New Look, new start.

I am getting very excited about the move to our new shop. On the 29th of May we are closing the Gillingham shop and moving it to 59 High Street Wincanton. It will have a new look and new direction.  With the emphasis on Recycle, reuse and reinvent. I will be mixing vintage with Handmade (which I have been doing gradually in Gillingham over the last year or so), but there will not be the bought in products from India ,  I will be buying off  British crafts people, locally and across the country.

Kate from Magpie (often seen at the Anonymous Travelling Market) is going to put her gorgeous work in the shop and also help out on a Friday.  Kate makes beautiful things from vintage fabrics and reworks linen tablecloths etc into egg cosies and bags.  She also has a 'magpies' eye for china and little vintage finds.

Maria from 'Just Sew' will be supplying the shop with bunting and appliqued pictures.

There will also be the lovely pottery from Karen Harrison, often seen exhibiting across the country.
Mixed in with fabrics, vintage and new, vintage making books (if I can manage to part with 

them. ), ribbons, 


Vintage buttons as well as ceramic and modern (as you know I am a buttonholic.) Vintage haberdashery,
Little vintage luckydip packs,
and I am going to rework these fantastic vintage knitting patterns, for the shop and the website.
Don't you just love them :)...or is it just me???
There will also be a large amount of my handmade bits, made from recycling jumpers and buttons. As well as my paintings and photography.

The website will get a lot more of my attention and I will gradually get all of the stock on there.
Just a few of my handmade brooches and necklaces.


So quite a packed shop really!!!

We are only going to open 3 days a week, Wed, Thurs, and Friday.

When sitting down with Tony to discuss the new venture we realised we had not had a weekend together for 6 years!, and also George and Harry will be leaving school from July , George will be going to Falmouth Art college in September and Harry may be joining the army ( he has to have a medical in June and then we'l know more.) So it will be amazing for me to be at home more and around for all the boys through the summer. (I may spend a bit of time making in the sunshine..but I will be around!)

From September when Arthur starts school I am looking forward to going back to supplying Galleries and having the excuse to visit different towns (some of which may be by the sea lol)

It all sounds great doesn't it, I am very lucky that I have Tony to support and encourage me, We all are actually!  ( more than words can say) I am hoping that I can give the same back over the next few years as he embarks on putting all his ideas into action.

How lovely is this?

I love all this fabric that has just come in!  I've got masses of ideas of what i could make with it.

These little Russian dolls would look great just cut out and embellished onto things, they would look fab as fabric buttons, and brooches. There is also ribbon like this which i have yet to photograph.
I love the vintagey feel of these linen fabrics.  I am going to cover some boxes in this fabric and turn them into little sewing boxes

How fab would this fabric be for tables at craft and vintage fairs?  Though a little costly, it would be a great base to put things on and look amazing.

This would be lovely made into vintage style aprons or pinnys. I think I might cut up the little squares and use them as little patches, soooo cute!

This is obviously my favorite!  The cakes look good enough to eat, they would look great emebellished with little beads to look like hundreds and thousands.

More Russian dolls but a much bigger print such gorgeous colours.
I have now posted these onto my website Tamsyn-G.com, which is quite quick for me :)  Tony has taken Arthur out for the day and the shop has been fairly quiet so for once I have actually put the time to good use.

I am thinking of doing a Fat quarter giveaway tommorow.......so watch this space :)

Sneak Preview..

Ha ra the fabrics arrived! A much smaller box than I thought, Which i had a little trouble opening due to my excitement.
I was a bit worried of running the knife straight through the packaging and through the fabric..I have done that many times before!
You can't really tell from this pic, but the fabric is as fab as I remember.
I will take better photos over the next couple of days..and maybe actually put it on my website :) For now I better find some space in my shop.. and then start cutting some fat quarters.

So excited!

I was experimenting with photos for an advert going in a little mag to celebrate the Gillingham train station being 100 years old.  I thought a vintage style ad would look good.  In the end I used my previous pic with the old patterns behind (posted in a previous post).  Tony did a fantastic job and the advert looks great. The above pictures do show a little bit of how the shop is changing though, really taking 'make do and mend on board! :)
What i am excited about though is not boring adverts, but this amazing box of buttons one of my lovely customers brought in for me...
How lucky am I, of course I gave her a great big hug.  
My evening is going to be spent sorting buttons, great fun and very exciting..well to me any way:)