Celebrating My Etsy Shop Anniversary - Guinea Pigs and a Special Offer!

Today is my Etsy shop anniversary and my guinea pigs are joining in the celebrations wearing some mini versions of my new printable party hats.  Keep reading to find out about a special offer too!

My shop, hfcSupplies, has changed quite a bit since I opened it back it 2010.  It was my second Etsy shop and I started it to sell craft supplies separately from my artwork.  At first I sold vintage buttons, clock hands and craft kits made from new, vintage and handmade items.  I introduced other craft supplies like card blanks, envelopes, baker's twine and washi tape. At the same time, I gradually started to try out printable products - starting with scrapbooking papers and collage sheets.  Now my shop is completely dedicated to printables, ranging from paper sets and digital stamps to invitations and party decorations.  I have learnt so much along the way!  I love drawing and coming up with new design themes, then applying these to different products - there are so many possibilities with printables!  The best part though is working with my customers - it's lovely to hear that my designs bring pleasure to other people.  Thank you to all my customers for supporting my business, you inspire me to keep making new designs.  I have lots of ideas for new designs and growing my shop and business, I hope that you will continue to enjoy the things I share!

My guinea pigs, Lily and Rosie, are modelling some of my newest products - printable party hats.  I've printed them guinea pig size - the ones in my shop are much larger (6 inches tall)!  So far you will find Safari Animal themed hats in my shop, but I plan to add more designs soon.  Lily (above) is also modelling a Wheels on the Bus hat - a sneak peek at a new party collection I am creating.

Special Offer!

To celebrate my shop anniversary use this code hfcAN10 to get 10% off your next order from hfcSupplies.etsy.com - the voucher applies to everything in my shop and will be valid until 30th June.

July Review

July started off well for me but ended with an unplanned (and very much unwanted) break when I came down with the flu.  After a couple of weeks of doing nothing at all, things are slowly starting to return to normal this week.  It’s taking me a while to get my brain back into gear so this month’s review will be particularly helpful in reminding myself of all the things I was working on before I got sick and I hope you find it interesting too!

New designs…

I worked on several new designs in July which unfortunately I can’t share with you yet, although I did design a new set of Lavender flower themed scrapbooking papers (which you can see in my shop here).  If you follow me on facebook you will have already seen a picture from my sketchbook when I started designing these papers.

I also created some new surface pattern designs for Spoonflower, to coordinate with my existing fabric designs.  I  received the sample swatches last week and am in the process of making the new designs available to buy from my Spoonflower shop as fabric, gift wrap and wallpaper.

I added a new colour way of the ditsy sheep design with a lemon yellow background and 2 coordinating flower and spotty patterns…

These designs are part of my Rabbits collection…

I also designed a star pattern to coordinate with my Rocket in Space design, a snowflake design (which would be great for Christmas projects!) and a new blue flower pattern…

These cloud designs were created to go with my hot air balloon collection. I also decided to add a new fish pattern as my existing fishing flies design has been quite popular…

Blog…

In July I shared some ideas for teacher gifts, I was able to reveal the secret project I had been working on for 3 Picnic DIY Ideas and I posted a colour palette inspired by a photograph of a beetle I found in my garden.  Hopefully August will run a little smoother than July and I will be able to share more of the craft projects and tutorials I have been planning to do.

Other Work...

July was a time for catching up on admin and taxes, not very exciting but it had to be done!  I also decided to make a few changes to the design of my pages online - I changed the background to my blog from a basic chevron pattern to a hand drawn floral pattern (hope you like it!) - I thought it reflected my work a bit more, being hand drawn, and was more interesting than the old pattern.  I also tweaked things like my cover photo and profile image on facebook and the banner in my Etsy shop.  I'll probably continue making a few more changes to things in August.

Other things…

At the start of July we had 2 gorgeous new additions to our house – these cute guinea pigs! :)  The one on the left is called Lily and the one on the right is Rosie.  We soon noticed they have different characters – Rosie is the shy one while Lily is bolder and more curious.  Lily is also a lot more lively and wriggly, whereas Rosie is quite happy to sit still while you hold her.  They haven’t squeaked much yet, although they do get very excited especially when they get new hay – it’s funny watching them popcorn and dashing about!

Ups and Downs with Dragons, Horses and a Guinea Pig

The last week or so has been full of ups and downs for me, which I meant to blog about before now, so I have a few different things to share.  I’ll start off with the ups…

Thursday before last, I had a lovely surprise when I found out that my Dragon design made the top ten in Spoonflower’s Mythical Creature Plushie pattern contest!  It came 6th (out of 149 designs) with 314 votes – thank you to everyone who voted for it!  Wood Mouse Bobbit’s Griffin Kitten design came first – it was my favourite entry to the contest so I was really happy for her to win.  Her design consisted of lots of different parts to create a 3D toy, so it was a very impressive design and looked great made up.
I have ordered a print of my own dragon design and should have it within the next week or two, and will then be able to make it available to buy from my Spoonflower shop.  I’ll let you know when it arrives!

In other good news, I had a new card design released with Phoenix Trading last week.  It features rows of horses with different markings; palomino, piebald etc. so would be great for horse lovers! Here’s a pic from the new catalogue (my design is on the right):

The samples of my horse card design arrived early this morning and I love how the design has been printed on matt card with the horses embossed…

I have been busy working on new designs to submit for Phoenix surveys but I can’t show you any pictures of those yet.  They are for general, everyday cards and Christmas ones.  Phoenix have regular surveys where designs submitted from all the artists are sent out to the traders who vote for their favourite designs.  Phoenix then use the results to choose which cards will be published in the next product release.  Fingers crossed they like my new designs!

As I mentioned at the start of this post, the week had it’s downs too.  Sadly my guinea pig Basil became sick and died last week.  Tuesday involved a trip to the vet for him and then I spent the rest of the day syringe feeding him with painkiller, medicine and special food.  Unfortunately he was very weak and didn’t make it through the night.  I’m missing him very much but take some comfort in knowing he is no longer in pain and we did what we could to try and help him.

To end on something a little better, I have a long list of blog posts planned with some things I’ve been making and baking recently (last weekend was my sister’s birthday so I baked her a fancy cake!).  I should have a bit more time to write about them next week, as my Christmas designs need to be in to Phoenix by the end of the week.  You can expect to be seeing more flower and garden photos soon too – the first daffodils are opening in my garden, announcing the arrival of spring and the weather has been warming up so I have started doing some gardening again.

Some photos from the weekend…

Thought I would share some photos from my weekend with you...
I baked this cake…  It’s a madeira cake with dried apricots and glace cherries inside.   A recipe that we often use in my house, but with a little twist - I soaked, and warmed, the apricots in orange juice which I think made the apricots softer and the cake more moist.  I then saved the juice to make the icing, giving it a hint of orange / apricot flavour and delicate colour…

I also spent some time playing with Basil, my guinea pig – here he is enjoying his fruit and veg bag!There was a beautiful sunset yesterday – it wasn’t as dark as it appears in this photograph, but the colours of the sky show up better…

Scrapbook layout inspiration - Basil my Guinea Pig

I have had a scrapbook album for many years now but have only made a few pages to go in it.  I recently came across Jot Magazine via Pinterest – it’s a new free online magazine on paper crafting and scrapbooking, and it inspired me to get my scrapbook out again!

My album is A3, a bit of an unusual shape with A3, A4 and B4 sized sleeves.  I think if I was to buy an album again I would use a more standard 12 inch or 8 inch square one, but I need to finish this one before I start thinking of doing another!

I made this page on my guinea pig, called Basil – I have so many cute photos of him and wanted to create a memory page of all the things he does :)

These are the materials I used (several of them are available from my craft supplies shop):

• 12x12 inch spotty scrapbook paper from a DCWV stack
• Coloured card and paper
• Photos printed on glossy photo paper
• Journal card from this printable Woodland set
• Leaf motifs from this printable collage sheet
• Baker’s twine
• Paper punches; daisy flowers, scalloped circle, round corner
• Mini brad
• Mini spotty button
• Alphabet rubber stamps
• Small amount of green thread

I used the round corner punch on the three main photos before mounting them on cream card.  The letters for Basil’s name were all cut by hand.

Before I glued anything down I carefully laid everything out to see how it would look.  I drew a faint pencil line for where I wanted the baker’s twine to be, which I then went over with PVA glue to stick the twine down.

I love these tiny spotty buttons!  They’re the perfect size for putting in the centre of a punched paper daisy.

I really enjoyed doing this page and won’t be leaving it so long before doing another.  I think the hardest part for me is trying to decide exactly what to do – there are so many choices!  Do you do scrapbooking?  If you’ve blogged about your own layouts I would love to see them – please leave a link in the comments below! :)

Sunny Spring

What a difference a few hours make!  When I got up yesterday it was so foggy that I could hardly see across the road!  A few hours later there wasn't a cloud in the sky - lovely weather for photographing the flowers in my garden...

I think my guinea pig Basil enjoyed being outside too :)



Ginger

I felt like drawing a guinea pig today... so painted this little ACEO :)

This original pencil and watercolour painting of Ginger the Guinea Pig is available to buy from my Etsy shop.

Pick of the Week

I love guinea pigs and thought this knitted guinea pig was so cute!!

This little piggie is available to buy as a knitting pattern from Debi Birkin Designs.

These are not macaroons...

I was planning on sharing some photos of my latest baking project from the new 'Making' magazine, but it turned out to be a macaroon disaster! Hopefully I'll have better luck next time... for now though, here are some new paintings instead :)

These budgies and guinea pig are all ACEOs, drawn in pencil and painted in watercolours.

This is Basil, my pet guinea pig, who loves to eat parsley amongst other things! Drawn in pencil and painted in watercolours (a 5x7 inch painting).

I'm currently adding new ACEOs to my Etsy shop and will also be adding listings for pet portrait commissions.

Framed ACEO prints

Here is the newest item I have listed in my Etsy shop - a framed print of my 'Bubbles and Squeak' ACEO. The print, featuring two guinea pigs is in a black 6x4 inch frame with a cream mount. I am also happy to frame any other ACEO print from my shop and think they would make the perfect gift for an animal lover!

Animal ACEOs...

I've just been relisting some of my animal ACEO prints on Etsy and thought I'd share them here... These were all drawn in artist pen and painted in watercolours.

I've not made any new ACEOs or animal paintings for a while - hopefully I'll have a go at some new ones next week. I'm looking forward to doing a painting of my new guinea pig (he's called Basil) -I've had him for about a month now so it's about time he was painted!!