Just a quick post to say isn't my banner cute! Its taken from one of my photos from my holiday in Greece earlier this year.

Really fell in love with Greece. First time I have ever been there - I would definitely recommend for anyone to go - especially try a sailing and diving holiday like I did. I went through Mystic Blue.

Speaking of which - there are some amazing holidays on Responsible Travel - all with an ethical twist to them...which is always good for the conscience ;)

One of the motivations for starting this blog are the number of really great craft-related blogs out there. As I say, I'm only just getting into the world of blogging (work is slow these days!), but I have come across some really great ones.

I'm sure everyone has heard of Etsy, but I've only just discovered it - what a revelation! The site is amazing. I hate the way the high street turns us all into clones and everyone ends up wearing pretty much the same thing - where is your individuality! One of the problems over here in Belfast is there is little choice other than whats on the high street. Unfortunately we don't have many independent boutique-y type shops, so this website (Etsy) offers us a bit of that.
Another site similar to that is Coriandr - and the great thing about this site is that its UK based!
My dream would be to have a wee 'shop' on either of those sites.

Blogs which I find inspiring are:
Peapods
Small Measure
Cloth.Paper.String
Brinja

Finally, a great site I have just discovered is Design*Sponge - full of great crafting ideas as well as design inspiration and tasty looking recipes too!

So this is my first post.

Please bare with me...I am new to the world of blogging, but I hope that I can do it justice.

As I said in my 'welcome' note, I have recently been overcome with a huge desire to be creative and to perhaps make a little bit of money out of this. I'm school I always loved art (and I think I did pretty well at at - I got an A* in GCSE), but I had to give it up to focus on subject more 'suitable' for getting into University. And because of that I'm afraid to say that the creative side of me has been severely neglected for many years now.

I have always grown up in a very creative environment - my mother is gifted when it comes to sewing. From before I was born she was making clothes for herself, as well as the rest of her family. She is also brilliant at embroidery, knitting and also went through a massive quilting phase. If I could produce things even half as skilled as her I would be happy. So she is my inspiration in all of this! In the future I'd like to put up some photos of her work as I think they should be shared with the world - so keep checking back and hopefully I'll get around to this!

What I would like to do is create a mini business for myself, making and selling things from my home in Belfast. At the moment I plan on specialising in bags - you can never have too many bags! But I love photography and would also like to see if I could do something with that as well - perhaps small greeting cards etc. Once I get more used to sewing (and er...I might need to purchase a sewing machine!) I'd like to make some of my own clothes (but that will probably just be for myself for the time being!)

Once I get a decent amount of merchandise gathered up I'll trying selling them at local carboot sales, and also see if I can sell some stuff on ebay or other Internet sites. There are also some local craft fairs, but I need to do a bit more research into those I think.

Anyway, enough for now... :)