Japanese Jeu de Paume books

Great news, I have been accepted by my favourite japanese publisher Jeu de Paume to be one of their resellers. So I am now selling the whole range of their books. I’ve just received my 1st shipment from them and have started listing some in my etsy shop and ebay shop. Below are the titles currently available. If you would like to buy one and mention that you heard about it on my blog then I will include a surprise handmade gift for you (only for the first 10 buyers who mention it please).

You can see some pictures of the inside of the books in my flickr or in my etsy shop and ebay shop. I realy want to carry the whole range so next time I will order different titles and if there is one you would like but you don’t see it here or in my shops please let me know so that I can order it next time.

My favourite one is the London Gardens, as it’s full of inspiration for my own little garden. I’ve been injecting some colours in the front garden, by painting the garage wall bright lavender (it’s what I first see from the living room/sewing room so I wanted to brighten up the dull natural stone colour of the wall) and I will also paint the brickwall (that separates my patio to my mini orchard area and my gravel flower bed area) in bright fuschia. I’ll post pictures next time but you can see 3 photos of the work in progress in the garden in my flickr.

Decor8 feature

I’ve been feeling quite extatic lately, and you know why? Because I recently found out that I have been featured in Decor8. You can read the article here.

Holly from Decor8 has a flickr group called Interior Styling, I joined her group and uploaded 2 of my recent pictures (the ikea kitchen shelf and the mantel in my living room), while dreaming of being featured in her blog one day. And she did!

I suddenly got lots of orders for some of my russian dolls, so am assuming this is as a result of that feature. Thank you so much Holly.

On the house front, I finally decided to start working on the flooring. Ideally I wanted solid wooden floor painted in a glossy white colour in every room, but I can’t afford it right now and I don’t have the patience to wait until I’ve saved enough cash to buy some, so I took the plunge and bought the white laminate flooring from Ikea (Tundra) which is very affordable. So this month, we are doing the kitchen and hallway floors.

Loving this song

“Stand by me” via http://playingforchange.com

Hello, I am still here

Lots of stress and mid-life crisis going on here, hence my lack of posting.

My dad came over and helped us decorate the kitchen. As I can’t afford a full renovation, it was just a paint job, everything was painted white (ceiling, walls, kitchen cabinets, tiles) and it looks much fresher and cleaner now. I still have to replace the flooring and then sew a blind for the window. I don’t have enough storage so I bought the handy shelves below from Ikea.

Don’t be fooled by the pictures of my house that I show here (or in my flickr), those pictures are the exceptions, most of my house still look horrible and messy and horrible. There are still so much to do, and so little money to be able to do anything. Most of the time, I feel so happy and grateful to be living in my own house, but other times I feel so frustrated and stressed by the state of it.

Free interactive ad for etsy sellers

I just found this nifty tool on etsy storque, which allows etsy sellers to post a free ad of their shops and items via blogs, emails, facebook etc. The article and how-to is here:

www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/handmade-code-esellerads-6352

It looks quite easy to do, I will try to put mine on the left side of this blog (above my flickr photos section) but for now you can see how it looks for my handmadewithjoy etsy shop. There is a choice of 3 sizes and the one below is the big vertical one. It basically let people click on any of the images in it and buy that item directly: clicking on one item will show the description and a “buy it now” click which if you click will direct you to etsy, the item is then automatically put in a cart on etsy and from there the buyer can either remove it from the cart or click on the item to get more info about it (the item page is then fully shown there along with the seller’s shop) or click on “checkout” if they are committed to buy it.

Update: I have just learned that it is not possible to add this as a widget on a sidebar in a wordpress blog.

high school nostalgia

I just stumbled on some high school group photos and felt nostalgic. It was the year before my A-levels. We were asked what we wanted to do in life, I had no clear idea yet. I loved mathematics and english. I wrote lots of poems back then , I also did a lot of drawings (fashion ones daydreaming I could maybe become a fashion designer one day!). I only had one year left to decide what to study next, I went on doing an economics degree not because I loved it but because it seemed logical. It seems so long ago now. I am so happy that I now do what I love.

I’m the only darkie in my class:

Etsy seller interview on bbc essex radio

Just a quick note to let you know that one (or more) etsy sellers based in Essex will be interviewed tomorrow morning (monday 5th october) on the Dave Monk show on bbc essex radio. The producer contacted me and asked if I’d be interested to be interviewed but I replied to late so the guest slot went to someone else (she contacted me on friday morning and as I was out all day I only replied in the evening, but to late). The show is about local artisans in Essex being part of a worldwide marketplace and how that’s affected their businesses. So tune in if you can, the proposed slot is supposed to be at 10.10am but am not sure if it has changed, Monk’s show is usually from 9 to 12 in the morning; if you are not able to listen to it live I think that it is available to listen to again for a few days afterward on the bbc iplayer online.

Beside that I’m busy again with custom orders, it’s often the case around this time of the year and again I find it challenging to have a balance as custom orders take up a lot of my time leaving me hardly any time to sew new items that are needed if I want to stock up my shops for the christmas season. I may have to stop accepting custom orders in november and december if I want to make things easier for myself.

Ah, and I forgot to show you my inspiration wall, I finished it weeks ago and posted in on my flickr pages so you may have seen it already, it was also featured in several blogs (links on my flickr):

Sale in my etsy shop

Just a quick note to let you know that I’m doing a september promotion in my etsy shop, all pencil cases are on sale at $9 (instead of $14) , even the ones made with russian doll fabrics and liberty fabrics. The price is also valid for made to order ones with your choice of fabric (if you go to my flickr pages you can chose from over 100 pretty fabrics in the “fabrics for custom order folders”). As usual, you can buy directly from me if you don’t want to buy from etsy, and uk buyers and european buyers can also pay in pound or in euro instead of dollar. I’m aiming to sew 100 pencil cases, hoping that they will sell this month  but if not they can always be saved as stock for a possible upcoming fair or as christmas stock for my shops.

PS: all pencil cases are big enough to be used as cosmetic pouches as seen in the above picture.

Thank you Apartment Therapy

A huge thank you to Apartment Therapy who just featured my sewing room (the second time this year), you can read the article here.

In my ongoing search for inspiration to help me decorate my home, I found this house featured in a french magazine called “Maison Creative” (july/august 2009 issue). I love this house: white walls everywhere, lots of colourful accents with the furnitures/accessories and best of all fabulous fabrics used in every room as a decorative accent.

A new beginning

Lots of new beginnings this week (and funny enough I am also currently reading the “New Beginning” book by Esther Hicks which I am enjoying so much and highly recommend to those interested in the “law of attraction”).

I happened to find online someone I knew in France 20 years ago, isn’t the internet amazing! I’ve lost touch with lots of french friends since I moved to the UK and it’s wonderful to hear from some of them again.

I recently started selling some fabrics, as I had way to much that I can ever sew, and they cost me less if I buy them wholesale so I thought I would give it a try. I was super happy today to discover that I’ve reached my target and celebrated by investing in buying more, so I bought 50 yards of my best selling fabric (which is a russian doll one). Talking about buying, I recently contacted a uk wholesaler in order to place an order, and was shocked to have been rebuffed – as soon as they discovered that my shops are etsy and ebay shops; in comparison to that my japanese suppliers tell me each time I want to place an order that “they are looking forward to serve me and do business with me”, I’ve given up sourcing uk suppliers now and mainly source abroad, not only because I get better customer service abroad but I also get more competitive prices.

I’ve been contacted by a site that specialises in promoting handmade items, they want to feature my sewing room so I am now having to spruce things a bit, I’ll leave you with a photo of a corner of my sewing room below (can you see a glimpse of my tomato plants in the garden?). I still have to work on an inspiration wall board.

On the house front, still lots to do, no one room is finished yet. It’s frustrating sometimes and I wish I had either some help or the fund to pay for everything to be done by professionals. The garden is better though, I’m enjoying picking some fab tasting tomatoes everyday.

A personal message: petit message pour Christophe, si tu lis ceci je serais ravie d’avoir de tes nouvelles, j’ai trouve ton frere sur internet et lui ai donne mon email.