Christmas 2010

Christmas was more fun this year than it has been in the past. I've been super busy, which means I'm super happy, which means things are great!

Here are some Christmas Coasters I made for my mom. They are 3.75" square and have little quilty lines all over them. Each one is different!


And here are our Christmas stockings! I made one for all nine of us! My parents, brothers, their wives and then the three of us. It was a lot of work, but it was totally worth it! They were a hit!



Another view, before opening gifts:



And after the gifts:



And no Christmas would be complete without the Red Ryder BB Gun:


He hasn't shot his eye out yet, thank goodness!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Quilted Christmas Placemats

I made these placemats for my friend Stephanie's mom for Christmas. I couldn't post earlier because she is my friend on Facebook and might read my blog, so I kept the photos to myself until now!

I used Michael Miller's Holiday Trees in Red and a layer of fleece interfacing. I made them like I make potholders. I am quite thrilled with my non-expert quilting on these! Even though I have an even-feed walking foot, my fabric always feeds unevenly. Not on these babies!!! I pinned the heck out of these so that the fabric wouldn't move. Fantastic!

All the Best Things are Handmade

I have long had a love for handmade things. Knowing it was made by a person and that there probably aren't a whole lot of something makes me happy. When I shop, I like to find the things that no one else would have. Here are a couple of photos of handmade ornaments on my tree:


I spent ages playing softball (and I still play on a couple of teams). This is an ornament my mom got for me in 1992 from a vendor at the Yellow Daisy Festival.


As a kid, I went to a very small private school and we always got to go on the coolest field trips. We went to Frabel, a glass blowing workshop here in Atlanta. I have been smitten by their pieces since I was young. My mom got me this ornament a few years ago. She also got me one of their floral pieces for my college graduation. (Be jealous!)

And this post would not be complete without a photo of what's going on in my kitchen right now:


Yes, I am making cinnamon rolls from scratch. Again, be jealous! Or just come by and have a cinnamon roll with me!

"My Clearance Section" or "Please Buy These"

I don't know what's wrong with these Christmas Aprons & Towels. Did I make bad color/fabric choices? Did people stop liking holiday-themed items? Who knows? All I know is that they didn't sell this season and that I've marked them down by 40%.

Here's a sneak peek! Just click on the photo to go to the clearance section :

Christmas Ordering Deadlines

Here they are!

CHRISTMAS ORDERING DEADLINES:

• 11/26--African, Central and South American orders, will ship by 12/3
• 12/1--ALL Other International Orders, will ship by 12/10
• 12/9--Custom Orders, will ship by 12/21 via Priority Mail
• 12/13--Regular Orders, shipping by December 21 via Priority Mail
• 12/15--Regular Orders that you wish to pick up, must be picked up by 2pm on 12/21 (I will put it in the mail if you can't make it by then)
• 12/21, before 2pm--Ready to Ship Items, will ship 12/21 Priority Mail

Thank You!

Happy Thanksgiving! I am very thankful for my customers who pay me to do what I love! I get to work when I want, in my PJs with my music at whatever unreasonable level I choose. For that, I thank you! To express my gratitude, I have cooked up a few deal options for you:

For every purchase of $25 (does not include shipping or tax), you will get a free key wristlet! Use code 2010FREEWRISTLET when ordering. I will include it in your order when I ship it!

OR

For every apron purchase, you can get a free monogram! Use code 2010FREEMONOGRAM when ordering. Make sure to include your font choices (see them here: http://forsheedesigns.blogspot.com/p/embroidery-fonts-designs-pricing.html ) and your text choice.

These offers cannot be combined, you must choose one or the other. Offer is good from Nov 25-Nov 29 at 11:59pm. You must include code to get the offer.

You can go through Etsy (there is a spot for the coupon code when checking out) or you can email me to order! aprilforshee {at!} gmail {dot!} com

Next, I will be posting my Christmas ordering deadlines. It's coming more quickly than you think!

And, as always, let me know if you have any questions!

I Did It! 200 Sales as of Today!

Well, it happened overnight. I got my 200th sale in my Etsy shop.

It was much less exciting than I thought, but I am happy with my sales number being nice and even at the moment. I'm sure it will change to 201, 202, 203....soon (actually it just changed to 201 as I am writing this!). After all, it is Christmas gift buying season and I am already busy!

No one guessed November 15th for their date in my 200th Sale Pool, so sad! I took the entrants' names and put them in alphabetical order:

Amy
Brandi
Elizabeth
Erica
Ginger
Janimal
Karen
Kathy
Kelly
Lana
Melanie
Rebecca

And chose a random number between 1 and 12. It was:


The winner, Kelly, will receive a large zippered pouch! I had to give something away! Thanks to all those who entered!

Be sure to go over to the shop and check out the new items I listed in the past week. I have camera strap covers, key wristlets and lots of new aprons. There are also a couple of new Buttercup Bags. Most of these items are ready to ship!

Custom Baby Blanket

My mother in law asked me to make a baby blanket as a shower gift for a baby girl. I don't really DO baby/kid stuff, but I knew I could come up with something. I'm always dying to use a lot of girly fabric and do some sort of girly embroidery. She pretty much gave me a blank canvas to work with, which is good and bad. Good because I had freedom. Scary because I really wanted the recipient to love it.

Last week I was in Chattanooga, TN and googled "Chattanooga, TN quilt shops" and out came a link to Sew Bee It, which is in Ringgold, GA which happens to be on my way home to Marietta! They have a great selection of fabrics (and yarns!) and I will definitely be going back. The ladies helped me choose two prints that would go together (I am not good at this) and made me feel right at home! We chose some Kaffe Fassett fabric with a minky fleece from Moda on the back. I also used the minky fleece to do a flower applique on the front. So soft!

Ok, so here's the blanket:

Christmas Aprons!

Christmas Aprons are up in my shop in the SEASONAL section! Keep in mind that I have a very limited quantity of these. Once they're gone, they're gone! Below are some photos of the matching sets, but they are available individually. (I just didn't want to post too many photos here on the blog!)

Key Wristlets Are Here!!!

I made up a bunch of these Key Wristlets for the New Salem Mountain Festival and they were hot sellers! They are super handy. I am currently carrying one in the Sherbet print and it has made it a ton easier to find my keys in my big bag. Keep in mind that these can be made in most of the fabrics in my shop, so if you don't see the one you want, just ask!

Here's a linky to where you can see of them in my shop: CLICK HERE

Enjoy the photos!



Don't forget to choose a date for my 200th sale pool! Winner gets $20 in Forshee Designs Dollars!

200th Sale Pool! Winner gets $20!!!

Right now I am at 178 sales in my Etsy Shop! Obviously, the next benchmark is my 200th sale! So what I've decided to do is let my Facebook Fans/Twitter & Blog Followers pick a date that they think I will receive that 200th sale. Each person gets one date and vice versa. You can either leave a comment, email me (aprilforshee at gmail dot com) or leave a Facebook comment with your date choice. I will keep the list updated below!

RULES:

1) Open to U.S. and Canadian residents only.

2) You must follow me on Facebook, Twitter or my blog.

THE PRIZE: Whoever chooses the correct date wins a $15 $20 gift certificate to my shop that can be used toward anything there, including shipping.

November 11
November 12
November 13
November 14
November 15
November 16
November 17
November 18
November 19--Rebecca
November 20--Brandi W.
November 21
November 22--Amy M.
November 23--Janimal
November 24
November 25
November 26
November 27
November 28
November 29
November 30
December 1--Erica P.
December 2
December 3--Ginger
December 4
December 5
December 6--Lana D.
December 7--Melanie C.
December 8
December 9
December 10
December 11--Kathy S.
December 12
December 13
December 14
December 15
December 16
December 17
December 18
December 19--Karen F.
December 20
December 21
December 22
December 23
December 24
December 25
December 26
December 27--Elizabeth
December 28
December 29
December 30
December 31

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, celebrated by those girls and guys who walk for days for a good cause. I have a couple of pink ribbon embroidery designs that would be perfect on a solid-color apron, a koozie, a zippered pouch, etc.. 20% of the proceeds from the sale of any items with pink ribbon embroidery will be donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure! This will be the policy all the time, not just for October!

Small Zippered Pouch w/Pink Ribbon Embroidery $12.00

Large Zippered Pouch w/Pink Ribbon Embroidery $18.50

Adult Apron (any fabric, any color) w/Pink Ribbon Embroidery $25.75

Koozie w/Pink Ribbon Embroidery $8.50

Just email me and let me know what you would like! aprilforshee {at!} gmail {dot!} com.

Craft Fair vs. Online Sales

This post might get long. I have a lot to say. I will start by saying that this post is in no way a bashing of craft shows. It is just to document my experience so other people can learn from it. I LOVE craft shows.

This past weekend I set up my booth at the New Salem Mountain Festival. It was supposedly a big show with 8,000-10,000 attending. So I figured that maybe 1% of those people would buy from me. That's 80 people, at about an average of $20/sale equals $1600. I thought that might be a stretch so I put $1200 in my head for a sales expectation/goal.

Here's how the weekend breaks down:

• $85 Booth Entry
• $50 Gas
• $20-30 Food
• 6 hours to load/unload/setup/breakdown/load/unload
• 4 hours of driving

For $600 in sales. And I'm not even counting the money I put into my display since that is not a specific cost to this particular show. So now let's put a dollar amount on my time. For custom orders, I charge $15-20/hour depending on the difficulty of the project. Let's say I got paid $15/hour this weekend. I worked a total of 26 hours, which amounts to $390.

So taking sales, less the costs, my business profited $45. And that's probably a stretch since I didn't even count the hours I spent sewing the products. Also, I did not include my dear husband's time. He helped me all weekend and I didn't even really ask him to do that.

To sum it up, I just don't think these craft fairs are for me. I don't think they are worth the time and stress (I lost a ton of sleep last week getting ready and worrying). To test this hypothesis, I will be spending $135 on relisting on Etsy and possibly some advertising spots on a few blogs to see if I can get $600 in sales from that. This will take away the driving and setup time and time spent sitting on my behind at the fair, giving me a better profit margin.

On a not-so-sour note, I met these two fun ladies! They have nicknames for each other (and everyone at their work, I learned) and wanted koozies with their nicknames stitched on them. They were so sweet and I was glad to have met them. Turns out that Robin lives a few miles from me!

My House is Full of Craziness

I read somewhere that crafters should take three times the amount of stuff they want to sell to a craft fair. WOW. That's a lot of stuff. I took that statement to heart because it makes sense. The rationale behind it is that you never want your booth to look empty.

For the past several weeks I have been buying fabric, cutting out fabric, and sewing fabric . I think almost every room in my house might have fabric or finished products in it. When I look at all of it, I feel that I have enough...but...I always feel like I could make more. My husband says I'm too hard on myself, and I say that I can do better. Did I mention that I also homeschool our 4th grade son?

WHAT. AM. I. THINKING?

I signed up for the New Salem Mountain Festival (a big craft fair) a long time ago before I decided to homeschool. Had I known I would be homeschooling, I would have passed on the craft fair!

Alas, I have a week and 2 days until the craft fair. I still have about 20 aprons, 10 camera straps, 30 makeup bags and a couple of purses to sew. I think I need to re-evaluate this! There's no way I can get all of that done and maintain any ounce of sanity.

Needless to say, next week will be a slacker week as far as homeschooling goes.

Facebook Fan Page Maintenance

This is just a quick post to explain how Facebook Fan Pages work. Or don't work, for that matter. They are not the same as regular Facebook personal profile pages. Oh no, that would be too easy.

When someone writes on my wall, comments on a wall post, comments on a photo, comments on a comment on a photo or wall post (you get the idea), FB fan pages DO NOT send notification to the administrator of that fan page. Unless...the admin "likes" everything on their page. Then the admin looks like they just love themselves to pieces.

As far as photo comments go, there is a page the admin can go to to view the comments made on the photos. They are not in order of date of comment, they are in order in which the photo was posted. Yikes. So if I posted a photo 6 months ago and you just commented on it today, it would be put with the other photos that were posted 6 months ago, not with today's comments. I have to go and fish for these comments, checking my photo comments daily.

As you can imagine, this gets very time consuming and cumbersome. Keep in mind that when you comment on a Facebook Fan Page that the administrator probably won't see it unless they are stalking their page almost constantly. Send them a message/email/text (or you can also call--my phone number is listed on my fan page).

So...as of this morning I have deleted any photo comments that were not made in the past week (sorry!) or so. People have asked questions about price, etc. All of my pricing can be found on this site under the "Product Pricing" tab unless the item was a custom order. If you want to inquire about those, please email me. aprilforshee at gmail dot com I will work to update my photos with the appropriate link (blog post, pricing page, etc.) so that there is no confusion. Feel free to continue to comment, though, as I will check that photo comments page almost daily. I will respond to them and after a week or so, I will delete them! I think that may be a good way to manage the comments.

Have questions? Let me know!

Patty Young, American Girl Dress

Patty Young first grasped my attention when I discovered her Mezzanine collection of fabrics for Michael Miller Fabrics. I became obsessed with the Gothic Flower print (and I still am!). I have a very popular Buttercup Bag in my shop made from fabrics from this line.

Patty also has sewing patterns for little girls and their dollies! Now, I do not have a girl to sew for and I generally do not care for pastels, frills, lace and the like. This is why I love her patterns. Even though I don't have a real girl to sew for, I have an American Girl Doll (I have Molly). Many of my friends still have their dolls from when they were children also...and their daughters and nieces have them too!

A friend of mine asked me to make a Mini Kyoko for her niece and I jumped at it! We carefully chose four fabrics and some ribbon for a nice dress for the Felicity doll, who is red headed. Sewing the dress took me about 2 hours. The bulk of that time was dealing with the tiny bias tape and the tiny gathers in the skirt. I have big hands that do not get along with tiny things. I do recommend making your own bias tape, though, as it looks better and can be whatever fabric you like!

I am completely pleased with the way the dress turned out! I might make my Molly one. The only thing I would change is that the next one will be made with some of Patty's fabric!

Oh, and I got to meet Patty Young a few months ago at Intown Quilters here in Atlanta! I even sat in traffic, which is something I swore to myself I would never do since I retired from working downtown, so I could go meet her. She had a new line of knits coming out and gave a talk about how to sew with knits, which was very informative and helpful! The videos of what she presented are on her website.

Enjoy the photos!

Molly in the Mini Kyoko I made! (I guess she was tired of being in her Georgia Tech cheerleader outfit?!)

Patty & I

Above All Fabric

Melanie at Above All Fabric asked me to make some zippered pouches to show off her new zippers that she is carrying in her shop! I stitched them up today and couldn't be happier with the results!

The following fabrics were used:

• Lagoon Collection by Michael Miller Fabrics: Far Out Floral & Retro Mushrooms
• Tweet Tweet Collection by Michael Miller Fabrics: Citron Belinda

Melanie has an informative post about sewing with zippers in store for her blog next week. You won't want to miss it!


Two large pouches

A view of the weird quilting I did on this one.

Medium-sized pouches, about 3.5" x 8"

A coin purse

What I Did Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend, I sent my husband and son out of town so I could sew. I needed some uninterrupted time to get ready for the New Salem Mountain Festivalwhich is in one month. I have lots and lots of these made, but none of these.

So I ended up making 9 Buttercup Bags and 3 Marti Bags! I also made one of these. Here are the pics:

New Salem Mountain Festival

I am happy to share that Forshee Designs will have a booth at the New Salem Mountain Festival in Dade County, GA this year! Dade County is where my husband is from, so I'm sure to have lots of family and friends stop by!

From the festival brochure:

The New Salem Mountain Festival started as a celebration at the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn – some people think the most beautiful time of the year – when brilliant color of the trees provides a glorious background for beautiful and exciting works of art.

The Mountain Festival emphasizes quality. Artists, craftsmen, and musicians – many local are carefully selected from the best agent available. You will discover here many visual arts – paintings in oil, acrylic, and watercolor; pottery of earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain clay; quilts made in our own community by internationally appreciated quilters; other textiles; weaving and stuffed toys so well made as to warrant people calling them “soft sculpture.” There will be woodwork, jewelry, and various other works in traditional expression and in experiments with newer artistic, industrial arts.

The purpose of the New Salem Mountain Festival is… to be a FESTIVAL, an organized effort to bring together a variety of art, crafts, music, dancing, so that each member of the family can share special pleasures to delight the senses.

Today, in our world of changing experiences, what was once community – held traditions have in many instances been lost to factory work and dehumanized processes. Now it often takes a special effort to locate fine objects made by folks at home. Our efforts are culminated in this our Mountain Festival, and we invite you to come and enjoy the beautiful made–by– hand works and their makers that we have gathered in celebration.

If you want to know more about how you can participate write George “Doc” or Faye Nichols, 805 Cherokee Trail, Rising Fawn, Georgia 30738. Telephone (706) 398-1988. Email: NSCIC@aol.com. Fax (706)398-1988.

Fun for the old and young, come spend the day. Food and drinks on the grounds. Food booth sponsored by the New Salem United Methodist Church.

October 9 & 10, 2010

Saturday – 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Sunday – 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

(E.S.T. each day)

Admission - $5.00

Children under 12 FREE

ABSOLUTELY NO ALCOHOL, DRUGS, OR PETS ALLOWED.

The New Salem Mountain Festival is located on top of Lookout Mountain between Trenton and LaFayette, Georgia, at the New Salem Community Center, 12477 Hwy. 136.

Koozies Are Here!

Pictured below is a can koozie. They can be embroidered on one or both sides. I love mine!

They are $8.50 and include basic embroidery (see Embroidery Services for other options) on one side, $10.00 to have both sides embroidered (both sides do not have to be the same)! Shipping is $2 for one and $0.50 for each additional koozie. As always, people in GA have to pay sales tax which is 6%.

Also available are beer bottle koozies! I'll be getting some photos of those up soon!

French Seams & Zippered Pouches

I make small zippered pouches/coin purses/whatever you want to call them. I have not been happy with the way the interior ends up. So...I took a look at one of my Vera Bradley (yes, I still have VB things even though my stuff is a lot cuter and I can make something for myself) coin purses and AHA! French Seams! So I studied it for 2 minutes, and I was able to replicate the way they are put together. Easy enough. I will definitely be using this technique from now on because I was soooo happy with the result.

Enjoy the photos! This pouch is a specific size (5" x 7") that my mom requested. I think she's using it for receipts. Oh, and it matches her purse that I made for her!