New Etsy Endeavor

In high school I went on a massive hunt for vintage ties. I was really into crazy quilts at the time and I wanted to make one. Well, it's 15 years later and that hasn't happened. Now that we have a house of our own, I decided to take mercy on my parents and rescue the ties from my mom's sewing closet. It's time they go to fine folks who will love and appreciate them.

Matt and I decided to collaborate and open an etsy shop together devoted solely to vintage ties. He was the creative genius behind the name - Tic Tac Tie - and the banner.

I've learned a few things from my first etsy shop. One lesson is that running a shop is easier if the pricing and shipping details are consistent. So, all the ties are $8. Shipping is free in the U.S. We'll be adding new ties every week to keep the shop fresh.

It is a pretty stunning collection. I'm still in love with tie fabric and design. There's such a wide variety of styles and color. I'm definitely going to enjoy listing these in the shop as much as I hope others enjoy wearing them!

the nerd I am

A few things... First, a couple pages of my Week in the Life Album are on Ali Edward's blog today. I totally blushed when she responded to my email and said she would include my album in the examples she is sharing. Then I ran into the other room and told Matt what a nerd I am!

If you're visiting from Ali's website, hi there!

For further proof that I'm a bit of a nerd, last night I decided to open a Twitter account. For my etsy shop, primarily. I keep reading that having a Twitter feed it might help me keep in touch with customers, so if you're a Twitter person and want shop updates and a few random thoughts, feel free to follow me there. It's also off the side here. To further prove that I'm a nerd, I made a typo in my first 'tweet'. Or is it 'tweep'? I'm a little confused by Twitter in general, but I have a feeling I'm going to like it more than I'll admit.

Speaking of my etsy shop, I was looking at it the other day wondering why the views and "hearts" for one of my tweet albums were 3 times higher than all the other items. I did a little digging. Turns out that back in February it was featured with other Twitter-related etsy items on a random celebrity blog. Of course, I can't find the blog link now. But it was really funny to see something I made sandwiched between posts about celebrity gossip.

After that happened, I realized, "Why am I not using one of these myself to keep track of all the funny things Matt says?". Seriously.

A duck face is when you purse out your lips and try to look cool. Yeah, girls do love that. Especially celebrities.

on a creative roll

Last night was so fun. Matt's been sick (not fun) but we sat in our little office, and he looked up new music online and I made this little travel journal kit. I actually made four of them, and I decided to give one away here. Even if you're not a travel journaler/art journaler/scrapbooker, it's so fun! You should give it a try. Or maybe you know a crafty mom who would love one for Mother's Day. Leave a comment telling me the last place you flew, and I'll pick a winner on Tuesday, May 4th at 9pm EST.

I love this travel journal so much that I'm keeping one for myself and am taking it with me to New Orleans in June. It has a lot of my favorite papers in it. Once I fill it up, I'll post some pages here. There are two listed in my etsy shop too. Remember, half the sales price goes to Partners in Health for Haiti relief.





Some extras that come with the journal.



I've been an art journaling machine all week. I love it so much. I feel really energized about creating. I think I found a new passion! The Red Velvet Art flickr stream is so inspiring right now! I'm learning a lot about my style. Like yellow? It's showing up in a ton of my pages and I didn't even realize it was a favorite color. Who knew?



today felt...



dream list...



3 wishes...



Have a good week!

finding time for crafting

I'm making myself spend some time on crafty stuff. It's good for me. Even more essential when I'm super busy.

I designed and edited these photos early in the winter and just now got them listed. I gave my mom a set on greeting cards for Christmas. So I'm trying to get back to adding things to the shop here and there.

And while I was in Florida and stressed to the max, I a little impulsively I signed up for this art journaling class online. Pricey, but I think it'll be worth it because they are going to post tips and challenges every day for 6 weeks. I tried art journaling a few years ago and it didn't go so well. I definitely need a little guidance.

Most people are using a spiral sketch journal or notebook for the class but I decided to make an art journal portfolio with one of the folders I have been using for making photo journals. This way I can use different types of paper for my pages. I'm thinking about refining the design a bit and whipping up a few of these in different colors and adding them to my shop. I love green and yellow right now. So fit for spring!

This is the opening page - about me. It's got odds and ends I've been saving, and some words and drawings from right now. I'll post a few of the pages in my flickr stream now and then.

This week Kaia and I saw a squirrel in a tree (well, we see that like 50 times a day) but this squirrel was holding a bagel. A whole bagel! Then it got scared by the dog trying to hunt it down and it abandoned the bagel on the tree branch. I've seen some crazy squirrel shenanigans since Kaia came around but this is tops. Made me laugh out loud right there on the street.

Yeah! Shop Update

I reopened the Etsy shop, and added some new items and some updated items.

I finally was motivated to reopen because I want to make monthly donations to Partners in Health for Haiti relief this year. 50% of sales will go to Partners in Health at the end of each month. The other 50% of sales will help fund my travel expenses for a project I'm collaborating on with the newly formed American Association of Caregiving Youth. If you want more info on that project, feel free to email me at spelliott at gmail dot com.

I added a new winter wonderland card making kit. Pretty and sparkly.



I also updated the front of some my journals. I thought it would be fun to offer some Project Journals. There are a few different colors available. Perfect for keeping track of those knitting projects. I always wish I kept a journal with project notes and yarn labels.


And I updated a few of the albums with this woodgrain "photos" title. Love woodgrain everything!



And, I finally completed and added the long awaited chalkboards that I spent hours and hours making. Taking the wood to be cut, drilling holes, sanding, several coats of paint, cutting out the stencils by hand, touching up the paint, finding the right hemp twine. These are a steal at $24.00!




And yes, those are my real dreams! I've not sure in what order but they are all on the docket.

And lastly, this card isn't for sale, but I love it so much. I was running out the door for a birthday party the other weekend and I didn't have a card, so I grabbed a blank card and a sheet of rub-ons. I want to make 100 of these to share forever! :)

December '09: 15-16 of 31

15 of 31: Got my hairs cut. Felt good. I asked for some long bangs so my hair would look a little more put together in a ponytail. Whenever I'm putting my hair in a ponytail every single dog gone day, I know it's time for a trim. She straightened my hair too, which felt awfully attentive. Of course, by the end of the night, it was back up in a ponytail after I spent a couple hours crafting. But, a better lookin' ponytail. Even Matt said so. :)

16 of 31: By day - Meeting on the 25th floor of a building in the financial district. Free lunch. Delicious butternut squash ravioli with cranberries. After the meeting, a few of us non-profit folks gawked at the view and make jokes about having the corner office (instead of sharing a cube with 4 people). I took pictures looking south towards my home, near those Blue Hills on the horizon.

By night - Madly finishing up craft projects to sell at the Stitch House tomorrow night and through the weekend. I finally finished those chalkboards I mentioned a couple months back! I'm selling them for only $25 which is the bargain of the century because I seem to have put at least 10 hours into each of them - getting the boards cut, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, painting, painting, painting! Not kidding. After supplies, I might make a very healthy wage of $2.00 an hour! I won't be quitting my day jobs and thereby giving up those free lunches, anytime soon!

Since I needed inventory for the Last Minute Shopping Party, I put a vacation message up on my Etsy shop until January 2nd and raided the stockroom (aka a basket in our office). I'm also testing out a few new goods.

xoxo

P.S. Thanks for hanging in there with my daily posts. I know it's busy so it's probably not the best time to flood your reader, although I got an email from my ever loyal fan Stephanie this morning - "what is up?" - because I missed yesterday and the website is a bit of a mess right now. I'll fix it eventually. I was innocently trying to find an easier way to post the big photos, and got a bit overzealous with no time to pretty up the space. [Edited: Fixed - Like it better than before!]

I may also batch posts like this for the rest of the month to save time, then go back to weekly posting in the winter.

December '09: 5 of 31

Saturday morning, I checked my email and found out I made my first Etsy sale that wasn't from my mother! Actually, it was from someone I did not know at all. I was quite excited. The internet is pretty amazing.

I packed the PhotoJournal up, added a few little extras, and then asked Matt to wrap it up in brown paper since he's a better wrapper than me.

Then I left for the afternoon to meet up with a friend at a cafe for a study session. We sat at a picnic table in the building's old bank vault, which was a new experience. It was nice to get out for an afternoon that did not involve walking the dog (as much as I love that).

Afterwards, I went to the knitting store for an hour-long private knitting lesson. I've been knitting a sweater for my baby niece (since before Easter) and made a mistake I couldn't figure out, so I kept picking it up and setting it aside. I'm hoping to finish it for Christmas, before she's out of the appropriate size range. Luckily, I had the foresight to knit up a few sizes when I started in the spring.

While I had the ear of the knitting instructor, I asked her to watch me knit to see if she had any tips for speeding me up. I feel dreadfully slow. She didn't think my knitting was that slow, although I watched her and she went much faster! She gave me a few tips, mainly to keep the yarn raised on my right index finger so my hands move less.

I think my knitting slowness mainly comes from the fact that I'm a daydreamer and often lose track of where I'm at in a pattern. On most projects, I end up ripping out whole sections to fix mistakes. That's what I had to do today. I somehow missed a whole row where I was supposed to bind off 8 stitches. I didn't notice anything was off until I thought I was finished with the front of the sweater! This is why I don't think I'll ever knit for pay!

But, paper crafts is another story. In a week and a half I'm going to drop off a new batch of wanderCRAFT goodies at the knitting store for their Last Minute Holiday Shopping Party. Should be fun, and hopefully I'll sell a few items. I'm going to whip up some knitting project PhotoJournals. If you're in the Boston area, they will have the items for sale through the weekend of the 18th. After that, I'll add them to my Etsy shop for any last minute shoppers.

Shop Facelift and Sale

I experimented last weekend and came up with some better photos of my PhotoJournals and Mini-Journals for the wanderCRAFT shop. Much happier - I think they do a better job of showing what they are like, and the shop looks more lively!











I'm also running a sale all week to get things moving along for the holidays. The shop announcement reads:

"To show my thanks, I'm running a sale the whole week of Thanksgiving, from Monday, November 23rd through Sunday, November 29th.

Deal 1: Buy any PhotoJournal, and pick out a Mini-Inspiration Kit for FREE!

OR

Deal 2: Buy any PhotoJournal or Mini-Journal and get the second HALF OFF. The discount is taken on the journal of lesser value.

Just add both items to your basket, and after payment, I will refund your PayPal account for either the Mini-Inspiration Kit or half the price of one journal, depending on the deal you choose. Happy Thanksgiving!"

Also, I played around last weekend with a new concept for some new albums. What do you think?





I was thinking of these for children actually. A stocking stuffer. They will be filled with blank paper, and can be used for free writing, drawing and such. They can also add special photos of themselves. I thought it would be so cool to have your child create their own little journal or scrapbook that you could tuck away neatly for them to look back at in later years.

And then I think I'll add some PhotoJournals with various words on the front.





These last couple journals aren't uploaded yet, but I will add a few soon.

Any suggestions for words? Anything else you'd like to see in the shop? I'm all ears!

Freshly squeezed update

I had a busy weekend around the house, and am starting to feel slightly more organized in life. I squeezed in some time to update the Etsy shop (get it, squeezed?).

Wow. That was bad.

Moving on, thanks so much to all the pretty flowers for writing a post about my shop! Super nice. Jen was my very first friend. Our nursing mothers (they were nurses too!) set up a child care co-op where they swapped babysitting time. Really inspiring practice. And it meant I got to spend good quality time playing at my friends' houses. I have a lot of random memories from those days, everything from being mesmerized by Jen's fancy humidifier to riding the 'green machine' scooter outside to stacking up all their couch cushions into a tower and taking pictures of each other on top of it.

Which reminds me, I should add that to my 'should be scrapped' list. It's been fun to reconnect with her via this blogging thing. She lives a very inspiring life of crafting, child raising, and experimenting with the farming lifestyle.

I got into this PhotoJournaling small business because of my love for documenting and reminiscing!

To the shop, I added six new PhotoJournals in various sizes, and at different price points. I experimented with block printing on the cover, for two albums listed in the shop. I also added some white albums that you can customize yourself.

If you don't see a color combo or size here you want, please let me know because I probably have materials on hand to custom make one for you. It'd be a pleasure!

I also added a couple more patterned albums in orange and blue.

My mom told me that she likes one of the aqua mini-inspiration kits but wasn't sure how she could use it (she's more of a fabric crafter than a paper crafter). I wanted to try out the kits myself anyway, so I made up some samples of what you might do with some of the kits.

I used the pink and purple mini-inspiration kit to make a card for a newly engaged friend.

(everything but the kraft paper card and the pink American Craft letter stickers is included in the kit)

And then I used the brown kit (which I love love love) to make a scrapbook page. This is sort of a slice of life page. Nothing mind blowingly special about the topic, but I had this photo from awhile back that I wanted to do something with and I paired it with a little fact about my current life. Some day when I move away, it'll be fun to look back and remember this little part of my daily routine right now.

I cut out the hand-stamped stamped sticker, and added brown paint around the edges, along with a date stamp. I simply stapled the ribbon onto the page. The cork has adhesive on the back already so it was as simple as sticking it on the page. Gives it great texture. Everything above comes with the kit, minus the paint, 12x12 white cardstock, the date stamper, the cream paper I journaled on, and the staples!

Hopefully the kits just provide a few bits and pieces to get you started on creating something fun.

In related news, my inspiration clipboards finally filled up this weekend with new pages. Once I make another page, I'll rotate one of these into an album. I love having them out for awhile to look at before they get filed away. Fun stuff!