New Frog Gallery


I've set up a new page to share pictures of your beanbag frogs - pop over and take a look! http://thepeartreeboutique.blogspot.com/p/frogallery-send-in-pictures-of-your.html


It has been set up so we can see what your beanbag frog is getting up to in their new home. Send a picture of your frog getting out and about, relaxing at home or off on holiday. Tell us a bit about your frog - what is their name? What do they like doing? Where do they sleep? 


You can send your pictures to sam@thepeartreeboutique.co.uk


I'm really looking forward to hearing about all those frogs out there! 

This is a very old and grubby frog that my twins have adopted. He is called 'Red' and spends a lot of time hanging out in the trailer on the back of a trike, hiding in the fridge and jumping around. 

Sorry for the lack of blog recently. I have been unexpectedly forced to slow down this last week after a trip to see the doctor. So I'm trying to take things a little slower, look after myself a bit more and not get so STRESSED!!


So, in the meantime I have been doing a bit more sewing and appreciating my time creating. So just a quickie today to share with you a few of the things I have been making recently.


First up is a new cushion, inspired by spring. It features a velvet rabbit that I have also used on some lovely bags for little girls.

Then I have been stocking up my Folksy shop http://folksy.com/shops/ThePeartreeBoutique

with more beanbag frogs. These always sell well and are my oldest design, dating way back to early 2002 when I was at college studying Art & Design. 

I had an order for one in a particular colour recently for a little boy who had lost his Freddie Frog and was having trouble sleeping without him. I sent pictures of fabrics to him via email and he chose exactly the fabrics he wanted for his frog and I made it up for him and sent it in the post. A couple of days later, I was dashing around when I noticed my phone bleeping in the kitchen with a voicemail. Imagine how thrilled I was to hear Connor telling me how thrilled he was with his frog and thank you for making it for him! Well, that just made my week! 

That's why I love making - you just can't measure the feeling you get when you create something for someone that lights up their world. 

This is Freddie Frog #2

Love is in the air...

I've been working on two commissions this week, both in the name of love!


The first is a cushion celebrating two years of marriage and details three dates, significant to the happy couple. A two year anniversary is traditionally marked by giving a gift of cotton.

The second cushion is a wedding gift in a different style to the first, the brief being a modern design using black, white and silver. 

I've wanted to try out some silver embroidery thread for a while, so this project gave me the perfect opportunity. I found it worked especially well against a black background. 

Photos to follow, I can't find the data lead...again!!

Brrr it's finally cold!

It's not felt much like January lately. I went out for a run this week in a light weight t shirt and wasn't even chilly. So it was really quite nice to experience a bit of winter weather!


I got out my cat draft excluder to cosy up the hallway. He looks very comfy there doesn't he? These went down really well last year and I had requests for a bengal print as well as the cream version. You can find these on my website http://www.thepeartreeboutique.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=40&product_id=65

The twins have been itching to get outside and the frost has meant that our garden is actually a bit more solid rather than the mushy mud bog it's turned into over the wet winter. 

Red noses and rosy cheeks! 

When they came back inside, we made some bread hedgehogs and turtles and ate the warm bread while cosying up on the sofa. 

When they went to bed for a nap, I was frustrated to find that our internet connection was down again. So couldn't carry on with the orders I had planned to, but decided to get to work on a project that I've been meaning to have a go at for a long time now. 

A Patchwork Cat!!

When I was at junior school we were asked to paint a picture of a patchwork cat that the teacher had bought in for us to see. I worked really hard on that picture and was really pleased with it. It inspired me to have a go at making one and this is my first attempt. Needs a bit of tweaking I think. The shape needs improving, the ears need to be more symetrical and I need to design a face to embroider on. 

But despite the imperfections, the boys have really taken a shine to him too and have named him Scraps! I now need to make another one as his is in demand and becoming the catalyst for many a fight! 

Running ahead of the pack

I've been running my Facebook page for just over a year now and consider myself to have moderate success in my sales and customer interaction. I know I don't have a fraction of the number of 'likers' that some of  my fellow Facebook crafters have following their pages, but I try not to use this as a measure of success. Slow and steady seems a much more preferable way to market my business at present, especially as my two youngest are still toddlers and this limits the amount of time I can spend sewing.

A few years ago I spent some time with a small business mentor, gaining an insight into turning art into a business. He thoroughly recommended spending the time building your reputation before starting to pump away at marketing and sales. As the old saying goes 'your reputation precedes you', although you must absolutely make sure that it does so in the right way! A bad reputation can be very difficult to shake off, and yet annoyingly, a good reputation is like glass and shatters easily.


I guess this has stayed with me and I try to put quality and craftsmanship ahead of quantity and trends.
I have very definite likes and dislikes in terms of style. I couldn't tell you how this is defined, but I know when I see something if it makes my grade or not. I try to stay true to this and wouldn't want to offer an item that I wasn't happy with as I see my art as an extension of me, my personality and my creativity. This can be hard of course, as I offer a bespoke service for customers to have their own design ideas incorporated into pieces. Quite often I am faced with creating a piece with colours that I just don't consider to 'work' or fabrics that I would prefer not to work with. This is for me, a challenge in some ways, but also a fantastical exercise in working with the creative ideas of others and coming together to produce a collaborative piece that is beautiful and means a great deal to the person who will receive it.


Taking the time to experiment with new ideas and perfecting them is all part of the job. It's most definitely worth it in terms of your reputation and artistically, many of my best ideas have occurred during second or third attempts.
Unfortunately, this has it's downside. Facebook has become so fast moving and there are so many craft business start ups that the joy of posting pictures of your creations starts to fade when you realise that after pricking the seed of an idea months before, working and re-working it has cost you valuable time and someone else has had a remarkably similar idea to you! This isn't copying - how could they have known what you were working on and vice versa? But it leads me to question the source of my inspiration; has my subconscious inspiration-radar picked up ideas from other internet sites, publications and social media sites that have eventually led me down the particular path of this idea? Evidently someone else has picked up some of the same elements along the way and we have both arrived at a similar point.
Maybe I should cast my inspirational net further afield. Maybe I should be quicker off the mark and make sure I get ahead of the 'pack'. Oh for a bit more uninterrupted time to work on my creations!!