America's Next Top Model

Sanford is a bit of a supermodel when it comes to posing for the camera. I caught him in some good light and before I knew it had taken about 50 pictures. These are some of my favourites. The slightly blurred ones below best reflect his personality which is constant movement and expression.

Beneath all that hair is actually a very cute little set of eyes.

Not afraid of a serious pose.

Seashell button Bracelet.

What's this ? I hear you say. There is method to my madness I assure you. I have just had to become a font of all knowledge in all things jewellery related as part of my new job so I couldn't help but experiment and made some simple bracelets using seashell buttons, leather and a super clasp.

Blue version.

White version. I tripped over my dog and landed on my hip, shoulder and lastly hand. There's a small chip on one of the buttons as a result but it will be easy to replace.

Thrift Store Find - Craftsman Toolbox

Technically this was a swap meet find but it's in keeping with the thrift store mantra. Impressed by it's sturdiness, no plastic here and it's sense of history I parted with $5 and it was mine. I'm slightly obsessed with storage it must be said but I justified this purchase by appointing it as my new painting tool box. The inside was slightly grungy so it was given a clean and then the husband kindly painted it for me. I rather like the surprise of the purple interior. I hope you like it too.

Sturdy handle.

Purple interior, so shiny.

Thread Spools Some Crafty Ideas

So, here's what happened to some of those spools. I thought they would make good hooks for the side of my craft table. Can't take the credit for the implementation of the spools on desk that was my husband. Apologies for the messiness, sometimes there's no amount of fancy angling of camera to avoid it. However it really isn't too bad.

Ribbon storage with pretty pin.

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Thrift Store Find - Cotton Spools

I found these empty wooden cotton spools and bought them as I had seen an article where they had been used to store bits of ribbon. Nowadays the spools are plastic and not nearly as nice. I think I am going to attach some to the side of my craft table as hooks for extra supplies. Another idea is draw pulls. You can paint, stain or decoupage so many ideas...... Have you got any ?

Masterclass in Packaging

This happy little package arrived at the weekend, the sturdy outer was merely a clever disguise. Every part of the inside was BEAUTIFUL.

The box within the box.

Stitched imagery on the box.

The cake box (very apt)opens to reveal the tasty contents. Crocheted Oreo Cookie, Jammy Dodger, Cup cake and flower pin.

Note printed bird tags, each a different bird. The items themselves are gorgeous and perfect in every way. Taman you are brilliant and have a very bright future ahead of you. THANK YOU !

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Social Media Marketing - (Yes it's still the I must draw blog)

So, the other day as part of my day job I went to Social Media Marketing training. You may be noticing that I've been more active than usual in the social spheres and this was in part due to the overwhelming statistics which I couldn't ignore. I used to think I was quite techy I can no longer make that claim as I don't even have a smartphone. I am making the assumption at this point that you have a website, blog and e-newsletter.

Here in a nutshell is what I learnt - Websites which used to be the piece de resistance are no longer the behemoths of old. You have 4-6 seconds to capture your viewer, marketing people are seeing websites as hubs for social media marketing e.g Facebook. Everyone is suffering from major ADD and like 24 want real-time updates and interaction. So, you need a website but you need to maintain a presence.

Facebook- billions of people have their own personal page however you can also create a business page handy if you don't want to share every aspect of your life with the entire world. So after umminng and aaahing I caved in and created a business page and whoosh the satisfying acknowledgement of like. Post badges on your blog and websites so that you can spread the word. If you get 25 likes you can claim your own unique name. I still need 3 more likes, hint, hint.


Twitter - In the past I have made half-hearted attempts with this media and couldn't see the point, now if I had a smartphone it would probably make more sense, imagine real time thrift store find, to buy or not to buy ? I could interact directly with anyone reading my tweets. There's a bloomin' useful tool that manages your tweets (you can pre-program up to 30 days in advance, imagine that) it's called hootsuite.com and drumroll when you tweet you can simultaneously send it to your facebook, now that's more like it. I'm not that witty when it comes to tweeting, does anyone really care what type of sandwich I'm eating etc so if you like me are tweetless then simply link to your new blog posts, flikr uploads or anything else you find interesting on the net. Use it as a way to thank people too.

Flickr - I've had a Yahoo account for as long as I can remember and in all honesty I get so much spam that I barely use it but that's what you need if you are going to use Flickr. On Wednesday I created my Flickr stream, which has a gargantuan audience if you tag your pictures well. If anyone comments and says "Is that for sale"? it arrives via email and you can respond to potential purchaser which 2 days after I posted my pics occurred, really.

Foursquare.com -  I had never even heard of this but apparently Yahoo wanted to buy it for $100,000,000 so they must see potential in it. Again, you need a smartphone, the idea is that you can connect with your friends, collect badges etc by checking in. The GPS in your phone posts your exact location, (no good for Tiger Woods) and lets your friends know where you are. Other people if looking for say a happening bar could see how many people have checked in and make a decision about whether to go or not. I don't have a bar or shop and sadly spend most of my time crafting away in my house so I don't think I'll be using this just yet.

But, I haven't got the time, I hear you say, think about it this way apart from the time investment all this stuff is free marketing. As long as you respond in a timely manner to requests you build relationships and help to build your brand.

There endeth the lesson, if like me you are a one-man band on a miniscule advertising budget, why not give it a go.