Custom Order Book Covers

I recently had a request from an Etsy customer to make fabric book covers for her pet's medical records, after she saw the notebooks I have in my shop. This customer had already bought some felt keyrings of her dogs so she wanted the books to match.

 I sent her a photo of all the fabric I thought would be suitable for this project and she picked this blue and white striped fabric with embroidered hearts.

To make the covers I cut out a long rectangle of the patterned fabric, as well as a matching one in plain white which would be the inside. I cut out the animal faces and sewed them to he patterned fabric. The two dogs were based on existing patterns I had, just with a few colour changes, but the cat I had to design from scratch. 

With back sides of the two pieces of fabric facing I sewed along the top and the bottom and one of the sides. I turned them right side out and inserted two pieces of card to give the cover some sturdiness. I then sewed up the remaining open side

I made the fabric pieces extra long so that I could fold in the sides, and sew in place, to create pockets for the covers of the medical records to slide in to.  

Making these covers involved a bit of trial and error but the customer was so pleased with them and said the records fit perfectly.

A Felt Dog for Every Occasion

This year I've been expanding my felt dog business by producing dogs for different occasions.

I made a dog on a heart for Valentine's day.

A dog ghost for Halloween.

I even made a dog bride and groom to celebrate my wedding this year.

And of course my Christmas dogs in Santa hats are back for another year.

Check out all my felt dogs, and other animals, in my Etsy shop, and follow along on Instagram @lisasfeltfriends.

Custom Felt Dogs

Today I'm sharing a few of the custom felt dogs I've made recently.

As the countdown to Christmas has begun I've been getting lots of new orders coming my way.

I was really please with how this tricolour Corgi turned out. Look at that happy face! I went on to use this pattern as the basis for a standard Corgi in my shop which I've sold twice already.

This felt dog is @chunkithefrenchie on Instagram. He wears some great slogan t-shirts that are worth checking out.

I've started making some dogs with Santa hats on ready for Christmas, but this customer asked if I could do a hat wearing a baseball hat. Sure thing!

I had to google to find out which team this dog supports. Go Astros!

Follow @lisasfeltfriends on Instagram for all of my felt creations, and check out my Etsy shop.

New Paintings: Dogs in Flower Crowns

I came up with these images when I was working on some designs for new colour in magnets, which I'll be sharing soon. I loved this set of four dogs in headresses and wanted to do more with them.

They look so grumpy about having to wear flower crowns!

I decided to print out the designs on a larger scale on to water colour paper to make some small paintings. I decided to use gouache paint as a way to keep practising with it. I thought its ability to produce flat, even colour would work well for the style I was going for with these paintings.

When painting it was easier to go over the printed lines and draw them in again afterwards with a black felt tip pen.

I'm so happy with how these turned out. Gouache paint was perfect for these. I'll probably print out more copies of these designs so I can keep practising.

I'm planning to make these four paintings in to prints but for now the original paintings are available to buy on my Etsy shop.

Custom Felt Dogs

I've been really busy recently making custom felt dogs. It's really exciting how popular they are.

I get a lot of my orders through my Etsy shop, but I also posted about them on Facebook and a few of my friends shared the post which has brought in some orders too.

Here are some of the dogs I've made.

I've found that French Bulldogs are definitely the most popular dog at the moment. I've sold quite a few of my standard ones, and had lots of orders for custom ones.

The dogs that I think turn out the best are ones with high contrast features, like this Dachshund.

I've had orders come from all over. From as close as my work place, to other countries like America, and Sweden - where this labrador is from!

Colour Me Magnets

I've been busy preparing for Christmas craft fairs next month and adding stock to my Etsy shop. One of the things I've been working on is these colour in magnets. If you've been reading my blog for a while you may remember these cupcake magnets. I've decided to bring them back and add some new designs to the range.

I wanted to make a set of colour in magnets that might appeal to both girls and boys so I created these monster magnets. These were really fun to design as there were no limitations at all. I could draw as many eyes, arms and legs as I wanted.

I also created some Christmas jumper designs as the festive season will be here before we know it! These were also really fun to make just because I love Christmas so much.

The magnets are printed on matte magnetic paper and cut out by hand. Felt tip pens are the best thing to colour them in with. I love the bright colours.

I created packaging for the magnet sets which I think really shows them off. I've added these new sets to my Etsy shop so if you've already started thinking about Christmas presents, or you just like colouring in, please check them out.

Etsy Update

It's been a while since I've had anything in my Etsy shop but I'm slowly filling it up again.

I've added a few things you might recognise, like the felt dogs, emoji keyrings and wood burned necklaces, and I'll be adding more new things soon.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

Necklace Gift Cards

I'm still thinking of new ways to present my handmade necklaces for craft fairs and I came up with this for my fabric bows; make them look like bow ties!

I drew the shirt illustration on the computer and printed it on to card, with my shop and blog information on the back. I drew over the lines with a black pen for the handmade feel.

I put two holes in the front of the card to put the necklace chain through, and made little paper pockets to put the rest of the chain in which stick to the inside of the card.

I'll be selling the cards with an envelope making it super easy to give these as gifts.

I created a similar thing for my word necklaces with speech bubbles on the cards.

I'm hoping displaying the necklaces on cards will make them stand out more to customers, and encourage people to buy them as gifts.

All the necklaces featured in this post, with the cards, are available in my Etsy shop.

Custom Order

A few weeks ago I had a message drop in my Etsy inbox from a woman requesting a custom order.

She had seen the felt syringe I had made 4 years ago and wanted to know if I could make another for a thank you gift for her friend who is a medical professional.

Challenge accepted!

She wanted it to be pretty much the same as the original syringe, but with a 'dorky smile.' Done.

I decided to use thick wire for the needle part, something I didn't have 4 years ago when I used a silver pipe cleaner instead.

It was a fun project to work on and it shows that you never know where posting something random on your blog might lead.

Branding

   Since I re-named/re-designed my blog I needed business cards and things to match.

   Even though I'm working with three different names - Always Arty blog, The Craft Arty Kid Etsy shop (Always Arty wasn't available on Etsy. Annoying!) and my own name for my online art portfolio - I've tried to make everything match a bit more.

   One of the main design features is the pink circle with a name in the middle. This comes from my art website and was something that my graphics student housemate put together for me.

   I print my artist business cards professionally but for my craft/blog/Etsy business cards I choose to print them myself. All the information I needed to show fit on one side so I thought it would be fun to add something to the back. I got two sheets of white card and got all abstract painty on them. Once they'd dried I printed my business cards on the blank side. They went through the inkjet printer fine.

   When cutting the sheets into individual cards it was fun to turn over each card and see how the painting had been cropped.

   I love every one is different and the painting is a little surprise when the card is turned over.

   I've also made stickers to give out free at craft fairs, put in Etsy orders and maybe leave in random places.

I used the images from my Colour Me Magnets and just added my Etsy shop url at the bottom. I printed the images on A4 sticky label sheets and once they were cut out I added a little message on the back.

   The last things I made were some small circle stickers to put on the envelopes I send my Etsy orders in so the recipient knows exactly what the package is when it arrives.

   Now I just need some Etsy sales so I can start using these things!

Paintings for Sale

The following are some paintings I don't think I've shown before as they were made pre-blog.

This was painted in 2008 I think. It's of the harbour of St. Gilles, Croix de Vie in France. I went on holiday there in 2007.

It's oil on card and is a lot rougher than the paintings I do now.

There are actually two versions of this painting in existence. The second was done a year later as part of the '20 Paintings' project I was set in my first term at university. It was the 'a painting done in less than an hour' painting. I did it with acrylic paint on the back of a sketch pad cover, if I remember rightly. It's now on display in my friend Stef's bedroom.

This one is also from 2008, but was done as part of my A level art work. I was doing a larger painting that feature a bunch of grapes so this was a prep painting.

Unlike most of my older paintings, there's nothing I would change/do better with this one. I'm still pretty amazed by it.

This painting, which I like to call the Elephant Desert, was done in my first term at university. As you can tell it's different to all my other paintings as it's somewhat imagined. 

It's still sort of based on a photograph. I was doing a little project on flint cobbles (cos that's fun...) and took photos of stones in a wall that I passed on my way to uni. This particular one looked like it had a picture in it, so I decided to paint that picture, and the Elephant Desert is what I came up with.

All these paintings, and more, are available to buy in my Etsy shop. Some are quite cheap so check them out. I'm trying to make space for newer paintings so I hope a few of these sell.

Colour Me Magnets

I have a new thing that I made and am really excited about!

Magnets that you colour in!

I love colouring in!

I've used the same magnetic paper that I made the gangsta words with, and it turns out felt tip pens draw splendidly on it.

So far I have two sets; cupcakes and teacups.

If they take off then I'll make more. I'm thinking dinosaurs...

I'm really proud of the packaging too.

I now want to print on everything other than plain white copy paper.

These magnets are of course available from my Etsy shop; cupcakes and teacups.

Etsy update

Hi guys. Being done with my uni work means that I've had time to make some new things for my Etsy shop.

Yay!

I've listed some cute little bow necklaces.

And some new wire word necklaces.

Boom!

Take a look.

And while I'm promoting myself, here is the link to my art website (or you can just click the Art button above).

There you will find my miniatures and my paintings all in one place.

I got my business cards yesterday ready for the degree show.

I'm like a legit artist now.