Setting Up Shop

I have spent the last couple of weeks getting Amy.Be.Loved set up. Of course, having a full-time job and being a full-time wife have complicated things slightly. I had high hopes for being able to sew every night to jam pack my store with inventory. That simply hasn't happened. Life has gotten in the way. There is always dinner to fix, ball games to attend, laundry to do, errands to run... shall I go on? Long story short, I find myself slightly frustrated with the progress of things.

Interestingly enough, although I haven't had time to fill my store with inventory, I have been very successful in putting together the accouterments of my branding. I have found Etsy to be a wealth of resources for entrepreneurs. So at the very least, I can share what I have found.

I found an extremely talented graphic designer who put together a wonderful package of graphics for my store. The banner above is some of her work. She was extremely easy to work with and couldn't have been more eager to give me exactly what I wanted. If you find yourself in need of graphic designs, Thompson Designs comes highly recommended!

I really wanted to create a brand more than just a shop. Part of my package from Thompson Designs were business cards and return mailing labels. I have found an excellent source for printing. Vistaprint. They did my wedding announcements (which turned out perfect!), so it was an easy and cost effective choice for my business printing needs. My stuff in is the mail as I type this so I should have it all before I know it!

I also used Etsy to get some hang tags for my bags. My hopes are to someday do some Farmer's Markets and Craft Fairs. So in those hopes, I wanted to have some really nice looking pricing tags. I found a wealth of tag makers! I finally chose Rhubarb. She was able to give me an excellent deal on some custom tags. She made them exactly to my specifications! I couldn't have been more pleased.


I also have nearly 45 fans on my Facebook page! Questions about my bags are rolling in and I am hoping to roll those questions into sales.

So amidst the doldrums of not getting inventory into my store, I have found myself highly pleased with my ability to get the Amy.Be.Loved brand on it's feet. I have a few more things I would like to do including sew in fabric tags so that my actual items are branded. I haven't quite found what I am looking for there yet, but soon!

I have also gotten 3 custom orders from family members. I will be working on them all this weekend. I am so thankful to have a family that supports my endeavors! There are some days where I wonder why I am putting all this time, effort, and money into this (I'm sure my husband has those days as well!) But it always seems like those days are the ones where I get a question about my stuff. It cheers me on and drives me forward. I love every second of what I do. One day it will pay off...I just know it!

Weekend Projects

I FINALLY found some time to sew! Hooray! I downloaded some new patterns and woke up early today to get started.

My first project of the day was something I have wanted to make for a while. I love the idea of bringing my own bags to the grocery store. I get tired of those plastic bags. While they make good bathroom and car garbage bags, but I always end up with more than we can use. I found a pattern for a really cute and simple reusable grocery bag. Keyka Lou's patterns are quickly becoming my favorites! They are simple, straightforward, very well explained, and illustrated. The best part is that I can usually finish a project or two in an afternoon. I absolutely love the result of today's efforts! Observe . . .

I think this one will be the first item in my Etsy store. I promptly made 2 more! I did these assembly line style and it was to dark outside so no pictures. . . maybe tomorrow.

My second project was one for my husband (teehee, I still giggle when I say it). Mr. Crocker loves wearing hats. He has quite an extensive collection. We have been on the prowl for an adequate hat box for him for quite some time. The problem is that hat boxes are usually made for old ladies. They are flowery and haven't been big enough for what he needs. I was excited last weekend when I found a garage sale down the street that was selling wine crates. These crates are made out of wood with a hinged lid. They vary in size, but are usually big enough to hold about 6 bottles of wine and as luck would have it, they are big enough for a fedora! We picked up a couple at about $5 a piece. (I also got some cool cigar boxes for sewing stuff. My thread now smells like a fine cigar!)

The box is perfect, except that the inside is wood. We were afraid that the hats would snag. So we looked high and low for something to line the box with. I remembered that I got a ton of blue corduroy on sale last winter. Long story short, I measured, cut, sewed, and glued and voila, up-cycled hat box. I have one more thing I want to do before I call it done, but it will take a few trips to the flea market I am sure. The lid has this perfect little hole that is just screaming for a knob. Anyway, I was a shutter bug today so I have pictures of this as well.

So that is about it, for now. I have been working very hard behind the scenes to get my Etsy store up and running. I'm hoping by this time next week, I will have myself organized and have some things for sale!

As always,

Be.Loved

Baby Bag Update

Ok, so life got amazingly complicated! I got engaged and married in the span of 6 weeks! So my blog sort of got shoved to the very end of my priority list. After a short hiatus to do some wedding planning (hooray!), and in the midst of it all, I had to pick up my diaper bag project. Kendall's shower snuck up on me, and I needed to get that thing done.

Wow, and Holy Cow! Those blogs I looked up when I was researching this pattern were more correct than I thought. I did manage to put the zipper in upside down. HOWEVER, I double and triple checked the instructions and they are wrong! The picture reverses what should actually be done. I'm calling this one "not my fault!"

I think that it took me about 8 hours total to get done. Maybe adding a couple extra hours of finishing. I get extremely anal-retentive when it comes to cleaning up loose threads and pulling out basting stitches (and boy was there a ton of basting in this project!). So here are my tips for this project if you decide to conquer it:

1. Follow your sewing instincts, especially with the zipper insertion. The directions are wrong.
2. If you are going to use heavyweight interfacing, make sure that you have a machine that will handle it. I almost killed my Singer Confidence, bent 2 needles, and broke one. But it was really worth it because the bag was very, very solid.
3. Put the tab on the zipper BEFORE you put the zipper in. I tried to do it after and the logistics of holding the bag and getting it under the foot was impossible. I had to do it by hand and it looked like poo.
4. COVER the iron on vinyl with the paper . . . it melts! :-(
5. Use stellar materials. The investment will pay off in a really great final product.
6. Be ready to be asked by everyone and their sister to make one!

The complements I have gotten on the bag have been amazing! I may have 3 or so real orders for them. I am considering making a couple of more to sell on Etsy. As always, it comes down to time and investment money. I used really good materials on this and I think that is half of the success, so I don't think I could settle for less in any other bags I make. So, I will be waiting until I have some extra sewing $$ and the time to go find some really cute fabric.

And the one thing I should have done differently . . . take more pictures! I only ended up with one that we took at the shower when Kendall opened it!! Enjoy:

I seriously LOVE this bag! It was worth every frustration I had with this pattern.

Presley Ann (4/29/10, 2:17 p.m., 7lb. 2oz., 20.5 in.)

Be.Loved!

Finished Valentines

As promised, I am posting pictures of my first finished handmade Valentines day card. This one is for my nephew Jonny and is going into the mail (well via a box) today. Enjoy!



Just to recap. The tutorial was tops!! Easy to follow, and very well written. I found it here in case anyone wants to give it a try.

I have 3 more Valentines to finish and 3 1st Birthday cards to do next!

Be.Mine

Handmade Valentines

So I have been sick for the past week or so. I missed a few days of work and found some idle time on my hands. So I finally finished patching the jeans for Cindy and the boys. It was a really durable way to patch jeans, but not all that quick or easy on the fingers. I have developed calluses on my fingertips, which is good, I suppose.

My next project was to make some handmade valentines for my cutie-pie nieces and nephews. Leave it to me to think paper valentines were not enough. I scoured the internet for a unique and fun project. I found this card and envelope project. Viola! I had my next project.

So the tutorial is perfect. I had no problems following the directions at all. I think my problem has been the quantity and my own embellishments. I have to do 5 of them. Actually, I have 6 nieces and nephews and 1 vicarious nephew (my boyfriend's nephew.) The 2 youngest are 9 months old . . . they won't miss having a valentine . . . leaving 5. And of course, I HAD to make them all unique. I do have quite an assembly line going now and it was all going well. UNTIL . . . I decided to embroider their names on the outside of each of the envelops . . . OUCHIE. I thought my fingers hurt before.

Anyway, I now have 5 envelopes done and embroidered with each of their names. I still need to add buttons and button holes to 4 of them. And, I have to make the cards still. Eeek, more embroidery. I am getting better at it, but it is still a lot of work.

Well, I still have a few days . . .

Be.Loved.

::UPDATE:: So doing the "cards" for the inside of these envelopes was NOT nearly as hard as I thought it would be. The trick appears to be number of layers of fabric to sew through! (DUH!!) I started embroidering them without interfacing or backing. This could backfire with centering when I go to sew and turn them, but handmade, quirky things make them unique, right?

Pictures soon . . .

Boys Will Be Boys

Well my project this week was patches . . . I have 5 and 6 year old nephews. About a week ago, I got a desperate call from my sister asking me how to patch jeans. Her boys are TOUGH on their jeans. She said that they had managed to rip holes in every single pair of pants they had. I had to go and see it for myself. How could these sweet little angels tear up the knees of their jeans?

Aidan (6)

Judah (5)

But I was amazed when Cindy started laying out the Jeans on the table! There were about 8 pairs of pants with ALL of the knees torn out.

We knew that iron on patches are worthless so we went to the internet to find a good way to patch. This looked promising. We went to work. We found some old jeans to use for the patching material. We cut out patches and pinned them to the back side of the hole (right side to wrong side so the right side of the material showed through the hole).

The tutorial said to do a Running Stitch around the patch, however I felt it was a little sloppy. I decided to do a Catch Stitch around the edge to help reduce fray and to just hold things down a little better. This certainly took a bit longer than it would just do the Running Stitch, but I felt like it worked well. I also took a bit of time to show my sister how to do a Catch Stitch. The patch itself was really big, but I wanted to cover areas where the material was very thin hoping to reinforce the entire knee area.

Once I was done there, I turned the leg back right side out and trimmed out the excess torn material and turned it under and pinned it. I then did a tight Whip Stitch around the edge holding it all down. Here's the finished product.

Now, I just need to repeat about 16 times! Hopefully, this will hold up to the beating the boys will undoubtedly give it!

Boys,

Be.Loved

New Year, New Project

I hate how life gets in the way sometimes. My "real job" (read on the right) has been consuming my free time lately. I haven't done any sewing projects since probably August/September. The fact that I can't remember my last project proves it's been too long. So here we go, new year, new project.

My boyfriend's sister, Kendall, is expecting her first baby at the end of April. I felt so honored when she asked me to make her a diaper bag. And when we found out it was a girl, I got even more excited because, I LOVE sewing for girls! So Kendall picked out a pattern and we went to get fabric yesterday. We found some really cute hot pink and apple green damask fabric.

I quickly Googled the pattern to see what I was up against. Butterick B5005 . . . good lord, what am I in for? Gremlins?, Bad Choice for Beginning Sewer? Well maybe I can avoid some of the mistakes they made. Although an upside down zipper sounds exactly like something I would do!

I also have the challenge of working with some materials I have never used before. We decided that we need the inside to be durable, wipe-able, and water proof. The pattern calls for Iron-on Vinyl. That sounds pretty awesome and a perfect solution, but again a Google search proved to be menacing . . . GAH!!

And WTF is hair canvas? Google seems to be my best sewing friend these days. Turns out to be an interfacing option made out of goat or horse hair. Seriously?!?! ... ... ... In a baby diaper bag?!?! No, I don't think so. So now I need to find some durable, stiff interfacing. Joann has a good selection of that stuff, so at least that is one crisis averted. And I have some coupons to save some cash as well. So with that, I am off to the store to see what I can see.

Here is to challenging my my skills with a new project this year. Bring it on.

Baby,

Be.Loved