TRADE5 $5 sale

today (sept 18) thru sunday (sept 20) the trade-a-holics team is having a $5 sale!

just search etsy for the term "TRADE5" to see all the stuff we have marked down for just $5!

here are just some of the lovely items on sale now in my shop:





and there's more - check it out before the sale is over!

♥E

Thirsty Thursday

tonight we're headed to a baseball game and the theme is "thirsty thursday". in this spirit, here are some great etsy finds:

Drinking Glass beer Bottles, Rolling Rock Recycled Glassblowing, Eco Friendly by nickpaul

Let's Drink Fill In Invitations by tuccipaperco


Coca Cola, Pepsi, Soda Pop Bottlecap Images by beffyfaye


"I love beer" pillow by sewhome


Colorful Bottles - 5x7 Fine Art Photograph Print by YSLstudio


Mojito Cold Process Soap SALE ONE DOLLAR OFF by SpiralTreeSoap

yep, some good stuff here. tonight is gonna be fun, and i am glad tomorrow is a day off :)

♥E

remember that To Do List?

the Toot Sweet relaunch is coming, and no one is more excited that yours truly! so remember that list of stuff i had to do before i could relaunch? let me jog that memory of you (teal=completed with notes, pink=still need to get to that):

♥ 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.
→ Done and Done. see the results here and here. (the second link is to a listing that includes a pic of the inside of the bag. i did this with all of my bags.)

♥ order new business cards with my new motif
→ Done! check out my new motif on the banner at the top of my blog, and if you bump into me on the street (or purchase from me) you'll get to see how the business card turned out! (thanks to HappyDayGraphics for designing my new motif!)

♥ go thru my whole sewing room and organize, label, purge old stuff
→ Done! i should have taken before shots, because if i post after shots now, they are pretty meaningless, but nonetheless here's a rundown of what i did: donated all fabrics i will not use, sorted all notions into bins, labeled everything, switched my full-sized ironing board for an over-door model (clears a huge area in the room!), and reorganized inventory.

♥ 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!!
→ Done! check out my shop to cash in on this!

♥ 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!
→ Done! check it out here.

and here's a few more i thought of:

♥ design care instructions, shipping labels, order forms, and coupons and have printed.

♥ get all books in order. this will be a big task!

alright, looks like i have the rest of my work cut out for me!

♥E

Handmade Wedding Part II: Bridesmaid gifts!

so it's time for my next edition of my diy wedding - bridesmaid gifts!

of course, a gift made with my hands is much more from my own heart than something bought from a store. now, this may not be the case for you, but my friends know me well enough that it would have been weird for them to receive a gift that wasn't handmade (they have gotten many over the years, some a little too "creative" to be considered cool).

i decided to go a somewhat trendy route and made each of them a "wedding day survival kit". it consisted of:

a heart-felt thank you note :)
1 large tote beach bag (that i embellished with each girl's monogram)
1 bottle of watter
1 back of chips
1 granola bar
1 "airplane bottle" of their fave spirit
1 pair of flip flops
1 handmade makeup bag, containing: mouthwash, lip gloss, hand sanitizer, Q-tips, safety pins, bobbie pins, and lotion


i made each girl the make up bag in a color/pattern scheme that i knew they would love. i even made my friend P's with a remnant from the skirt i had made for when i stood in her wedding. ::tear::


the girls loved these, and i loved that i could give them something that i made with love :)

♥E

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

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

my top three simple sewing tips

as i was sewing last night, i realized that i have really evolved as a seamstess over the years. of course there are areas where i can improve, but otherwise, being mostly self-taught, i realized that there are three basic things that all sewers need to know.

here are my top three simple tips for making sewing easier:


1) press your fabric. no, don't iron it! ironing is a back and forth motion, pressing is laying or folding the fabric how you want it, and then laying the iron on it for a few seconds. by running the iron back and forth (ironing), you will push and pull the fabric with the iron, causing your fabric to deform from how you laid it. by pressing your fabric, especially the folds and pleats, you will have a much easier time sewing along them, and won't have to use as many pins...


2)...which brings me to pinning your fabric. i think that many sewers find pinning to be overrated. pin everything! it keeps all the layers of fabric together, straight, and avoids shifting under the presser-foot. remember to remove each pin as you come towards it with the needle, lest you hit it with the needle: this can cause the pin to bend and (worse) the needle to break. sometimes, when i am using a very large width stitch, i will sew carefully over the pins...


3) ...and when would i use a very large width stitch? if you like pleats and layers, the best thing to do is to baste them in place. the word "basting" takes me back to when i would read the little house on the prairie books, when the ingalls girls would baste by hand then hand off the garment to their mother to machine-sew. nowadays, many machines have a basting stitch that is simply a very wide width stitch that can be set to a loose tension. the concept is to first press and pin your garment, then baste the garment along a pleated area or area that has many layers. this way as you work with it more, it will already have that area set in place, regardless of what your future steps are for the rest of the garment. just keep in mind that basting is not for seams!

well i hope this helped and did not confuse! remember : press, pin, baste!

now, go get sewing!

♥E

Craft Show Preparation

it's time to really kick it in gear for the craft show on april 25th!

i figured out today that i have 13 evenings and 2 full days available until the show to sew and get everything else (signs, pricing, gather displays, etc) ready for the show. the good thing is that i made my lists:
"still need to sew"
"still need to do"
"still need to buy"
"what to bring"
hopefully being organized will help me "keep calm and carry on" instead of "now panic and freak out"!

fortunately, i have a wonderful friend (i just typed "wonderfriend", so from now on she will be known as my wonderfriend!), who i have mentioned before, named Diana, that was a real trooper this weekend and helped me fill in many holes on my "still need to buy list". it was mostly items for the display, and i dragged her all over town saturday morning to countless yard sales, 3 thrift shops, the dollar store, and finally to Joann fabrics. she was then rewarded with a nap, while i was rewarded with a large iced coffee and an afternoon of sewing :)

back to the lists: i've organized it all in excel, with a place for a checkmark as i buy stuff and as we pack up the car the night before the show. here's a taste:

as you can see, i have 2 sub-"kits" that i have deemed the "oh sh*t" kit (lest something go horribly wrong, like rain-arg!), and the "cash kit" (for all of the business-y type stuff, plus the cash).

now all i have to do is get to sewing! yarg! :D

♥E