The meme of seven

Yes, yes. We all know what I'm about to say here - something to the effect of "My name is Jen and I am an absolutely HORRIFIC blogger". I am, and I'm trying, but seriously people, there are not enough hours in the day.

I've been tagged, twice, for a meme though, and who can resist a good meme? Exactly.

Brought to you by Joan (who I'd love to link to, but can't because her profile isn't public and I can't find her blog, gah! Joan, if you ever read this, let me know where your blog is!), and the lovely Nutty Knitter.

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here goes!

1. I'm a Jenny, NOT a Jennifer. These days though, I'm known to most as just Jen.

2. I struggle to drive a car with an automatic transmission. I need gears!

3. I adore the musical Grease and I've seen it on stage four times so far.

4. I like getting my ears pierced and have seven holes in them - three in each lobe and one cartilage of my right ear.

5. I cannot stand tea. I don't even like the smell of it. Yuck!

6. As I've mentioned before, I'm terribly accident-prone. Back in February this year I wound up with a suspected broken wrist and the joy of wearing a splint for three weeks...because I fell over the door of the dishwasher. (You could also say I do a good job of living up to the name of my shop!)

7. I LOVE Halloween. Last year I wore glittery bat wings to work. The year before I was a devil.

Okay, I’m tagging:

The lovely Deb (aka TheDevilsWallPaper AND Champignons)
LAMDesigns
Saint Kitten
PinkFlamingoSwizzlestick
WildCatDesigns
Steven's Happy Accidents
And last but not least, FeltMeUpDesigns

Phew! Never before has the UKESWB blog ring come in so handy!

Free Shipping Weekend, woohoo!

I may be a bit of a bad blogger, but I'm not so bad with the sales!

I'm having a FREE SHIPPING weekend! March 14th - 16th! The perfect excuse to treat yourself, yay! :)

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade Numpty.etsy.com

Blogging and supplies and business cards, oh my!

Well, here it is, my first post of the year and it's still January! I'd say that's not bad going! I have a few ideas in the making for this here Numpty Blog so here's to a bloggy 2008!

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In other news, I made my first trip to Hobby Craft yesterday. I say "trip" but perhaps pilgrimage would be more appropriate - I was ridiculously excited when we got there (and I'm sure that only had a teeny bit to do with finding a pair of fabulous boots in my size on sale just before we went in!). Needless to say, I'd never been to a Hobby Craft store before as until now the closest one to me had been over the border in Newcastle - though don't let that fool you into think I hadn't thought about making the trip down there before now! I was more than a little intrigued when I found out that a branch had opened here in Scotland – yay!

So yesterday, off we went. Can you say "overwhelmed"? I was amazed at the unbelievable variety of supplies they have. It was almost like there was too much. I found myself looking at displays and having to look again because there were so many things I kept missing stuff. I have to confess I did think their findings selection was a little disappointing, but then I maybe have more specific needs these days. That said, it certainly got my brain ticking over with ideas… And I’m sure I'll be going back!

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Finally, the UK Gang is about to have another Business Card Swap! I organised one around about this time last year and it was a lot of fun. It was so great to not only see everyone's cards but also to be able to send them out into the world with my orders. I suggested another one to the "Gang" and I'm so pleased that it's going to be going ahead! Yay!

(If anyone else wants to join in on the swap, just give me a holler! Please let me know by this coming Friday (25th January) if you'd like to take part :) Oh, and obviously this is a UK Gang swap so it's just open to UK Etsy sellers! Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to attempt an international one...!)

Confessions and Announcements

My name is Jen and I'm a bad blogger. At least where this here blog is concerned. But I solemnly swear to blog here more often next year. Really.

In the mean time, I'm going to share my newest shop-related idea: I'm having a totally random sale! Or, to give it its "proper" title, the Super Duper Totally Random Numptilicious Sale! ...I've got to work out something slightly shorter...and catchier.

But I digress. Here's the deal:

Every day I’ll be changing my sale items...some will remain on sale, some won’t...some will have money off, some will have free shipping, some may even have an added surprise...so keep checking back – maybe your favourites will make the sale list!

I even have a new (well, newly doctored!) banner in honour of the occasion! Look!


(Clicking on it will take you right to my sale section; link opens in a new window)

And with that I shall leave saying two things:

Onely: Yay for sales!

And twoly: I'll be a better Numpty-Blogger next year. I promise.

Ah, okay, three things - Happy New Year!!

15 minutes

Back in May I was approached via Etsy by a lovely woman called Camille who is the Crafts Editor at HGTV.com to write a “how-to” article for them as part of a Christmas craft series. Being a Brit I had no idea what HGTV even was, but thanks to both Camille and some American friends I’ve since been enlightened!

I submitted my piece (about my lego cufflinks) at the end of May and a couple of weeks ago Camille e-mailed me to let me know where it’s going to be living, so now I can share:

Numpty does HGTV!

300...well, 303

I've just checked my Etsy hearts and I'm absolutely stunned - 303 whole people have hearted my shop. Eeee!



I'm thrilled! And I can't quite believe it! A huge thank you to every single one of those 303 people.

Wow!

Middle Name Meme

I'm back from my little impromptu break and what better way to mark that than with a meme?! The lovely Sara of Crafts of Texture tagged me for this here meme, so here goes!

The Rules:
1. If you are tagged, add a new post. Add these rules to that post.
2. Using the individual letters of your middle name, list one word and provide the relating fact. These facts must be relevant to you. If you don't have a middle name, then pick a name you would like to be called.
3. Once you've finished your post, tag one person for each letter of your middle name to do this and share the meme-love!



K ~ Kind ~ Or so I've been told. I hope it's true!

A ~ Artistic ~Maybe... Possibly...!

T ~ Tall ~ As in, not very - I'm almost 5'4 (on a good day). Oh to have longer legs...

H ~ Hair ~ I have naturally curly hair that I have a fairly consistent love-hate relationship with. As soon as it learns to obey my every whim we'll be a lot happier - those with naturally straight hair will not understand this at all. It's a curly thing.

A ~ Accident Prone ~ When I was little, my parents used to tease me by saying that things, inanimate things such as walls and doors and the like, just jumped out and hit me. If truth be told, they still do (both tease me and those pesky walls do keep jumping out). I walk into doors, and walls, and furniture and filing cabinets on a regular basis. I’m usually sporting at least one bruise at any giving moment. When I was about ten, I broke my pinky finger by getting it tangled in the banister while walking upstairs. My last year at high school I sprained my ankle falling off a pair of Spice Girls-style trainers. I’m pretty sure I broke my toe crashing into a washing machine cashing a friend around the house at a party (there may have been alcohol involved). Needless to say, one of my nicknames is Calamity Jen.

R ~ Rugby ~ Rugby is my absolute favourite sport to watch, and NOTHING will make me more patriotic than watching Scotland play. I just love it.

I ~ Illogical ~ While I like to think I possess a decent amount of common sense I can be totally and completely illogical about stuff. For example:

• I cannot get my head (or feet) around driving a car with an automatic gear box. It feels utterly bizarre having no clutch. I need gears!
  
  
• I hate raw tomatoes, but I love tomato soup, tomato sauce and most things that have cooked tomatoes in them.
  
  
• I love colour. If I can get something (socks, shoes, technology of any sort) in a colour that isn’t usual for that particular thing (for example, I have serious designs on a pink laptop) it becomes even more wonderful. Except when it comes to loo roll. Then, anything that isn’t white is just wrong.
  
  
• I love dinosaurs in cartoon form, but I am absolutely terrified of the movie Jurassic Park.

N ~ Numpty! ~ How could I not include the name of my shop?! "Numpty" is one of my favourite words and when it came time to think of a name for my tiny empire, it had to be "numpty"! In short "numpty" is, originally, a Scottish word that pretty much means idiot. I think it's a little nicer than idiot though - I've likened it to "putz" or "shmuck" in the past. I just like how it sounds. Here's the definition of it from my coaster at work (verbatim):

numpty
(num-p-tee) Dialect, chiefly Scot. ~ n
1. a bumbling fool; one who is intellectually challenged ("no' the fu' shilling'").
2. widely known in Scotland as an MSP (Member of Scottish Parliament) [as in "Thae numpties couldnae organise a piss up in a brewery."]

Taken like that it doesn't sound like such a good name for a shop, but it's also something of a term of endearment (to some!) and, like I said, it just sounds nice. AND! it was voted Scotland's favourite word earlier this year. With my chronically horrific memory and the fact that I'm more prone to boughts of severe ditziness than I care to admit, "numpty" is definitely a good word to describe me at times.

E ~ Eclectic The best, or perhaps only word to describe my taste in music. I love older stuff, new stuff, pop, rock, rap, ballads, bits of country, classical…

Phew!

Okay, I'm tagging:

Kezzaroo
Ali Cub Cards
TiinaTeaspoon
HoneyBeadz
Amanda William's Designs
Re:Form
Infinite Reverie
Nycole
Eclectic B

Blue is the colour (repost, sorta)

Since I started this here blog, I haven't done much with it which was not really the intention at all. I started a blog for my shop at the beginning of this year over at Live Journal and did a little better. So, in an attempt to try and help me to start writing again, I thought I'd (re)post a few of my longer (and photo-filled) entries from there over here...

Originally posted here, the following was written on 22nd February, 2007:

Once upon a time, approximately three hundred years ago (or back in November) in a land far, far away (or the Etsy forums) a lovely woman called Heather (also known as DecadenceDesigns) suggested the idea of a "Themed Swap". After many suggestions and ideas it was decided that the theme of the swap would be colour, and eventually it was decided that said colour would be blue. Then another lovely woman, Angi (also known as Luna2005) volunteered to organise it all and so Etsy's first (I think) colour-themed swap began.

The rules were simple: each of us taking part were to send 10 blue items to Angi who would then sort them all out and send us ten blue items in return. Having just organised a business card swap for some of the UK Etsy people, I can imagine what she went through for this! I sent in a combination of earrings and cufflinks, of which I took some not-very-good photos:







Angi did a terrific job and early one morning at the beginning of January the doorbell rang while I was lying in bed waffling nonsense down the phone to my beloved. The poor boy was then subjected to at least ten minutes of my oohing and ahhing at the packaged from Angi full of blue goodies. The first thing that struck me was the wonderful smell – I could have eaten it. It smelled AMAZING thanks to the most gorgeous blueberry exfoliating bar from Spoiled Rotten Bath & Body Boutique:







I had a quick peek at everything and then took pity on my poor boy who was listening very patiently to all my excited eeeeeing – I put the package away and returned my attention to him...only mentioning the package of blue fabulousness about every few minutes for the next couple of hours.

Eventually we hung up and I examined all the wondrous blueness...









As well as the yummy smelling exfoliating bar, I received:





Scrummy blueberry & mulberry lotion from the absolutely fabulous Bradli at Indulging Scentsations. Yum-meeeeee.





A gorgeous blue flower pin from PopularStranger





So, so, so cute badge and necklace from the wonderful Kerrie of Kezzaroo (and my sincere apologies to Kerrie for totally spazzing out when we spoke of the blue swap a while after and not realising I’d received such fabulousness from her – while I went through everything the very morning I got it, it took me a while to take the photos and check out what was from who and stalk their shops...as you might have guessed from the start of this post).







Oh-so-sweet mini blue flower badge from HandMadeWithTLC







Super-cute hand made patches from Mummus. Now I just need to fall down more often so I wind up with holes in my jeans and the perfect excuse to decorate my favourite items of clothing with patches! Or maybe I should just decorate anyway and save myself some bruises...







An adorable pendant from BlockPartyPress.





Fabulous fishy badge and bonus badges from FaffCreations.





Teeny tiny and absolutely stunning earrings from GlazedAndConfuzed





Last but by no means least, this gorgeous flower sequined crafter’s bag from CraftersBag…which Angi had thoughtfully tucked all the other goodies in to.

Phew! So that was my blue swap stash! This was my first swap and it certainly gave me the taste for it. It was so much fun to do, fabulous to receive and introduced me to a whole new bunch of sellers that I might never have stumbled across otherwise. I’ve already been shopping with Bradli since the swap, and I have my eye on several other goodies from the others I received fabulous blueness from!

UK Etsy Sellers Who Blog blog ring

The brand new and very shiny UK Etsy Sellers Who Blog blog ring is up and running.

I hope it's going to be a great way for us UK Etsy people to link to each other, and another way to help get the word out about Etsy. It's getting pretty big in the States (naturally), but I'm pretty confident (though not pleased) in saying that I'd guess the vast majority of Brits have never heard of it.

So UK people, check it out! Join and have it be a great (and easy) way to check out other UK Etsy people that blog.

(Thanks to ubercherry for the inspiration (she started the original - now sadly inactive), and to liskidder for starting V2!)

The very beginning...almost

And so it begins. My first post in my brand new and very shiny Blogger blog for my Etsy shop, Numpty.

While I'm no stranger to blogging (I've had a personal one for years), this is the first time I've tried using Blogger properly, so it may take some getting used to.

I already have a blog for my shop over at Live Journal (Numpty does LJ), however with the way things seem to be going, Blogger seems more suited to all the things I want to be able to do with my shop blog. Well, that and it seems EVERYONE else in the wonderful world of Etsy seems to have their shop blogs here...and I might miss something!

So, here goes.