I am still here!

Just letting you know I am still alive and well : ) I seem to have taken an unintended blog break. There hasn't been much going on creatively in ruby-jo land over the past little while so I guess that is probably why.

Anyway I am back on board again so stay tuned for some more regular posting.

Find me at the North Melbourne Market this Sunday

I am going to be at the North Melbourne Market tomorrow Sunday the 20th of Feb. It runs from 10am to 3pm and has a $2 entry fee.

As mentioned earlier I am going to have some of my old stock on sale including clutches and the last of the brooches.

I hope to see you there!

PS. If you are wondering why the pictures of my etsy shop that are normally in the right margin aren't there anymore it's because I have put the shop in vacation mode. It will be up and running again next week.

Brooch SALE

I am discontinuing my current line of brooches. It's time to move on to new designs. As a result I have put them on sale for $20 (including postage for Australian customers) until they all run out.

You can find the brooches in my etsy shop here. With Christmas just around the corner they could make good christmas presents.

I have already had a few sales so if you see something you like, grab it while you can. I have multiples of a small number of designs but if the listing says last one then that is it!

Countdown to Yarraville Markets

I will be having a stall at the Yarraville Markets in Melbourne on the 1st and 2nd May. Yes that's 2 days.

It's going to be my first market ever so I am just a little nervous...okay more than a little.

I will be sharing a stall with Amelia from Milkwood, who makes gorgeous resin jewellery.

At the moment I am busy sewing stock to fill up my half of the table. I have a few new products in the works too, that I will be launching at the markets.

Stay tuned as I might just show you a sneak peak of what to expect as we get closer to the date.

Shop Update

I have uploaded a few more brooches to my etsy shop, including this new design made from linen and a vintage hanky which you can find here.

I seem to be drawn to vintage hankies at the moment - unused of course.

Not With The Good Scissors!

My favourite pair of earrings at the moment are the good scissors earrings from Melbourne gal Victoria Mason.

It's important to know that the good scissors are for fabric only and anyone who uses them on anything else is bound to get in a whole lot of trouble. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Monster Goodness

Yay! I was lucky enough to win a giveaway from Emma at Benconservato. The prize was a colouring book and a couple of postcards.

The colouring book is called Monsters Behaving Badly. I love it! It's fun and full of playful monsters.

You would expect at my age (over 30) that I left my colouring in days behind me years ago but there is something about the colourless pages that are begging me to colour them in. That's exactly what I plan on doing too just as soon as I get myself some crayons.

Christmas Giveaway

This brooch is part of a large Christmas giveaway on fatmumslim.blogspot.com

You have until Monday to enter and be in the running for about $600 worth of handmade goodies.

What are you waiting for?

Sunday Stash #21

No fabric this week. Instead I have some recently purchased white vintage buttons.

You will be able to see what I am using them for soon.

Sunday Stash #19

I thought I would show you something different from my stash today. Some cute vintage hankies I picked up a few weeks ago. I have two in each colourway and thought I could use them for brooches.

Want to play Sunday Stash? You can do so here

Don't forget about the DUST team sale. We aren't having a lot of entries in the prize draw so you have a good chance of winning something. All you have to do to enter is to pick something from one of the participating shops, show us a link to the item you like and tell us what you like about it. It's that easy, prizes are drawn every 3 hours or so and you can enter each round. Find out more here. You will need an etsy username though.

Christmas in July Sale Starts Now

The DUST team Christmas in July Sale is NOW ON!

As part of the sale ruby-jo is offering 30% off the listed price of all brooches! Doesn't include postage.

Every store that is participating in the festivities is having some kind of sale. The full list of shops can be found here.

As part of the sale there will be ❉ GIVEWAYS ❉ throughout the entire weekend from different members of the DUST team.

To win something you will need to keep an eye on this thread here. There is an assortment of prizes on offer, one of which will be a brooch from me.

The sale runs from Saturday July 25th through Sunday July 26th, although a lot of the DUSTers have started their sale from now. To cater for international customers many shops will also extend the sale to finish at 12noon on Monday 27th July (Sunday night American time). Check each store for individual details.

and have fun shopping!

SALE Sneak Peak!

Next weekend the etsy Down Under Street Team (DUST) is having a HUGE Christmas in July sale.

From the 25th to the 26th July every shop participating (including me!) will be offering some kind of sale for their customers. There will be lots of lovely hand made goodies on offer and the chance to win some fabulous prizes from Australian sellers (including one of my brooches).

You can find the shops participating in the sale here, so why not have a browse and mark some favorites ready for the weekend ahead.

In my ruby-jo shop I will be offering 30% off all of my brooches.

Stay tuned for more details closer to the date...

Sunday Stash #18

This is my favourite piece of fabric from my stash. It's a beautiful polished cotton from the 1950's. The fabric has a lovely sheen to it and I don't think the photos quite do it justice. I bought the fabric from the Lost and Found Market in Collingwood. I have about 2.5m of it and the big plan is to make it into a 1950's style dress with a fitted bodice and flared skirt.


If you want to play Sunday Stash you can do so here.

Vote for Me! Please!

I found my Cross Stitch Rose brooch on etsy's latest Voter page for where you can vote for your favourite Eco Friendly item. The brooch is one of 60 items you can vote for. If you look in the photo above it is bottom row, second from the right. The top choices from the vote will be featured in etsy's Gift Guides so if you want to help my brooch get into the Gift Guides please send a vote my way.

You do have to be a registered etsy user to vote and you can only vote once per user name. The voting ends in 7 days so you have plenty of time to vote if you wish to.

P.S. In case you were wondering etsy have classed the brooch as eco friendly because I made it from a vintage napkin.

Dreamy

Penny from Pocket Carnival on etsy has featured my Come Fly With Me brooch in her latest treasury called Dreamy. Thanks Penny!

EDIT: the treasury made it to the front page of etsy! Thanks again Penny

Made It Relaunch

For those of you who love to buy local handmade (ie made in Australia), Made It have relaunched their website with new a new fresh look. Along with the makeover are brand new features such as feedback and the ability to mark favourites.

It’s still a work in progress. The hardworking team behind Made It are still adding features and ironing out kinks but the good news is you can still buy while they are doing that.

One of the great things about Made-It is the currency is in Australian dollars, which means no converting to US dollars like you have to do on etsy.

I have set up my shop on Made-it with brooches and very soon will be adding cushions and purses so stay tuned.

My Come Fly with Me brooch seems to be popular at the moment. The brooch made it to the front page of etsy on Sunday and I was lucky enough to see it for myself.

This brooch has been on the front page before. It is interesting finding out other peoples likes and dislikes when it comes to my stuff because they don't always correspond with mine. I have sold more of the bird brooch than anything else. And while I like it, for me it isn’t close to being my favourite at all.

New Stuff

New brooches with vintage buttons which is something I plan on doing more of.

And Again..

It must be the week for treasuries. This one made it to the front page on etsy but I missed out on seeing it. It was curated by Howilli and is called "On Point".

Another treasury

Thank you to Huismus for including my brooch in her "My heart is in your hands treasury"

UPDATE Sunday 18th January
Would you believe this made it to the front page of etsy? That is twice in as many days I have been on the front page. I guess as they say it never rains, it pours. I expect that means I won't be on the front page again for quite a while.