Carol’s debut

When Anne and I were trying to come up with ways of zooting up our market display, I suggested that we get a head (to put hats on, you know). Megan overhead this and made gagging gestures. Anne sniggered disparagingly. Even Rob seemed grossed out.

But a couple of weeks ago I found Carol languishing forlornly at Milnerton Flea Market, and the guy said he only wanted R50 for her, so – end of story.

So you know what? that’s fine, they can laugh all they want, and maybe I won’t even take Carol to market now, especially not if they’re going to call her rude names like Chuckie-on-a-stick or whatever, but I will use her for my blog. And facebook. And as a decoy when I have to drive somewhere on my own at night (I’m not kidding, people do this in this country, the idea being that if hijackers are on the prowl, they are less likely to pick a vehicle with two people in it; my mother has a broomstick with a Chinese wig and a bowler hat that she props up on the passenger seat, and so far it’s worked well for her).

Anyway, here’s Carol, in all her glory.

She is wearing the cowl I finished this afternoon, inspired by the lovely lady on a smoke break the other day (Purple it is!) and also by Stitched Up Mama, with her landscape textures…

 

And yes, there are fingerless mitts to match but, like the rest of us, Carol also has her limits.

Back soon x

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The whackiness of drivel spam sometimes makes me laugh out loud. This is my favourite so far – “Thanking you for magnificent submit.” You’re welcome, freaky spam bot.

Meet Hattie. She was made for me by Steve, one of the wonderful woodworkers we’ve met through being at Kirstenbosch Market.  She’s as light as a feather and can display 10 hats at a time and, because she’s a table stand, won’t get blown over if there’s wind. Pic out of focus, sorry. My bad. Bad and lazy.

Next up, two wooden boxes that were taking up space without purpose at Rob’s flat: I’m not in the mood for painting right now so I decided to wallpaper them with newsprint. I have to say, I’m not entirely sure that this really is the way to go, but if I don’t try I’ll never know. I’ll do the tops and one bit of the insides and then, if I think it looks stupid, will just have to do something else!

Still working on Tammy’s cushion in aubergine, lilac and willow, but nearly finished. The middle was the flower from the afghan in Issue 3 of Simply Crochet, but I changed things a bit after the row of cream. The purple cotton I’m using isn’t Vinni’s and I’m finding it a bit thinner, so I felt a smaller stitch than a treble was called for. I’m pretty much just making it up as I go along now. I like that about crochet, although it’s not an approach that works with cooking.

Last thing for today, the winner of the Jam Tarts facebook give-away last week for a frog beanie was Mary-Anne from Woolhogs.

She said she was thrilled but felt “undeserving” – not sure why, maybe because we know each other (only through blogging), live in the same city, have the same interests, etc.  I told her she won fair and square.  Life’s random, so things seem  coincidental some times.  That’s how random works.  I wish we could give away a frog beanie to everyone who entered and shared and liked, because you are all lovely people who would all look good in one :-)

Back soon x

Testing testing ShopLocket 1…2…3…

Two evenings ago I read Amanda’s blog post about ShopLocket. The little smous in my head elbowed me and said, Hey, this looks cool, let’s investigate!

[* smous = Afrikaans word for hawker, pedlar, trader]

Sometimes I’m a bit slow when it comes to new technical things but I generally get there in the end. While I was still mulling over the possibilities of ShopLocket, a mail popped up in my inbox from a chap called Dan Kalmar who is the product’s Community Manager in Canada. This impressed me no end. How the hell did he know I was alive and even at my pc, let alone frolicking around on his app? Oh to be a software engineer…

Anyway, this is how far I’ve got: I’ve got the ShopLocket link on the Jam Tarts facebook page:

and this is my first ShopLocket product: salt and pepper set

It turns out that what they say is true:
1. it is really really easy to get one of your items up and out there in the ShopLocket format
2. it doesn’t cost anything until you sell the item (and that fee is as reasonable as any other online marketplace)
3. the tutorials on YouTube are easy to follow
4. they have the financial/payment side of things all worked out (streamlined with PayPal)
5. the staff are real people who actually respond to your queries.

I really like that you can position your ad directly and strategically where you want it, as opposed to the potential customer having to wade through a million ads for similar items in a huge online shop.

The only slight drawback for me is that WordPress dot com blogs and ShopLocket don’t go together. With facebook, websites and other blogging platforms, the ShopLocket ad gets embedded into the code, but with a wordpress dot com blog, you either have to post individual links to the item/s on your blog posts (which is what I did above), or host the WordPress blog elsewhere (and I’m not keen to get into new hosting issues right now).

I’m keen to know what you all think about this – have any of you tried it? I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I’ll give this some time to bake and get my custard ready in the meantime.

OK, next ShopLocket ad coming up. But first, more coffee. Oh, and the bikini top. More about that tomorrow.

To be continued…