Market Wrap - Up...

A few photos from the market in Bulleen on Sunday. It was a great day out and I was so pleased to have been involved with a gorgeous market day at Fairy Floss.

Thanks again to Kirsty and her family for another fantastic day!

I'm Playing my guitar tonight. There's something exhilarating about singing along to a song for me. It releases everything inside and I truly express myself. It's like riding a roller coaster! If I am ever sad, my guitar and singing will help. 

Car is 100% packed for the market tomorrow, can't wait! Master 2yo has had gastro for 2 weeks and Miss 6yo came out with red spots / blisters last night (chicken pox?? other random virus??). Cant wait for a day out, not worrying about who's nose I have to wipe for a few hours :) 

DO come visit me in Bulleen I will be at the WeePantz Stall!

Market Prep Friday...

I feel like I am a day ahead of myself today as my market is tomorrow rather than on Sunday this week so I am busily cutting, snapping, sewing and re-threading.

Okay so the re-threading I am really procrastinating as I have to re-thread the upper looper on my over locker with Wooly Nylon... ugh not an easy task!

 (okay so it doesnt look like there are many bibs here, but trust me, there are!)

Ahh anyway... so I am busily preparing for the market tomorrow at Werribee Park. I have given the weather a stern talking to that it is not to rain tomorrow as I am doing my first outdoor market since November.

The Market is at Werribee Park, which is on K Road (its where the zoo and the werribee mansion are) and it runs from 9am til 2pm. The weather tells me that its going to be a lovely day too :)

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So make sure you head on down to the market, there will be lots of beautiful handmade goodies on offer as well as some great specials at the WeePantz Stall!

See you there!

The Weekend...

Today I am doing alot of market prep. After not doing a market for a whole month, I am really looking forward to tomorrow's Monkey Markets in Eltham, but I also have alot of work to do to get ready such as re-washing and pressing my table cloth, and as I discovered this morning, pressing my bibs.

After sitting in a box for a few weeks they were pretty crumpled, so today I am VERY thankful for my Elna Press. It doesn't make the process any quicker, but it does make it possible to multi-task because while one bib is pressing, I can be doing something else important like making a cup of tea :p

One, two, three... 

Nicely pressed bibs for the market! And I got 2 loads of washing one while I was doing it, and afterwards had time to get some more bibs as well as some nappies pinned together and partly sewn. Better get back to it actually... 

Hope your weekend is lovely, wherever you are. If you are in the neighborhood (or not, I'm definitely not against travelling) make sure you head into the Monkey Markets tomorrow in Eltham.

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The last few days

A few days off here this week, I've been busy being a mama and girlfriend as well as cleaning and getting ready for our new couch which was handed on to us from Mick's sister on Wednesday.

We got together with some of our family on Australia day and had a BBQ, in true Aussie style.

We had sausages in white bread with tomato sauce, gorgeous marinated rump steak which was massive and delicious apparently (I didn't end up having any). And sat around watching the kids play cricket and tennis and soccer.

The kids jumped on the trampoline, ate donuts with yellow and green icing and played under the sprinkler having a great time! Mick's dad got his camera out and of course took some lovely photos of the kids playing under the sprinkler. I wont post any of Oliver as he didn't have any clothes on.

Ruth, when Mick was squirting her with the sprinkler

and after squirting Oliver with the sprinkler, check out the evil face!

It was a wonderful day out, and was great to get out in the sun (yes there was a small amount among the overcast grey clouds) and the kids had a great time playing together.

As you can also see from the button on the right hand bar, the auctions and raffles have all finished now as well and we raised such a wonderfully large amount of money for Queensland. I am so proud to have been involved in this initiative and its wonderful that we raised so much money! Thank-you to all who bidded in auctions and entered raffles you have helped make such a big difference.

Mick is back at work after his super long weekend and I am back working on WeePantz stuff again, getting ready for my first market of the year which is on this Sunday in Eltham.

Oh and I've run out of pins, this must mean back to the sewing machine, oh and the snap press too. It's funny how the idea of snapping nappies makes me think of all the other things I need to do like wash the nappies, vacuum and mop the floor and bake muffins, cookies and slices.

My Creative Space

I've been spending a lot of time sitting at my kitchen table the last few days with this view...

I've been sitting and watching the kids play while I sew, like I said last week, and it is really proving to be quite productive. 

I've had a few orders, and with my first market for 2011 being next week I'm fairly busy.

So the kids have a movie or some music on, get to play with their toys and mummy can supervise as well as work :) Yesterday we did finger painting... more on that another day...

Now that the post is back up and running in QLD I also have to post this today, so I had better get moving!!

For more creativeness head over to Kirsty's.

Dont forget the auctions either.... Right hand side bar... I found out yesterday that so far we have collectively raised $45,000!! I feel so privileged to have the opportunity and ability to be involved in this :) Bidding is still open for a few days, so if you have been outbid its not too late :)

Last Market of 2010

Tomorrow I will be heading into Morabbin to the Monkey Markets. This will be my last market for 2010, and there will be some absolutely gorgeous stall holders, including myself, there is about 79 stalls!! Definitely something for your last minute Christmas gifts.

One of these things would be my gorgeous blanket and nappy sets... great gift for a new bubba...

or one of these luscious red minky nappies would be fantastic for a gorgeous Christmas bottom!! 

or you could simply indulge in some gorgeous fluffy goodness for your bub!!

Some of the other stall holders are zee and me, Fuzzy Creations, Narelle, Mulberry Tree Organic, and many others!! So head out to the market and grab some gorgeous, handmade goodies for Christmas presents, or just for you!!

Market Prep Day...

Today is my final day of prep for the Fairy Floss Market in Doncaster tomorrow, so I am madly racing around between the many jobs I need to finish. 

I have sewn together a bunch of AI2 shells and am currently overlocking the soaker pads. I am amazed at how much quicker it is to make an AI2 nappy, I definitely would be packing it if I had all AIO's to make before tomorrow!!

I am also racing back and forth from the fabric shelf... surely I can throw together one more designer combination before tomorrow right?? right???

We will see, I want to do some more unisex nappies as I feel like everything is pretty much girl or boy orientated.

Anyway, must get back to work, lots to do! lots to do! Make sure you head into the market tomorrow and have a look around, there are just the most beautiful products at this market, if anything, I just love going there to drool!!

Tuesday's Hidden Treasures

I am very excited to have been featured on the Fairy Floss Markets Blog as one of Tuesday's Hidden Treasures.

I will be at the fairy floss markets this Saturday in Doncaster as well details below.

Fairy Floss Markets

Manningham Function Center

Doncaster Rd, Doncaster

9am - 2pm

Make sure you get along and check out the gorgeous new nappies, blankets, bibs and wipes I have been working on. I now even stock All In Two Nappies!!

Its been too long...

**blush** it has been almost 6 weeks since I posted. I have been so incredibly busy that I have hardly had time to come up for air.

I've recently started selling my nappies to a store called Fluffy Buns. The lovely misty is now stocking my products in her new online store. Head over and check her out!

I have also been doing a lot of markets and making custom nappies, which is taking up alot of my time. The boy has been very unsettled of late, he seems to have allergies which we are unsure of what they are, lactose it seems which for my cheese eating, yoghurt loving little man is a tough habit to break!

Anyway, I hope to be in more often from now on... I am slowly getting a hold on my time, mainly by getting up at 5am to sew, it is actually very nice at that time of the morning with no kids around to bug you and it is just you and the machine humming away.

Ive also been buying LOTS of new fabric lately, which is lots of fun for the production of bibs etc. I also acquired some Alexander Henry fabric recently at my local sewing shop for a highway robbery price of $3 per meter. I still have no idea what I will do with it, but I couldn't let designer fabric sit in a shop at that price and not buy it! I will post about that another day, because I actually got a few gorgeous things that day all from the bargain bin!

Until next time :)

Busy Lady...

I swear I am still around among the many things I have to do. Perhaps I am buried underneath the piles of nappies, blankets and bibs that are to be sewn.

A piccie of my stall from Friday night to keep you entertained while I find myself somewhere in the to do list ahead of this week's market :)

My Creative Space

Whoops! Skipped another day! 

 I mentioned on Tuesday that I am working on some super secret squirrel things for the markets as gift ideas for Christmas. So that is what has been happening in my creative space lately. Lots of sewing, cutting, and thinking of what I am going to do next! LOL!

I have made the decision to go with a little something that looks a little like this...

I will be making baby blankets to try out at the markets and will be taking the first run of them to Eats & Treats tomorrow night as well as to the Monkey Markets on Sunday.

This one is white cotton with a feature strip on the front with minky on the back and is so beautiful and soft. I will be making up a few, mostly with chenille or flannel on the back, and only a couple with minky on the back for now as I am awaiting a shipment of minky at the moment and don't have many big pieces left :p.

They are a beautiful weight for the coming warmer months and are the perfect size for swaddling or using as a cuddle or pram blanket. I am still unsure how much they will be, I am leaning towards something between $30 & $45. Not sure yet, but I will have to decide soon!!

I have a bunch more that are ready to be sewn as well...

So I will have a nice little pile of them with me at the markets this week to see how they go. They are so beautiful, I hope that they go really well so I can keep making them! 

I have also spent the last few weeks dealing with a little problem that we in the nappy world call "wing droop". I had a few comments from one or 2 of my nappy testers and reviewers lately that there has been some small issues with this on their tester nappies, and of course, the perfectionist in me says "AHH, FIX IT!!" So I have spent a couple of days testing out a new front design of some nappies to deal with wing droop.

As usual, the easiest solution tends to be the best, I simply cut the wings off! I am still deciding whether I will reduce the amount of snaps on the front of the nappy to 6, I probably wont as it will reduce the amount of use it gets. (Ignore my pasty white leg in this photo by the way)

What are you doing in your creative space today? Why not head over to Kirsty's and join in with everyone else and share your creativeness with us all :-)

Amy xo

Naughty Little Blogger!

So I have been MIA the last 6 days. No excuse other than busyness, markets and fighting off the millions of snails in my back yard whilst I ripped out an entire garden bed in preparation for a veggie garden.

I DO have some very secret squirrel thinks that I am thinking about for Christmas which I will reveal later in the week. 

I went to the Nappy Expo on the weekend. My stall was right next to the door, which was great because I got to talk to pretty much every person who came through the doors! It was good to talk to people about their perceptions of cloth nappies as well as what they want to do in cloth nappying their child.

I am working on a little display book as well for my market stall to show off what kind of nappies I have made as well as what I am working on. And also the story of how WeePantz came to be and where we hope to go in the future. It is nice to think about and refocus your energy and attention on what you are doing, 

I find that lately I have become exhausted as I spend the whole day attempting to get work done around School and Oliver so I am also changing my working hours. I had a slight melt down towards the end of last week, about the same time as I went AWOL. As I stood a blubbering mess, my beautiful partner and supporter Mick said to me "you can only do what you can do" and this is completely true. As a perfectionist I tell myself that is a weak excuse for being not good enough in my own eyes. (oh yes that might be pretty harsh, but as i said, I am really a perfectionist, and I wont settle for less than what I expect of myself most of the time)

 I think that as someone who has suffered depression in the past, I need to make sure I work hard to ensure that I stay better! So from now on I will do emailing, take phone calls and do minimal actual crafty work during the day, aside from buying fabric, doing pinning and when Olly decides to nap, doing some website work as well as some cutting. Sewing room time has now become 7pm - 10.30pm giving me the ability to nap when Olly does if I need to, I am going to enjoy motherhood which is why I wanted to stay home and work from home to start with.

I am working on alot of things for the coming week. Along with the secret squirrel stuff I mentioned earlier, I am preparing for 2 markets (I know I just said I was exhausted but once again... work-a-holic and perfectionist).

The first of which is on Friday Night in Carlton, and is a beautiful night out at a cafe called Birdie Num Nums. The market is called Eats and Treats and is donating proceeds to the Royal Childrens' Hospital Foundation in Melbourne. I will most likely donate some of my sales to the hospital as well from orders and sales over $100 as having experienced the wonderful staff at the children's when Olly was in there, and having have met a few of the patients and their parents, it is SUCH a good cause. Tickets for the market are $25 and must be pre-purchased so that the organisers know how many people to cater for! There are a bunch of beautiful stall holders and included in your ticket price is a meal (6 courses I hear) and also a drink of either wine/beer/softdrink. Its actually such a good price for the meal! For more information head over to the Eats and Treats site and email the girls for ticket reservation.

The second Market I am doing this weekend is a Christmas Market run by Monkey markets and is in Eltham on Sunday, I am really looking forward to this market as the other stall holders' items are so so beautiful, and I just stare all day! Its also nice to be in an environment where little babies are coming past your stall :p Baby Gazing Day!!! For information on this Sunday's market, head over to the monkey markets website.

Anyway, so I had best get back to making dinner, Bed time is now 7pm sharp so I have to get dinner finished and the kitchen cleaned before I go in to work. Tomorrow I will share with you some of the other things I have been working on in my hibernation almost week.

Amy xo

Saturday...

I've just finished getting ready for the market. Now for a couple of glasses of red before a good nights sleep!

Sir Oliver decided that last night wasnt one for sleeping, so I am pretty exhausted. Make sure you head into the market tomorrow and grab some gorgeous wares!

Until then...

Today is....

WET!!

The rains are here (hee hee that reminds me of the corn ad), so we have opted to hibernate for the day.  

I was supposed to get up at 6am, but opted to stay in bed and listen to the rain pouring outside and cuddle my little boy Olly who had joined me at 5.30am.

I was booked into the gym this morning and I ditched in favour of cleaning my house and sewing bibs and nappies.

Oliver was meant to nap, so I can get some work done, but he seems to have missed the hibernation memo, all he wants to do is run around like a mad man...

Tomorrow I am meant to go to the market... I am hoping this rain clears up so I can!

My Creative Space

Okay so I missed another day... more RNW things to do yesterday, but relax everyone, I am back, I am done with RNW for this year :-)

Today in my Creative Space I have been cutting, pinning, sewing, ironing, washing and buying fabric for bibs and nappies ahead of Saturday and Sunday. (yes, I realise i am completely crazy organising 2 markets for a weekend, but alas, I thought one of the markets was last week and miscalculated my dates... eek!! All is good, I have done this before, and will most likely be crazy and do this again,..

So I bought this fabric today (along with some blue stary fabric) for bibs. I woke up this morning, started organising my work space for the day before breakfast and the school run occurred, and then realised something horrid. I only had about 20 bibs!! now when you generally sell out of bibs in every market you 20 is simply just not enough for 2 markets! So off I trundled to Spotlight. The middle fabric is Michael Miller (from the discounted $5 bin). At least I am assuming it is Michael Miller, It had MMF in the selvage.

I also finally cut into some of this...

Some of these lovely boyish fishies will be gracing my products too. :)

Anyway, off to tend to children, dinner and baths and bed to do. And then more sewing!!

For more spaces head over to kootooyoo

DOH!

 

Source

Haha, so today I was sitting here thinking and wondering why my market email hadn't arrived yet for tomorrow. After checking with the bank that the payment went through I decided to call CMA and ask if it was running late.

I just started to say that I was a stall holder at tomorrow's market in Werribee Park when the lovely lady on the other end of the phone told me that the market wasn't tomorrow at all, it was in fact NEXT Saturday. Oh well, more time to make more stock right? And a well deserved day off tomorrow! I wonder what I will do with myself? Probably sew :p

So if you were intending to visit me at the market tomorrow, don't! Come next week instead :) I will have some gorgeous new boy nappies!!

Sew Up Wednesday.

It's Sew Up Wednesday again on Crafty Mamas. Last night and today I am (once again) working on a banner for the front of my market tent. 

I have already got a big vinyl banner that I bought at the beginning of the year (before logo changes, so I am close to replacing it) which is great for the front of my table at indoor markets etc. But I want people to see who I am from far away. I do believe that there is something about the name "weepantz" that gets people coming to your stall just so see what on earth you are selling.

Anyway, this is the beginning of it, I have the letters cut out of microfleece and the back is just some poplin I got at Spotlight that was just the right colour. Mind you, I have started this banner 3 times now and not been happy with the end result so it ends up folded and in the corner of my sewing room. 3rd time is the charm right??

This weekend I will be in Werribee for the market by the way, why not head in, details are over on the side ;)

Market Day Wrap Up!

This Blogtoberfest has given me the motivation to actually blog a bit more about what goes on around here.

YES, its a mad house for the most of the time as I am ALWAYS preparing for a market and this week was no exception. I didn't, however, spend as much time as usual in the sewing room as it was school holidays and a special man's birthday.

But I was ready, after late night sewing and ranting at my printer which has decided to print lines of colour that somewhat resemble a disjointed version of my images in my information brochures. Any advice here? Perhaps I need to run the print head alignment thinggo that it keeps telling me to do! :p (oh yeah, I'm super tech savvy!)

So off I went to the market this morning. Yes, it was early, and yes, I remembered to wind my clocks forward before I went to bed, and my STUPID considerate phone decided to wind itself forward ANOTHER hour at 2am after I was in bed and ahh, yes tragedy, I was awake at 3.30am, well in Daylight savings time it was 4.30, but nevertheless, it was still an hour earlier than I intended to wake up, and only 2 hours after I went to bed. ;-)

So Off I went, and the market was just wonderful. This was one SUPER organised market, I was very impressed with the Fairy Floss Markets team and the work they did to make the day a complete success. I even had one of the helpers offer to unpack my car for me! They were just so so very wonderful! I arrived upstairs to a cookie on my table, in the shape of the market logo (oh what a clever tactic, delicious cookies will keep me coming back) and beautiful stall holders all around me who were all so very very clever. I find sometimes its easier to close your eyes than it is to open them as you save alot of money! I will be doing my Christmas shopping at this market the next time I am there, as it is just FULL of GORGEOUS things that I want to be in my size.

I am finally getting used to the smaller space that I have to display my nappies and bibs. I am used to having a 3m x 3m space and this was just one table, but I think I really did a good job of display this week as I used all of those hours I wasn't sewing to think and research how on earth I was going to utilize my space in a better way. I'm finally nailing it :)

And I had a very good day with lots of babies and their parents walking past and stopping for a chat, and me of course getting clucky over them all! (A girl can look and cluck right?) and of course lots of new customers, creating lots more sewing for me this week! Meaning that yes, I will have something to actually write about on here other than the fact that my kids are just gorgeous. But who gets tired of looking at MY gorgeous kids right?

Speaking of gorgeous kids... I bought them both one of those delicious cookies from the market. (who can resist yummy cookies right?) I wanted to get Miss Ruth something sweet as a reward for being such a good big girl over the holidays (even if her mummy is a grumpy bum slight work-a-holic and worries too much about how much sewing, cleaning, and paperwork ISN'T being done while we are playing together). 

Anyway, off to finish bathing my children and finish the many beers I intend to drink tonight as a relaxation before the big week of market prep for this week's market in Werribee Park.

To Market to Market...

Tonight I am burning the late night oils and finishing off some stuff ahead of tomorrow's Fairy Floss Market. 

I'm really looking forward to being there, make sure you come along and get some beautiful nappies, or some other baby goodies, as Im sure it will be full of amazing things!

See you there!