Featured seller on Folksy!

Pouch is one of four featured sellers on Folksy throughout the month of January. Huge thanks to Sally from Tinkering Times for putting Pouch's name forward to the team at Folksy
What a great way to start the new year!

Folksy is a new selling site based in the UK and it is designed to showcase handmade crafts. At the moment it is in Beta testing stage and the handmade community are giving the folks at Folksy lots of feedback on ways to improve the site before it goes fully live.
As the guys behine Folksy state on their site:
"Small scale production and handmade goods offer ways to manage resources effectively and support local economies."
There is growing interest in Folksy with a number of national press features already completed and many more in the pipeline.
We look forward to seeing the site grow in popularity in 2009!

New Tags

I decided to start adding little 'thank you' tags to items when they are packed up to go to a new home.
I made these using recycled paper cut with pinking shears (an old pair I use for paper, I have a brand new pair for pinking fabric).
I then punched a hole in the top and threaded through some silver thread.
The tags feature an ink stamp of the Pouch logo which was custom made by foryoo.etsy.com.
I am really pleased with the way they turned out and think they add a nice extra touch to my gift wrapping of sold items.

Pouch clutch purse featured in Etsy Spotlight

Our Scarlet eco friendly clutch purse wristlet was featured as a Spotlight item on Etsy on April 12


This purse is made with repurposed bright red needle-cord fabric
Fully lined with beautiful, recycled Chandni Chowk cotton fabric
Features bow-tie fastening and wrist strap
This purse is interlined with padded fabric to give it a great shape
Pretty and stylish, great for year-round use
eco-friendly, 100% recycled

To read the Spotlight article on Etsy, click on this link

eco friendly, vintage fabric belts listed in our etsy shop

Click on the following links to find the belts in our etsy shop

Blue tones vintage fabric belt with bakelite buckle

Purple daisy repurposed and recovered belt

Pouch listed in the Bristol & Bath Green Pages

We are really excited about being included in the 2008 edition of the Bristol & Bath Green Pages.
It is a directory of ethical businesses operating in the Bristol & Bath area. Categories range from gardening, shopping and health, through to ethical money advice and green home improvement.
Pouch is listed in the shopping section under 'Design and Craft Products'.
The ethos behind the B&B Green Pages is this:
"We believe that the way we buy our goods and services can have a real impact on the world today and in the future. However, these choices are not always easy or obvious, so by bringing all these different aspects of green living together in one directory, Green Pages aims to make it a bit easier! Green Pages is part of a diverse and growing community of businesses, all of whom have strong ethical values at their core.
We believe that we have a responsibility to operate our business as ethically and sustainably as possible, for everybody’s future. We therefore aim to act ethically, avoid damaging the environment and people, and believe our business offers an ethically preferential choice. We aim to be sustainable, to offer quality products and services and to always look at how we can improve our practice.”

Find out more and where you can buy the directory by visiting their website:
Bristol & Bath Green Pages

Flock Fashion Show: Fashion Recycled and Rethought

At Pouch we are delighted to be involved with Flock Fashion's first show on the 8th March 2008.

Flock's ethos is:
"As well as putting on lots of lovely glamorous events, we want to raise awareness amongst the fashion industry, as well as amongst the public. we want to show that it is possible to look and feel great in what you're wearing, without causing any damage to the environment or creating unfairness within trade"
Some of exciting designers are taking part in the event, including:
Traid
Enamore
SI:SU
Dig For Victory
Ani Townsend Millinery


Please see the following flyer for further details.
Tickets are available from www.bristolticketshop.co.uk

Taking lots of photos

This week I have been taking lots of photos of our handmade bags to show the organisers of the Flock Fashion Show.
We are due to take part in a catwalk presentation on March 8th, I will post more details nearer the time!
Here is a small selection of new bags for 2008, all are made from vintage and recycled fabric.

green leaf vintage fabric

New addition to my vintage fabric collection. Simple, clean lines and great spring colours. Can't wait to create something with it!

New addition to my fabric collection!

This is the latest addition to my vintage fabric collection. I just couldn't resist buying it as the colours are so vivid. The photos I have taken do not do it justice and the amazing royal blue colour does not show up well in these photos. Even so, you can still see that it is pretty funky!
They just don't make fabric like they used to :)

CREATE Festive Fayre

Winter sunset on the CREATE Centre

We had a great time at the CREATE Festive Fayre. It's a fantastic event to be involved with and we met lots of eco-aware people who gave us lots of positive feedback to our products. We sold out of our belts and clutch purses and wish we had brought more with us! The recycled fabric stockings sold well too and lots of people loved the lavender hearts and sleepy owls. The CREATE Fayre is a great way to promote Pouch and we gave out loads of business cards and 'buy handmade' badges and stickers.




I have lots more photos which I will post next week as we are off to Paris for 4 days on the Eurostar and I need to get on with my packing :)

Showcase November

Showcase November
Originally uploaded by pouch_designs

I took the plunge and bought a showcase spot on Etsy. Although people have not been happy about the increase in price ($15), You've got to speculate to accumulate as they say!
If it doesn't have much effect on traffic to the shop then I wont try it again, or I may try again in the Spring :)
It did give me a chance to spruce up the shop and make sure all the pictures were as good as I could make them. I think I aimed to make the items look more unified, for example, all the peg bags now face in the same direction. I know it sounds a bit OCD-ish, but I know how important good photos are on Etsy, so I didn't want the shop looking like a right muddle.
Since starting on Etsy, I have taken on board lots of advice and looked at loads of other shops. The message has got through to me loud and clear that good photos are key.
I used to sell on Ebay with the bags placed on plain white backgrounds, cut-out and manipulated in photoshop, now I use natural settings with natural light, with props such as antique chest of drawers and a neutral cloth underneath.
I am pleased with the overall effect now, there's still room for improvement, but it's good to keep learning and thinking of new ideas for photos and products.
I'm still enjoying the Etsy experience and that's the most important thing!
Come and check out our handmade bags at our Etsy store
www.pouchbags.co.uk

Welcome to our Blog :)

Welcome to our brand new Pouch blog

We started listing our handmade bags on Etsy in May 2007

So far we've both been amazed at the talent on Etsy and love being part of the community. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and the chat forums are very addictive!

Come and check out our handmade bags at our Etsy store