I know I have a few craft business owners here reading my posts & I suspect what I'm about to write may sound familiar to you guys.

Those of you who are potential customers & friends, (I hope) this is a little food for thought when it comes to choosing whether to buy handmade.

You've probably gathered by the title I'm going to talk about the corset I just made.  I am, but this could equally be applied to any of the other things I make & probably a lot of hand-crafted items out there.

So, we craft businesses owners decided that we loved creating things so much & people loved what we made so much that we'd turn our hobby into a business.  We have gorgeous products, lovingly handmade with painstaking perfectionism, often with slight imperfections leading to the whole thing going in the bin because that one stitch out of place that nobody but us notices, or the bit of glue that dribbled slightly, covered up but still there all the same, just wasn't good enough for our customers.  We've spent years honing our skills, reading, learning, questioning those more experienced, practising until we are the experienced, then practising some more.  We work through illness, pain & fatigue to meet deadlines. (See part one)  Every item we make is passionately born of love for the craft, for making each person smile when they receive it, for the people who have to have one of our items, for the "Wow!" & the tears & the speechlessness.

But what happens as we near the finish of our project?  When onlookers are amazed & impressed by our work.

Head squirrels!  Mind Monkeys!  Doubting Dora! Aargh!

What if she doesn't like it?  What if it doesn't fit?  What if she wanted these flames different?  What if she hates the fabric?  What if I take too long?  What if she wanted thinner bones, or a more rigid busk?  What if she wanted it looser, or tighter?  What if the shape isn't what she had in mind?  What if she doesn't want to pay that much?  What if she tells all her friends how terrible she thinks my work is?

All this & more whizzed through my head this week, as well as feeling guilty for every nap I needed to take & every hour I should have been working on the corset but was stopped by my health.  This week I put that corset & the customers wishes before my own body's requests in order to make sure she was happy with her purchase & the experience of getting a Miss Red corset.

Am I feeling worse for wear?  Yes.  Do I regret doing it?  Hell NO!!

Why not?  The first word out of her mouth when she saw the finished corset:

 "Wow!"

She loved it, she stroked it, she adored the fabric & knew it would look amazing under the lights at the event she was wearing it to.  She tried it on & was pleased with the fit, impressed at how it moulded around her bust rather than indecently exposing her if she moved her arms too much or dared to bend over, like all the corsets she's had or tried on previously.  She looked absolutely stunning in it, even just over her everyday clothes, & the smile on her face was utterly contagious.  The sizing & cut was perfect with room to lose a little weight - this was intentional on my part as I know that's what she's trying to do, & has been doing successfully over recent months.  She's looking fabulous & my corset accentuated her beautiful curves wonderfully.  Not a single negative comment was uttered & I lost count of the number of times she said thank you & complimented it.  What's more, she handed over the amount I'd asked for (albeit mates rates) without question & I dare say she may even have paid more if asked.  She headed out of my door literally hugging the corset with that smile still across her face & with a hand full of my business cards to hand out to anyone who complimented or asked about her corset because she was so convinced people would.  On top of all that she can go out in her new corset safe in the knowledge that not a single person out there will ever be wearing the same one because hers is completely unique.  Sadly, having finished it last minute I don't have any photos, but hopefully will be getting some after the weekend so you can check out my work ;)

Head squirrels, mind monkeys & Doubting Dora - thanks but no thanks for your input.  As always everything you said was a load of rubbish so kindly take a hike!

If you're considering buying hand-crafted but see something similar in the shops that costs less I hope you'll consider all the effort, time & consideration that goes into making those perfect, non-mass-produced, beautiful items offered by small businesses like mine.  

Give the little guys a break & buy hand-crafted.

Want to read more like this?  

I've decided to join in with the 100 day project.  Devised by the folks over at The Great Discontent it's pretty much what it implies, a project spanning 100 days.  They explain it as such:

It explains in more detail in the link up there^
but here's the short version.
You sign up to their newsletter & follow their Instagram accounts, these give you ideas, suggestions, ways to keep going as well as being able to see what they're doing in their own project(s).
You choose an action to carry out each day for 100 days, starting on April 6th (yeah, I'm arriving more-than-fashionably-late to this party but that's allowed.)
You post each day on Instagram using #the100dayproject as well as your own unique tag, so people can choose to see all of everyone's contributions or just yours.
You announce your project (like I'm doing now), then you just get stuck in, posting up your progress in picture form every day for people so see.

...that's what my unique hashtag will be for the project, so as you've probably figured out, my 100 days will be full of cross stitch.

As you can imagine you can't really do a whole major project each day so I'll be keeping them small for the most part & doing some projects that link together to form a bigger picture.  I don't want to impose too many rules on myself & make this any harder than it already is...we all know my health isn't entirely predictable & a tiny cross stitch is, I'm hoping, still possible most days.  The good news as well is, none of these charts will be for sale in the shop so copyright isn't a worry & I can do a few cheeky fan-art pieces if the urge takes me.

So that's it really, now you know.

Oh, one last thing to tell!
Mailing list subscribers will get access to the pdfs of any patterns I make, so if they want to recreate them at home they can do, for free!

So, if you've still not signed up then scroll down to the bottom of this page, or any page on MissRed.co.uk & get your name on that list!

Gotta dash, cross stitching to do!

Just adding a visual here, this one's going onto all my social media pages...please feel free to share if you know someone arty ;)

P.S: Don't forget you can subscribe to my newsletter here, or at the bottom of every page, and to my blog via the little box to the right ;)

If you've been reading my blog posts for a while you'll recall last year I put a shout out for artists to collaborate with, using their beautiful drawings, paintings or potentially even photographs along with my cross stitch design skills to create some gorgeous charts & kits.

I've been working with Heidi, of Heidi Made This & I love her work & her quirky style.  If you haven't had a chance to do so already go & check out her fabulous greetings cards.  The kits created turned out even better than expected & I can't wait to do more with Heidi.

I'm now also in a position where I'd like to broaden my range & this is where you lovely lovely arty types can help *flutters eyelashes optimistically*

Here's the original post, it has more details in, pretty much all of which remain the same.  If you think it's something you'd be interested in, whether you just want to do a few pieces or ongoing collaborations I'd love to hear from you & can talk you through how it would all work.

I hope to hear from you soon!

No, not playing with anyone's heart ;)

I did my usual clever trick of being quite busy with all the sewing & crafting tasks that I needed a break.  What do craftaholics do when they want a break?  Start a new craft of course!

I've been admiring other people's paper cuts on craft pages online for a while & it's been on my list of things to have a go at some time.  Having watched some tutorials I decided rather than jumping in feet first (as is my usual approach with these things) I'd get myself a starter pack to ease myself in gently.

I chose the Introduction to Paper Cutting DIY Pack from Paper Panda, which I ordered last week & received 2 days later (pretty close to a Bank Holiday weekend too.)  

As an aside, the cute sticker reminds me I need to get some return address/logo stickers for my own parcels, if you do these or know someone who does please do shout up via the comments below ;)

Back to paper cutting...

Last but not least, the Paper Panda Trainee badge, allegedly a very important piece of kit which appears to aid in general awesomeness ;)

I've only spent an hour or so on it so far but I can tell it's full of fantastic quality materials & easy to follow instructions with the Paper Panda sense of humour shining through.  I'm loving getting to grips with the movement of the blade & how to approach different shapes.  It's certainly not as easy as some make it look but it's really satisfying when you cut a whole piece accurately & flip it over to find it looks even more gorgeous than you thought.

I'd thoroughly recommend this pack for anyone who fancies dabbling in paper cutting as a new craft, you can also get it gift wrapped to send to a crafty friend.

Thank you Paper Panda, I'm sure I'll lose many an hour perfecting my technique & maybe even working my way up to designing some of my own pieces, I love it!

Links:

Paper Panda on Facebook.

Buy from Paper Panda.

Subscribe to this blog:

Well hello there gorgeous people, it's been a while.  Any ideas who pinched January?  Cor, it's flown by here at Miss Red HQ & just been super hectic.  How's it gone for you?

I guess that's my lame excuse for not writing in my blog for a whole month, naughty me!

Anyhoo, I've been tinkering a bit with the website so hopefully it's a little bit smarter, a bit easier to get around & it's also got a few new bits.

If you're thinking quit waffling Red, what's this challenge business about in the title? then that's this bit here.  Loads of times when I was searching the internet for cross stitch kits to buy (before I started making my own) I'd find myself settling for kits not really what I was after just because I'd spent so long looking that I'd decided to give up & just buy something, anything.  Well now, if you have an idea but the design you're after isn't anywhere to be found you can pop over to this page & Challenge Miss Red.  

All you have to do is dream up a pattern you want to stitch then fill in the contact form & tell me what you want, and then...*insert drum roll here*...I'll create it!  You can describe it in words, you can doodle a design & scan it in or just take a photo & upload that to the form then it'll soon become the cross stitch chart you were looking for.

Once it's done I'll pop up a preview on the website & a link so you can buy it for a bargain price.  If you like it & want the chart you buy it, if you decided in the meantime you want something else then you don't have to...but it'll stay on the website available for other people to buy.

A further option you can use the same form for is personalised or bespoke patterns.  If you want something that's personal to you & not for just anyone to buy - such as something with your name on or photographs - you can order this in the same way, just describe what you want & check the bespoke box on the form.  

So, why not get those cogs whirring & dream up a design, then Challenge Miss Red!

Ok, not me exactly but it's a year ago I registered Miss Red as a business.  Wow, how fast has this year flown by?!?

I have to say a huge thanks to all my 577 followers on FB, the 363 on Twitter (which I'm really chuffed with because I still don't really know what I'm doing on there) and followers elsewhere in that big old land of social media (follow links top right ;)...not forgetting, most importantly, you fantastic customers!!!

It's been a tough year of ups & downs, health issues have done all they can to trip me up whenever possible but I'm more motivated now than ever.  I'm sure I'll still have my "what am I doing?" moments occasionally but I've learned a lot this year...yup, mostly by making mistakes but it's a lot of useful lessons I'll take with me into the future.

So, come on year 2, bring it on!

PS: If you're not on the mailing list yet then click the button below.  There's even a free printable cross stitch pattern when you sign up!

Who wants to decide between Halloween & Christmas creations?  Not me!

Work in progress for this week consists of getting stuck into another of Heidi's fabulous Christmas designs...

...as well as some cool Halloween trick or treat bags for carrying all your goodies! :)