Round Up

I'm having a good couple of weeks. There's a lot going on, which I always love and I'm being busy and useful. This is unusual but lots of fun!

Firstly I sold my flat. I think most people know this already but it is now gone, I am no longer attached to London - which means I am really looking forward to visiting it again and trying to re-learn how to love a city that became a nightmarish reminder of estate agents and household problems!

This weekend Exlineal have organised a signing in Leicester this Saturday. Author Mark Chadbourn will be signing in the Highgate Waterstones from 12.30 until 2.30. This is a rather rare signing/sighting so definitely worth heading along to. There is even going to be cake, seriously - cake! And if Exlineal's charming company, cake and being in a bookstore isn't enough incentive, I've read the books and I can certainly recommend them. If you can't make it then I am honestly sorry you'll be missing out, but you can of course still get the books from the magical internet at least!

In other book-ish news the ever so lovely Zoë Marriott's books were storming up the Amazon charts last week. Much excitement meant that I decided to dig them out of the shelves and have a re-read. If you've not checked them out have a look. Also, she has a fab blog.  And a shout-out to Kaz Mahoney who's just had her first foreign cover through - completely fab news. I was introduced (over the internet, but it still counts) to Kaz and Zoë at the same time so it makes sense to me to talk about them together!

In Etsy news I have finally completed my mini-challenge to myself and my shop now has 100 items in it. The next step is to get as many items as possible up to 100 views. Then of course the next step will be getting 100 sales. I might be a litle way away from that still! My new range of cards seems to be popular and I've had some lovely comments about it so far.

Sticking with Etsy for a minute there have also been so many changes happening recently that I have been spending a lot of time catching up and making sure that I know what is going on and understand it fully. For those of you using Etsy occasionally there is a new way of organising searches on the site so that you will hopefully get more useful results. This is great news, in my opinion, for both sellers and buyers as well. I've certainly been seeing the benefits already. Well done, Etsy!

I have also opened my shop on Folksy. I'm not sure how to define it yet but I wanted to get a couple of my favourite pieces there to make sure my presence in the UK wasn't fading as I am doing fewer craft fairs now and focusing online which is largely US based still.

The other day I was very kindly featured in a blogpost over on Katy's site Far Flung Cards. She did a piece on me and my artwork and I am very flattered and deeply honoured, she's a wonderful person and I really appreciate having her in my crafting life.

I have a couple of exciting things possibly happening as well which I shall update about as and when they happen. I hope that everyone else is having a wonderful time,

Vick.