Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Handmade Wedding Part I: hankies!

ok, here it is, my first post about my semi-handmade wedding! with a glue-gun and sewing machine, i was able to make it something truly unique!

Handmade Wedding I: Hankies!
so as you know, i had my dress made for me by a wonderfully talented seamstress in indianapolis, sarah barrett. she had quite a bit of remnants leftover from the dress that she sent along to me, since she knows i sew. all in all there was the ivory silk for the main part of the dress, the silk lining, and the lacey beaded trim.

my dad says to me, "you could make a matching purse out of this for the wedding!"

good plan, daddy-o! except that i was going with a gold vintage theme, and had a (yes, you guessed it) gold vintage purse to carry that day.
SOOO...i decided to make...hankies! for my parents, jamie's parents, and both of us (counting...2...4...5,6..yep that's 6!). i set up a little assembly line and got stitchin'!
All lined up and ready to go:

i cut a 8x8 inch square of both the main silk and the liner, and sligned them right-sides-together. then i added a 3inch piece of trim diagonally across one of the corners, between the main silk and the liner. pin in place!
then i sewed all around the perimeter of the hankie, leaving about an inch opening. be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end (around the inch opening). it makes turing the hankie a lot easier.

after i turned each, i pressed each one flat (not ironed! what's the difference?).

after pressing each hankie, i returned to the machine and again sewed around the perimeter, carefully tucking the 1-inch opening inside, closing off the hankie.


(like my ring? there's a wedding band with it there now :)

back on track - when the whole perimeter was stiched, i snipped threads and ta-da!


look how pretty that is, eh? so i folded them up and packed them real pretty-like into thier own boxes, with pretty little ribbons. (of couse i neglected to photograph this part, but just imagine...)

i pinned mine to the handle of my bouquet like so:


happy sewing!

♥E

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Toot Sweet Re-Launch is coming...

i've decided to re-launch my shop on etsy! how exciting, right? i'm moving towards more of a design-your-own-bag type of shop, with add-ons and customizations. i am going to offer my best-selling designs, and YOU will be able to customize each to your liking!!

so here we go - new beginning, new start, new list of things to do!

♥ make a new lightbox - bigger, better, more kitten-proof! i'm thinking either one like this or like this. then take new pics of the inside of my bags.

♥ order new business cards with my new motif

♥ go thru my whole sewing room and organize, label, purge old stuff

♥ promote! advertise in local coffee shops and businesses, plus post on other etsians' blogs. and tweet tweet!

♥ revamp the format of my listings and tags and the way i list items - i'm thinking database

♥ offer free shipping!! woo hooo!!

♥ photo-swatch each of my available fabrics and upload to my flickr.com fabric site- this will make choosing fabrics for custom bags super-easy!


i'm sure there is more, but this is quite the list, eh? so visit back and i'll let you know how i'm doing, while posting about some fun projects along the way :)

♥E


Monday, July 27, 2009

I'm Baaaaack!!

helllooo!!

well. i've been gone for awhile, and it seems quite unexpectedly, but let me tell what i did in my hiatus:

i got married!! yep, that's us below:



we've gone on our honeymoon and written our thank you notes. now it's back to real life ;)

i'll probably be blogging a bit about the wedding so there will be a few crafty/sewing wedding related posts up here coming soon. hope you like and enjoy!

♥E