too sweet

I'm making a special request for a customer who is having a lollipop themed first birthday party for her daughter. I didn't realize how hard it would be to turn a lollipop swirl into felt when I first started! Lots of trial and error but the end design is super cute. At the customers request I will be switching to a pink onesie and replacing the pink parts with light purple in the lollipop. I like the sprinkles around the lollipop and am tempted to add the design to my shop as a regular item.

Rock On!

I just added a new design to the shop. A cherry red, white and black electric guitar. I was talking with a friend this weekend who has a 1 year old boy and she was lamenting about the very typical designs she finds in the stores. So I thought I would make something a bit different for little boys with my new design. I need to put it on a toddler tee now. I like the gray background. Next up is a gender neutral rubber duck sitting in bubbles that has the option of saying JUST above the ducky.

Hop into spring!

It is getting to be that time of year, baby shower and baby birthing season. I've started making a lot more 0-3 month designs then for the last few months. The rocket ship and the giraffe are the big sellers at the moment for both boys and girls. Sales on the bird and cupcake have slowed down. I've noticed items get bought in waves. Everyone will buy the bird, then the fox, then the giraffe, then the orange slice. I think it is an Etsy phenomenon. People buying items as gifts tend to buy what they see other people have bought because they feel that must be a desirable item. I added two new Easter/spring items to my shop. A boy's and a girls version of my hop into spring bunny. I really like how the items turned out. I'm less excited by the photos. The rainy winter weather hangs on here in Portland and I struggle with my lighting when taking photos. Here they are though!
cadet blue

St. Patty's Day

Several years ago, seven years go to be exact, I lived in Chicago for half a year for a Collage internship. I have a lot of really good memories from that adventure but one of my favorite was celebrating St. Patty's Day. I had never given much thought to the holiday before going to Chicago. Sure I had had corned beef and so forth and received my fair share of pinches for forgetting to wear green. However, in Chicago, St. Patrick's day is epic. I ended up going to a huge paraded in one of the Irish/Polish neighborhoods with a bunch of other people from my program. I would say it was more like what I envision Mardi Gras to be like than any St. Patty's parade I had ever seen. TONS of people, tons of beads being thrown out (no showing of cleavage though) and a whole lot of green and black beer. We had a great time, it was sunny and fairly warm for spring in Chicago. I got dragged into a Walgreen's to get my Chicago St. Patty's tee, and attacked by a gaggle of girls who put green ribbons in my hair and green glitter all over me. I wish I knew where I had photos of that. After the parade we went downtown to have a meal of corned beef and cabbage from a street food cart and watched the now green river flow through the city.

I've made two Shamrock onesies for St. Patty's day. I should have gotten them up a few weeks ago but hopefully I can still sell one or two. I really like the one that says lucky across the shamrock but I have had a hard time photographing it. The letters show up better in real life than they do in the photos. The sun shined today and I took photos outside but I might try an inside photo on black fabric also for that one.
Here is the Lucky Charm one




the shamrock on the bum:


I've been experimenting with adding names and words to my stuff. Cutting the letters by hand has been a pain in the butt. I decided to try something a little different for the word Lucky. I went into word and typed the word and then chose a font I liked and made the letters the size I wanted them. After I printed it out I copied it onto card stock and then cut out each letter into a square shape. Then I put the letter square on top of a square of felt and cut out the printed letter while cutting the felt underneath. It still took a while but I feel the result is more professional than my previous attempts.

This all would be so much easier with just pain old fabric, well the cutting part would be, and then I could fuse the fabric onto the shirts. The stitching would still take the same amount of time. While it is tempting to go for easy with the fabric, then I would be like a ton of other shops on Etsy. Right now the thing that makes me stand out is my use of felt, my hand stitching and the look of felt being stitched.

My second shamrock is simpler but still unique from the other items I have seen because I emphasize the hearts and use different shades of green.



We will see if I sell any or if I waited too long to post them.

machine and hand sewing...getting better

A few weeks ago I posted my first attempt at merging my hand sewing designs along with machine sewing to cut down on the time it takes. I was not very pleased with my first results so I ripped them apart to try again. I re-thought what parts of my designs I felt really needed the hand sewing to get the right look and what parts could happen on the machine. I'm happy to say that I feel MUCH better about my second attempt. Good enough in fact that I feel I can finally get back to the women who is so patiently waiting for me to work out wholesale with her shop.

So once again...the first attempt with the machine for the cupcake, by hand, and the new version
vs. vs.

in the third pic we see a marriage of machine and hand that I am finally happy with. In the end I discovered that stitching hearts on the machine takes MORE time than it does by hand. Then I decided that the hand stitching on the cupcake base is really part of what I think makes my design unique, so that had to stay. However, the stitching around the the cupcake base and top can be done by machine without changing the integrity of the design. This merging of machine and hand will allow me to bring my price down to what I hope is a "wholesale" price.

Then I tried it with the bird on a toddler tee that will go to my nice who is 4. First by hand and second by machine and hand.
vs.

vs

I think the combo of machine and hand looks pretty good with the bird. There is still quite a bit of hand sewing in this one though, the wing, the hearts, the eye and the legs still need to be done by hand to keep the overall look. However, not having to sew the grass by hand saves a bit of time.

Next up...how to do the giraffe in less time....now that is a challenge

numbers for Monday....this is getting really boring

Sweet tweet bird: 45 views and 2 hearts (2) 50 views and 2 hearts (5) 52 views and 2 hearts (2)
Rocket ship : 23 views and 1 heart (4) 26 views and 1 heart (3) 31 views and 1 heart (5)
little fox: 39 views and 1 heart (3) 44 views and 1 heart (5) 50 views and 1 heart (6)
black bird : 322 views and 7 hearts (4) 325 views and 7 hearts (3) 328 views and 7 hearts (3)
Orange : 299 views and 5 hearts (5) 301 views and 5 hearts (2) 304 views and 5 hearts (3)
lion : 31 views (2) 32 views (1) 38 views (6)
cupcake: 54 views and 3 hearts (1,1) 60 views and 3 hearts (6) 63 views and 3 hearts (3)
Giraffe: 13 views and 1 heart (3) 21 views 1 heart (8) 26 views and 1 heart (5)
boys rocket: 93 views and 2 hearts (7) 94 views and 2 hearts (1) 98 views and 2 hearts (4)
apple: 274 views and 3 hearts (10) 282 views and 3 hearts (8) 283 views and 3 hearts (1)
ice cream: 106 views and 1 heart (9) 116 views and 1 heart (10) 119 views and 1 heart (3)

41 views on items being tracked. as opposed to yesterday I had 49 views and the day before that..50 views. Hum so within 9 views of each other each day. I can see that the views on the bird and the cupcake are down and I still attribute that to a huge decrease in search for valentines items. As for the other items I can find no rhyme or reason to what is viewed each day. I did not post or realist anything today so that may account for my lower views. I'm reluctant to re-list when I'm not getting sales but I know the best way to get sales is to realist. I can't imagine that raising my prices from $12.00 to $12.50 has decreased my views. I will get up early to make sure I can get the lady bug up and running for the morning. Here is a sneak pre-viwe.

wait till you see it with the name I stitched on underneath...too cute.