Ladies Who Latte

Hello dear readers and friends!
How are we all doing this week ? I've had a super busy week, both with home stuff and craft stuff. I dug my watercolours out last night and did this little autumnal painting. Its pleasing me greatly as I haven't done much water-colouring for a very long time. I've been watching some youtube videos on arty pursuits in general this week, and its really inspired me. I followed this tutorial to paint this picture.

 

Water colouring suits me well as you can cover up mistakes very easily by blobbing on some more paint! I also did the simple blend below, I want to start bullet-journalling (well, journalling of some sort anyway) and thought a quotation on this would look lovely in the start of my notebook.



Its fair to say that autumn is well under way, the weather is so changeable - last weekend was torrential rain -which is perfect conditions for staying in an organising your yarn stash ....



I must not buy any more. Really, I musn't. This isn't even half of it.



... and then this weekend the sun is out, the sky is blue, and its beautiful outside. There's a freshness in the air, but its still lovely and sunny. Which makes Little Tomboy's Saturday morning football match so much more enjoyable. Here she is sloping off the pitch at the end of the math, in a sulk because they didn't win. They didn't lose either, but they should've won. Oh well, there's always next week.



Last week I went to a small business networking event called "Ladies Who Latte". There were about 15 of us there, and the idea is we all sit round the table - just a coffee table, it's very relaxed - and you each have a minute to talk about yourself and your business. Then after everyone has done their bit you can mingle around and talk to the other business owners. The variety of businesses represented was amazing - there was a hypnotherapist, a couple of life-coaches, a massage-therapist, a lawyer, a jewellery rep, a yoga teacher and a feng-shui specialist, to name but a few. I took along a basket of my goodies to show, and this got passed around while I was doing my little spiel. My expectations were just to maybe hand out a couple of business cards, I really didn't think I would get much out of it, however I was blown away by the sales and orders that were initiated just from that one meeting. So the feng-shui lady asked me if I could crochet a cactus for her to give her daughter who can't keep plants. Can't as in she always kills them, so |I was told. Funnily enough I had dug out a cactus pattern a couple of weeks ago while thinking of ideas for things to sell in my Etsy shop. Of course I said yes, no problem - more on that later in this post! A lady who is a "Forever Living" (aloe products) rep asked me to make a dozen cards for her team, and she bought a card there and then too.



.... and the lawyer lady bought a coin purse and a card. All I invested really was my time - there is a £2.50 charge for the coffee and my friend who I drove there paid for mine. So I think I got a pretty good return on my investment, and it was definitely worth going. And really worth taking some of my products along - I wasn't expecting to actually sell anything there, so that was awesome. Its a once a month meeting, and I will definitely be going to the next one.

To get back to the cactus though. So I picked out the cactus pattern that I'd found and made a couple to show Mrs Feng-Shui.




Aren't they cute! Mr and Mrs Cactus! I must admit I a totally in love with these 💚



I posted some pictures on my instagram and my facebook, and the response was amazing! Soooo many more requests for crochet cacti, its been a bit bonkers. I had made the ones above out of random bits of stash wool and of course didn't have any more left, so the next lot were made up in a different colour.



The lady that wanted them asked for yellow flowers, and she was happy with the darker green, as they are still just so cute.



However, I prefer the lighter colour so I had to go and buy more green yarn. Yes, you heard that right. Despite the ridiculous amount of yarn in my stash, I still didn't have the right green. The new one I had to buy in is Stylecraft Special DK in Grass Green. Its very similar to the lighter ones above, I have no photos as yet but suffice it to say its been like a cactus factory in my craft room this week - I'll have more pics next week.

And that, people, has been my week. Oh, one more thing is that I have uploaded a new vlog to Youtube, you can find it here.

Right, I need to go and finish some more cacti now - I'll be posting more pictures on my instagram I'm sure, so watch out for those.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Jillxo