Tuesday, August 31, 2010

New colors for Autumn!

As I am stocking up my Etsy shop for fall, I will be introducing some new colors for all of my felted wool products. One of the new colors will be this great variegated purple/burgundy/rust/green, perfect for Autumn. I haven't really worked with variegated yarns much, so it's interesting to see how the colors end up once they are knit. I'm especially eager to see what these will look like felted! I'm planning to do some felting tomorrow, including a pair of these variegated mary janes, along with poppy red and chocolate brown, and also a pair of high tops in a variegated green/brown/tan. So be on the lookout for these in my Etsy shop either later this week, or early next week.


Another new color I am introducing is this:

I had a difficult time trying to come up with a name for this color, so I turned to my fans on Facebook to get some input. I got a lot of great suggestions, including persimmon, cinnabar, paprika, and pomegranate. In the end, I decided to go with cinnabar for two reasons: 1) after searching google images, cinnabar seemed the closest to the actual color, and 2) it makes me think of cinnamon, which I love! So you can now get these little cinnabar flora janes in my Etsy shop. Hooray!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Theme Thursday: Earthy

I love making treasuries. So when a fellow Etsy Maine Team member, Ida of Adroit Jewelers, started organizing weekly treasury partners groups, I was happy to jump on board. Each week we make 2 or more treasuries featuring items from the other people in our group. Super fun!

Now that I'm back in the swing of creating treasuries, I thought I would bring back my Theme Thursday and share a fresh new treasury that I've made each week. Prepare to be inspired by the amazing work of many talented Etsians!

This week's theme is earthy. Enjoy!

click on the image below to view the treasury on Etsy:

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

It's been busy around here!

I've been super busy lately working on a couple of wholesale orders.  The first was for some of my felted baby shoes for a new baby boutique in Spain, Bily Bily Baby.   This ended up being kind of a rush order, as she is opening this September, and wanted to have the shoes for her opening.  So I ended up pulling a lot of them from my Etsy shop to get them to her in time.  I'll be working on restocking in the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime, if you don't see what you're looking for, I am more than happy to take custom orders.  Click below to order from my Etsy shop:



 

The next order is for a bunch of my felted flower rings and hair elastics.  They will be going to Green Planet Parties in Canada.  She is in the process of adding some new product lines, and will be re-launching her site soon.  So I will be taking advantage of my newly acquired day to myself this week to work on rings and hair elastics.  Sure will be nice to have time set aside to work on things like this...maybe I'll actually be able to start going to bed before midnight on occasion again!


Interested in placing a wholesale order?  Please contact me for more info.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Seeking Balance

When you become a mom, you are faced with many choices.  For many, one of the most difficult is whether or not you will work outside the home.  Sometimes the circumstances in your life decide this choice for you.  When my daughter was born, I did not have the option of staying home with her full time; my husband was in school, and I had to return to work so we could pay our bills.  Sometimes I look back and wish I could have had more time with her in those early months, but when I see how happy she is at daycare, it makes me happy.  And when it comes time to start kindergarten, I am confident she will have no trouble adjusting, and will be excited to go.

Being happy in life is all about finding balance.  Doubly so when you are a mom.  Things have been very hectic this summer, and I'm realizing that my balancing act needs some work.  Between my full-time job and being a mom, not to mention my entrepreneurial adventures, it has been increasingly difficult to squeeze everything in.  My stress levels have been rising, and I don't want to be that mom that is always stressed out and overwhelmed.  There's a saying - if mom's not happy, no one's happy - and it is so true!  I know that the days when I'm feeling particularly stressed are the days when my daughter is also cranky.  Negativity breeds negativity.  So what can I do to remedy this situation?

My biggest obstacle in life right now is time.  And while I would love to quit my full time job and have my daughter go to preschool/daycare part time (so I could both have more time with her and time to focus on Modern Handmade Child and The Clever Kitty), that's simply not an option right now.  However, working full time and trying to keep up with these things while caring for my daughter in the evenings and weekends isn't really working either.  I know that trying to squeeze everything in it takes away from the quality of time I have with her.  And that makes me sad.  So for me, for the time being, I've decided that the best thing I can do for myself and my family is to spend one day a week at home (by myself!) to work on my stuff, so that when I do have time with my daughter in the evenings and on the weekends, I can have quality time with her, as I won't be trying to cram all this other stuff in too.

We can try all we want to be that supermom, but when it comes down to it, all we can really do is do the best we can with what we have at any given time.  And what's best for one mom may not be the best for another mom.  Each mom is unique, and we all must decide for ourselves what is best for us and our children.  Sometimes, because of certain circumstances in our lives, the choice we'd most like to make simply isn't possible.  In which case we are forced to choose the next best thing.  But you know what?  Sometimes what we think is the next best thing, actually turns out to be the best thing. ♥

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