Button Fayre Giveaway

The summer really flew past for me and I was extremely busy with my 3 year old twins and another older child receiving his qualifications and flying the nest.  
We had a wonderful trip to a zoo/theme park called Le Pal here in France and although I've been before a few years ago, it was amazing to see it all again through the eyes of the twins which gave me lots more inspiration for future cushion designs believe it or not!  
We had lots of laughs too and I think the funniest moment was when Emmie saw the bottoms of the baboons and then insisted they were pigs, I chuckled for hours.  So, it looks as though Button Fayre may create some new creatures that have never been seen before ( although I'll be avoiding anything to do with bottoms, he he he ) and it'll be fun mixing things up a bit.

Last week I launched another super duper giveaway to win a beautiful ' Hooly Hoop Art ' cushion cover worth £30 and this one's so elegant in the design itself.  
I really love this particular concept because it was one of the first ideas, as Button Fayre, that I'd had and I've really built on it over the last two and a half years, producing some really glorious items with it.  

You can enter the giveaway if you follow the link below to my Facebook page and best of luck, you have until 21st September to enter and a winner will be chosen by random.org at 8pm that evening.

https://www.facebook.com/ButtonFayre/photos/a.115719548607946.17769.115156331997601/467288446784386/?type=1&theater

Here's another pretty idea using this technique and I really love these bags, they're so different and really stand out in the crowd.

I'm now back into the swing of work and my studio looks fantastic, full of designs ready to sew or work in progress.  I love it!

Happy week-end,

Lucy x

Summer fun with Button Fayre

Button Fayre's being going from strength to strength over the last few months and I'm happy to say that it's boosted my business confidence no end.
It's not easy running a business from home and fitting it in around a large family, and all of life's commitments, but somehow I'm managing, I definately have a guardian angel.

Life certainly knows how to throw you blows sometimes and the latest one came 3 weeks ago on our 3 monthly check-up at the children's hospital in Limoges ( for my daughter Abbie who has Crohn's disease ).
Her back's been so painful for 2 years now and she cries with the pain sometimes which isn't easy for a mother to witness.  I give her regular massages and she's even seen a physiotherapist but nothing seems to help and we've always been told by our GP that it's due to the continual corticoids she's been taking for 5 years.
Now the specialist has decided, and hit us with the news rather abruptly, that it may be a certain type of arthritis connected to Crohn's disease which has been a huge stress for me to think about and try and get my head around.  We should get the results in the next week or two but the wait is excrutiating and I had planned to continue working throughout the school holiday's ( around the children of course ) but decided to take a week off last week to gather my thoughts and spend some quality time with everyone.  

After my week off I came back on yesterday to find that my blog had disappeared but somehow I've managed to retrieve it, phew.  Technology is fabulous but so annoying too at times.

The good news is that I'm up to date with orders and hope to have two very large ones complete within the next couple of weeks and can then make a start on some more planned for an end of August/early September start.

The summer market night went extremely well and I'm always amazed at the huge support I have from everyone which makes for a truly wonderful evening, thank you.  I'm planning another one for the autumn time and will soon be making a start on Christmas items too which is exciting.

I really must try so much harder to post on here more often and so will make an attempt at once a week from now on....well ok, every two weeks at the least to be realistic but you never know, I might surprise you.

Enjoy the rest of the school holiday's, holiday time and summer,

Lucy x

It's summer!

Welcome to the summer and I love it!  It's the festival season, especially here in France where the streets and towns come to life with colour, music and dance.  We've already had the fayre pass through, the bonfire night to mark the summer solstace and the music festival and have so much more to look forward to.....14th July, the wool, felt and tapestry festival ( I live in Felletin, next to Aubusson, in the Limousin and well known around the world for it's tapestry industries ), the Folklore festival, lots of village festivals where they celebrate anything and everything including apples and donkey's, he he he.

Button Fayre's been so incredibly busy this year which has been an amazingly huge step for it's future and plans are well underway to further evolve, bring you lots of brand new cushion designs, amongst lots of other goodies of course, start writing a lot more regularly on the blogs, write a book about crafting in France and the whole artisan community, and working out more of a tight work schedule now that my little twins are actually not so little anymore and will be turning four at the end of the year.
I also really want to set up a special Button Fayre crafting chat page on Facebook which I think could be quite useful within the crafting community.  I often want to know where I could get something in particular, or know how to finish off a certain project and I'm sure we all have these questions and so what better place than a virtual tea and cake crafting room?  Yay I think!

Things are running at full speed right now and I've been completing cushion orders and am currently working on a giant table cloth for a beautiful French farm house that's being renovated ( not mine unfortunately ).   The design's patchwork but each square is around 60cm x 58cm and there are 24 of them, yes 24!!  I'm going to do the appliqué work on each square before I even attempt to sew the whole thing together, for obvious reasons, and hope to have it all complete in the next week or so.

The summer market night is approaching fast and will be held on Button Fayre's Facebook page on 25th July....I can't believe we're the 1st of July already today.....and you can find all details in the link below, just give it a click.

https://www.facebook.com/ButtonFayre

There will be lots of gorgeous goodies up for grabs on the night, all ( as usual ) at promotional prices too and I'm busy designing two or three exclusive cushions too which is very exciting.

We have temperatures in the mid to late 30's at present and it's very, very hot.  My freezer is packed full of ice pops to keep us cool and I really can't wait for the holiday's to get going now, it's quite a magical time of the year here and I do love sitting in my studio with the window open, listening to the music in the street on market day and the people laughing.

I kind of have two gardens.  You walk outside onto this lovely old pathway, follow it around and then stumble upon my ' secret ' garden.  I called it this because when I bought the house 7 years ago it was all overgrown and hidden away and once I'd started cutting it all back I kept finding incredible things like wild strawberries and elderflower!  I lined the edge in a hiccledey piccledey fashion with old stones et voila, a lovely border to plant my flowers every year and this year I've chosen petunia's and geraniums.  
Once you walk through into the large garden things become really magical as it's full of fruit trees, blackberry bushes, bay leaves, grapes, walnuts and noisettes.  Aren't I lucky?!

Enjoy the start of your summer,

Lucy x

Sweet things and giveaway's

Button Fayre is going from strength too strength but goodness it's hard running a business during the school holiday's...it's a good job I like a challenge!

The title of this blog post has given me another design idea ( you're going to have fun making guesses about this one ) and I think all things sweet are on the horizon, what better timing too considering we have the strawberries and cream season upon us, yay.

I'm actually here quickly to let you know about the gorgeous giveaway that's running on Button Fayre's Facebook page right now, link below.

https://www.facebook.com/ButtonFayre/photos/a.115719548607946.17769.115156331997601/423143667865531/?type=1&theater

I was so busy sewing up lots of scrummy goodies for my recent market night, including some beautiful freehand machine embroidered lavender houses, and couldn't resist extending the idea onto a cushion design to come up with this amazing piece which is the prize for the above giveaway.

Actually, this cushion has sold but the winner will get to choose the colour scheme which is even better, a custom design.

Best of luck to all who enter, it's quite an exciting giveaway and I get to sew another one of these which I adore doing because the whole mix and match with fabric idea is right up my street.

Have a fabulous week-end,

Lucy x

Button Fayre's ***SPRING MARKET NIGHT***

The spring market night is almost upon us and my excitation is mounting with the thrill of organising the whole thing, the thrill of sewing for it ( and making sure I get enough done in time ), and the buzz it gives you to actually have some stock because believe it or not, this is the first time in over 6 months that I've actually made lots of yummy goodies that aren't specific orders.

This year's been wonderful for Button Fayre so far, so much has been going on, and I'm really enjoying where 2015 is taking me, it's definately a direction I like!
So, what's in store for Saturday night's market night then?  Well, if you've been to a Button Fayre market night before then you'll know it's a fun couple of hours, hosted on Facebook, where you can expect to browse at your leasure through all of the beautiful items up for grabs ( and a lot of them brand new, exclusive, designs! ) and play a couple of games where the winner's will be sent a prize, just a little something to say thank you once again as I'm all about that and think it's so important to give something back once in a while.

The direct link to the preview album is below and I hope you enjoy taking a look, it's all bright, fun, and happy this spring at Button Fayre.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.417470378432860.1073741911.115156331997601&type=1

As you can see, it's all about colour and I do love to fill my surrounding's with lots of colour because it makes me feel happy.  

On to another important subject....my loyalty cards are ready and looking so gorgeous, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits with them and it'll feel so wonderful to be able to send them out as I've wanted some for so long now and am thrilled to have found ' Handmade Cards By Hazel ' on Facebook, thank you Hazel.

This blog post has some wonderful photos today and I'm leaving you with this fabulous photo of my new vintage sewing box, found yesterday in a brocante, I'm rather a lot in love with it as it just screams Button Fayre and is proudly sat next to the lampshade I made a couple of weeks ago.

I'll hopefully see you on Saturday for the market night,

Lucy x 

Giveaway time!

I love running a giveaway and this one's a sweet one just to say thank you for the continued support of my work.

I'll be adding a few of these lavender houses into my upcoming market night in April ( date yet to be confirmed ) and they're so pretty, freehand machine embroidered, and rather quirky.

I'm itching to have a go at my new lampshade kits which arrived with my father from the UK last Sunday....I've been so busy this week that it took me until Wednesday evening to open the box but I can tell you that they're rather fancy, fantastic, kits and I can't wait to be able to offer them to you.  I need to get sewing to see what I can come up with, it's a very exciting start to the spring for me.

Best of luck with the giveaway and to enter please visit my Facebook page, link below.

www.facebook.com/ButtonFayre

Lucy x 

Tea cup pin cushion tutorial

This is a an easy peasy tutorial for a beautiful tea cup pin cushion and will take you around 10 minutes to complete.

You will need :

A tea cup
Needle and thread
Wadding
A small piece of fabric
Strong glue


Do you have a lovely tea cup already?  Maybe you'll need to go on the hunt for one and I love nothing more than stalking all of the local brocantes where I live.
The tea cup in the photo is a small one I found for 50 centimes.

Here goes and enjoy!

Step 1.  Draw a circle on to your piece of fabric ( accurately is preferable with a compas ).  The size   of the circle depends on the size of your tea cup and to give you an example, my tea cup circumference is 8cm and so I've chosen the circumference of my fabric circle to be 18cm.
Cut the circle out.

Step 2.  Hand sew large gaps, around 2cm apart, around the edge of the circle staying as close to the   edge as you can.  (  Make sure you leave enough thread hanging at the start as you will be pulling       both ends together to gather up your fabric in a minute ).

           You can just about make out the needle and thread positioning in the photo above, sorry for                the quality of the photo!


Step 3.  Gather the fabric gently by pulling both ends of thread together, leaving a gap for the           stuffing.
You're actually making a simple suffolk puff!

Step 4.  Place your stuffing inside, pull tightly closed and tie the ends together with a double or triple knot.

Step 5. Turn the right way up so that the underneath doesn't show and using a strong glue, place and fix into your tea cup.

Step 6.  You're done, the only thing left to do is to add your pins.


Well done and I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

Lucy x

Cushion spring offer

I'm running a super duper ***SPRING OFFER*** for cushions on Button Fayre's Facebook page which is very exciting. 
Each cushion is a fixed price of £30 for a limited period only and so if you've been looking for something unique for yourself, or as a gift, then look no further.

If you'd like to benefit from this offer then please do send me a message to discuss requirements and cat cushions are always popular but I love having a go at anything.

This offer runs until 15th April 2015 and you can get in touch with me on either of the the links below.

www.buttonfayre.com

www.facebook.com/ButtonFayre


I wrote a lovely blog post about general things happening with Button Fayre recently, yesterday, and that's on my website blog ( link above ) if you'd like to have a read.

See you soon!

Lucy x

Bean Bag Tutorial

My children are on their two week half term and it's been pretty miserable outside, we've even had snow on occassions!

So, what better way to encourage indoor play ( and develop hand/eye co-ordination and fine motor skills ) than to get sewing some simple bean bags....easy peasy.

This is a very simple, and fast, tutorial that anyone can do, even with limited sewing skills.  The best part is that if you don't have a sewing machine you can still do it with a needle and thread which may take a little longer but will be worth the wait.

Enjoy!

Step one :  Cut out square or rectangular shapes with fabric ( I used a mix of vintage and modern fabrics for mine ).  Measurements don't really matter as long as your edges are even and I measured mine at 10cm x 15cm for the rectangular ones and 10cm x 10cm for the square ones.

Step two :  Fold each cut shape in half and simply sew around the edges, making sure to leave a gap large enough to put your rice in ( this will be sewn up last ).

You will be left with something resembling this.

Trim the edges and cut away the corners but be careful not to cut into the stitching.  Then turn the right way around ready to stuff.

Step three :  Half fill each sewn shape with rice, or any dried food ( half because there needs to be room for manoeuvre when thrown around ).

Step four :  Tuck the open edges ( the gap you left ) inside and then sew right along that edge, making sure you secure the ends properly.

*  The gap could be hand sewn closed for a neater finish.


You should end up with some bean bags resembling these, yay!

Why not try adding faces, whiskers, buttons, in fact, any kind of embellishments to make the bean bags fun?!
Here's a couple of cat additions I've added to the collection and my 3 year old twins have played with these rather a lot in the last few days since I made them.  They've been used in catching games, play kitchen games and even put into the back of dumper trucks.

Have fun with your children and I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

Lucy x

Giveaway time on Button Fayre!

I've, very shamefully, been meaning to write a quick blog about this giveaway for a week now and just haven't found the time but better late than never I say!

So, this is just a quickie to let you know that Button Fayre on Facebook is currently running a beautiful giveaway for a cushion like this, head on over now to enter as there's  still a week left.

The ' Flirty Birdy ' design is so vibrantly beautiful and will be available as cushion designs, lampshades, placemats, coasters, pencil cases, make-up bags and more....in fact, I'd love to find the time to make myself a pair of curtains eventually using this design!

I'm feeling very humbled by all of the wonderful comments, compliments and shares so far for this giveaway and am very lucky and never forget this fact because setting up a business is scary stuff, building it up is extremely hard work ( and even scarier at times! ) and then maintaining it all and regularly networking and building relationships is so important to me and something every business should do.  
I've over 12,000 likes on my Facebook business page now and boy have I worked for every single one of them but more importantly, I've loved meeting wonderful new people, many of them like-minded, and making friendships along the way....it's one of the main things that keeps me going with it all and really does make me feel so happy.

Best of luck to all who enter this giveaway.

Lucy x

Brand new cushion design for 2015 is complete

I'm so super excited, the cushion is complete and I've called it ' Yippetty Yo-Yo Flower ' cushion.

I hope you've enjoyed me on this blog journey through the progress of designing and sewing this up, it's taken it's time and has had to be done in several stages but it's a breath of colourful fresh air and will be hard to part with.

Using a few different techniques including freehand machine embroidery, 3D yo-yo flower shapes, fabric paints and lots of hand sewing, it's so scrummy and makes you want to eat it, he he he.

It's now for sale over at Button Fayre on Facebook if you want to give it a new home.

Happy Saturday!

Lucy x

Huge progress made on the new cushion design and snow!

I'm not sure whether to speak about the new cushion design first or the fact that we have snow as I love the snow!

Let's get the snow part over with and I have a lovely photo to prove it...the snowflakes today were almost the size of golf balls and I don't think I've ever seen them so big, it was fabulous.

In hindsight I should have taken a photo from the back of the house as the rolling hills and trees are gorgeous when they're all covered in snow, well, actually they're gorgeous all year round.

Now to the cushion design and I'm still not sure what to call this, maybe ' Yo Yo Flower Power '?
This has taken me all week to cut, prepare and sew and so I've done it in stages and am so happy to have almost finished, there's just the little beads to sew onto the flower centres now and I may have a play with fabric paint around the bird tails later too, I'll see.

Here it is so far and I hope you've enjoyed the progress of this design.

It's quite a strong design built up with lots of gorgeous colour and I'm quite certain that once I've sewn it up into a cover, added pom pom trim to the edges and then added the cushion that it'll look smashing.

This will be up for sale as soon as it's complete and so keep an eye out on Button Fayre's Facebook page for updates.

Have a super week-end!

Lucy x

Progress photos and how new fabrics fill your head with new ideas

I've very recently started on a brand new cushion design and the first of 2015.  I did write about it in the previous blog post but thought it'd be interesting to come back to it in terms of progress as that subject always fascinates me and like Button Fayre is continually evolving, so does a design.

I, more often than not, have an actual idea in my mind that I stick to but the exciting thing about the design process is that there's always rooms for new ideas to come in at any second and also the fact that sometimes the idea you had in your mind doesn't look so good in reality...yes, this does happen to me.

So, here's a reminder of the first afternoon spent on making a start on this design before I show you the next photo and explain what's going on in it.

From an artist's point of view, it always amazes me how long a design actually takes, sometimes even longer than the sewing itself!  So much thought goes into every last detail, even at this stage, from which fabrics to use and where to place them in terms of colour and fabric design...it can get confusing sometimes and I often find myself going around in circles because something just doesn't look quite right and then two hours later I've realised that one tiny piece of the design just didn't look right or one button colour wasn't placed correctly ( and of course, all of this coming from my imagination too because what's right for one person may not be for another ).

Here's the progress photo and I love it, it's really taking shape now.

It may not look as though much has been added but the hours in the thought processes are evident and I love this stage because it brings me back to my roots of art and design which I've always adored with a passion  ' placing this here and adding that there ' ......it's so exciting!

I've added the toadstools which have to be freehand machine embroidered but first I'll need to use fabric paint to hand paint stripes to the bottoms to give it an extra touch...I did this in another cushion design and it was really effective.
I need to freehand machine embroider the flowers to the left and right, above the toadstools, and also sew on the main flower stem which will be pretty fiddly.  The birds are straightforward enough but I'm mostly looking forward to sewing the main body of the large flower head because it's something different to what I'd usually do and to make sure that each yo-yo flower shape is properly fixed I'm going to machine sew them in to place first and then hand sew each button to the centre's.  Oh my goodness, the buttons, oh the buttons.  They took me hours to get right in terms of colours and placements.  There are extra buttons and sequiins in between it all, that I'll hand sew on, and I was going to add small button centres to the bottom flowers but decided it looked too much and took the focus off the large flower which is of course the main attraction of this design.  I'll freehand machine embroider pretty centres to each of those instead which will give another visual feast to look at.
I think this design is fascinating in it's complexity and I can't wait to show you the next progress photo!

Moving on to fabrics....I have so many of them, and love nothing more than to be able to pick and choose which I'd like to use when I'm designing, but there's something quite magical about choosing new fabrics, and then of course receiving them.
A couple of times a year I'm known to have a bit of a fabric outburst where I'll go a little bit mad on specialised websites for new fabrics but these are actually the moments that I can waste money and never use some of them which is such a shame.  So, I do tend to be a careful fabric shopper most of the time, only purchasing either something I've seen that screams at me to buy it there and then or something I need.  I also tend to only buy a couple of fat quarter's ( half a metre ) at a time to test the fabric out because I can't think of anything worse than receiving metres of fabrics that aren't what I'd hoped they would be.  If I love them, and find I can use them easily in my designs, then I'll simply buy more.

I found this recently on one of my favourite fabric websites and fell in love with it.  It's nothing hugely special in actual design but a wonderful alternative to the gingham I'll often use as the base.  I can imagine it with bright flowers all over it, really scrummied up.  What do you think?

Brand new fabrics are so wonderful at making your mind feel refreshed, giving you inspiration and new ideas and so it's great to treat yourself once in a while.

I'd better toodle off now as I've got a few things to sew up and of course the new cushion design to continue working on....the sooner I'm finished, the sooner I can show you all the end result!

Happy Monday!

Lucy x

New design in the making

I really love it when a new design is underway...the excitement of your original idea, the planning and then finally the actual cutting out and placing of fabrics, buttons, etc.

This is just a quick post about a brand new design, the first of 2015 for Button Fayre, woohoooo.

Things are looking good, even if it's snowing outside ( but I can't complain because I adore the snow ) and the summer is definately on my mind.

This new design will be a colourful addition to an already beautifully vibrant collection of cushions with one difference, the use of yo-yo flowers to add real texture to the overall cushion.  Doing this gives a 3D effect and scope for lots of fun and so I can't wait until the whole thing is complete but for now a day has been spent getting this far and it's looking wonderful.

There's still so much to do, lots of petal shapes to cut out and place, the birds to be added and decorated, toadstools along the bottom and other pretty flowers and shapes...oh, and not forgetting once the machine sewing's complete I can hand sew all buttons and sequins.  

I think it's going to be a stunner and so stay posted for progress photos on Facebook and more news.

www.facebook.com/buttonfayre

Button Fayre's also on Pinterest and so take a look there too for some summertime inspiration on this winter's day and most of all, have fun.

Stay warm,

Lucy x

The more the merrier

So much has been going on in recent months, more of which you can read and get up to date about on my other blog attached to my website www.buttonfayre.com 

I'm very excited to have almost reached 12,000 likes on my Facebook page, it's incredible and such a huge accomplishment, and I'm even more excited that so many of these people have become firm friends whether they're clients or other business owners.  
Facebook really is a wonder and we all have a bit of a moan about it now and then but where would we be without it?  It's opened up so many new doors for me, so many opportunities, and I'll always be grateful for that.

This blog post is all about showing off some work from 2014, a year full of challenges and promises for me.  Here goes....

I adore these brooches and they're a fresh, brand new, design for 2015.  I'll let you in to a secret and if you're reading this then you're one of the first to know!  I'm going to be using the yo you flower theme a lot in some new cushion designs I have planned....and I'm not giving any more away than that, he he he.  
Orders for these can be placed by contacting me on my Facebook page and they make wonderful accessories to brighten up any coat or outfit, plus wonderful gifts too!

I'm currently in the process of designing and sewing up quite a few of these ' Hooly Hoop Art ' pieces which are new, modern, versions of the original Button Fayre ' Hooly Hoop ' design.  They're very exciting and a wonderful addition to any wall.

This beautiful textile art piece was a real favourite of mine in 2014, so much so that it stayed on my wall for quite some time before I was tempted to sell it.
I've always loved mixing old and new, vintage and modern.  This style works well for me because the excitement of using something old with something brand new is just too much, I love the heavy contrast, even in something as simple as an old antique frame with a new textile art piece inside it.

Yes, I do sew other items apart from cushions and textile art pieces.  In fact, I can sew just about anything but I rarely follow patterns as they get me all cuffuddled ( if I'm totally honest ) and as the design process gets me going, so does the design of the pattern too.  I really do design absolutely everything from scratch and then construct and sew it into something 100% unique.

Ok, I admit it!  This was my favourite cushion design of 2014 and I love it so much because I used the art of appliqué to not only design and create a basic design but to also add texture to it in shapes and forms.  It really was a lot of hard work and hours and hours of designing, cutting out and then sewing, but so worth it.

Here are a few of my bestest designs and they make me so happy to look at them, what else can I say?

Happy New Year for 2015 with all of the scrummiest, jelly beaniest, wonderful, wishes from me and I hope to see you around on Button Fayre for some chats and fun.

Lucy x