In other news, I finally got round to booking my tickets for the move. I was procrastinating since I didn’t still don’t know when my thesis will be finished and submitted, but whatever, I am leaving on the 10th October!

I finally got around to taking some photos of my latest invite creations, and I’m so pleased with how they turned out! Many hours of painstaking work went into these which I designed from scratch (except the monogram, which was provided by the bride and groom). The invite is double sided, and even the envelopes received some gocco treatment too! I designed them for an Italian couple after the lovely Silvia recommended me. Thanks Silvia! What do you think?

details blurred for privacy

Anyways, let me give you a sneak peek at my latest wedding invite order. More pics to come when I get round to a proper photoshoot – I also have some new gift tags that I need to photograph for the shops, made from the birds on the surplus invite prints from this order. They are similar to these but with pink leaves – cute!

Before: relatively tidy (this is as good as it gets!)

After: well, technically ‘during’, but this is the natural state!

Mixing the perfect shade of pink

The third layer of printing (5 altogether!)

• Stock (obviously)
• Business cards (moo!)
• Postcards (freebies for nice customers)
• Pens/notepad
• Paper bags
• Bag for rubbish
• Scissors
• Change (£30 in £1 coins and £30 in £5 notes)
• Tissue paper for giftwrapping
• Bunting for stall decoration (new and improved – photos to come!)
• Tablecloth
• Fabric to cover boxes
• Card racks & boxes for display
• Safety pins
• Cellotape/parcel tape
• Information signs
• Wedding invite info packs
• Water, snacks, lunch
• Kitchen roll
• Wet wipes
• Chewing gum
• Camera

Phew! It’s a good job I have a box-carrying helper!

I bought some paper bags from ebay (something like 100 for £1.50) and they were looking a bit boring so I gocco’d them after doing some cards – here they are! I think they look quite pretty now and will be perfect for popping purchases in, along with a couple of business cards of course!

Here’s some pics of my new cards that will be debuting tomorrow, I hope people will like them!

See you tomorrow if you’ll be in Cambridge I’ll report back on Sunday with photos!

Thanks for all the comments about the shop, nobody’s actually bought anything yet but I wanted to have it all set up before Cambridge so that all my new loyal customers can come back and buy more once they realize they didn’t buy enough at the craft fair (can dream, right?) After all my hard work though, Royal Mail have gone and put the postage costs up today so I need to redo my shipping prices, grrrrr.

Hot on the Gocco grapevine today is this amazing tattoo belonging to the fabulous Heather Jeany! Now THAT is commitment to the cause. Way to go!

I’ve been brushing up on my product photography skillz ahead of launching my shop on this site – and also designed some new packaging for my gift tags. The back has a little blurb and my shop address. What do you think?! More at Flickr.

Speaking of my new shop, if anyone would be up for testing it before it goes live I’d be really grateful – please leave a comment and I’ll send you the secret url to play with! I hope to launch it before the craft fair, as it’s going on my new moo cards which I’ll be dishing out by the handful at Cambridge!

The pattern I used was a smaller version of the easy lap quilt pattern from Amy Karol’s Bend The Rules Sewing. I used squares instead of strips and a double layer of batting to make it extra cozy!
Elephant fabric ready to be cut into squares

Squares all cut out and ready to pin

Luckily I had some help!

Quilting

Finished!

Embroidered label (hopefully his Thai name is legible!)

1. Make a template
Fold some paper in half and make a triangle. I used 9x17cm but you can make it bigger or smaller depending on what you like (I really want to make mini bunting for the tree instead of tinsel, but fear it may push my sanity over the edge!) Cut along the line and unfold.

2. Cut out the triangles
I think it’s quickest to do them in strips; fold your fabric in half and cut into strips that are the same width as the length of your triangle template (17cm for my template). Then work your way along the strip cutting out the triangles. I find it’s useful to keep the cut triangles in the pairs that you cut (because the fabric is folded) as they’re easier to line up when you come to sew them together.

3. Sew the triangles together
Sew each pair of triangles together along the two long edges, using the edge of the presser foot as a guide to keep the edges straight.

4. Trim and turn the triangles
Once sewn together, trim the point of the triangle to make it easier to turn inside out. Don’t cut too close to the point or you risk poking through the seam! Turn the triangles inside out and poke the tip with a pointy implement such as scissors, knitting needle or a pen (official term – a bodger) to get it nice and pointy.

5. Iron the triangles
Pretty self explanatory

6. Sew onto bias binding
I used a nice narrow 16mm binding – you can iron it flat to make it neater but I didn’t bother as it would have taken forever to do 15m! I got my binding on ebay as it was much cheaper than getting it by the metre from the fabric shop. I placed the triangles one after the other with only a ~1cm gap between them but you can play around with the spacing. Sew with a zig-zag stitch and feed each triangle into the bias binding as you complete the previous one.

7. Finished!
Drape the bunting around the room! I used tiny nails to fix it to the wall.

Let me know if you have any questions!