Shop Handmade UK Giveaway

I have taken part in the Shop Handmade UK giveaway and boy what a giveaway it is! The winners will receive one of two prize packs worth over £200 each. My contribution was one of my pretty pink coin purses and can be found in prize pack one.

For full details and the chance to enter this fantastic competition click here to be taken to the Shop Handmade UK competition page and follow the instructions there. The deadline for entries is 11:59pm (UK time) on Friday 4th December 2009.

Good Luck!

Tea Cups and Fairy Cakes

Apologies for not having updated my blog in a while. I have been very busy with orders recently and have been spending my time in front of my sewing machine rather than my computer.

I had a large bag of parcels to post today, a combination of online orders and commissioned orders. I wanted to tell you about one parcel in particular - framed embroidered artworks destined for my new stockist!

I am so excited about my design work now being stocked in the 'By Jove' tearoom shop. I was introduced to this delightful tearoom when hunting for wedding venues and my fiancé and I celebrated booking our wedding over tea and cakes there!

I am a huge fan of tearooms and home made cakes so could not believe my luck when I was introduced to this tearoom. It is beautiful, quaint, truly delicious and has a fabulous little shop alongside the tearoom. I could not have hoped for a better setting for my framed embroidered artworks. 'By Jove' will be stocking my 'Fairy Cakes' and 'Afternoon Tea' framed embroidered artworks and my cupcake themed greetings cards.

Please click here to be taken to the 'By Jove' website. I cannot recommend this tea room highly enough and suggest that if you are anywhere near Burwell (Cambridge) you should pop in for tea and cakes, enjoy the atmosphere and marvel at the quirky handmade tea-cosies covering each delicious pot of tea!

Wedding Invitation Commission

Now that these invitations have all been sent out and received by the wedding guests it is safe for me to blog about them.

I received an order for wedding (and evening) invitations a short while back from one of my lovely baby blanket customers (remember my Dylan and Ava blankets?). This was the first time I had produced wedding invitations so I welcomed the challenge. My brief was simply to include the text Wedding/Evening Invitation, heart motifs and if possible tie them in to the colour of the dress.

The fabric swatch for the dress proved very difficult to match a craft paper to so I created my own by pasting a textured paper to a black base and painting it with titanium gold paint. I then handmade a heart motif using the fabric swatch I had been given and photographed it. I used the heart motif and chosen text to create a printed ribbon by arranging it in Photoshop and then printing on to t-shirt transfer paper. This was then applied to cotton tape and threaded through my painted paper on the card base. The invitations were finished off with some co-ordinating machine embroidery stitch lines.

I am really pleased with the results. Now I just need to start thinking about designing and making my own wedding invitations!

Handmade Make-up Bags

Whilst working on an order for one of my personalised handmade make-up bags from my NOTHS store I decided that it was about time I made some in the lovely new Amy Butler and Tanya Whelan fabrics I bought recently. The result is this Contemporary Handmade Make-up Bag now available in both my NOTHS and Folksy Shops.

I thought I would also take the opportunity to re-photograph my personalised make-up bag with the bag filling more of the frame.

Claire Hurd Design on 'Craft Juice'

My Fairy Cakes artwork is on the 'Craft Juice' website today voted as one of their top crafts!

More Christmas Goodies

I have been listing more Christmas goodies in my online shops today including my personalised Christmas stockings in my NOTHS shop and a cute little Christmas robin decoration in both my NOTHS shop and my Folksy shop.

As always, feel free to contact me at studio@clairehurd.co.uk if there is anything you would like to order directly.

Claire Hurd Design on Cuteable!

My 'With Love' heart greetings card was featured on the Cuteable website today. Do pop over and take a look, it is a wonderful site and a real treasure trove of beautiful designs.

Christmas Robin Card Design

My latest Christmas card design shows a cute little Christmas Robin. It is available now from my online shops here and here.

Christmas Listings

I have been trying to hold off listing my Christmas items online as it still feels too early to be admitting that Christmas is on its way. However, browsing online this weekend and also receiving my copy of the Not on the Highstreet Christmas catalogue in the post made me realise that I had better get listing ASAP or risk getting left behind! It seems that the beginning of October is the time to list Christmas items and not mid-late October as I had imagined!

I have now listed my Christmas Pudding card on both Folksy and NOTHS and have plenty more Christmassey items lined up to join it. The only problem with this time of the year is having enough daylight to take sharp and bright photographs. Hopefully I will get a chance to photograph a couple more items tomorrow and list them too.

I shall keep you updated as I add each item and remember if you would like to place a custom order based on something you see here or simply wish to order direct you can email me a studio@clairehurd.co.uk and I will be happy to help.