Have a Swirly Christmas!

A Peek Inside Our Swirly Studio

Do you want to know the best way to clean your studio or craft room?
Have it profiled in magazine about Studios! As excited as we were to have our studio in the pages of the new winter 2011 issue of Cloth Paper scissors studios magazine our mood went from cheers to fear really quick! How on earth were we ever going to clean and organize our studio plus photograph it right in the middle of designing our fall collection. It's still a big blur but we did it and the story came out great.

In the article, we share how we transformed one of our rooms in our 150 year old house, into a winter wonderland workshop where we create our Swirly Designs all year long. Also how we work together in the space and some of our favorite storage pieces we have for our materials.

Be sure to check out the issue next time you are out and about at your bookstore or craft store.


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*** What didn't make it into the issue is how we reworked our studio closet from just a place to store boxes of materials, to creating almost an extra room where everything has it's place now. We had a local builder come in and help us design a closet that works for our needs. He did a great job listening to what we wanted and the craftsmanship is top notch!

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Our Christmas Collection Close Up

We take lots of photos of our designs when we are ready to launch any new collection and usually we'll post some beauty shots of our designs on the blog so you can really see the detail in our ornaments that you might not normally see on the website.

Because of the quick selling of this years collection, we didn't get a chance to post these images, but they are just too nice not to share. So here is some eye candy for you...

Swirly Made the Cover!

We're sure you must have seen this issue at your supermarket or local bookstores already, it has been out for months now.

Well, if you look closely (you might even have to squint a bit) you might notice 4 of our swirly handmade ornaments adorning the tree in the photo. Hey we'll take that! Imagine, our little handmade ornaments on a cover of a big national magazine. Hooray for us!

We got a call back in June from the editor asking us if we could create cookie-like clay ornaments for this creative how-to Christmas Ideas magazine. We haven't designed cookie ornaments before, but were up for the challenge.

We submitted 25 different designs (above) which we created over a weekend. We photographed them and emailed them to the editor. They choose 4 designs they liked best for use in the issue. We shipped them the ornaments along with the step-by-step instructions.

And this is what graced the pages the story is titled Small Spaces that Sparkle.









All photos above are from BHG Christmas Ideas Magazine 2011

We had so much fun creating these clay cookie designs for Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Ideas publication that we picked out four of our favorite designs to be include into this years Swirly Designs 2011 ornament collection.

They came out so sweet we just wanted to eat them up!

Holiday How-to: Christmas Couple

Here is our third (first and second) seasonal how-to we created with Polyform for their website. We designed this festive snow couple characters which we call Peace and Joy. A perfect project to create on those snowy winter days this season.





We really enjoy creating these fun how-to projects for all to try or to be inspired by.

We are happy to announce that Swirly and Polyform will be creating more seasonal how-tos in 2012 for Valentine's, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So be sure to stock up on your supplies now so you will be all set to be swirling along with us all year long!

Holiday season wrap up!

As the Christmas craziness settles down here at the studio, we both can finally let out a BIG sigh of relief for getting all our holiday orders out in the mail and finishing up our last craft show for the season.

Both were a big success for Swirly. We had a record breaking first day sales on the Friday launch day of our Christmas collection. And the SOWA Holiday marketplace show last week had a line of people wrapped around the building waiting for hours just to shop the show.

We are so thrilled and happy people appreciate and look for handmade goods to celebrate the season. It is always nice to read the kind emails about our ornaments and being able to chat in person with everyone who stopped by our booth to see our swirly ornament designs. We thank you for that.

There was so much fun stuff we wanted to share with you this month but never had the time, so we hope to post a lot of them all this week.

Upcoming Craft show and our Holiday collection

We have taken what's left of our 2011 handmade Holiday ornament collection, so we will have something for our upcoming craft show: The 8th annual SOWA Holiday Market this coming Saturday Dec 10th 11-7 pm.

If there are anything designs left from the show we will post them on Monday.

Have a wonderful week.

Here is our vendor profile that was on the SOWA website a few weeks ago. If you live around the Boston area be sure to stop by this Saturday and say hi.

Swirly in the Sweet Life

Looking for some sweet holiday inspiration? Then be sure to visit Simply the Sweet Life and check out their FREE online 2011 Holiday magazine .
It's full of wonderful holiday ideas and delicious recipes and Swirly:)
Yes our new mini woodland winter set graces the pages (page 32_33) of this whimsical issue .


Image above is from Simply the Sweet Life Magazine Holiday issue



Image above is from Simply the Sweet Life Magazine Holiday issue

Check out the eZine and tell them Swirly said hi!
Below area few more close up shots we took of this
7 piece Woodland Winter set.

Mushroom, Little Owl and snowy pine cone


snowflake and candy cane

glittery star and starry night

There is still a few of these sets available so be sure to pick up yours today.
Have a Sweet and Swirly Holiday! SORRY SOLD OUT!