My first ever Treasury !

I've been on Etsy for a while but have never really embraced it, there is just so much stuff going on there that I find the info overload overwhelming ! (I have a simple simple brain)

Today I read about treasuries properly from their Storque and have made my very first ever treasury around my first love of drawing, it was pretty easy finding stuff I liked, I like so much!

Now it is just waiting for a spot which I have the feelings is going to be like pushing a pin into a wall - difficult but not impossible! 5 mins left !

top to bottom, left to right

LuckyJackson, simplesongdesigns, barkdecor, prettylittlethieves, Yaelfran, larrybear, gemmabear, madebyanna, ArgyleWhale, Kozyndan, Kateconsumption, behappynow, mpatrizio, nowvember, heidiburton, fantasmagoric,

ps: I don't understand the alternatives thing, where do I input that?!?

Little finds - My Milk Tooth

Every now and again I discover things that is just so......so....well too many great things to list and today I discovered My Milk Tooth.

Its so cute and witty, imaginative and inventive, engaging and so playful!

It is the sort of thing that crosses over all the ages, enjoyed by all, capturing the silly that is somewhere in all of us.

If you have 5 mins you have to go here to see what I'm babbling on about.

photo by Inhae Renee Lee.

Little finds - Yuken Teruya

Was googling crafts to do with toilet roll tubes (I teach kids English on weekends!) and I came across this

I would never expect something so serene and quite beautiful sprouting from an ugly toilet roll tube like this.

Tracing its origins I found this work to belong

to a Japanese artist called Yuken Teruya.

Another amazing project she did involving everyday shopping/paper bags, this photo is of the inside of the bag in question.

ripped off...not happy

A salmon sandwich I bought from a very popular corner shop chain in HK, can you even imagine how annoyed I was at this?!?

Good hearty toasted sandwiches (especially paninis!) are one of the BIGGEST things I miss from the UK.

(As well as roast dinners, ovens in general, free newspapers that I can read, general space, online shopping, the cold English climate & nice big grassy lawns!)

Nobody wants my pooch

Today we took our foster dog to a dog adoption day which was a trek all the way to the mid levels and my poor pooch looked a bit...hmm scrappy next to the other well groomed doggies.

I felt like the mum who had to witness her son get picked last for the football team as he didn't cause as much of an interest as the others.

The poor pooch was all sabar toothy (he has 1 tooth that sticks out because he has a wonky mouth!) happy to be with so many people (he can be quite the social slag) but people kept stroking the other dogs :((((

Somebody even adopted a 1 eyed dog over him !!!

I guess the silver lining is I get to keep him for longer which is nice.

Little finds - Two headed boy

Its been a while since I've logged into Etsy but today I came across this Two-Headed boy plushie by this shop called Littlegreygoose and its just sooo fun ! Me thinks one of the best I've seen in a while, so full of character, black eye and all.

Also really interesting featured seller right now called Laurengregg so check that out too, her main profile photo is so colourful and the pooch ain't bad either.

Littlemail Via clouds

Printed on recycled colour paper 170gsm.

I'm not sure whether to add a stripe of double sided tape to 1 edge or not, keeping deciding & then undeciding hmmm...

new designs - airplane posties

I LOVE receiving post, especially long mug stained letters but because of email, texts and the general techmological ti

mes we live in, my letters are now far and few between :(

So in my aid of snail mail, something I've been working on is another set of postiecards where they are half postcard, half letter/card to make it all the more f

un, they are like mini art gifts with added messages.

The first set I did was just a remake & what I will refer to as the original. (I can't remember if I'd previously blogged about these so apologies if I have)

The 2nd is in works with a few test runs but they are looking good! Sneak peak in its digital stage.

This is the front, the inside will be like the original starting with 'Dearest'....

If you are the sort to have attention to detail, you might notice that instead of the classic blue sticker 'Airmail Par Avion' it says 'Littlemail, par nuages', which *should* read via clouds.

Excited talk about slightly nerdy stuff.

Yesterday was an interesting day but my purse is crying of emptiness.

I tracked down the HK branch (In Kwun Tong) for Madeira products which I hear are one of the best supplies for Machine embroidery sundries & although it was a pretty big officey/factory headquarters type place I was able to go in & buy stuff without minimums and I got quite a lot of freebies!

The guy was really friendly too which was nice, I'm always

intimidated to go into these places because I feel like such a small fish because they usually cater for big manufactures, that I am not.

The 2 small spools & the magna glide bobbins (which don't work on my machine :S ) were freebies! He wanted to give me a box of the bobbins so am glad I didn't take them, small flat and that.

DTG companies

I recently heard about these Direct To Garment printing companies where they aim more for the arts and crafts market with small or no minimums so after looking at a few companies, I choose Spoonflower as they are the oldest and had slightly cheaper p+p to HK but mostly because their website was the best!

New Character - BananaGirl

Meet Bananagirl - BananaGirl represents every job you had where your watch became your best friend and your best friend became your shoulder to cry on.

The job ad said 'Model needed for organic fruit company. Must have a great personality and a clean drivers license'.

She imagined classy countryside getaways, where she would drink wine and eat strawberries and get photographed all day long.

Sadly they handed her a bright yellow suit with a shove towards a busy high street, bursting every little dream she had. Poor Bananagirl.

New Characters - Pregnant Pam & Sunburnt Sally

edit: Changed clothes

Meet Pam - Your first-time expectant mother. She was that friend who never wanted children, never awwed over that cute baby and instead wanted a lifetime of adventure but alas, life is never what you plan.

Not quite the glowing mum to be, she instead feels forever sweaty and flustered but at least with the excuse of eating for 2, is able to divulge her appetite for peanut butter with crushed short bread sarnies!

Meet Sunburnt Sally -

Sally is that grumpy Auntie who came on board with your annual family holiday at Wells-on-sea at the last minute. She forgets all the essentials, packs waay too many hats and shoes and snores like a *itch in the caravan.

By day 2 what always seemed like a good idea at the start turns in a slow lingering daymare with those awkward conversations starting and ending in moans about weather - 'oooh its too blooming hot/cold/wet/grey/dull' (delete as appropriate)

back

So back, the flight there was soo scary (the plane dropped so much everyone was screaming for few seconds and bums came off seats!) that I'm officially scared of flying!

The next day a flight crashed in landing in Thailand nearish by so pretty scary all in all.

But I had lots of fun, as we went there for 'business' first we didn't manage time to get to the beach town which I was quite upset about but there shall be other times.

Will upload photos later.

Random foamy arrows

I've had this arrow design burned on a silk screen for a while but have yet decided where and how to apply it but for some practice I printed it onto foam and I think it looks pretty cool !

I love these colours, so fun and reminds me of a dreamy British summer.

MId pause review

Ahh to be a dog in hot weather!

Is it normal for dogs to sleep all day? I thought it was cats that did this?!

Right now as I type, he is snoring with his one beady eye on me and the other closed. Special talents my boy.

Now it may seem like I'm not up to much Littleclouds wise nowadays and sure I have my distractions but the massive delay isn't entirely down to that.

First off sourcing supplies here is really difficult as I can't google anything local and 8 out of 1o places won't deliver internationally and walking into a shop and asking for something very specific isn't straight forward when you don't know exactly how to say it.

Secondly, I had lots of trouble with my new sewing embroidery combo machine. It is a beauty to run, its crazy good compared to the crapheap that I used to have but the embroidery software doesn't work on Macs so I* went through a headache full journey of doing this and doing that to finally get it to work! (*technically, you could say it was my BF who did it all but meh!)

Lastly screen printing DIY stylee is proving more troublesome here, partly because I'm out of wack with it all (practice really does make perfect) but also the weather is having an effect, the heat seems to dry the ink in the screen quicker & the humidity is making me less patient and much like sewing, sometimes if your not in the mood, you just can't force it.

On a more positive note, the new website is coming along nicely, the new version is more colourful and fun whereas the old one was more artsy and hopefully this time around it will be easier to update as I'm getting help this time around.

On a even more positive note, I am flying to Thailand tomorrow!

Just for the week, Bangkok and Ko Samet so please imagine me with my toes deep in white sand come Wednesday teehee!