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