July marks the first month of owning an Etsy shop!
Click here or ‘Shop’ at the top of this page to see items for sale and/or visit my Etsy shop.
After the craft festival later this year, I’ll add more items to my shop. For now, though, the large majority of items I make have to be saved for the festival.
Any tips on being a successful Etsy shop owner?
Recently, I began selling some of my crafts at a local store. I’m so excited! I hope to have an Etsy shop soon…we’ll see. Be sure to check back in the coming weeks to see if I’ve opened one :). Below are some of the items I took to the local store – chalkboards, chicken wire frames, earring and necklace holders, and ‘I love you because…’ dry erase frames.
Here are some other items I’ve made…
Do you have any business tips for me???
My dad and I are selling crafts at a festival later this year. Here is one item I plan to sell (if I don’t end up keeping it for my own house :)).
Simply staple chicken wire to a picture frame. The frame I used was about 24×21 inches from outer edge to outer edge. I did spray paint the picture frame first – I didn’t like the wood color it was originally, so I used a silvery colored spray paint. When I was finished, it looked too bland, so I added the fabric flowers.
This makes a great picture frame, as it allows you to quickly and easily switch out pictures as often as you like. You could also use it as a place to leave messages, love notes, lists of chores…the possibilities are endless :)!
I will definitely be making more of these.
Happy framing!
My dad and I are participating (for the first time!) in a craft festival. We were just approved today to have our own craft booth. I’m so excited :)! Our main items for sale are upcycled windows and frames. So, my task this summer is to rummage for items we can use for crafting.
On my first major rummaging adventure last weekend, I found a gold mine of old windows. I bought 9 of them for $33.00 (that’s just $3.67 each).
Here is one window I created and plan to sell at the festival. The problem – I have no idea how much to ask for it :/.
Below are step-by-step instructions, along with pictures of the process. Continue reading
This post from Girl Loves Glam was a great step-by-step guide for making fabric flowers. You only need a few supplies, most of which you likely have on hand – fabric, a hot glue gun, some type of circle to trace, a pen or marker, scissors, and a straight pin (optional).
I made two sizes of flowers and used three different fabrics. For the bigger flower, I used a yellow fabric and burlap. For the smaller flowers, I used the same yellow fabric and a white fabric. These flowers were used to add a little interest to the chicken wire frame I made (post coming soon – UPDATE: Here it is.).
These are two of the fabrics I used (burlap not pictured).
Our linen closet has been a mess for quite a while now. It houses all our extra sheets, pillow cases, blankets, towels, and random household items like pillows, light bulbs, toilet paper, paper towels, games, etc. The unorganized sheets were bothering me the most.
While trying to decide how to organize the closet, I remembered there was a box tucked away in our basement, labeled “plastic zipper bags.” This was just what I needed to organize our sheets (sometimes it pays to be a bit of a pack rat :)).
Now, every sheet set and pillow case has a labeled home. I also need to label the sides so I can easily see what’s in each bag without pulling it off the shelf. I’ll do that one of these days. I’d also like to make the labels a little more stylish – I’ll do that one of these days, too.
Oh, I also put a nail in the closet to hold our floor cleaner (you can see that in the first picture). That worked out well.
I didn’t think to take a before picture, but here’s the after:
How have you organized your closets?
![DSC01023[1]](http://savvyexpression.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dsc010231.jpg)
Our Memory Jar
(It still needs a little pizzazz, I know. I’ll do that eventually.)
My husband and I plan to fill our jar with notes of events (happy, sad, big, small, funny, odd, significant, seemingly insignificant, etc.) that happen throughout this year. Two ‘memories’ are in the jar already – yay!
At the end of the year, after reading all the entries, I plan to put them in a scrapbook. I can’t wait! This will be a good way for us to recap the year and see how the Lord has blessed us, guided us, and strengthened us along the way.
It’s not too late to start your own memory jar, so get goin’ already :).
For 3 ½ years now, the large accent wall in our living room has been scantily decorated with our wedding picture. The wall needed something else (I’ve known that for 3 ½ years), but, until recently, I just wasn’t sure what.
I decided to put wedding photos of our parents and grandparents below ours. We couldn’t find wedding pictures for some of them, so we used what we could find. I was so pleased with the result – I love the history. It makes me smile :).
Here’s the before:
Before
(I actually forgot to take a before picture, so I went digging through my computer for an old photo.)
Our Christmas tree has been up since just after Thanksgiving. Last year, my husband had the bright idea (seriously) of storing the tree, fully decorated and intact, in our basement. It took literally 3 minutes for us to ‘trim the tree’ this year – how convenient!
The rest of our house; however, was lacking the Christmas spirit. This weekend, my husband and I finally had time to do a little more decorating. Using sticks I spray painted from our yard, unused treasures in our basement, and some items from Wal-Mart, we decorated our mantel (all while listening to Christmas music). The hubby even helped! He’s such a wonderful husband :).
Though we enjoy Christmas lights, decorations, gifts, and time with family, this is not the TRUE reason for the season. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior’s birth. Let us not lose our focus – Jesus is the reason for the season!
(You’ll see a window picture frame in the pictures below. Click here to see the post about that project.)
Continue reading
Today I finished the second bulletin board I began on the same day I completed this similar project.
My husband and I needed a place to put our lists – shopping lists, grocery lists, to-do lists, etc. Here was my solution:
