so, next Thursday, huh...

Like I've mentioned before, I'm doing a demo for St. Leo the Great Mother's Group in Fairfax, VA, on Thursday so in preparation, I've made a few lined clips...

Do keep in mind that I will be using some of these to mount bows and sculptures on but by a few, I mean somewhere in the range of 150 individual clips. This photo was taken yesterday afternoon and there are about 125 clips here - some may have seen it on my personal facebook page not my business one and I made several more this morning before I got the bright idea of photographing, editing the photos and listing these 19 that I haven't previously listed (how much did that cost at 20 cents a pop? but keep it to yourself, I don't think I want to know until I sell a few!).

Here's what I listed today:
Simply Lined Clips
-Purple polka dots
-Red polka dots
-Light blue zigzag
-Birthday Set of 3
-Cake & Balloons
-Presents
-Candles
-Apples
-Snowmen
-Hot pink polka dots
-Lil Sister/Big Sister 2 pair
-Lil Sister
-Big Sister
-Green (Emerald) polka dots

Valentine's Hearts pair
-Hot Pink
-Purple
-Red

I also updated photos of the crocheted shamrocks. Typing this here, I think maybe I should put the word "clover" somewhere that SEO can find it... tags perhaps? I don't know and I'll likely forget until I read this again in a week or so when I Google my shop...

So why list so much? I want to get to 50 items in my shop. I notice more traffic when I have more items. And it makes sense - I don't want to pay for shipping for just one item - I wanna make it worth my while and ship as much as I can from one place at one time. Forum groupies swear by the 50 rule too so it's an attainable goal to set on the last day of January for the month of January... I'm not at 50 yet though. I don't like listing multiples because that seems like cheating so I've kinda gotta get going so I can finish up, photograph and list a couple more items!

Oh, and I'll leave you with a photo of my kids in the snow and a coupon code good in my shop until the kids go back to school: StirCrazy2011

Snow M. G.

So, um, I shouldn't complain about predictions of snow anymore in a public forum. It started "ThunderSleeting" around 2:30 pm yesterday, turned to snow an hour later, dumped about 8 inches on us over the next 6 hours and screwed up rush hour SO BADLY that it took a lot of people several (read 6-10) hours to get home from work. Hubby stayed at work until midnight when it "lighted up" a bit but it still took him nearly 2 hours to get home.

So one thing I did to make my husband's drive home a bit more relaxed was that I moved my car so that he'd have a parking spot when he got home (I shoveled it out too!). I parked in an unmarked spot not realizing that it wasn't very smart to park near old trees during a heavy snow storm. All the way down the alley, branches broke off these trees with several landing on my car! Fortunately, there doesn't appear to be much damage to my car.

So, today, my kids are going to play outside since they woke up at FIVE THIRTY IN THE MORNING and are restless. I suppose that I'll need to supervise being that we live in a townhouse with no yard so they play in the parking lot. Hopefully, I can get some work done on some of the ribbon bows for next weeks demo/sale this afternoon when they nap... or maybe I'll nap... They'll have school tomorrow, right?

uhhh...

Well, I wanted to get better at posting regularly but can't think of much to say... My kids have a snow day (it's currently raining but there's POTENTIAL for a lot of snow - insert snarky chortle - but we've been missed by pretty much every predicted snow storm this year so my confidence level is approaching zero right now) so I'm not going to get much done. Right now, I'm working on another baby cap for my friend Michele who's second baby is due very soon. I need to ramp up for the St. Leo's mother's group next week where I will be demonstrating how to make some of my bows as well as having them available for sale. I think that I'll do that this afternoon - some dance shoes (tap and ballet) as well as Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day, ooh and the sewn flower ones do very well at those things too... that's going to be a lot of work but maybe my kids will behave while I do that (or they could always nap or watch movies).

Anyway, I added my crocheted and ribbon shamrocks to etsy. I need to take the crocheted shamrock picture again but that's for another day! Here's the pictures:

link

link

Photography Amazement!

I never thought much of my photography. The items looked basically like what I photographed in regular light. Well, when I asked for critiques on Etsy's forums from my peers, I always got, "you need to take better photographs". Whatev! right?!? This is a semi-business hobby for me and I don't want to waste my time in a photography class.
Well, for Christmas, my IL's got me an OTT lamp. For those of you who don't know (which will likely be most of you), an OTT lamp is a special light that has full spectrum light so now, I can take photographs that look like they are in the sun. So I'm trying it out and WOW!! what a difference! I'll give a few examples:

Prime #1 example is my avatar and best selling bow, the Daisy bow:
before:

after:


and yes, yes, I did switch backgrounds but rest assured that it's a cheap piece of muslin over the same the same table and I'm using the same camera!

And this is just the start too! Check out the ballet slippers:
before:
after:

and the basic satin bow:

before:
after:

I was totally wrong! Well, off to retake about a bizillion photographs... anyone have anymore bright ideas for me that I might have ignored in the past (or know how to set my Canon Powershot ELPH SD1100 IS to something about white balance?)?

Valentines Part 2 and St. Patty's Day part 1

Thanks to my sister who had the idea, I created new bows for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's day (they are the same style, different colors). I'm currently working on getting them photographed and listed on etsy but I'll post some "action" pictures here.




So the problem with this new (and absolutely adorable, I might add) style? My favorite ribbon supplier doesn't have many colors and even fewer prints in the size ribbon that I use for korkers (otherwise known as corkscrew or curly q ribbon). So I'm shopping for a decent supplier for 1/4" ribbon... I think I found one but minimum orders are 100 yds a style. Tell me what you think - should I take the plunge and invest in this style beyond red, white, green and pink?

edit: Here's the photos I took today:

Valentine's Day Listing

St. Patrick's Day Listing

And remember, you can use my coupon code for January: 10JAN2011

Computer's back up & Valentine's part 1

Dear Sweet Hubby rebuilt my computer (super easy with my netbook, btw - it's automatic) so I'm back up! I started working on some new bows - Tap shoes (which I've tried to get right for a while) & valentine's day (need more options). I also starting making matching hats for my baby blankets. Here they are:

more on photos...

Some of you may know that my computer got a virus - a BAD virus - and I've been down-ish the last few days. But my wonderful husband got annoyed enough at me using his computer and fixed mine tonight. So here I am able to type about my picture skilz! well, the Ott light magically appeared under the tree (thank you MIL & FIL) and I have been using it but, alas, no computer to upload the pix to so I haven't yet played with them. The only one I have used was for a custom hat that I'm waiting for someone to pay for: http://www.etsy.com/listing/51777051/reserved-green-baby-blanket-and-hat-free (it's the 4th and 5th picture - absolutely no retouching was done - straight from camera to website. This is totally going to save me time!).

I'm now curious if I need to start using a diffused light box... hmmm, something to ponder... Once my photos finish being transferred ad I get the camera pictures up, I'll let you guys see the difference!

Goodnight!