Thankful

Is it just me, or does it seem like the year is moving quicker than ever? Maybe it is because of my advanced age?  Or maybe because I have two kids in school and one in school full time?  At any rate, Thanksgiving came and went and our house is already decorated for Christmas.  Plans are made for Ella’s birthday party.  We are all thinking of gifts for each.  I have some bought/made.

But I’ll slow down just a minute, to share some family pics from our Thanksgiving festivities.  This year TG was at my in-laws.

Here is my husband’s side of the family

 

And mine

And here our princess, who we later found out, has pneumonia.  She is currently on antibiotics and improving.  I still kept her home from school today and may tomorrow as well, just to get her adequate rest and to keep her immune compromised body away from other germs.

The next day we sat down in the evening together to watch the movie “Flywheel”.  As a family.  And Miles said “We should take a picture, you know of the family, it would look so cute.”  And so we did, in our lazy day clothes and all.

I’ve been sewing and crafting and decorating quite a bit lately, so I’m hoping to supply all my patient and loyal readers with more posts this week than usual.

A Special Invite

Leave it to me to find any excuse to craft…  My latest project was these cards.  These are the invitations for Ella’s Tea Party birthday.

She has recently added blue to her long list of favorite colors.  So I thought blue would be appropriate for the cards and then I cut teacup shapes out of feminine and masculine scrapbook paper for the girls and the boys.  We are inviting boys.  We’ll see if they come.  All I know is that Ella’s been invited to many a Star Wars party lately.

I have several other craft ideas on the docket for teacher’s gifts.  And I am thrilled to have 3 custom orders from my shop in the works!

Crafts, Books and Crafty Books

I seriously want to make one of these burlap wreaths!  And we even have a red front door which the wreath nicely contrasts.  Linda is promising a tutorial each day for an entire week over at Craftaholics Anonymous!  I hope one is for the burlap wreath!  Though I think you’d just tie burlap strips around a circle wreath form…  and add a handmade flower or two.

Yesterday I received my Creative Dance book which will help me in integrating some important movement exercises into my pre-dance classes.  I can’t wait to read about this philosophy of learning dance and some sample lesson plans. 

Today I decided to buy this apron sewing book with my 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby.  It has a few apron styles that I’ve wanted to buy patterns for or simply could not find patterns for.  {yippee}

This morning, I happily shipped off my first order since relisting my items on Kitchen Stitchen.  In our new car.  Yeah, we got a new car on Monday night.  It is not as “fun” as the car I used to drive, but it does have a smooth ride, it’s roomy and seems more insulated from sounds and elements.  I think it will take a while, but I think I’ll really like it someday.

View Full Album

Finally, take a look in the shop, I have all the new Holiday Themed potholders listed!  And, what is that?  They are discounted!  That’s right, get ‘em while they last.

When Life Hands You Tea

Change your daughter’s birthday party plans.

Bet you can’t guess what we are doing to celebrate Ella’s birthday, and where.

I’ve started making invitations which need to go out soon.

I have found paper cutting to be very therapeutic.

Let’s see what other crazy ideas I can come up with for this party as an excuse to craft. Of course I will keep you all updated with the final product(s).

And yes, I’ve decided to invite the boys too. I mean, she’s been invited to several Star Wars parties. Who will it hurt for a young boy to sit still for a while and enjoy some culture?

Needless to say. I’m excited.

_____________________

I'm also excited that Kitchen Stitchen on Etsy is back up and running --------------->

I will be adding new items throughout the week!

Our First Tea

I don’t know who was more excited, Ella or me.  We were going to a Tea Party, just the two of us.  The party was being held at Infini-tea in Antioch, IL.  It was a special one in that the characters from “Beauty and the Beast” would be present after their afternoon showing at a local theater (across the street).

Here we are, all dressed up with a Tea to go to.   

What is also nice is that my brother lives in Antioch.  So we were able to spend some time with him before our party.  Our trip included a visit to Something Sweet to obtain the much talked about cashew crunch and peanut butter chocolate squares.  And Ella got to pick out some candy too.  Next time we must get some of their famous fudge!

Ella with Uncle John.

 

After a few other adventures, which may have included going to a home decor/craft store, where I may have bought a few sheets of really cool scrapbook paper which I don’t even know what I’m going to do with, we got to see the trees lit up down Main Street.

And this old building is a restaurant.  It used to be a bank.  It kind of looks like a museum.  I like the tall arched windows.

 

On to the Tea Party!  I’ve never really been to a real “Tea”.  This lovely tea… uh… place was so warm and inviting.  It was by reservation only and it just made us feel even more special.  All of the little girls were dressed much like Ella.  She was so beautiful and what a perfect time for some lovely photos of her!

Waiting with anticipation.

 

Pretending to drink tea.  I wanted a full shot of her dress.  I’m so mad this is blurry, but it is the best of the bunch.

   

Here she is drinking her Angel Falls Mist herbal tea.

And then she moved along to hot chocolate.

  

We were first served some iced water with a lemon wedge and our choice of hot beverage.  I chose the Pumpkin Spice tea and Ella chose the Angel Falls Mist herbal tea.  As you can see, later she moved on to the hot chocolate.  I moved on to the Plum Cinnamon Rooibos.  Accompanying our beverages were some small sweet breads.  The first course consisted of mini quiches and scones with real whipped cream, strawberry jam and lemon curd on the side.  Ella had the chocolate chip scone and I had the orange currant scone.  She did not like her quiche, but at least she tried it.

 

Next were finger sandwiches, ants on a log and various other goodies.  I got this photo after we ate the top layer.  Ella didn’t like the olive roll.  I happily ate the rest of hers.

Finally many petite cakes and pastries were served for dessert.

The characters from the musical arrived shortly after the start of the Tea Party and stayed through the entire time.

Ella with Beauty and the Beast characters.

 

She was SO happy to get to hug Mrs. Potts and Belle.

 

We truly had a magical time and both of us can’t wait to return!

Evolution of a Presentation

For those of you who aren’t yet tired of hearing all about my craft fairs and table set ups, I have more to tell you! For all others, enjoy this photo and skip the rest of this post. Wait for the next which most likely will not be about any craft fair business. Ok, well I may or may not do one last post recapping the show.

Birdhouse Decorated by Nature

********************

Tomorrow is my last craft fair of the season and BOY AM I EXCITED. This show benefits the ministry that I have been very involved with for three years now, Teen Mother Choices. Last year’s boutique show was a big hit and this year’s promises to be even better. In fact, I hope I get a chance to play hooky from my booth for a while to look around.

First off, I am excited about my display. I asked my friend Cathy from church if she would help me. She is really good with decorating and arranging things so that they are warm and pleasing to the eye. She was so kind to oblige and had her design idea whipped up in a flash. She also went out and found the great towel holder pictured below at Goodwill.

AND she spray painted them for me! Whoa what a difference!

Back to the display set up: In working with Cathy, I realized I tend to arrange things more asymmetrically and perhaps therein lies my problem. I mean look at this amazing symmetrical setup. It just draws you in and truly does feel warm and inviting!

Next, one of the show organizers told me that my table would be in the MAIN front room. Some go in a back room and don’t get as much traffic. So that is something I am also excited about.

And finally this week I made 15 new potholders!! Assembly line style. And I’m still alive. Since those went so well at the last show, which I attribute to my new hanging display, I am hoping they will go even better this show! The other side benefit here is that I used up the last of much of my fabric purchased for the shop. That makes me feel so satisfied, that there was very little waste. I plan to use some of my scraps for sewing projects for my daughter’s Kindergarten class and then may mail the rest off to someone I wanted to send them to a while back. If she still wants them.

Yep, so wish me luck and next week I hope to get my Etsy shop back up and running with whatever I have leftover from after the show.

Have a great weekend!

New Blouse – New Display

I obtained a pattern for a peasant type blouse for Ella a while back and recently decided I couldn’t live without Anna Maria Horner’s Fortune Fabric from her Good Folks collection. And so the two met and became this:

Since I have a picture of Ella in her new top at the library, I’ll take this time to Brag on her! Ella is quite the reader for a 5 year old. She is the best reader in her Kindergarten class, according to her teacher. The other night she read a book to me and I was astonished at the big words she was able to decipher with ease. She is now reading Because of Winn-Dixie, a children's novel by Kate DiCamillo. Yes… a novel. I read her this book last year. I am thrilled! Literacy opens such a world to people and reading is something that I enjoy immensely. Since I’m already bragging, I will also add that she loves math. She will make up problems adding several numbers together and then solve them. She has a much better memory than I, for which I am thankful. She is already memorizing addition facts and complex bible verses. And I am totally not pushing her on this, it is all her. I am just here to encourage and provide resources to quench her thirst for knowledge.

Finally, at the solicited suggestion of a friend, I redid my potholder display so as to have a neutral background. I used ModPodge to adhere some very affordable burlap.

Before:

After:

I do think it makes a difference and I am quite please with the resulting look. Now I’m off to make even more potholders. Have a great Wednesday and remember to thank a Veteran!

Indiana Show

Well, at one point I thought the Indiana show was my best ever – profit-wise.  And actually it was, by a very slim margin. 

But I would like to think it was a success on many levels.  First, it got my friend Gail out of the house for a much needed break from nursing her poor husband who had a terrible mountain biking accident a few weeks ago.  She was SO tired and the ride down gave her a chance to sleep.  Next, it is wonderful to be with Gail.  She is like a sister to me and I love her and her family dearly.  Heck, we went on 2 vacations with them this year! 

It is also wonderful to see what a lovely relationship she has with her in-laws, who were the folks having the craft show at their house.  They are absolutely lovely people and take me in as if I were family too.  As if there aren’t enough wonderful and lovely people spoken of already, the other vendors and the guests were among some of the nicest people I’ve met. 

As far as selling…  I consider my new potholder display a success because I sold a lot of potholders!  And for a while there, I had a constant stream of shoppers picking up items from my booth to buy.  Unfortunately, that tapered off sooner than I would have liked.  But as I said, I did make a decent profit.  Just a bit more than I’ve made at other shows.  One more show to go!  Not sure if I’ll make more potholders or not.  Oh, and I only sold one towel, so maybe I need to re-think a towel display.  Any ideas?

Friday was Ella’s dance classes and it happened to be parent observation week.  Here are some photos I’d like to share…

   

New Display

Since my last craft show, I’ve been thinking a lot about my display.  I’m not so good with the psychology of selling, or whatever you call it.  But I did notice that the vendors next to me had their scarves blatantly displayed for all to see.  It was like eye candy and I immediately found myself scanning all of the scarves to find my favorite, to find which one screamed my name.  And so, from that experience, I concluded that having your stuff highly visible adds to the appeal of your product.  That is, if your product is appealing to begin with, I suppose.

I had a few ideas running through my head, mostly based on one that my friend Nilsa mentioned when she came to my last show.

When I was in Hobby Lobby yesterday, I saw these three paneled display boards and decided that for $3.99 plus my 40% off coupon, it was something I could work with.  So after some brainstorming with my husband and I, we came up with this…

Screws were inserted through the top of the board with washers and nuts on the back to keep them in place.  The screw heads were covered with a circle of fabric tied on by a ribbon that runs down the length of the board and small clothes pins were used to hang the potholders along the string.

It makes me happy!