New Puppets in the Works

Well, my first month of puppets for adoption was quite a success in my eyes! A dozen may not seem very impressive, but for a first time shop, I'm gonna say it is. Especially since it was December which is typically my most chaotic month of the year mentally AND I watch a baby 5 days a week for 40+ hours ON TOP OF raising two of my own. All-in-all...a success!
Now that the New Year has been around for 15 days, I started some new puppet color combinations. Above we have blue fur with red head/arms and striped lining as wells as white fur with blue fur head BUT...satin arms! I'm gonna make her (yes a her) a little fancy cuz she's wearing satin gloves to match her fur. I think I'm gonna give her a pearl necklace to go with her Hawaiian print lining fab.
This orange fur with yellow head/arms turned into this fellow below...His name is Jukali short for jua kali or fierce sun.

In the next day or two I should have these socks turned into new sock puppets. They need felt in their mouth, eyes and hair. Then they will each need to go through their own personal photo shoot and interview before being listed in the Etsy shop for sale. And when I say interview, I only ask them what their name is.

I also created a new listing for custom Chura Puppets. My production is not exactly up to speed, you know, with two kids, babysitting a baby and maintaining a house, I'm not exactly sure what my "speed" should be. I'm still learning that part of this new business. Should my goal be six new Chura Puppets a week? Is that pushing it? Or should I aim for just one or two? Today I listed two making my average one a week for the year. (haha...there's only been two weeks in this year so far.) I don't see that as good. We shall see....

Next up...my creative story process and how I came up with "the other end of the rainbow."

Bbbrrrrr!!! and New Etsy Items!

It's a whopping 9 degrees outside!! Yikeeess! Good thing todays plan is to stay in a sew some Christmas gifts! Yesterday I completed two dog coats, they're so quick and easy! I'll have pics soon. Today I need to squeeze in two more dogs coats, two pairs of kids pants, some more button pics and hopefully a crocheted amigurumi elephant, a pattern I got from Roman Sock's blog. She has THE CUTEST little animals to crochet on her site! I've already made the elephant for my friends youngest for his first birthday. This time I'm making the little elephant for another friends two-year-old. The only change I make is that I sew on black yarn eyes instead of adding the black plastic ones, just for saftey sake. :)

New vintage buttons have been listed in our Etsy shop! This time I added clear crystaly ones and red/green/white ones that reminded me of ice and snow and Christmas! I haven't crafted anything for our Etsy shop yet, I have ideas swarming a plenty...but right now I'm focusing my crafting on gift making. Which is a bummer, because right now is probably the time to list items for people to buy for Christmas. I'll rely on my mom and aunt to add the crafty items. Maybe when I finally put those ideas into production, I'll start up my own Etsy shop with them in it. I don't know....I'm so torn between so many ideas and really, I should be listing things that all tie in together, creating a "niche" like the Etsy Seller Handbook recommends. What to do...what to do...

Fabric and more Fabric

I finally got items listed on Etsy! Yeay! I've been watching the number of views slowly increase, which brings a little hope that the items I listed will be wanted by someone! I've also almost fully recovered from Thanksgiving. We Thanksgiving at our house for the first time with just the in-laws. Small crowd, which is perfectly fine to me cuz of the small house. It was nice to not travel this year. We also spent the last day and a half out shopping. Never done that before either. That was CRAZINESS! Jo-Ann's Fabrics was the busiest! It was so crowded in there! I got fabric number 92, when I arrived they were on number 34. By the time we left (about 45 minutes later) they were only on number 49, so I gave up on my hunt for fabric. I figured I would have to wait two more hours or so just to get fabric cut. Instead, we stopped at two new quilt shops that popped up within the past year. One carries just Amy Butler patterns and fabrics. That shop was SO COOL to walk into! It's so exciting to see a quilt store carry those fabrics in this town! The other one carries a line of fabric call London Cats or something like that. They are the RICHEST plum color I have ever seen in quilt fabrics! I ended up spending the rest of my birthday money on many, MANY different patterns from the collection. I'll have to take a pic and post it soon. They are just awesome! Now I just have to figure out what to make with it.