Sewing in my spare time.

I've been sewing in my spare time this past week, not sitting down for a real long length of time, but here and there for an hour at a time. I got 9 of those red white & blue dresses done. I've added some photos so you can see them. I can just see a little girl photographed and put on the front page of the newspaper in one of these (or better yet on the tv news). Maybe somebody will get asked where they got it and I'll be flooded with orders - yeah, I wish! Anyways, had fun making these, and I bought more fabric incase I get an order for a special size dress, I'll be able to make one up and get it to the people the next day. Hopefully if it is the first day of a two day show I can whip it up that night and they can pick it up on the 2nd day of the show. Thats just me hoping they sell.

Until I craft again.

Stars & Stripes

Up and at it again! Washed & cut out 4 patriotic dresses last night for a hour or two last night during the hockey game. I got to sew the straps together, turned them and made all my folds with the iron too. This morning after I took my shower and got dressed for work, I sewed one of them together completely and put the strap in. I used a dark blue fabric with red & white stars for the main part of the dress, a red/white/blue striped fabric for the bottom strip, and a white fabric with red and blue polka dots for the strap and under arm binding. I put white ricrac on the area between the two fabrics on the body of the dress. It is just adorable. Of all the dresses I have made so far, this is the one I think will sell first. Luckily I am doing two craft shows before the 4th of July so they should sell. I’ll post a photo if I get a chance. I’ll have to get some more fabric since I have about a yard left of the dark blue fabric but not enough contrasting fabric to make another dress. So I got 4+ dresses out of $21 of fabric since it was all 50% off when I got it. My luck it will all be gone when I get there tonight. I’ll see what other cute fabrics are there too when I go.

Until I craft again!

Back Home

Even though it was great to visit my daughter, it is also great to come home again. Bowling last night, work today, and back to crafting this week. I've got to find some fabric to make those flowers. Maybe I will put velcro on the back of all of them, put velcro on everything that I want to put them on and people can choose the flower(s) they want and the thing(s) they want to wear them on like: barrette, hair band, pin, clip, or just give them two pieces of stick on velcro and they can put it on whatever they want. I'd hate to make 20 barrettes and the people want pins. More investment but less waste since I can always peal off the velcro if I want to use the barrette for something else. Anyhoo, I was just thinking and typing at the same time.

I'll also have to wash the patriotic fabric I purchased before I went to ATL. Then atleast I can get some more of the pillow case sun dresses made and ready to go. I may put some of them on Etsy, but as of last week I had not sold anything there. I'll also put some of my mother's necklaces on it to see how they sell.

Well, toodles for now, I've got to dry my hair and get ready for work.

Till I craft again!
Coleen

Silk Flower making

I think I am going to try this silk flower making because they look so beautiful.

Silk Flowers

I'll find some old shirts or something that would work and try it out before I purchase fabric. These would be so much fun to make at craft shows!!! This way I can kind of have something to do that does not involve using a sewing machine or paint on wood. Did I forget to mention I used to cut wood, paint and stain it, and sell the things at craft shows too?

About craft shows...I got about 26 of those pillowcase dresses done, I'll get some more fabric and hopefully I can get some bigger ones done for older girls (up to 10). On Friday I'm getting my daughter to take me to this fabric outlet near Atlanta that has an area in the back that sells remnants. The "Junk Store" is only open on Fridays and Saturdays so we will go on Friday if it is not raining. If we can't make it then I'll have her take me to another fabric store around here to see if they have anything different.

Maybe I can find a junk bag of fabric I can use for the flowers really cheap and I'll start on them here! Once I find out about posting photos here I will post my creations.

Vacationing with my daugter.

Just flew to Atl yesterday to spend some time with my daughter. It's a little warmer than Buffalo so while she is at work I think I may go for a walk around the apartment complex today. I even brought a workout video to start using again. If anybody has ever done the Jillian Michaels ripped in 30 workout? I did it for about a month in September and it was great. I toned up, I bowled better, felt stronger... Then I hurt my back and stopped doing the video. I have lost the tone I gained from working out, started bowling worse, and I really felt like crap. So, goal this vaca is to get back into the video!

Funny, and very funny haha

Just finished reading my daughter's blog. Giggled a bit at myself since it was about me. She is a great writer.
I'm watching the Sabres game right now so this post will be very short.
Speaking about moms, mine has just as many stories to write about, maybe even more. When she would yell at me she couldn't seem to remember my name. I was always DiCarColeen.
Well if I can think of any kind more I will post some.
Back to the game. Go Sabres!

Sewing Sewing Sewing

I am having a ball sewing these pillow case dresses. Matching and contrasting colors, cutting them out, sewing together the pieces. Just having fun. I guess I starting out having fun last year when I was making all the aprons too so... These are going so fast. I worked on them yesterday for about 4.5 hours and cut out 8 dresses and partially sewed some of them together. Today at lunch for about 1hr I sewed the bias tape (which I made out of the contrasting fabric by the way) in the arm holes and stitched the slot for the tie closed. Did I mention I am not using ribbon like some people cheap out on when they make these dresses, I actually make the ribbon out of the contrasting fabric.

Funny thing about these, I just listed ricrac on etsy to get rid of what I had since I was not going to make aprons this year. I am using the ricrac now on these dresses, and I ordered 5 more spools of it. Get this, if I order a package of ricrac at Joann's for instance, they are $1.99 or more and only have 2.5 yards. When I order a spool of the 10mm ricrac, I get 25 yards for $2.25 and shipping is like $1.25/spool. I will never buy it in the individual packages again, what a waste of money. I'd rather sell the excess on etsy and make back all my money on the spool with sales of the excess. BTW, I have not sold anything yet there so...

I'll be stitching tonight after we go out for dinner. It is Wednesday and since it starts with a "W" we go out for dinner.

Until I stitch again...

Crafting Again

For The Love Of Crafting

Wow, took me about 5 minutes to figure out what name to put on my new blog. I thought of these choices:

The Purpose of Crafting
Must Craft
Daily Crafter
Fairly Crafty
My Investment In Crafting
Crazy Crafting
Just Crafty

When I got to the letter “L” I could only think of “For the love of God” and then it hit me to use the title above.

Little background – I’ve been crafting and selling stuff I make (albeit not making a ton of money doing it) for about 25 years. My daughter Amanda was in a stroller the first craft show I did – at a friends house in Amherst – right down the street from a very popular school craft show at the time. I don’t remember selling many things I made but I do remember selling lots of frozen unfrosted cut-out cookies, as it was early December I guess people did not want to bake. I’ve been crafting ever since then. In 1994 my mother and I opened up a store to sell crafts on consignment in Amherst, we took over a business called Country Hearts and we did very well the first year, then Walmart opened right up the street about a mile, and our business fell off horribly. We closed doors after the lease was up. Too bad, we really did great the first holiday (Easter) and my mom and I thought Christmas would be fantastic, but I don’t even think we did the business we had done in Easter time for Christmas sales. Funny huh? Anyhow, we still do craft shows and have picked up my sister as another partner in the business. We spend lots of shows together talking, laughing, bitching, smoking (lets see if my quitting will withstand another craft show but that would be a whole other blog), and eating!!!!

Last craft show season I made aprons. They were adorable, I sold lots of them at work to the girls, I just couldn’t sell as many as I expected to at craft shows. I hoped each show we would sell 20 or more (my mother also made some) and it just didn’t happen. We even kept lowering the price but could not get the sales at the shows that we wanted. So, we gave a lot of them away as gifts this past Christmas, and now we are down to one tote of them left. Maybe we should put them on sale 50% off at the first show to see if we can get our investments back out of them. I’ll let you know how it goes after the May show.

This season I have searched all over for a new craft to make. It was a hard for me to pick something new. First I wanted to make ipad & ereader covers and started cutting out the patterns, but I just didn’t get motivated to make them. Then I saw a pillow case dress for little girls and fell in love with them. They are so cute, they remind me of the aprons. I made a pattern and cut one out to sew together. It took me about an hour from cutting it out and sewing it all together (a lot faster than an apron), and I even serged the raw edge of the seam together on my sewing machine so it has a finished look! I’ll be able to use up the ricrac I bought for the aprons to embellish the dresses, and somebody suggested to give people to option to order a little dress for their doll too (I think I’ll add a card they can fill out & mail back to me with a check for a doll dress matching their child’s dress for a few bucks). I am hoping to sell lots of them this year to make up for the money I lost last year with the aprons. I’ll probably still make the ereader covers too for something else on the table. My mom has been making these really cute beaded necklaces and I don’t know if my sister is making anything else new. At least I found something quick and easy to make that I think I can make a decent profit margin, besides, they are stinking cute!

Got 10 done already, and if I find out how to post photos to this blog I will put them on.

Until I blog again - Coleen