How I made the woodland fairy wedding dress

 

Green woodland fairy wedding dress
Green woodland wedding dress

Hello! This is just a quick news update to tell you about my latest post I’ve written over on my blog, When I Grow Up. Hopefully it will be a little less controversial than the Oshun one! It’s simply a post about how I made the dress as several people I met at the New Forest Fairy Festival asked me how I make my fairy dresses. Hopefully it will be helpful if you’re thinking about making your own if you have a special event to go to; or interesting if you’re thinking about purchasing the woodland dress from the Threads of a Fairytale Etsy shop.

I can’t wait to get sewing again! Unfortunately I’ve been busy stuck in a vortex of housework and admin since getting back from holiday!

Time for a little break!

Hello everyone! I’m absolutely exhausted after the wonderful New Forest Fairy Festival last week, and now I’m taking a break for a few days so the shop will be closed. I’ll catch up with any queries and re-open on the 1st September with renewed energy for making lots of new dresses!

In the mean time, if you’d like to take a behind-the-scenes look at having a stall at the New Forest Fairy Festival, here’s a little video I made of the weekend:

Changes are afoot! Oshun shops are disappearing.

 

Mermaid wedding dressThere are a few changes happening! You might have noticed that now all old Oshun shops have been removed from the ‘Shop’ section and there’s only my new ‘Threads of a Fairytale’ shop there now. I’ve been a busy bee and have utilised these horrible rainy windy days by dealing with the admin and swapping over all the items from the old shops and into this main one.

So this means that there are a couple of new sections that can be used to search for specific styles in the Etsy shop. For example, ‘Occasion Wear’ will now have most of the Oshun Occasions clothes. ‘Fairytale and Cosplay’ will have most of the Oshun Costumes clothes, and I’m working on the ‘Custom and made-to-order’ section as I have more examples to show.

If you happen to do an Etsy shop search for OshunCostumes, then my shop will still turn up for the time being because there’s a handful of clothes that don’t quite fit into where I’d like Threads of a Fairytale to be heading. These have been reduced in price, so head over there for some costume bargains!

The closing of Oshun Kids means that those handmade items are currently not online for sale at the moment. I intend to make these available on Threads of a Fairytale’s Facebook page, but won’t have time to do this until after the New Forest Fairy Festival in a couple of weeks (where several often sell anyway!) and possibly not until the end of summer.
The vintage new stock of clothes is all still on Just A Bit Different, but I intend to close this down soon too and sell off all the stock in one go. So let me know if you need alternative clothing stock to open a shop or market stall!

Phew! I think that’s it for now!

Massive news: Oshun is changing name! Welcome to Threads of a Fairytale

Gold Oshun chiffon dressFrom now on we’re called ‘Threads of a Fairytale’. I just thought I would make my life a little more complicated than necessary and decide to change the name of my clothing business, which has been called Oshun for so many years, I can’t even remember since when! I think I began late nineties / early noughties, so this is going to take a while to get used to!

Please bare with me for a little while as it’s obviously going to take a bit of time to change everything. At the moment I’m having to appeal the change of name of the Facebook page, so that’s why that is still saying Oshun. However the transition on Etsy was Snow white cosplay costumefortunately much simpler and my original Oshun Creations shop on there is now called Threads of a Fairytale. I hope it’s not all too confusing! Also, of course, you may be wondering why the title here is still saying Oshun – well my programmer tells me that it’s not as simple as just changing the wording of the title; it’s made up as a whole picture. Therefore, if we’re making a new picture for the title, now is the time to figure out logos and branding and all that sort of thing. This isn’t something I want to rush, so look out for gradual changes. It is of course, lots of fun doing this bit!

One of the changes I’m looking forward to the most is dropping all the other Oshun Etsy shops (along with Oshun Creations, there’s currently also Oshun Occasions, Oshun Costumes and Oshun Kids.) I think I’ve mentioned before how I’d planned on closing Oshun Kids anyway. All the handmade children’s clothes will eventually be listed on the Facebook page. The vintage items from Oshun Costumes are on my depop shop, (soon to be sold off as a job lot) and the handmade items moved to the new Threads of a Fairytale (formerly Oshun Creations). Also, all the clothing and accessories on Oshun Occasions will move to the same shop on Etsy as well, under the category of Occasion wear. It will make it a lot easier for me to keep on top of updates and news; and a lot easier for you to see everything I make. I’ve honed my style of clothing over recent years and I think the shops will blend nicely together now.

Beyonce at Grammys as OshunSo, the reason why I’m changing the name? Well, there is one big thing that has bothered me right from the start of the existence of our Oshun business, and that is, very few people know how to pronounce it! It’s simple matter, but a very annoying one! (So if you are thinking about naming a business, keep that in mind!) Even we pronounced it wrong for many years, saying it like ‘Ocean.’ You Tube didn’t exist back then, so there was no way of hearing other people say it. It is in fact, pronounced Oshoon, if you were wondering! However since Beyonce played homage to the goddess Oshun in her Hold Up, Lemonade music video, and then again at the 2017 Grammy Award show performance, the name is better known. The flip side is, it has suddenly become massively popular and whereas we were originally the only ones with a shop in the world called Oshun, in the last few months, suddenly shops called Oshun this and Oshun that have popped up all over the place. I recently had to deal with someone who was blatantly copying the name along with materials and style of clothing, and although most of the other new Oshun shops are selling beauty products or jewellery, I can see how there might be confusion with us. I’ve talked more about this on my latest weekly vlog on You Tube.

So I thought, if ever was the right time to change the name of our clothing business, now is the time to do it. I’ve recently made a new collection of velvet cloaks which are about to be listed; a fairytale wedding dress; and have started a collection of raggedy pastel goth Cinderella-type dresses. I’ve got so many ideas in my head for fairytale clothes I want to make this year and I’m very excited to take my business forward with its new name, Threads of a Fairytale.