Rainbow of Baby Burp Cloths

Summer has arrived and it feels great to get the shop back open and to start filling the shelves with gorgeous fresh and bright new stock! It reminds me of the feeling you get when you fling the windows open and let the fresh air and the breeze flow in! Over the next few days I will be adding quite a few new items including 4 new storage baskets, but the first of the new stock in store now are these lovely fresh and bright baby burp cloths. Take them out with you in a changing bag to protect your summer outfit when winding and feeding your little one. They are such useful things and so much prettier than your average muslin!

I have grouped the burp cloths into sets of three, which I had fun doing and hope that I have arranged them in sets that complement each other. Though if they are three fabrics that you would prefer together in a set then just let me know. I could quite happily play with these fabrics all day long! I even adore their names! Names like 'Sprinkled in Noon' and 'Summer Grove in Night'! These cloths are made using high quality 100% cotton fabric and backed with very soft, super absorbent bamboo/cotton towelling. They are machine washable so they are perfect for everyday use and being in a set of three means you can always have one to hand. They are listed here in my shop. 

Right I better go as I am off to help at my sons sports day event at their school. Apparently I am helping with the space hopper race! 

Thank goodness they no longer do a mum's race!

A Little Shop Update

My Etsy shop is closed at the moment just for a couple of days while I 'regroup'. It's the last day of the kids school break and I always try very hard to juggle entertaining them whilst still working and fulfilling orders but for some reason however hard I tried it just didn't seem possible this week! So I eventually closed up shop. 

I am up to date with all orders but have decided to remain shut whilst I settle the children back into their school/nursery routines and also to try and get some of the new items I've been working on for what feels like weeks finally finished and listed in my shop. 

I'm very excited with my new work and fabrics and can't wait to show you. 

In the meantime here is a little taster of whats to come!

My Daughter's Daily Ritual

I pass these beautiful bright flowers six times a day Monday to Friday. And most of the time I'm too busy rushing the kids to school, hurrying back home to start work, rushing again mid way through the day not wanting to be late for nursery pick up and so on so forth, to take much notice of these blooms. But it is the return journey from nursery in the afternoon when it is just my daughter and I that I suddenly become aware of them and there bright and cheerful colour. And its all because it's become part of my daughters daily ritual to stop and pick just one, maybe two on her way home from nursery. She stops selects the individual flower she wants (any more than two would be too greedy, because as she so rightly says 'we must leave them for other people to enjoy') and then she's off riding down the road on her balance bike. The 'selected' flower is then placed in a small glass vase to take pride of place on our kitchen table! It's such a lovely ritual and one that I'm grateful for as it makes me stop and look and admire their beauty however brief the moment lasts!  

Dreaming of Raincoats

I blame it on the mixed weather we have been having of late and the fact that I still seem to leave the house everyday wearing my rain coat that I find myself so in love with this sweet and colourful rain mac from Boden's Autumn range. Sorry yes I did just say Autumn!! Terrible isn't it, we haven't yet experienced summer, but here we are being shown Autumn! I haven't even thought about the fact that my children will need shorts and rash vests for long days spent on the beach but here I am already window shopping for when the days grow cooler and the leaves change colour and start to fall! I'm sure if the weather predictions are right and that we do enter into a 'mini' heatwave at the end of the week all thoughts of rain and coats will be forgotten, but for now I will allow myself to get excited by the prospect of my daughter wearing this coat! 

And while we are on the subject of Boden's Autumn collection I spotted this 'bird' tunic another must for my little one, and staying on a bird theme I also spotted this women's trench coat. I must say this doesn't excite me as much as the girls mac and I'm not sure if I am on my own here but I really wish they did the green bird coat in adult sizes as I would quite happily wear it this Autumn in the rain!

You can see more of Boden's Autumn range here in their preview.

Lovely Flurry of Traffic!

A Crafty Hen has had an extra flurry of interest over the last couple of days and it was so lovely to find the traffic had come from here a lovely Spanish blog called Eternamente Flaneur. This lovely blogger has included three of my Storage baskets, my yellow 'Free as a Bird' baskets and also my Black and White basket in two lovely storage and nursery combination ideas. It's so nice to see people visualizing my work in this way. I just wish I could cut my images out as well as she has done!!

A Huge Fabric Leap!

Possibly the most exciting parcel ever arrived this week. 

A box full of fabric. A box containing full bolts of fabric. A box full of fabric just for me!

Not only is this the largest amount of fabric I have ever bought but this is also the biggest commitment I have made so far to 'A Crafty Hen'. Usually I purchase one or two meters of fabric, make for example a baby gift set, if the item does well then I will order more of the fabric, and this method works ok most of the time. But sometimes an item can be a 'slow burner'!! It may not fly of the shelves for example, but slowly and surely after say advertising the product it may start to sell well, but this is when I often encounter problems! I go to reorder the fabric and find that it is sold out or the fabric shop has reordered it and then there is a delay, or worse still that it is no longer being printed! However much I like working with lots of different prints in small quantities, it is a lot more time consuming and really is not the most efficient way to work or to sustain a business. It takes time and effort to get traffic to your shop, to an item you have made so it makes sense once the the traffic is there to keep it coming! So I made the decision in the New Year to take more control of my fabric stock and the most sensible way to go about this was to choose a few 'key' fabrics that I can create a collection from and order these fabrics in bulk, making stock taking a whole lot easier!

And so there it was in the box! Five full bolts of organic fabric. 

Grey elephants has long been a favorite of mine which is luckily shared by many of you. The deer never stays around for very long, so I've not had the chance to play around with the fabric, and the multi coloured elephants is also a favorite. The grey spots, well that's a staple fabric! But maybe it is bolt number 5, that excites me the most, as this is organic cotton fleece. I've been searching and searching in the UK for cotton fleece and have not had any success. I use to make baby dribble bibs and the occasional baby blanket and started by backing them with fleece, which is the most common fabric to find a dribble bib backed with. But I was never that keen on the fact that the fleece was polyester. Yes sure it absorbs and wicks away moisture and dries very very quickly, but to me, and this is only my opinion, a baby's delicate skin should have the kindest and most gentlest fabrics placed next to it and for me polyester doesn't cut it. But organic cotton oh yes! And it doesn't disappoint!  It is very very soft and cosy making it not only perfect for dribble bandana style bibs but also for backing blankets. So watch this space, as they say! I am going to continue working with lots of different prints. I can't help myself! But these three key prints, the two elephants and the deer fabric will soon be available in bibs, dribble bibs, burp cloths, storage baskets and blankets and no doubt a few more items will slip in along the way, which I know will please many of you who get in contact with me asking for more of a range for your baby and nursery in these delightful fabrics.

New Storage Baskets

Introducing my new range of storage baskets. I feel very much like I have gone full circle with these baskets as portable toy storage containers were one of the first things I started selling when I opened my first shop online. I'm not really sure why I stopped making them as they were always very popular, but somehow and somewhere down the line baby bibs took over! But now they are back! The collection ranges from baskets to match the most popular of my baby gift sets for use as storage in a baby's nursery or child's bedroom to baskets like the Glitter Gold' one and the 'Black and White Monochrome' that would not only fit into a stylish modern nursery but would also not look out of place on a dressing table, in a hall filled with post and keys to your living one. Made using a selection of cotton and linen fabrics all the baskets have a white lining and a natural linen base. They are available now to buy from my shop.