Shark Iron

One of the tools I most depend on in the sewing I do is my iron! I had been wanting a new one for quite a while as mine was quite dilapidated and very tempermental. Therefore I was so happy to find this Shark at Goodwill -and on 50% off day! It is in beautiful condition. And it works very well except when it automatically shuts off after being on for a while, I have to unplug it to make it start again. No big deal though, because my old one was just like that! I was so used to the old thing that didn’t heat up as hot as it was supposed to that I burned one of my towels! 😦 I wasn’t used to the mega steam either! But since we got used to one another, we are great friends. After I started using the new one, my old iron gave up the ghost completely! So I was extra thankful that God provided me with a new iron at an excellent price!

I love getting my crafting supplies from Goodwills and other thrift stores. Part of it is the challenge of finding good stuff at the right prices. It does take time and patience though!

Flea Market

Although I haven’t been very active on my blog lately I have been quite busy here at home! My recent ‘big event’ was the flea market here in Congress. I wasn’t sure how that was going to go, but it turned out really good! For some reason, my online sales did really good that weekend, too. It was a good weekend all the way around!

I had been thinking about doing the flea market for quite awhile, so I worked at slowly building my inventory up the last several months. And of course, the last two weeks I jammed everything in that I could -between doctor appointments! (It just so happened that I had like 4 appt. for tests, doctors, ect right in that time frame!)

I sewed Hand Towels and Gift Bags down to the hand sewing. Sewing goes faster for me when I work on the multiples of the same thing for awhile. I packed my bag full of hand sewing to take along to my IV appointment, but it just so happened that they started my IV on my right hand that day! I got a nap instead. 🙂

The flea market was held in the parking lot of the Congress Depot Marketplace. They have a marketplace inside for vendors to rent spaces to sell their things. It’s nice stuff, a lot of antiques. They have a bit of produce and baked goods, too.

I don’t think I could have asked for a better spot for my space. It was right up front where people walk in. They ‘had to’ walk right past my tent to get to the food! 😉  While we were setting up the manager told us to leave Dad’s truck parked behind the tent so people would see the signs for his appliance business.  That was nice of them, although we weren’t expecting that. Mom and Dad set up the tent for us. It actually didn’t take that long. It got a little breezy at times during the day, but the tent seemed pretty stable. My gift bags kept blowing away and then I realized I had laid them on the table so they were open to the wind.

It was cold in the morning when we left the house, but it really got warm during the day. Mom & I both got sun burns. There was quite a bit of traffic through the flea market until a little after noon. It really dropped off then and we were home around 3:00. I didn’t think I really sold that many items, but when I sat down and added things up I was pleasantly surprised at how much I had made. The very low entry fee ($5) helped a lot too!

So now I am quite excited to come up with things for next month! My towels sold pretty good, so I will just re-stock those, but the gift bags didn’t sell well at all. I think I need to figure out how to display them different.  While selling online has a certain appeal, I really enjoy selling local. It is so much more interesting to be able to see your customers. And maybe if I keep practicing, I won’t be such a shy saleslady! 😦  Have you had any experience with a flea market? I’d love to hear about it.

 

Work in Progress

I enjoy variety, but sometimes it just feels like I have a LOT of stuff going. Recently I read an article on Homemadeology that inspired me to try to manage my time better. Basically I found a daily planner here and decided to try to structure my days a bit better. It’s fun when I can get everything done, but gets a bit overwhelming when I see how much I don’t get done. Here is a bit of a picture of some of the projects I have started.Towels. I ‘went shopping’ in our upstairs / loft and found some fabric to use for my towels. I looked at WalMart twice to find fabric to match my red towels, but never found anything I thought was good enough. My next plan was Joann’s. In the meantime, I thought, why not look through our stuff at home…. I am doing some with a more western/Indian theme, hoping to sell them locally. I found some vintage-looking stuff I decided to use. I also found one that I like, but not sure if anyone else will. It is the one on the left in the following picture. Beings I already cut it I’m not sure what else I can do with it, but I can’t decide if I should put it on the red towel or a black one. I was going to put the blue top on the light brown towel, but I may have chickened out.Bags. I have been slowly working on those as I have time. They are a nice sewing project that doesn’t require much energy, which is nice right now. Hair Nets. Awhile ago I posted that I crocheted a bunch of inventory hair nets. At the end of July, it seemed someone turned on a switch and I started getting sales again!! The funny thing though is that customers rarely purchase the color that is well stocked. 🙂 So I am still crocheting hair nets! Don’t get me wrong, I love the sales and I really don’t care what color they are and it’s no incovenience to make new ones! 😉Me. I am always a “work in progress” 🙂 but just now I feel more so as a head cold / sore throat has caught hold of me. It really made rounds in our family so I’m not terribly surprised I got it, I’m just hoping to keep it from settling in my chest. I retired to my recliner yesterday, but have been feeling a lot better today. I still am contenting myself mostly with hand work though. Like sewing buttons on towels and crocheting hair nets. I just got a bunch of buttons from Supplies From Me to You, a local etsy shop. They are very nice and I got excellent service! If you are wondering why all these towels are dark/black, it’s because I did all the dark ones first so I wouldn’t have to change my sewing machine thread.  🙂

That pretty much sums it up. Except for reading my books! 🙂 I don’t consider that work though so I decided not to include it in this list. What projects have you been working on?

Buttoned Hanging Hand Towels

The Buttoned Hanging Hand Towels  in my etsy.com shop are very practical items. Everyone needs a towel, right? 🙂 And even better it’s buttoned into place so it can fall on the floor every time you dry your hands!

I currently have 10 towels listed and hope to do more soon. I have been experimenting with different colors, ect. Trying to think outside of the box! When I think about making things, I almost always think of things I would like. Of course not everyone likes the same things as me, so the challenge is to imagine what other people would like. A good example is the brown & pink towel in this picture. I don’t like paisleys! But I thought someone else might… so here goes! 🙂

If you prefer a more feminine looking kitchen, I have a pretty floral or a purple butterfly towel.

I was looking back in my blog history and found my first towels I posted! They have come a long way since then! That is part of the challenge (fun), though. Always improving and learning how to do better. Customer satisfaction is top priority!

Christmas in July

I made a coupon code to use as a Christmas in July sale, but in the meantime someone in an Etsy team suggested using this website to run sales:

https://www.etsyonsale.com/sellers?referralCode=NXMHZEYBVN

I checked it out and I am so glad I did! It was super easy to make a sale, and mark every item through their program instead of going through and doing it manually. It’s a site that allows you to easily run a sale in your Etsy shop, change tags for items all at once, and auto renew items on a schedule you set.  You can watch the demo video at the link above.  Plus, if you login and link up your Etsy shop you will get a total of $10 in free credits to use.

So right now every item in my shop is on sale! I have been adding 1 or 2 items almost every day so go check it out and see if there is anything just right for you.

Happy Shopping!

Vacation!

I had a wonderful vacation the end of May/beginning of June. I traveled with a friend to Kansas and to Illinois. I had a great time with friends and family. In Kansas I helped my young friends learn how to make my towel toppers and my gift bags. That was fun. I hadn’t planned to do that, so I didn’t have any patterns or anything a long. But we figured it out!

 

I really enjoyed my Aunt’s rose garden Illinois. She has beautiful roses!

 

When I came home, I had a little time adjusting back to the heat -and the allergies! So it took me awhile to get back into my sewing and other projects. I started with the easy projects. I had bought a bunch of fabric before I left to make bags, but didn’t get them sewn up. I was getting a little worried that the colors are to ‘springy’, but I finally sold 2 pink ones today!

While I was on vacation, my shop was not. My Mom, bless her heart!, shipped my orders for me! That was so nice of her and was nice to be able to keep the Etsy shop open. I didn’t renew auctions on eBay so that wasn’t going the whole time I was gone.

When I did start feeling better after my trip, it was time to do some sewing for the family. Mom and I sewed about 5 dresses in about 3 days. Those were for my two nieces. I made them look-a-likes because I knew they were going to be together.

Now down to business. In the next few weeks, I need to get lots of towel tops sewn and the rest of my bags. I also have some ideas for a new project. I haven’t had time to try it out though.

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

My Brown Towel is Back

I guess the brown hanging towel is everyone’s favorite according to my sales records. The other night I took the risk of buying two packs of them. Don’t laugh, that was a huge investment for my teeny tiny shop! 🙂  I got them back in my store today, but they have new tops. I am running out of the fabric I was using to make the tops so I bought some at JoAnn’s the other night. It doesn’t match as good as I would have liked since I was going on my memory, which was a little foggy at 8:00 pm. I did take a sample of the old along, but in Wal Mart I used it to match buttons and that is the last the sample was seen. It might still be floating around in Wal Mart… But I hope everyone likes the new Brown Hanging Hand Towel!I also have a unique version of the brown towel. I put a turquoise blue top on it. 😉 I think it’s kind a neat. And of all things it’s made it into 3 treasury lists already! This one is my favorite:

Hang it upWhich of my towels is your favorite? I’d love to hear from you! Have a great weekend.

Hanging Hand Towels and Cloth Gift Bags

Looking for the perfect gift for Mother’s Day? I have new hanging hand towels in my etsy shop that would make great gifts for a special Mom! Plus you can put them in pretty Cloth Gift Bags.  You can find them all in the Mother’s Day section of my shop.

I was really excited to finally find some pretty towels at our local store again. For a long time they didn’t have much of anything. I have a number of gift bags, but not very many are alike. Last week a couple days I finally got really motivated and got a bunch of bags done. If you don’t see what you want in the Mother’s Day Section, take a look at the regular hanging towel section or the Party Favor / Gift Bag section.

Happy Shopping! 🙂

National Coffee Day, Sept. 29

My Hanging Hand Towel Coffee Mocha Espresso White Cotton Fabric Top was featured in this treasury list:

National Coffee Day, Sept. 29

This is a good list for coffee lovers!

 

Old Congress Days

The big day is past now! I set up a booth at the local Old Congress Days event. It was a lot of fun even though I didn’t sell all that much. Mom & Dad were there to help – I couldn’t have done it with out them!

I had a bunch of the hanging hand towels on display. And I had the big doily out.The table above held greeting cards and denim blankets. On the other table I had my doilies, hairnets, and baby hats & booties.

Here are some of my doilies. This table met with disaster, well all of them did, but the white doilies got the worst of things. In the afternoon we got wind and a dust storm. Everything started flying. We took our stuff down early and lots of others did, too. Everyone was hanging onto their tents so they wouldn’t go crashing around. The lady behind me had a rough time as she was selling Scentsy -lots of breakables! While Mom & Dad finished our booth, I helped them box up the warmers.

Since I didn’t sell much at Congress Days, I now have all this inventory for my online stores! I hope to get it posted in the next couple weeks.

 

New Hanging Hand Towels

I have two new hand towels in my shop! The one is a fun coffee theme and the other is a nice red one. I have a lot of fun making these.

Here are some pictures:

Here is the coffee one. I found some really neat wooden buttons at a thrift store in town and that is what I used on these.

I put plain white tops on the red ones and thought it turned out pretty nice!

The apple one with a red top is still available, too.

 

Hanging Hand Towels

I finished two more hand towels and listed them in my Etsy shop yesterday! They are both the same designs I had before, but the tops I made red instead of off-white. The apple one I like with the red, but the other one… not sure! It might be two red, but someone out there probably likes red!

I also changed the pattern. I wanted it narrower at the bottom and I took away the points and made the ends flat. I like the flat ends, but I didn’t get it much narrower -maybe 1/4″ or so!

Double Hand Towel with Cotton Fabric Hanger Top Apples

Hand Towel Hanging Double with Red Cotton Fabric Top Floral

Head on over to my shop to check out the new towels and everything else!

Floral Double Hand Towel with Cotton Fabric Hanger Top

Update 6/24: this item sold today!! Yay! I plan to make more asap. I will probably work on the tops today and tomorrow so they are ready when I get more towels next week.

Listed on Etsy today:

Hand Towel with Fabric Top for Kitchen or Bathroom

 Add a touch of beauty to any room in your home with this floral hand towel. It is double so you won’t have to change it so often!  Floral Double Hand Towel with Cotton Fabric Hanger Top