Goin down to Makanda

I had to add the pic of my awesome zipper pouches. I am so happy with the way these turned out!


The folks at the Smelly Hippie shop were interested in my purses so I made up a line of bags just for them. Since I got off to a late start, I missed out on the black Friday madness. Fortunately my stuff will be in the shop in time for a good chunk of the Christmas season. I just started this mess eleven days ago.






Today I am planning to start the next phase of stuff for the hippie shop... I will have a bunch of appliqued zipper pouches made up by the end of the weekend. (even if it kills me)

When I am not working on the hippie stuff, I have been trying to nurture the etsy site with spurts of guitar straps here and there. I have noticed, if I keep adding and renewing I continue to have about one sale a day. It doesn't sound like much, but it is better than I have ever done before. I do have a nice healthy back stock now so keep those orders coming!

restock and recover

Man. Christmas is really inching closer and I have to do something otherwise I will miss out again on all of the etsy traffic I could have seen last year. Its funny how I can sell certain items at certain venues. Strange Folk cleared out all of my small items like headbands and magnets, the only thing I can move on my etsy are guitar straps, the shop in Carbondale is only interested in purses, and I do the occasional custom necklace for a certain individual. I really am blessed to have such a wide range of stuff to offer. The varitey does make me happy too. When I do the same type of item over and over everything gets mechanical. So this weekend was all about guitar straps... Sorry for all of the skulls. I need more ideas of what guitar playing guys will wear. It is so hard to find manly prints out there.
I also finished the first of the group of hippie style bags I plan to bring out to the shop in Carbondale. As always the zipper was a little fussy and the applique' placement is a little high, but whatever. It looks fine in the end. I really do like the size... I bet I could fit a book and a knitting project in there along with all of my purse stuff. I did list this one on etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32921442
I plan to list more of this type as I make them. It will be kind of an experiment to see if any of them sell before I take them to the shop for consignment. I will figure out this etsy thing one of these days. Sure.

done deal

Here I am at the end of our very brief craft show season. Amy and I are pleased with our decision to leave the high school indoor craft shows behind. From now on we are in the search of independent artists events. It is coming more and more apparent that we were involved with the wrong creative venues. We were involved with the ever growing Strange Folk festival in O'Fallon.
I was really busy all weekend, but did catch a few snaps of our booth...

Amy's stuff!!If I have an other couple of shows like this one, I could quit my day job. It was just brilliant! People spend money at this show. It just blows my mind!

In the middle of the week, Joe and I caught a show at the pageant. We saw Built to Spill which is the best band you have never heard of. We had a great night with some fender strat sounds and some redbull n rum. Happy girl right here. (Unfortunately, I didn't take this pic and I'm sure it wasn't even at St.Louis, but somebody somewhere got a really good shot!)
This past weekend Amy and I set up the booth again at the Lebanon Fall Festival. If I remember correctly, this year was the fourth time we have done this one together. Its a bummer but I didn't get any pics. Just imagine the above pictures only all squished down from lack of inventory. Even so, I made more sales this year than any other despite the really cold weather and my sudden lack of inventory. Score. My only question is what to do now that the season is over. I guess I'll start on the Christmas madness. People are bugging me already about custom orders for Christmas presents. Wish me luck!

curious

Gypsy has encountered a creature she has never encountered before. Luckily for her (and me) this beetle type thing was outside the window and attached to the screen.

You can't tell from this angle, but later we discovered that there was actually two beetles stacked on top of one another. We couldn't tell if they were mating or eating each other. It really looked like they were just resting on each other.

Bagstorm part II

Here are some more of my big inventory inflation project. The pressure is on because next week I won't have a chance to sew. Joe and I are going to Pigeon Forge to hike the smokey mountains, stay in a luxury cabin and um... do other things. He did say that I am allowed to bring my sewing machine along. It wouldn't be much of a vacation though. I'm probably going to knit all weekend, but I promise to do that leisurely. Here is what I came up with in the past couple of weeks.

I made up some more awesome appliqued zipper pouches.

Here is what I was rocking out to when I wrote this.



Here is who was watching me rock out when I wrote this.

FREAKOUT BAG STORM

So I've got this festival coming up at the end of next month (http://www.strangefolkfestival.com) and my inventory is just shot all of a sudden. (thanks Anna!) I went a little crazy with the online fabric shopping and have been sweating it out in my upstairs studio. My air conditioning makes it up there, but its really weak. In the past week I have cranked out six bags... three of which were fired out just yesterday. I guess I'm getting faster or something. Here is everything that was sitting on the top of the pile of new wares. Please pay no attention to the wood paneling. I really need to come up with some kind of permanent photo set-up.




I also had a custom order a couple weeks ago... it was a recreation of the sacred heart applique' I did oh so long ago.

ZOMG huge post!!!

So how long has it been?? Like, what over a month at least. Since I have been really preoccupied with this huge remodeling project happening in my kitchen, I have been really uninspired in every other part of my life. I promise the next post will show kitchen progress shots... I just have to take them first. My husband has been kicking ass in there. Today he is tearing out the baseboards behind the dishwasher and fridge so everything can sit closer to the wall. He found some loose plaster back there and he went on to fix that too. What a man!

So anyway I have a lot of stuff I make and actually take the time to photograph, but never makes it to the blog. I guess I'm too lazy to write about it. A lot of this stuff was made up around the time of the spring craft fair at Triad High School.

I made a big bad ton of these crocheted hats. I picked out some cool spring colors and went to town on them. I can get one done in about two hours. Kinda basic... kinda mod.
I also came up with this sweet hippy style sling bag based off of this one.
http://stephblue.blogspot.com/2008/04/sling-bag-tutorial.html


I did modify this one a little besides the corduroy patchwork. The base is squared off so you can stuff even more goodies in here. Check out the sweet little string hanging off the left corner. I totally missed that one.

Here is a pair of fingerless mitts I knit up from some of the yarn that I kool-aid dyed. So sweet and bright! I love em.

and once again that darn cat has made it into another pic on the blog. Here is Gypsy just before she dumped over that tin full of seed beads. Stinker.