YouTube Freebies Are Back!!!

 Last year YouTube ran a rewards program called YouTube High Five. A select number of creators were chosen to take part in this rewards program where you get free food, cinema tickets, days out, YouTube merch as well as discounts and more. This lasts a few months. If you want to know more about last years I have videos and shorts on my YouTube channel.

This program has returned and I have been lucky enough to be included in it again. This year it's called YouTube partner perks. There's no way of applying for it, you have to be invited by YouTube via email.

I was rather chuffed when I opened my emails and saw it. It's very early in the program so all the perks that will be available haven't been listed yet, just the perks from this first month and one YouTube merch item which is a clapper (limited amounts available like the neon light, first come first served). 

One Year After Starting Print On Demand Books

 It's actually more like 1.25 years but it's close enough. So one year(ish) later and my books are all listed on lulu and my website is all set up. www.retrofaeriebooks.weebly.com 

I have sold a few colouring books and notebooks. I haven't done much promoting them lately so I wasn't expecting mega sales. Anywho I am still designing low content books but I have also moved on and guess what ......

I have started writing children's books. Back when I was in high school I kinda messed around with an idea of a village of colourful sheep for a comic like thing then left it for years. I decided to go back to it and turn it into children's story books. I have kept the look of it the same but the couple of rough stories I did come up with weren't very original, I have gone with stories with a subtle lesson like learning manners and sharing but not in an overly patronising way. Some characters also stayed. This series of books are Tales Of The Little Sheep From Garwood.

My first 2 books have already been published and are ready to order. A third is finished and will be published on the 4th June, also on the same date the first trilogy book comes out, it's all three books together in one book. I will be doing this after every three books get published.

Here is a sneak peek of the cover of the trilogy book

Ebook versions are also available for my books, all links for these are on my website.

There will also be other books available. A second series I am working on is all about Piggy. These are light hearted rhyming books. One is already available both in physical form and ebook. I have quite a few ideas for this series but only one book is complete so far.

There will also be some random books that don't fit in with these serieses. I both write and illustrate my books. I start off old school  with pen and paper before using my drawing pad to make draw on my laptop and put it all together. I admit my first book had a few drafts before it was right but I have learned a lot from that process and think I have a good way of doing things now.

I have plenty of ideas to work on so there will be plenty more to come so watch this space.

Until next time

Happy Crafting!

More High Fives

This is another YouTube High Five post. Nothing else has popped up yet but I have claimed the ones that were already available to me (the ones I was interested in anyway).

On to the pizza, as mentioned in my previous post I was offered a free small pizza from Papa Johns. I had never had one from there before but though why not try it as it's free. I had to look up where my local one was, it was a 30 min walk away but at least it was a nice scenic route.

Books, Books And More Books

 At the beginning of the year I had a go at designing low content books to be sold via Amazon KDP. 

How it works: You design a cover and interior of a book like a notebook or planner, upload it through Amazon KDP and it gets listed on Amazon and people can buy it. The books are printed to order by Amazon. After designing the rest is left to Amazon though you may want to advertise your book and share it on socials to get noticed as it's a very saturated market and it's hard to get your books seen. You choose how much profit from each book you get by setting the price. You can also buy the books yourself at cost if you wish to sell them yourself through other means.

YouTube High Five Rewards

 This is not a crafty post but it is about my YouTube channel. I received a email from YouTube about their High Five rewards. This is going out to a small selection of YouTubers, it's pretty much just some goodies you can claim that's going to pop up every so often over the next few months.

In this first email there was three rewards, it was said there would be more over the next few months. First was a free Greggs vegan or meat sausage roll, second was a neon play button light which was limited and was first come first served, the third was a draw to win one of 50 places to a YouTube meetup where you go to meet other YouTubers, listen to talks to help you grow your channel and of course some free merch too.

Crochet Wonky Witch Hat Tutorial

I needed to get back in to doing tutorials for my YouTube channel and with autumn on the way, what better way to start again then with a crochet witches hat. I made a mock up of a hat which was fine, just a classic straight line hat but I wanted the one for the tutorial different from others that are out there so I moved the increase stitches about to create a wonky look. It took a bit of testing and frogging to get the style right but I came up with a pattern and I'm happy with it.

I chose a nice variated yarn, it says its aran but is more like dk yarn, I used one and a half balls of yarn so roughly 150g. The hat goes wonky from start so you can see it taking shape straight away.

Crochet Granny Stitch Dress

 I wanted to make another crochet dress but this one was going to be a bit different. It's going to be another skater style one but with short sleeves. I will using the classic granny stitch for this dress and it will be worked up differently then the other one. Instead of making the back and front separate I will be making it in one piece. Starting with a the neck and working down just using the granny stitch, nothing fancy. This time I was using a nice soft bright yarn.

Crochet Window Net

 I am attempting to make a crochet net for a window. This isn't going to be any normal net, it's horror themed. More specifically it's going to feature Ghostface from the Scream movies.

I will be making it using the trusty fillet stitch. Just a nice simple design using just chain and double crochet stitches, it's quite large though so it is going to take a while to make.

This is the design I have came up with for the net.

More Fillet Stitch Crochet Patterns

 Like the Batman Patterns from a previous post I have made pentagram diamond versions. These work up the same way with the same stitches. This one just has a couple more rows so it is a tad bigger.

The finished piece made with DK yarn and a 4mm hook looks like this

Like any other pattern you can use what yarn and hook you like depending on what you want to do with it. Like any granny square you can do so much with these, make a blanket, a dress, or use 100%cotton to make a dish cloth. There's so many ways you can make something unique with these. 

The pattern can be found on my Ko-Fi store here https://ko-fi.com/s/dac486eaad

More patterns will be added over time but at the moment I have other projects I want to work on. 

Until then 

Happy Crafting! 

New Old YouTube Upload

 I haven't filmed a tutorial for YouTube for a while but I need to start uploading regularly again. I still had footage of a really simple makeover I did ages ago and finally decided to upload it. 

The footage was already edited, all I had to do was add sound and intro/outro. It is just a really simple makeover where I took a £1 phone shaped moneybox and painted it like the old school batphone from the 1960s Batman. It's only a couple of minutes long and I just quickly painted it, nothing fancy. 

I wasn't overly happy with it, that's why I didn't upload it sooner. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to upload it but as I hadn't uploaded in a while I thought I better upload it so my views don't suddenly slope off because I've been inactive.

I will be getting back to filming proper tutorials soon hopefully but until then you can check out my makeover video 

Happy Crafting!