Thursday, October 25, 2007

custom gift: skull and roses pencil roll




Recently I was asked to make a custom pencil roll in skulls or motorcycle fabric. It was to be a gift for a friend described as a "funky, free spirit". With Halloween around the corner, the timing couldn't have been any more perfect to find skulls fabric! I picked out a couple different fabrics, then I sent swatch images for her to choose from.

I finished sewing the roll a few days ago, but finally had a chance to photograph it. I posted it to my etsy shop yesterday and she already bought it :)

I've done custom sewing projects for people before, but this is the first time I've received a custom order through my etsy shop. I have to say it was a pretty good experience.

I just started on etsy and having my own shop is all new to me. I've made a couple sales already and overall I feel good about the interactions I've had. For anyone starting their own business, one thing I've learned is that it's important to communicate. There's a saying that it's better to over communicate than under communicate. It's just good practice that I've learned from my day job as well. People can't read your mind so you can't assume anything. Now I'm not saying send a gazillion emails -- that would probably be annoying :) But I'm sure it couldn't hurt to send a friendly email confirming you received their order or payment, and then to confirm that you've dropped it in the mail. I know when I'm on the other end as a customer, I've appreciated those kind of emails.

Anyway, I hope her friend enjoys her gift!

Monday, October 22, 2007

fall leaves and remodel update

On Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I walked next to the little one while he rode his bike around the neighborhood. There were tons of leaves on the ground.



He had so much fun zipping around on his bike. And he squealed with laughter as he climbed off his bike and got ready to jump into a big pile of leaves:


Here he is taking a turn as fast as he could. It's a great shot for a camera phone -- I got the rays of the afternoon sun shining through the trees overhead:


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The rain last week slowed things down a bit, but otherwise the remodel's going well. The stucco is finished and the exterior of the house will be painted in the next week. Daddy spends a lot of time working on the house. I come by with the kids on the way home. The kids and I love walking through the house and seeing how everything's coming together :) Here are pictures from a few weeks ago. The last picture was from just this morning.



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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

gone fishing

Recently the little one got sick and had to stay home with me. I was trying to think of something fun we could do together. I decided we would "go fishing". First we drew and colored some fishies. Then we made a fishing pole. I didn't have any string on hand, so instead used some leftover purple ribbon. I tied the purple ribbon to a spoon, attached a button to the end of the ribbon as the "hook", then put some double-sided tape on the button. Are you getting all that?? It was so much fun watching the little one play. He would get excited everytime he actually caught one. Every couple minutes we'd have to put a fresh piece of tape on the end of the button - it would get full of lint and lose its stickiness haha. Anyway, after only 10 minutes of fishing he said he wanted to do something else! I need to put together some crafty kits for other things we could do on sick days...

Here he is trying to catch the first fish:


Looks like he got a bite:


"I caught one mommy!" :)

Sunday, October 14, 2007

japanese sewing books and more crafting

These japanese sewing books came in the mail this week! I love almost all the patterns.

Something I've heard about japanese sewing books is that the patterns don't have seam allowances. So I have to make sure to allow for that when I'm cutting out the pieces.

Here are a few pictures; more photos can be found on flickr.





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I made this matching child's apron and mitten set. It's going in my etsy shop. I used an adorable kitchen canvas fabric from superbuzzy!



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Sunday, October 07, 2007

quilt show and finished projects

A friend and I went to the Quilt Festival last week. The kids were in daycare and we took the whole day off -- what a luxury! We spent the whole day looking at beautiful fabric and admiring gorgeous quilts. Here are just a few of the quilts we saw there:





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I did a lot of sewing myself this past weekend. I just finished an order for 15 identical art pencil rolls. They're going to be party favors.



Will post more pictures of these once I have 'em filled with pencils and all rolled up.

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The little one really enjoys storytime before bed. But I was getting tired reading the same books every night haha. So I ordered some new books for us to read together (The Goodnight Train and My big train book). They have wonderful illustrations. If your little one loves trains as much as mine does, then I would highly recommend these :)



Don't you love getting packages in the mail?

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