KK on holiday

It's school holidays so we're on our big summer trip. This year we're going to Yellowstone and the Tetons for some fresh air and wildlife - although hoping the wildlife doesn't include a close encounter with a bear! We are currently in Salt Lake City then will drive up to Jackson, WY for a few days before heading to Yellowstone.

I love exploring new places and we always end up walking for miles and miles, mostly the kids are OK but there is the usual dose of moaning, bad behavior and sibling fights!! Fortunately SLC has lots of open spaces for them to race around in and makes lots of noise without annoying too many people!!

I've given myself time off from Knappy Knickers but I still did an on-line search for fabric stores here - couldn't help myself!!

Will try to post some photos of the scenery when we get to the Tetons and Yellowstone, but may not post again til we are home.

Moo-ing with joy!

I'm a bit of a stationery freak, I am always buying new note pads, folders, labels etc, that often just sit in my drawer unused because they are just too nice to use. Back in the days when I used to work in an office, a trip to the stationery cupboard was something to be lingered over. Sad, I know - but that's just me. Actually, it's not just me - I know lots of people who are secretly the same!! Maybe we should start a Stationery Tragics Club!! Anyway, the reason I share my little secret is that recently I came across Moo.com, and it was love at first sight!!

Moo make business cards and stickers that you can design yourself, and you can put different photos on each card - fabulous. Fortunately when I was back in Perth I had a logo designed for me and had some photos done by a studio in exchange for some Knickers. So I could use these to create some business cards, which I received the other day and LOVE!!

So here are the finished products, I've just scanned them in here so this doesn't really do them justice. But these are the mini business cards. There are actually 4 cards here, 3 of the backs with different photos, and one of the front of the cards.

And these are the round stickers, four to a sheet. 

So my stationery fix is sated. Sigh....!!

By the way, this is just my opinion, I was not paid by Moo for this, and I paid normal prices for these products. I just loved them....!!

Photo dilemmas...!

I've been trying to work on taking new photos for etsy. You wouldn't think it was hard to take a photo of some Knickers or leggings, but it is! Now I don't have a live model that fits into my Knickers, dresses or leggings I have to rely on my very old and sad dummy, Daisy - she with no head, who doesn't stand up properly. Or I have to try and arrange them somehow to try and make them look good. Very hard.

I don't have much empty wall space to line Daisy up against, so I've tried to rig up a black sheet against the kids toy shelf. Then, to put the clothes on Daisy, lie them flat or to hang them? What looks good when I set it up, somehow looks so flat, dull, and well, blah when I look at it on the computer. See my poor Daisy and temporary photo studio here. Leggings yet to be listed on etsy.

So I did some other sewing instead. I made this swim robe for Ollie.

I bought the pattern from Dana Made It one of my favourite sewing/craft/mum blogs at the moment. I made it from an Ikea towel, which was a bit hard to overlock as it was so thick. I think it is actually a bit small for Ollie, but he loves it - so next time we are in the pool we'll be trying it out. I think we will probably use it for after bath time too.

I've been finding so many fantastic blogs out there of amazing women doing fantastic sewing/craft/home organising things. I'll list them another day, but I'm sure I'm spending far too much time reading, and not enough doing at the moment...! Talking of which, off to do...!

School holidays

It's the school holidays, which means that I have my two kids at home with me full time. Which means less time for me to focus on my etsy shop and to get things done. Which means that I have to grab short bursts of time to do things and mostly never get things finished.

I have so many ideas of things I want to do with my etsy shop www.knappyknickers.etsy.com but right now I am trying to get time to take photos of the leggings I have in stock and to start sewing the other new product I want to put up - more later! I am also desperately searching for fabric. I had some blue and white, and red and white striped fabric which I made into leggings when we were in Australia. The red ones are modeled below on my son, Ollie. He must have been about 18 months old then, and funnily enough he is still wearing these pants. I have made them into shorts now, by cutting them off and hemming them, but otherwise they still fit him perfectly and he is now four and a half!

These sold really well and I want to re-launch them on etsy. However I have run out of the fabric, and cannot find it anywhere. I have spent so many hours trawling on-line fabric stores and visiting the stores I can find in Houston - with no luck. Of course, I actually really enjoy doing this, so no complaints really - just wish I could find what I want!

I love sewing with knit fabrics, in some ways I find them much easier than sewing woven cotton, but finding the right patterns on knits is difficult. I keep thinking I should just change products and use all those gorgeous cotton fabrics out there, but I will persist!