Creating success around the world

Welcome to
Creating Success around the World

The worldwide blog hop tour, that introduces you to creative people from all corners of the globe.

Every Wednesday our hosts on each continent will introduce you to someone new whose creativity is inspiring!

Here's how you can take this worldwide tour with us:

You can follow all the hosts to support them and keep up to date with the fabulous posts they will share every week.  Then if you are inspired to join, just link up your own blog to make some new international friends.

Remember to leave us a comment when you follow us so we can follow you back! And of course we'd love if you added our button to your site to help spread the word!




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Here are your hosts:
Make sure you visit them all to see the inspiration and creative people every continent has to add to our community.
Australasia - Jill @ Creating my way to Success
Europe - Yaga @ The Shiny Bubble
The Americas - Suzy @ Suzy's Artsy Craftsy Sitcom
Asia - Janelle @ Of Pinks and Fairytales
Africa - Adepeju @ Peekadot

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Alison is a "Mummy, wife, hippy, environmentally friendly, craftaholic!" She blogs about her crafty adventures and other things going on at her home in Scotland at "Heavenly Handmades". She also has her own shop website where she sells beautiful handmade wedding stationery.

Tell us a bit about your trade: What do you create, how and where do you sell your things,

how long have you been doing this?

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I love to make things, I will have a go at anything! I love to sew and make things with fabric and I make and sell wedding stationery. I have made wedding stationery for a while but have only started selling it in the last few months! I am attending my first wedding fair in Edinburgh on the 28th August and after that I plan to advertise in some wedding mags and do wedding fairs (but they are sooo expensive!!). I have etsy and folksy shops but they don‘t have anything in them at the moment! 

 

Please, tell us a little bit about the place and the country that you live in.

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I am Scottish and have lived in Scotland my whole life, home of the midge and heeland coo!! I am proud to be Scottish even if it does mean people have trouble understanding my accent when I am abroad (and my accent isn’t even strong)! I live about 30 mins from Edinburgh city centre in a new town, we moved here because I needed a house with a garage for my Mini (real mini, not BMW!) but it is too built up for our liking so our long term goal is to build our own house in the country.

Do you think that your surroundings influence your creativity? How? 

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My surroundings definitely affect my creativity. I always feel more inspired to create when I have been out and about and Scotland is such a beautiful country it is hard not to be inspired! On a smaller scale I have been without a craft room for 2 years now as our house only has 3 bedrooms so my craft room turned in to my daughters bedroom. This is all about to change as we (hubby) built a small log cabin in our garden at the weekend which is to be my crafting space once it is wired and floored! I am so excited about having my own space again!

How and why did you 'pick' your creative outlet of choice?

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I suppose my main and original outlet of choice is cardmaking. My friend got married about 7 years ago and she made her stationery. I was amazed that she could make such fab stationery and was inspired to start making cards. She took me to her favourite craft shop that afternoon and that was it, I was addicted!

My Grandma was an amazing seamstress and my Mum is pretty good too so I have been surrounded by sewing my whole life. I eventually caught the bug about 2 years ago! I will try my hand at anything though so my creative outlet of choice changes frequently! I have just bought a book about jewellery making so that might be next!!

 

 Why did you decide to sell what you are creating?

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I made my sister’s wedding stationery and she had so many comments about it that I figured I might actually be able to sell it. I had tried selling my cards before without much luck as the handmade card market round here is pretty much saturated but there are not many people offering fully customisable wedding stationery!

How did you start your business?

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I first set up a Wordpress blog to use as my Heavenly Handmades website but could not get to grips with Wordpress so changed to a weebly web site (www.heavenlyhandmades.co.uk) which I designed / am designing. Hopefully it will be fully up to date soon! I now have to sort out where I am going to advertise and see if I get any interest at my first wedding fair!

What, in your opinion is your biggest strength in your creative life and how does it

influence your work?

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Ooh this is a hard one! My biggest strength is probably that I am precise. I have a Physics degree so the scientist in me likes things to be right. I make things from scratch and if I am making a large batch of an item I like them to all be as good as the first.

What would you regard as your greatest weakness in terms of your creativity and how do

you deal with it?

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I am not very creative! I was AWFUL at creative subjects at school and have never felt particularly creative. New ideas I have normally come from things I have seen that I then modify to make my own. Often my creation is nothing like the initial idea but I rarely have a totally original idea! I am also not very patient and like quick projects. As I create more though I am getting a wee bit more patient. My latest creation is a dress and it really will take a while to finish as I need to loose about a stone to fit in to it !

How do you stay motivated and inspired?

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My main motivation is that this is the only thing I do for me and gradually I am getting more interest in my stationery and followers on my blog (althoug that is still an embarassingly low number!). I normally find inspiration very easily. I love to read all different types of blog and that really motivates me to keep creating, there are so many fantastic ideas out there! I have been blogging for about 7 months and really enjoy it, I am not a writer but like to document the things I have done. I also have a thing for craft books, I have about 20 books about everything, including a couple of vintage ones from the 60’s and 70’s, they have some fab projects in them!!

Where do you see yourself and your creative life in two years? Do you have any plans?

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Personally I hope that as a family we are closer to living in our ideal home. My son started school this week and in 2 years my daughter will go to school so I hope that Heavenly Handmades wedding stationery is getting a good number of orders to keep me busy, I will miss the company!

What are your 5 hottest tips for people who want to be more successful with

creating?
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1. Give it a go! Don‘t be afraid to try something new!
2. If it doesn’t work the first time don’t give up!
3. If you want to sell your creations make sure there are not already too many folk doing the same thing.
4. If you are making clothing for yourself it is worth making a muslin first, you wouldn‘t want to make a dress that was too small for you...............!!
5. Make time for creating. I always make mistakes and feel guilty if I sneak in some creating when the kids are playing and I should be joining in so normally craft after bed time.

Thank you so much for your openness, Alison!  

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I found Alison through our linky list. Link up your blog and you might be the next artist featured in our interviews!

Now it's your turn! Link up your posts: Inspiration, craftsy blahs, tutorials, tips or business talk: We wanna know!

Have fun hopping, reading, linking, connecting... take some time to share your love and inspiration by following, leaving comments and visiting each other.
Happy Wednesday! ;o)

New to the world tour? Check our previous tours here!