celebrate home | celebrate slow

 
 

come say hi on instagram

Inspiration. It's a funny old prawn, isn't it? The more I create, the more inspired I get, but when I'm doing nothing and waiting for inspiration to strike, I can sit for hours and hours and hours without a single bolt from the blue. These zip pouches were created from a place somewhere between necessity and inspiration. You see, in order to remain sustainable, both in terms of the environment and financially, it's important to me to use up every last scrap of fabric that I use for larger projects, but it also felt important to me not to just make things for the sake of making them and hope that people would buy some half baked idea to use up scraps.โ € ๐Ÿงต Using larger offcuts to create the zip pouches was an easy decision - zip pouches can be used in a multitude of ways, and I've always loved making them (so satisfying sewing it all inside out and then turning it through to magically create a finished product!) - but using up the smallest of the scraps has been much trickier - I am always on the lookout for patterns involving small scraps - I am very much at home to suggestions! The pouches are listed in my shop now, and there are only a couple this season, so head on over via the link in my profile if you want to snap one up.โ € ๐Ÿงต Joining in with Day 2 of #meetthemakerweek today, which is all about inspiration and where ideas come from.โ €
An imperfect twig, which leads neatly onto to musings on imperfection, if you use your imagination and squint a little...โ € ๐Ÿ”– If you have children, the pressure to make advent perfect is increasingly becoming every bit as real as the pressure to have the perfect Christmas Day. I didn't even realise that the 'perfect advent' had become a thing in my head until I was looking at ways to simplify this festive season and realised that the idea of just doing *less* in the advent calendar I create for the children each year was a really tricky one to get my head around. The idea of anything less than a perfect Pinterest-worthy advent really challenged my values as 'the creative one who makes all the celebrations pretty and fun.' I like to think I'm very embracing of imperfection, and I definitely am in others, but accepting anything less than my 100% game is a lot trickier when it comes to myself. Practicing a little more kindness to myself as I put together this year's advent calendars today.โ € ๐Ÿ”– Do you have any festive season 'traditions' that have become more burdensome than enjoyable? Any that you're going to take the leap on and simplify or do less than perfectly this Christmas?โ €
Hurrah, #meetthemakerweek is here! This week is going to be all about small businesses showing you what they do and why they do it. As well as daily browsing of the hashtag for Christmas gift ideas, I'm going to be sharing my own story here. Day 1 is introducing a particular product or range into the world, and rather than talk broadly about Celebrate Winter AGAIN (if you want to look at the whole range, which celebrates my love of the seasonal shift and all that it brings, it launched on Saturday to some lovely kind words and sales, and you can see more in the link in my profile), I'm just going to talk just about the products I'm going to be adding to the shop tomorrow. The zip pouches, which come in natural and linen finishes in various sizes, are fully lined and feature gorgeous chunky metal zips, will be going live on the site tomorrow morning and I think they make beautiful gifts. โ € ๐Ÿ–‹ As with most fledgling businesses, smaller products like these pouches are the easiest way to nab yourself, or someone you love, a unique and sustainably made gift while supporting a small business and showing the maker that what they do is valued. And even if you're not in the mood to shop (and I would never ask anyone to spend money who isn't actively looking for what I'm offering), it makes a world of difference for me and so many other small businesses when you visit our sites, tell us what you like and show us that someone is watching. I'm looking forward to sharing a little more of the story behind these little pouches and how they actively keep my business more sustainable tomorrow.โ €
The Celebrate Winter shop update is live! Please do pop over and have a look - I've linked to my site home page in my profile, so you can choose to go straight to the shop from there, or read the blog post I've written on the stories behind each of the products I've made for this mini seasonal celebration.โ € โ„๏ธ I hope you love what you see, and whether you purchase or not I really appreciate you taking the time to read the blog and support what I'm doing with your time and attention. โ €