I noticed the peach theme so filled the rest of the treasury with similar colours. Click here to see the treasury in full and some of the great items by Etsy artists! :)

Treasury feature

If you're a dog lover then you'll like this Etsy treasury! It features dog art chosen by funretro and includes my golden retriever ACEO :) You can see the treasury here until 18th April.

Buttons...

I thought I'd just post a quick update on some new photos of my buttons. I have so many still to sort through! These ones will be added to my shop over the next few days. :)

Folksy shop!

Something I've been thinking about for a while now is whether it would be a good idea to open up a new online shop on a site like Folksy. I like Etsy and and am happy with my shop there, but I wonder if the fact it is only in US dollars might put some people off (even though Paypal handles currency conversions automatically).

This weekend I did some more research into Folksy. There seem to be pros and cons to Etsy and Folksy - Etsy is a bigger site with more members so more potential customers but it can be easy to get lost amongst all the other sellers. Folksy is smaller so although you are less likely to get lost there might not be so many customers. This was one thing I was concerned about - would there be enough people looking on Folksy to make it worth while listing? It seems that recently more people have been joining Folksy and they are coming out of beta testing at the end of the month. Also, although Folksy is limited to UK sellers only it does have a built in currency conversion for selling internationally. I think the forums could also be good on Folksy - more information relevent to UK sellers. So, I've decided to give it a go!

My new shop on Folksy is http://hazelfishercreations.folksy.com/ I will be selling prints and bookmarks at first and am in the process of stocking up the shop. Any other things like original ACEOs, magnets, crafting kits, vintage buttons etc will just be in my Etsy shop for now.

Has anyone else had experience with Folksy? It would be great to hear what you think! :)

Spring Flowers

The last few days have been sunny and warm - it makes me want to spend time outside in the garden and not at my desk. So it's not good for productivity but does make me happy! I thought I'd share a few photos of spring flowers in the sunshine... :)

Bookmarks

I've been making some new bookmarks featuring prints of my illustrations - they're so new that they aren't even in my shop yet! Here are a couple of photos:

The first bookmark features 3 different cats from my ACEOs

and this one features parts of my Hexley Diving Station, D.O.R.A. and Octopus illustrations.

The print size of each bookmark is approx. 2 x 6.5 inches (5x16.5cm). Both bookmarks are laminated and have tassels made from different textured fibres. Keep an eye out for these bookmarks and other appearing in my Etsy shop very soon! :)

Bergholt Heath YFC Fayre

I will be having a stall at the Bergholt Heath YFC 10th Anniversary Fayre today - so if you are in the area please come along! There will be a table top sale as well as other activities including bleep test, penalty shoot out, BBQ, tug of war... so let's hope the weather's good (it's quite grey outside at the moment).
The fayre is at the Orpen Hall, West Bergholt between 12-4pm.