Exciting developments

Exciting things are afoot at Dolly Towers. Last month I was very priviledged to be invited to take part in the shooting of a TV advert for Etsy, the US based website I use to sell my creations on. They are having a publicity push in this country and invited 67 UK makers to take part. Obviously we British crafters are a good looking bunch!

A whole load of us took the time to travel up to London and it was such a fun day, especially meeting all the other Etsy sellers, who made such an amazingly diverse array of things. 

The advert aired for the first time last week on Channel 4 but it is also showing on Sky I think. You may have seen it! You can YouTube it (my special version) here

You can browse the items made by all the brilliant UK sellers on Etsy who took part in the advert in this section of the Etsy website

My owlie checking out the competition

Mr Lunaonthemoon and Jojo Hapuska

He's putting up my bunting!

Catching Up

Yes I am officially a terrible blogger. My updates have been hampered by a distinct lack of access to 'the big computer', although I have been managing (just) to keep on top of social media via phones etc.
 
If you are vaguely interested in keeping up with what I'm up to, mainly on a business/craft level, you can follow me:
Twitter @madebydolly
Instagram @laylambd
Facebook www.facebook.com/madebydolly 
 
or indeed on Google+

Anyway, onto the tadpolios.

Our tadpole experiment went very well, and up until they turned into froglets we had successfully kept them happy and alive. Until the beginning of June.....

As it turns out, the froglet stage is tricky. Unless you provide them with enough places to get out, they are actually very easy to drown. They need to breath air, and are very fragile. They can get trapped, and they will insist on looking for the waters edge in the tank. As soon as I realised that they were in distress I changed the whole tank layout by taking out alot of the water and pushing all the gravel to the sides, leaving the large pebbles in the middle, so that where ever they swam to, they could climb out of the water. Still, we lost one, which was a sad thing to have happen at the breakfast table. Still, as inexperienced froglet nannies, I was pleased we realised soon enough to keep the others going. After that, they kept climbing up the aquarium walls, and we had to release them into the overgrown area next to the pond they came from. I cried! I have been there a lot since but seen no frogs. I hope some of the little guys make it to adulthood.

On a professional level May/June has been a rather exciting couple of months, you may have seen me on TV and not realised. Watch this space as I will have to put up a post all about that in a little while.

Bye for now x 

Sewing News

Mostly I blog about my more random makes and doings, but currently on a work front I have been making lots of things for those ubiquitous christmas craft fairs, and also the Creative Connections CRAFTfest. Anything left might trickle into the Etsy and Folksy shop. Where are enough hours? Oh yes, they are spent doing mummy things instead.....

No moans, this year I have been very busy with orders too, so far, a Good Thing!

Christmas Stockings

Fun Things in the pipeline

Angel Faces x

End of Term Again

Teacher gifts. Teacher gifts? Always a chore as although we LOVE our kids teachers, and we KNOW they don't want 32 boxes of chocs, it's still soooo hard not to just crack on with gifting them a box of Milk Trar!

This year I made some large pencil case type efforts, zipped and lined. Not setting the world on fire but hey, teachers need a lot of stationery, right? Also, I do love that Marmalade range, so pretty.

Not much help now, but for next time (winks - let's get organised, eh?) I did a tutorial a little while back about making little christmas decorations using your kids pictures, which could easily be turned into lavender bags if you stuff them with, well, lavender.

Locally, I had a whole bunch of teacher gifting things selling. They never made it to my online shop because I sold them all to people at a craft fair and then via personal orders (gotta love Facebook). I think I am wearing out the lavender bag path now for my daughters teacher, but other kids can give them, fine. I also sold some apple cards, and a few personalised versions of the lavender bags. Quite pleased with those, I will keep that design for my shop next year though, it was very popular!

Bunting Cards Actually

Just popping in, to show you some bunting cards that I have actually made this week. Inspiring myself again! Also, I was desperate to sew but really am just snatching moments here and there, which makes starting any decent project problematic. Fabric stitched cards are always my go-to project in these situations, they keep well for fairs and are always useful to have around too!

On the same session I had an urge to try some washing line scrap doodles, and they turned into these baby laundry cards. Cute!

Facebook turned out to be a good friend to me on this occasion too, because no sooner had I put these pics up to show my friends what I'd been up to, than orders started coming in. Obviously stitched cards are something people might want. Which is great for me because I can make them from all those tiny bits of fabric I love too much to chuck in the bin. Yes, my name is Dolly and I have a problem - bulging drawers of scraps!

Before stealing in duting naptime to paste up this post, I've been out at the fabric shop - couldn't resist a delightful bee print from Andover Fabrics Locally Grown collection, it's a nice simple range and I think that the online pictures don't do it justice as the blue is a much more vintage - y muted colour in the real thing.

Only one FQ, not as naughty as I could have been - just getting some flesh coloured elastic to finish off the Tinkerbell Costume. But I think that is another post coming soon................