Ideas for heart embellishments

Hi everyone! I just wanted to share this cute collage of images I made with ideas on how to use some of the heart embellishments that are for available on my website.  Valentine’s Day is nearing and these are cute ideas for the upcoming holiday!

Etsy Christmas Rush--So far so good & Announcement of Upcoming Items

Hello! I haven’t been around lately to fill the pages of my blog; however, I have a good excuse. I’ve been working hard on making new items for my website, shipping holiday items, and marketing my products. My holiday rush turnout was great, and yes I may not have had a huge amount of sales but it’s a start! I do feel that I have learned my lesson and next year I think I’ll be ready for the Christmas rush 3 months in advance. Here are a few of the items that I sold for the holiday rush—and I’m so proud.

Today I finished shipping may last custom order for this week (or maybe the last custom order for Christmas, we’ll see), so I started cutting fabric to make some more point-n-shoot camera cases in the meantime. I couldn’t believe how fast the first four I made sold out! Therefore, I have 10 more in the making.  One of the cases I’m working is going to be a surprise. You see, I took a picture of the camera cases that I’m working for my FB fans—showing all the fabrics and everything. But, I left one out. It’s a secret fabric and I know it’s going to be a hit! Or at least I hope it’s a hit—sometimes I have these visions of things in my head and then when I make them, they don’t work out, so let’s hope it does.

Moving forward, after I’m done with these cases I’ll begin to work on my Valentine’s Day collection. I’ve learned from my past mistakes, as mentioned before, and I’ll be ready for Valentine’s Day for sure. I have a list of items I want to make, and they are as follows (all V-day themed of course):

·         Tags

·         Cards

·         Gift card holders

·         Pouches

·         DIY cupcake kits

·         Cupcake toppers

·         And I guess whatever else I come up with after that

But rest assured I will share my ideas, and maybe even create some cute V-day themed tutorials with you all! I can’t wait. Ugh, I love holidays!

Tissue Paper Pom-Pom Tip for Hosts’ and Party Planners’

Hello! Today I wanted to share this cool tip for party planners and decorators. Last year I was the host of a baby shower, and one of the many tasks’ of a being a host is to ensure that there’s a lot of eye candy for the mother to be and guests; and one of the cute decorations I made was the popular tissue paper pom-poms. Now, this was the first big party I was in charge of arranging so I knew little to nothing about what it would take to pull it off. However, I managed to do a great job planning this bumble bee themed party regardless of my poor party planning qualifications’. After the party I did notice a few things that prevented me from a smooth decor set up, and I said to myself, “What could I have done differently?” Then a few months later, while preparing for another party, I came up with a little invention that turned out to be such a time saver!

One thing I never came across while viewing many tissue paper pom-pom tutorials was how much of a hassle it would be to hang the pom-poms after you’ve made one. I’m sure some may think common sense should have played a role in my pom-pom making and I should have thought ahead about it--but I didn’t. It didn’t even cross my mind until I was ready to hang them and it took me so long to string each pom-pom up. However, now I have an easy way to prepare my pom-poms way in advance and have them ready to for a quick hang-up.

What you’ll need: A thick marker, floral wire, and wire cutters.

Next, go ahead and cut a piece of wire at the desired length (I usually do about 15 inches).

Then wrap the wire around the marker like so:

Then give it a few twists’.

Remove the marker: and what you’re left with is a perfect circle big enough to fit any size string or ribbon.

Next, wrap the two open wire pieces around the pom-pom like so:

Remove the access.

And there you have it! A pom-pom that’s finished and ready to be stored away for the big event. What I usually do is make about 20-30 of these extremely in advance, and decide later whether I’m using fishing string or thick ribbon to hang them. It may not seem like the perfect invention but I’m telling you—it saves me so much time.

Making Flyers for your Etsy Page using Microsoft Paint & Photoshop

Lately I’ve been having some trouble getting traffic on my new website, and I decided to revert to a traditional way of spreading the word about my website—flyers! I’m not a professional when it comes to making flyers; therefore, I used the only tools I had on my computer to create a clean, simple, and organized flyer using Microsoft Paint & Photoshop. Now, I’m sure I could have done the entire flyer on Paint, but I used Photoshop to arrange all my text and images because their features are a bit more convenient. 

If you take a look at the flyer I’ve created you’ll notice I used my Etsy images—titles, prices, and all. Some of you may be wondering how I did that, and others might already know exactly what I did. Well, I took full advantage of my ‘Print Screen’ key (located on my keyboard), and became best friends with it. Here’s how I did it:

Go to your Etsy page, and use your ‘Featured Items’. They are all in a perfectly aligned row, and they would make for a great banner! To do this: press your ‘Print Screen’ or Prt Scr’ key. Next click your ‘Start’ button—located on the bottom left hand side of your screen.  Then click, ‘All Programs’, then click ‘Accessories’ and lastly go ahead and click on your ‘Paint’ program.

Once the program is ready to go, click on ‘edit’, and then click ‘Paste’. You should see a print screen of your entire screen.

Now all you need to do is crop the image you would like to use. To do this: simply click on the crop feature.

Then crop the image you would like to use.

Once you have cropped the desired image right click on that cropped image—then click ‘cut’. Next, you’ll want to is get  cropped image by itself; and what I do is click ‘File’, then ‘New’ (when it asks’ if I want to save I click ‘no’). Next, click ‘edit’ once again, and then click ‘Paste’. At this point only the image you’ve selected and cropped should appear. Then you can save and repeat for all the other images. Lastly, when all the images you need for your flyer have been saved you can use Photoshop to arrange all your images and text. Also remember to start with a new file that is the same exact size as standard printing paper (8 ½” x 11”).

What I also like to do is keep my Facebook fans up to date on what is going on with my website, and any time one of the items in my website is treasured I’ll share that treasury image with them on my page. The ‘prt Scr’ button works so well for sharing treasuries on websites:

I hope that this brief tutorial has inspired you to create your own flyers. I would advise taking some time out of your busy day to familiarize yourself with these basic programs. When running your own business it’s an added bonus to be able to do these types of things for yourself—in order to save some money.

Welcome to my Blog

Hello! My name is Nicole, and I’m an avid crafter. I love learning new crafts, and sharing my tips, tricks, and ideas with those who’d like learn them. I created this blog in hopes that I can help and inspire beginning crafters. Always remember it’s never too late to start crafting. I insist that everyone is good at something, and when people tell me they’re not creative I say, "creativity is in everyone". I get excited when people ask me questions about crafting, and I’d love to help anyone who wishes to learn what I know about crafting as well.

Thanks for visiting and I hope to gain some new crafty friends!