Well, thank f**k for that!!

This was going to be a completely different post today but when I opened my blog to write I had a heart attack as all of my pictures had gone from my posts! They were all replaced with a grey and white 'no entry' sign that looks like this.

Naturally I panicked, Googled what was wrong and it turns out that your Google+ accounts and Blogspot are linked (if you don't have Google+ then it is linked to Picassa) A few weeks ago I decided to get rid of all of the photographs in my Google+ account as I kept getting annoying emails and messages on my phone about adding 'these photographs' to your Google+ account and I thought (stupidly!) that I don't need those photographs any more and if I do I can get them off my blog. Big Mistake!  Luckily, after panicking and swearing a lot, I had a live chat with John C from Google support who talked me through how to rectify it. I'd added the images to my trash bin, hadn't hard deleted them and (thank the photo Gods!) 60 days hadn't passed so they hadn't auto deleted either - phew! John wasn't sure whether they would automatically return to my blog or whether I'd have to manually add them all again (cue sobbing) but, thanking the Blogspot God's this time, they automatically returned to where they were meant to be.

Thank goodness for that otherwise you would miss out on such beauties like this image of me with a tea cosy on my head.

Joking aside - my top tip of the day is not to delete any photographs from Google+ if you have a Blogspot blog as they will disappear from your blog and induce much crying, swearing and cursing!

Still here....

I seem to be falling out of love with my blog at the moment. I don't think things like Instagram and Facebook are helping as you can show your appreciation of something/one very quickly by 'liking' or double clicking to 'heart' something. Much easier than commenting or reading lengthy blog posts right?

But I'm not being lax about getting ready for Country Living (well not that lax anyway!) I pinned this picture a few days ago thinking something like this would be perfect for showing off my gift tags (especially now that they have new packaging) and I've just received a similar one through the post that I ordered. But mine is super fancy and spins :) I've just put it together and rest assured as I make more gift tags for CL I will put them on the rack, give them a spin and then photograph them for you. 'Cos nothing makes readers comment more than a spinning gift tag rack right?

Do you read Kat Got The Cream?

Well you should! Her blog is lovely and she is addicted to vintage finds and charity shops just like me :) Oh and I am also one of her sponsors for December and I made the advert all by myself!

See? Evidence of advert above :) It's not the worlds best advert but I made it and with no help from Matt - well maybe a bit of advice about resizing!

Kat is also hosting lots of giveaways over the next 7 days so go and enter - although not the Bettys tea one as that is for me to win :)

Damn captcha!

I'm having to turn the captcha comments back on for this blog as I was being bombarded with spam comments and even though I have to moderate comments, some of them were sneaking onto posts and I have no idea why! So apologies for that if you find them tricky but for the sake of my sanity, I had to do it. It will hopefully mean I have more time to blog :)

Look at my tidy spool rack :) It's a lot fuller than that now thanks to my trusty sidewinder bobbin winder!

Look - tidy drawers :) The small ones at the top are for bits of paper that have been cut out to be stickers but that are waiting to go through the sticker machine and the bottom drawers are for half finished gift tags and mini envelopes. Now that I have somewhere permanent to put them, it might stop them spreading round the house and living on trays and in boxes!

And see I was clever to show you the tidy bits before I showed you the mess. Feel free to ignore the two pictures below!

I am continuing to tidy the studio today so hopefully next week I will have tidy pictures to show you!

Lost my mojo

Has anyone seen my mojo? I have lost all enthusiasm for blogging and making at the moment so it's making this space a little boring. And full of thrifty things which is no bad thing but you know, it's meant to be a craft blog :) I've been ill and the house is chaotic (we have a dining room full of things that belong in Taz and lots of other crap!) So I am going to leave this space well alone for now and concentrate on getting some of the house sorted and then maybe I will want to make some new things :)

This is what we did yesterday - had Tara's fairy party. There is ballerina fairy Tara getting a big hug from pirate A :) She had a brilliant time and so did we. There are some photos floating around somewhere of me and Matt wearing wigs and big clown pants, catching balls :) I'll post them when I see them.

Screaming

Image from We Heart It

I can't be the only one who is mightily annoyed at the new word verification on blogger. The number of times I have given up after trying to type out the two words multiple times! So I figured if I was struggling then others might be too. So I have switched the word verification off BUT your comments will now have to be moderated so it might take a while for them to show up on the site :) Also, did you know that there is a new spam filter on blogger? I didn't and found that two genuine comments had been put into my spam folder - so check your spam filter regularly. I found it by accident as I didn't realise it was there.

Right so who is going to be first and leave me a comment to see if I've set this up correctly?

A bloggy review!

It's getting to that time of year where we all tend to look back on what has happened in the past 12 months and of course I am no exception. Over the past 12 months I have had 35,605 page views which seems quite a lot to me! I've gone through my analytics and have found the most popular blog posts over the past year. Most weren't written this year but they have been popular over the past 12 months!

Not surprisingly the top spot goes to the post that describes how to make your own padded envelopes. It's not surprising as it has been shared on lots of blogs!

The second spot goes to my post about a local fabric shop. Maybe it's because you can get fabric there for £1 a metre?

The third spot goes to the easy peasy jam recipe using a microwave. Very, very easy!

This next post is from 2007 and isn't it amazing to look back at your progress over the years? It's for a brooch tutorial and I think it was the first ever tutorial I did. I was going to delete it (as it's a bit naff) but if it's the 4th popular post looked at over the past year then it can stay!

Another tutorial and this one uses old Christmas cards to make garlands ready for next year! A good bit of reuse I think!

This post was all about a fair in Clitheroe and showed off my new chicken packaging too!

The next post deals with the raffle I held with Jo on behalf of the Japanese people affected by the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

And the last post (I could go on and on but I'd better not) is all to do with fashion - or my version of fashion anyway! It seems that people agree with me about red and green not being seen together!


So what have I learnt from this? That people like tutorials certainly so hopefully there will be more of those in 2012 :)


Come back tomorrow for a little look at my favourite makes from 2011.

Blogtoberfest

It's time for Blogtoberfest where I am pledging to post one post a day for the whole month of October. I've done it before so I'm sure I can do it again :)

Designed by Betty Jo Designs

The master list is being held over at Tinniegirl so if you want to join in the feel free to pop over and see what it is all about. There are lots of fabulous people taking part and you can start at any point during October so jump on board!

Wheeeee I'm back!

While it was lovely to have time off I am very pleased to be back :) I had to fight hard at some stages throughout August as I wanted to blog/tweet but I resisted apart from annoucing that I was featured on UK Handmade! So what have I been doing? Some sewing (none for Swirlyarts - all for us and presents), lots of bits of mending and fixing, lots of playing, babysitting, reading and relaxing. Some scary ride riding at Disneyland Paris, digging through bargians in rural France, charity shop shopping and spending time with Matt without the girls (bliss!). Buying 7 vintage dresses for £20 in London (!), nearly fainting at the prices of fabric/notions in Liberty, fabric buying (but not at Liberty!) meeting a fellow tweeter (with cute daughter) in London, enjoying time spent by myself and generally having a great time without having to rush back to pack orders etc. Evidently I didn't have take photographs on my list as I have none to share with you today!

So to ensure you have something pretty to look at here is a sneaky peek of the main thing I have been working on in August.

Full pictures tomorrow once it has been given away to the recipient!

Extended break

Starting from today (and I know it's not August yet!) I will be taking an extended break from my shops and blog for the whole of August. I will also be stepping away from Twitter (eeeek!) and Facebook too. Cuteable will still be going but with only 2 posts a week. I am long overdue a break from trying to cram in posts and network and a whole month without posting fills me with dread and makes me feel quite giddy at the same time!

I will be spending time with these monkeys and my bigger monkey too! I have banned myself from making anything to go into my shops and only to undertake craft things for us/gifts (I couldn't do a whole month without making anything!) I am allowed however to design new things on paper and develop ideas but not actually make them.

Wish me luck with staying away from technology although I may sneak in from time to time as a month is a fairly long time! Promise to visit when I come back? :D

Link within

If you are reading this through a reader then you probably can't see the new widget I have added to the blog but feel free to click over and have a look!

I have added a widget to the bottom of each post which looks for related posts within my blog that you might also like to have a look at. I first spotted it over at Curly Pops (although I think she has changed it now!) and then Dig The Earth and I really liked the look of it. Hopefully it might give you a bit more to read :)

As I have only just added it, the related posts probably aren't that related as the little 'bots' need to trawl through my blog and look for keywords etc.

Garden - thanks Mum and Dad :)

Here are some before pictures!

Huge overgrown hedge and a blossom tree that is much too big for the patch of ground it is in.

And this is what it looked like with the hedge gone (a huge job done earlier in the year) Please note the nasty wonky wall behind Tara. There is also half a large skip full of earth behind that wall too - I know because Mum, Dad and I shifted it all on Monday!

And this is it now. It still needs a lot of work like gravel, pretty pots and possibly a bench but it is looking sooooooooo much better!

From the driveway looking down

And on the other side of the driveway (it's a double width one) is this little patch of garden which has had a tidy up - not that you would be able to tell, but it has!

Gorgeous huge blooms on my clematis this year :)

And Tara pretending that the clematis is actually the beanstalk and she is Jack :)

And a little patch I forgot to tidy up - I'll do it soon :)

This month is hectic what with little girls turning 4, parties for little girls who are turning 4, 3 school trips (2 of which I am going on as a parent helper), craft fairs, restocking some of my suppliers, ballet shows with rehearsals - you get the picture! So something has to give a little over the next month and I am afraid it can't be Cuteable as it brings us money in (!) so it has to be this little space. I'm not abandoning it altogether but there won't be daily posts for a bit. I also have about 300 photographs to go through on Flickr to see if I have listed the items photographed or if they are just lounging around 'unshopped' Oh and I have the mother of all to-do lists.

Wish me luck?

Links to help you promote your business using social/online media

Here are the list of sites I promised you all at the presentation last night - even if you weren't there then you might find these links helpful for using social media to promote :) The actual slides of my presentation should be up tomorrow!

Craft Juice http://www.craftjuice.com/

Crafts Forum http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/

My blog http://www.swirlyarts.blogspot.com/

My Website http://www.swir.ly/

Cuteable http://cuteable.com/

Etsy http://www.etsy.com/

Folksy http://www.folksy.com/

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/

Cuteable group on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/cuteable/

Craft Juice Tutorial http://swirlyarts.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-use-craft-juice-tutorial.html

Me on Twitter http://twitter.com/swirlyarts

Me on Formspring http://www.formspring.me/Swirlyarts

Haptree - great for lots of advice about tweaking and improving your online presence. http://haptreeandme.blogspot.com/

Rachel Lucie - a great tutorial for how to grab an Etsy Treasury. http://rachelluciejewellerydesigns.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-make-etsy-treasury.html

Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts

Kirsten also sent me this link to how to use google analytics effectively. Here is a link to google analytics too!

If I said I would look something up and link to it and it's not included here then let me know in the comments - these are the only notes I made! And this last link isn't social media but it was requested.

UK Scrapstore Directory http://www.childrensscrapstore.co.uk/Uk%20Directory%20of%20Scrapstore.htm

Are you being followed?

Nothing sinister I promise!! Just a new little widgety thing I've spotted on blogger (and I'm sure it's available on other blogging sites too!) down the right hand side of this blog. Here's a piccie so you know what you are looking for.

So if you would like to follow me then just click on the little 'follow this blog' bit. I have the mammoth task of going through the 387 blogs I subscribe too and looking to see a) if they are on blogger and b) if they have the widget up. Although I know there is a way of following a blog before they have the widget up as Ethel and Edna and Foundlings followed me before I had the widget up. Hope that makes sense? Anyway - follow me if you have nothing better to do with your time - thanks!