Craft fairs, freezers and grumpy Eagles!

Another week gone but unfortunately not too much crafting has been done! I managed to make a couple of felt pouches for phones, cut out some templates and also sized up fabric to make card holders. It did make me realise that I’m going to need a lot more felt!
Last Saturday I was staying in Romford and managed to get to a fair in the library – it was very small but had a great atmosphere with some very skilled crafters selling their wares! I may need to keep an eye on craft fairs out that way as I stay there regularly. Hopefully over this weekend I’ll be able to make some things up and take pictures of the finished products to stick on my website.
My partner has started designing a website for me (Lulu and Stitch) and I’m really happy with it so far – which is why I want to take some good pics to do it justice!

I managed to get my name down for a couple of craft fairs – one November 19th and one 10th December – please see the Ark and Craft Fayre, Needham Market for details. I also tried to get my name for a fair with Handmade Havering, also in November, but I’m afraid I missed the boat and they will not be continuing with their regular fairs after this year – such a shame! Kirsty (The Little Black Cat) was the organiser and was very helpful in offering tips and links on how to find other venues so hopefully I’ll have a little luck soon – however I don’t want to push myself too much at the moment so I can get a feel for things and find out what I’m letting myself in for .

Tuesday was my day at the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary. We were scheduled to have two new freezers delivered at 1.30 and one knackered one to be collected. One big problem we had though – the one to be taken away was still in use and needed to be defrosted for the people to take it! Because it was still in use, there was still chicks, quail, rats and mice in it which we had to try and cram into the other freezer! My task: to pour a kettle full of boiling water down the side of it to begin the thawing process. An hour or so later and nothing had really happened so I boiled another kettle of water and poured it slowly and then began to chip the remaining ice off with a plank of wood. A few splinters later and it was done with the mushy ice sitting in the bottom – the freezer was so old that it didnt have a plug in the bottom of it but I decided that tipping the freezer was not the kind of thing I could do.
Good thing I did do it though, the delivery men turned up at 12.30 – a whole hour earlier than we expected and just as we were starting our 12.30 flying display! They had apparently “made up time” and were “ahead of schedule” but Maz told them that it was tough and they would have to wait until the display was over – they got a free display out of it and were able to wander around the site looking at our other birds.
We lost one of our microphones and because two falconers do the display, only one could talk so they shared the display. The  first bird in the flying display was Pungu who is our Battleur Eagle and because she was in her pen, she didn’t have her gear on, only her flying straps so there was no way to tie her to the post. So guess who was lucky person who got to carry her back to her pen? I say lucky very lightly – Pungu absolutely hates girls and seems to hate me more than most. She never lets me anywhere near her and every time I walk past her, she does something similar to the Haka done my Maori warriors - I call it her war dance. So imagine the chaos that ensued when she was handed over to me, her mortal enemy!
She is no lightweight bird, and decided to do her war dance while I was trying to carry her back to her pen.

Her war dance looks like this:

As you can imagine, her wings were battering me around the back of my head but I could cope (apart from the couple of occasions when her feathers covered my face and I couldn’t see!). Then she decided that the war dance wasn’t enough to see me off and grabbed hold of my arm with her beak, then twisted her head and gave me a pinch! She did let go eventually after much waggling of my arm and then went for it again but luckily got the edge of my glove and was trying to constrict me with her talons – they actually went through the leather glove and left holes in it. I managed to escape with my life though, and got her in her pen and ran away for a well earned cup of tea! I’m feeling it now though with a sore arm (I was carrying her with my arm completely outstretched so she couldn’t get near my face!) and a nice bruise in the crook of my elbow where she bit me.

Another example of her rage:

She likes to pull up grass to express her dislike.

Another example of a grumpy bird:

Grumpy Baloo!

Napoleon was showing off her beautiful self when I took my phone out of my pocket to take a picture of her:

And finally, this is Ragnar who is my friend’s Goshawk:

Sorry for the long post,  it was meant to be two separate ones but I ran out of time over the week! Keep an eye out over the weekend for photos of my products.

Luci xox

Bits & Bobs

Another busy weekend behind me (yes I know it's Thursday, but this is the first chance I've had to do a blog!), several items made and they are now just waiting to have labels on them ready for sale!
I managed to take some photos on my phone, but I apologise for the poor quality!

My new lot of fabric - load of beautiful colours and patterns to choose from!

And another photo of the fabric!

Reversible newborn baby shoes and fridge pegs

Close up of the reversible baby shoes!

Close up of the fridge pegs for those important documents (Chinese menu & the kids first picture of mummy)

Christmas card topper decorated by me with crystals - sorry it's sideways but I don't know how to change it!

Tuesday was another day at the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary! It was my job to go to our woodland trails and feed the Red Squirrels - we have 2 males & 2 females paired up and one of the male+female combinations are now proud parents! They've built a drey and have filled it with babies! Not the usual place a drey would go though seeing as we provided them with a couple of nest boxes - they decided to build theirs in their feeder (one of those houses you buy for birds to put their food in!). Needless to say I couldn't use it for food anymore so had great fun sprinkling it around and hiding it in trees to work for it. I've uploaded some more dodgy photos from my phone...





That should be enough photos of furry things for now! I took some photos of the birds on my camera but I can't find my lead at the moment!

That's all I have time for as well, will hopefully be uploading better photos of my creations over the weekend :).

Luci
xox

Crafty night

Spent an hour making some card ideas up, don’t think they turned out too badly. Mixture of Christmas, Birthday, Anniversary…and a random card with a frog on it that I couldn’t resist!

First Post...

Here I am writing my first post and I have no idea what to say! Where to start…
I’ve recently had the ingenious(?) idea to start my own business selling handmade items. My main problem was thinking of what I could actually make and sell, I’ve always been rather crafty and love making things but I had no idea where to start!

My current things are cards, baby shoes, baby bibs, stuffed toys and printed reusable bags. I’m also going to be looking into making handmade soaps ready for Christmas…I hear that they can be quite popular and I like learning something new. I’d better get a move on if I need to leave them to sit for a month!

Over the weekend I tried lino cutting for the first time; I love the look of lino printed cards. So I came up with my idea, got my tools ready and started cutting away. As enthusiastic as I was, I slipped and ended up gouging my finger leaving me a lovely U shaped slice…Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind however it’s right in the crease of my knuckle and everytime I move my finger I’m reminded of it with a lovely sharp sting. And here was me reading that they’re not sharp enough to leave a mark ;).

Yesterday was my volunteer day at my local bird of prey centre, I absolutely love it there. The falconers are an amazing bunch with high spirits and great senses of humour which makes all the difference when working somewhere.

This is Phyllis (below) - one of my favourite birds at the centre. And yes, I am completely biased. She’s beautiful, gentle and cuddly and she is still a baby and hasn’t learnt any bad manners from the other birds yet! She’s a Spectacled Owl.


This is Auckland, another of my favourites. He’s a Boobook Owl and is such a sweetheart.


This is Cecil, our male Spectacled Owl. He’s been with us for almost a year now and is certainly my favourite bird of all. Lovely to fly and sweet natured HOWEVER, he’s been put up for moulting and has gone a little feral with lack of human contact – I’m sure he tried to eat me when I was cleaning out his pen the other week.


Another of the favourites is Cobweb, a barn owl. He can get a little frisky with the ladies of the human variety, but he is quite sweet (when he’s not trying to mate with your head!). It appears that I’m one of the only ones he willingly flies to in his pen when we try to weigh him. He likes nothing better than to sit on my head and preen my pony tail.



That’s all I can think of at the moment, and I hope to be posting again very soon with details of my items and various things going on in my hectic life.
Luci
xox