Competition Launch

Just launched my very first competition.

Do you know anyone starting school this year. My competition is to win a "First Day of School" Keepsake plaque and a school bag tag to go with it - these tags help children easily identify their school bag.

If you'd like to enter the competition please click here and if you know anyone who'd like to enter who may have a child starting school and would like to win this prize feel free to forward the details.

Good luck to all the entrants!

It's fast approaching the end of the school year. I've made an end of year teacher gift for pupils to give to their teachers. 

Hopefully teachers will like this unique gift, it's a bit different to a box of chocs or bottle of wine.

The plaque will be personalised to say To (teacher's name), thank you for being my special teacher. On the back it will say Love from (pupil's name)

The front also has 2 lovely wooden embellishments, a choice of a ruler, blackboard or 3 colouring pencils.

At the moment I'm running a special promotion. If you refer a friend to my site both you and your friend will receive a 10% off your next purchase discount voucher code.  No limit on the number of friends you refer!! Click here for the "Tell a friend" page.

Ideal time to refer friends if your are considering end of year teacher presents, or wedding gifts. Make sure you refer a friend first and get that 10% off!

I made a new plaque at the weekend.... totally inspired by my daughters constant singing of nursery rhymes etc!

Just for fun.... how many nursery rhymes can you come up with from the plaque, the same animal can be used for several rhymes and some may be fairly loosely connected.

I'm thinking of turning the plaque into a bedroom door name plaque with my littlies name in the middle - or as someone suggested being sung from the cockeral's mouth :)

I treated myself to a new pyrography machine. I've been playing with it a while and practising. It's a Peter Child machine - hot wire tips as opposed to my previous chunky cumbersome solid point machine.

I finally felt brave enough to make an item with my new machine - a tooth fairy hanger 

There is space for a child's name above the verse. I had lots of fun making up the little verse and thinking of rhyming words! My plan would be to colour the fairy dress according to the buyers specifications, adding another personalised dimenision to the gift. 

Let me know what you think.

I had a craft morning the other day and came up with a couple of extra items, one for an order and one inspired by the metallic embellishment:- 

The wedding plaque is waiting to be personalised with a bride and groom's wedding details -names, date of wedding and place. It has a gorgeous metallic horse and carriage on which reminds me of my own wedding!

The tealight was made for an order. Wording can be put round all 3 sides of the wooden tealight making it ideal as lovely keepsake gifts. I love the colours on the flowers of this tealight - a grape purple and gold. 

The shop is growing

well, my online shop is ever growing. There are even more categories now. I have also been working on improvements to the website - such as making the product list items a clickable link to the shop category - that way potential customers won't have to search through all the categories if they like the sound of an item.

There will be even more items coming soon and I have ideas on more items to make - it's never ending!!

I've done it - my new website is launched today!!

www.samigailsgifts.co.uk

There will still be lots more items to add to the shop! It feels never ending

Let me know what you think

I've decided to start from scratch with my website. I really need a website with an online shop facility. So watch this space for a newly designed Samigail's Handmade Personalised Gifts website launch date. 

I found a new website today to show my items - plaincraft. I'm still working it out - You submit your items and other viewers score your item. You also include a link where your item can be found, so there's always hope for a sale along the way! The days top 10 scoring items are displayed on the home page.

You can vote for one of my items here: my item on plaincraft

If anyone esle has their items on plaincraft let me know and I'll vote on your items too.

I finally received my order today of beech wood plaques. Hooray! This meant I could finally list my latest product - house name/number plaques. I also designed a horse plaque so they could equally be suitable for stable signs. 

I've listed these for sale on MISI, Ebid and Ebay! Fingers crossed for some sales.

My first Blog post! Wow.  Those that know me would be surprised to hear I'm suddenly stuck for words!!

I suppose the impetus for setting up my blog is to spread the word about my fairly new craft business - Samigail's Handmade Personalised Gifts

I make handmade wooden personalised gifts for all occasions by using the art of pyrography (wood burning).

I love all different types of crafts - cross stitch, glass painting etc. Last Christmas I was hunting online for ideas for my husband to buy me for Christmas. I found a pyrography iron. Thought about it for a while then decided actually I just couldn't wait and bought it for myself sometime before Christmas. I had in mind I could make Christmas decorations for my children. 

I enjoyed making the decorations immensely. I then decided for my son's christmas present to his nursery school teacher it might make a lovely unusual gift. The idea of a business was

 planted! 

So, before christmas 2007 I was busy making quite a few christmas decorations which were a huge hit. The idea that they were personalised with the teacher's name and the year was quite popular. My first efforts are shown in the picture!

In January 2008 I wondered what to make next and started thinking about weddings, christenings etc. I built up lots of different ideas and now have over 80 different listings in my ebid shop.

I now sell on MISI and Ebid.