Swap update and more tutorials

Image sourced from Flickr Madeby Beag's photostream

Most of you should have received an e-mail yesterday with your swap partners info, if you didn't then its either because I haven't got your contact details yet or I have missed you out, I do hope I haven't done that, it certainly wasn't intentional but trying to co-ordinate partners with a toddler pretending to be the andrex puppy with all the toilet rolls in the cupboard is a little distracting! So if you haven't received a swap partner then please get in touch and I'll sort it out.

I've been looking into some other tutorials and buttony interestingness.

Here are a few on making fabric covered buttons:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R3LDkEkNm2U

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=o2InD6t-R9s

and instructions for crocheting buttons:

http://www.yarnforward.com/c_button.html

http://crochetme.com/easy-crocheted-button-covers

http://www.craftstylish.com/item/6550/how-to-crochet-a-button

and lastly I should direct you to swap participant incywincystitches blog where she is giving away some super cute free embroidery patterns for buttons.

If anybody know of any other good button making tutorials please post the link to them below.

Tiny shoes for tiny toes

Above are some new products I have been working on over the past days and I'm quite pleased how they turned out, there is a lot of cutting and sewing in these little shoes, see photo below:

But worth it, I think, although I'm not sure I'll be saying that after I've had to make dozens of them........ This pair are headed for the etsy shop.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the button swap, I think we have 14 participants at the moment, theres one week left to sign up so I hope there will be a few more sign ups. Those of you who have signed up if you haven't already e-mailed (e-mail addy is in the 'important but serious bit' in the side bar of the blog) with your name and address can you do that sometime before the 25th January so I can tell your swap partner where to send your parcel.

I hope some of you tired the fimo buttons in the tutorials in the last post, I'll be back with some more button making tutorials soon.

Fimo Button Making Tutorials

I have been looking up some tutorials on different kinds of button making, I thought it would be good to share them with you and might inspire you all a bit for the button swap. If you are reading this and haven't yet signed up click on the button above to take you to the info on the swap.

I'm not sure how different blogs work but if you copy the button above and all the code behind it( does that even make sense?) and paste it into your blog then you should get a swap button so you can let people know you are taking part in the swap:

Okay now heres the link to some Youtube Tutorials on Fimo buttons:

Cute Fimo Flower Buttons

Polymer Clay (Fimo) Button Tutorial

Flower Polymer clay millefiori technique (this ones not actually a tutorial for making buttons but It's easy to see how you could make some pretty smart buttons this way)

Hope you have fun experimenting and I'm sure we'd all love to see all the different button making thats going on so I've made us a flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/phatsheephandmadebuttonswap/

I'll be back soon with some tutorials for making other types of buttons, have a good weekend.

New ideas for the etsy shop....

My creationhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phatsheeptextiles/3176726033/, originally uploaded by Phatsheep Textiles.

Heres some ideas I've been working on for the etsy shop www.phatsheepfabrics.etsy.com , I'd been waiting to try and get some decent pictures in daylight but thats just not happening at this time of year!! so here they are:
charm packs of 25 5" squares of fabric and Strip Rolls (was going to call them Jelly Rolls but that name might be copyrighted to Moda Fabrics so though best not) of 20 21/2" x 42" strips including Fairytale birds and Tree Buds fabric and a mix of other patterns and plains. They are both for sale in the etsy shop now and there will be more to follow...

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the button swap, very exciting. I've got all your e-mails and will be in touch with you soon, hope you all have lots of button making ideas, I've been looking at different button making methods and will post up some ideas and links over the following days.

Lastly I came second in the Spoonflower weekly competition so no free fabric prize. However I was pretty pleased that nearly 400 people voted for my fabric ( 31.5% of the vote!). The Christmas birds is a fabric design I had hoped to have in print for this festive season, but didn't quite make it ,but it will be for sale later on in the year. Unless people are thinking about Christmas crafts already in which case it might appear sooner!

Its Swap Time..Sign up here for the PhatSheep Handmade Button Swap

Anyone fancy taking part? I’ve never organized a swap before and as I have a BIG love for buttons of all shapes and sizes I thought this would be a fun swap to set up. Here are the swap rules:

Each person will make for their swap partner a set of 6 co-ordinating or themed buttons, sizes can vary.
The buttons can be made in any-way you choose with whatever material you like, only rule is they must be useable by the recipient so please bear this in mind when you are being creative!

Also include something handmade which features/uses a handmade button (this doesn’t have to match the set you are already sending your swap partner but can if you like).

As with all swaps please feel free to include some random extras but it is not necessary.


I’m thinking January 25th for the sign up deadline and February 14th (romantic Eh?) for the Post out deadline. I’ll keep you updated here if there are any changes to these dates. To sign up please leave a comment below and e-mail me with your postal adress. I’ll be back in touch with you partners details after the 25th Jan.

Also a BIG thankyou to everyone who took the time to vote for my fabric over at Spoonflower, I'm currently in a very respectable 2nd place, so we will have to wait and see what happens in the next 24 hours!