Get Smitten in Livingetc

ooops, looks like I forgot to update you with the news that some of my cushions were featured in an alpine chalet article in this month's Livingetc magazine in the UK. The shoot took place at Paul & Louise Venning's wonderful scandi inspired family home here Chamonix, France. How cosy is the opening shot?!

 The sofa in the lounge is scattered with a mix of my Winter Dreams and Snow & Neige cushions - the brown wool blend fabric looks so warm & inviting against the clean cream leather - and oh, for an open fireplace like theirs!

My Birds & Bees silk cushion in the neutral colourway sits so beautifully amongst the fur throws on the bed... so much so that I ended up making one for myself but added a deep turquoise velvet ribbon instead. Well, it's a perk of the job!

 

If you missed the December issue or can't get hold of a copy of the mag, here is a link to the online version of the story at the Livingetc website

A Picture Tells 1000 Words

Ok, so maybe not a thousand exactly, but enough for a word cloud at least!

I had so much fun creating the Tickled Pink free e-card (which you can see here) that I thought I'd share how I did it... it's so easy!

Take yourself over to Wordle and create a new word cloud by typing in a bunch of words. For my e-card I chose all the words I could think of, that are used as slang for breasts, seeing as my card is to raise awareness for breast cancer. The words in my card that appear larger are because I typed them in the body of text multiple times (twice to make it a bit larger, three times for the main word: October etc, etc). Then hit Go

Wordle will select at random a colour & layout for your words but you can alter this. You can hit Randomize until you find a selection you like or, if you're a control freak like me, you can make changes yourself using the menu at the top of the screen. The thing to remember here is that once you make a change, you can't hit a back button to find it again (I tried!). The solution is to hit the Print button & save it as a pdf file on your computer or to save it to the Public Gallery

When creating your Wordle, you can also freestyle it a bit by adding a website URL rather than specific text yourself. I decided to try this with the Get Smitten website... and this is what I got back....

What do you think? I think it's pretty cute, myself - obviously I changed the colours to match those of my site & I should've noted the name of the font, so apologies for that!

It's interesting to see what words I use most on my site (these are the ones that show up larger than the rest). It's a great way, I think, to evaluate the keywords & tags associated with a site and so therfore are being picked up by search engines. This is something I plan to look at in more detail soon.

FREE Get Smitten e-cards

I've been wanting to put a free e-card service on the Get Smitten website for a while now and this seemed the perfect opportunity to launch it. To sit alongside the Tickled Pink campaign (25% of proceeds of Tickled Pink products going direct to breast cancer research during October) I have created a cheeky little freebie for you to send out to all your girlfriends. I wanted something fun that enabled women to encourage each other to get those all important check-ups done... it's all too easy to put this kind of thing off (guilty!) but if caught early most malignant cases are dealt with successfully

All you have to do is visit www.getsmitten.com and click the link on the top right. You select the card you want to send from the scroll menu and follow the prompts to add your text message, font colour etc. I couldn't get it to accept multiple email recipients so you'll just have to send them separately (sorry!)

New designs will be added each month... so come on now, get involved and spread the word!

Get Smitten is Tickled Pink!

I usually try to do something, on a personal level, for breast cancer awareness month. One year I bought up about 30 of the pink ribbon pins to use as gift tags on my friends' Christmas presents but this year I wanted to reach out wider than to just my personal contacts.
So last week when I got my hands on some amazing hot pink yarn for making beanies, the idea hit me for a mini campaign on the Get Smitten site... and so Tickled Pink was born. Well better late than never, don't you think?!
I whipped up a couple of models for the beanies: Hot Flush is a super chunky 100% merino version of the popular Prom Queen beanie with a cute metallic gold & pink fabric covered button and Careless Whisper is a mohair blend, slouch fit beanie featuring a gorgeous lace stitch. I also created a lovely pearl bracelet called Lady Muck... I love that the heart & old brass swallow charm remind me of those 'Mother' tattoos while looking decidedly glam at the same time!
So this year's effort will see a huge 25% from the sales of the Tickled Pink products going directly to breast cancer research throughout October. I hope you'll join me in helping this worthy cause

Vintage Fabric

Been sorting through my fabric stash looking for vintage fabrics to use in a project I'm working on and couldn't resist taking a shot of the pile. Deeeelish! I can feel a hunt for more vintage treasures coming on...

hi, it's been a while...

Oh how I've neglected you. It's been a varied summer; some great, travelly stuff & some very sad stuff too, but hey, I'm back. Did you miss me?? Didn't think so!

I've been tweaking a few techy bits here & there. Here being, well, here on the blog. There being Facebook, Twitter and of course the Get Smitten website. More on all of those things later... although you can see a little of my handywork down there on the right. I installed a couple of gadgets to combine all my social network 'thingies' in one place. Yay for the 21st Century!

The plan is to choose my words carefully. I don't think I have it in me to update these things several times per day (how DO those people fit everything into their day?) and so I'm thinking once a week will suffice. Any thoughts on that? hmmm

p.s - I will eventually post something with pics!

A La Moda

Making a start on a new project is one of my favourite things. I love the stages of the process, from the initial concept, through the head-scratching part (avoiding the prototype bit - they're the ones I keep for me!) & onto the glory of the finished item. aah heaven!
New ideas pop into my head all the time but the part of the process that eats up most of my time is the selection of which fabrics/colours/beads/yarn to use. Don't get me wrong, I love this whole 'hmmm, does the mother-of-pearl button look better on the charcoal or the chocolate cashmere?' type of question. In fact I could dedicate a full day to this kind of questioning but then I wouldn't get much done!
I know that many people find this stage a real hurdle - there are too many variables involved & they can lack confidence in creating colour palettes, hence the popularity of ready-to-go kits. The tricky bit's been taken care of & you are free to skip along the path of creativity without the heavy burden of wondering if you should have chosen the cream rather than the white. I've been thinking a lot about creating kits lately.
So I discovered a great website this week; it's by Moda Fabrics & is so much more than your average 'look at our yummy fabrics' kind of website. It's interactive & allows you to view projects with your colour/fabric choice! The FabricMatcher allows you a crystal ball preview of your finished project... simply select the project & play around with the fabrics; hours of fun. No seriously, you can take my word for this.
The site also offers a selection of free patterns, a list of websites for 'giving back' and a great resource for colour theory. Everything you could need to gain confidence in putting your own palettes together & a whole lot of inspiration at the same time. Enjoy!

..and unto us a blog is born

well hello! ....anybody there?

this feels a little bit odd, you know, talking to yourself & all, but I'm sure I'll soon get the hang of it!

so welcome to the party; this is where you can find out a little bit about what makes me tick, stuff I'm working on in relation to Smitten, things that inspire me, places I've been. Usual blog antics I guess!