Wear it Proud

Craftermath

Tick Tock a’lockin

Not that I’m worried or anything but it’s T-22 days until Christmas. I haven’t bought anything yet. I haven’t made anything yet for my family either. I’ve been busy filling orders. Tons of orders for soap, vinyl, hats and cards.  I have 3 more craft shows to go for the year and about half dozen more hats to make in the next 2 weeks. I’m running a bit behind!

Here’s the latest hat I’ve made. I hemmed and hawed over whether I was going to knit it because sometimes knitting takes a bit but this hat worked up quite quickly. I love it. LOVE IT!

This is my oldest who kindly obliged to model it. My toddler refused! Although he loves his brother’s Minecraft hat.

Don’t mind his mess. He’s a very busy boy. In any case, he thinks this hat is great but no other!

In any case, while writing this post I just got another order for 2 bearded beanies. I’m a crafting machine!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving (those in the U.S.). We had turducken. It was amazing. I had some for lunch today. nom nom. Now, I need to get back to working my fingers to the bone! 

 

I…Must…Resist…

I’m on a spending lock down. *sigh* It’s my own fault. I bought something with my credit card, the credit card that I was supposed to be paying off and told my hubs that I was almost done doing so. Then I ran it up again. Now, let me just say, that when I run it up, by no means am I talking like oodles of money. Just a couple hundred. Although, some times a couple hundred is oodles. My intentions were to buy this machine as an investment and upgrade of the machine I had. In my mind, I am going to make all the money back with all my crafting and freelancing. I have made almost enough to pay off my card, Yay me!

However, now I can’t buy other things! Things I “need”. Like yarn. I do need yarn! How can I complete orders without getting more yarn for things that people want?! And then the hubs says don’t take orders for things I don’t have supplies on hand for. Which I partially agree with however, some things are just specialized that I don’t carry certain yarns. Such as this absolutely adorables owl hat I’m currently working on.

 

I don’t keep fluffy yarn around but after this little cutie is finished, I might have to! I had bought one skein and it was just a little too fluffy to work with so I bought something just a little less fluffy. And it is SOOO fluffy still! I feel like laying my head on this little cloud of a dream hat. Anyway, more about this little hat later! She’ll be done tomorrow!

Back to the craft supply embargo.

I have tons of supplies. I know this. I need to move some of this inventory but I’m a craft hoarder, I’m sure many of you understand this. When I started my crafting as a kid, never did I think I would have an entire bedroom devoted to my crafting whims, let alone have a husband who would understand such things. He does and yet he doesn’t. He sees that sometimes I spend with wonton abandon. I’m supposed to be making money. His solution is for me to stop spending every nickel that comes in and divide the proceeds. Some of it goes to the household purse and some (the smallest some) goes back into the crafting and my business. I like to think that I’m just reinvesting everything now for a bigger payoff later. Makes sense, right? Right!

So now, I need to justify all my spending and do it minimally. That means less visits to A.C. Moore’s, Michael’s and Joann’s. And less visiting ebay, amazon and other discount places. It doesn’t matter if I get things at a bargain. Sadness. It’s such a hard thing to do. I must resist the temptations! Have you ever fallen into this? How does one cope! And the holidays are coming up so I want to buy some awesome holiday things!  

ohhhh! I hate when I get myself in these jams.

 

Craftmanic Baby

Apparently last night someone wasn’t ready for bed and NEEDED to color and have a snack at 11:30 pm.

A pretty card

WIP

monkey monkey!

Late Nights to myself

I love when everyone is sleeping. I can think without interruption and get some mad craftin’ on! I’ve been particularly busy the last couple weeks trying to prepare the soap business for a craft show this weekend. I’m not quite prepared yet. There have been a few hitches. I didn’t check the size of the one product I’m labeling and the labels are way too big. I ruined a sheet of labels tonight because in my infinite wisdom I decided not to run a test print. I think I may never get spray adhesive off my glass dining room table even though I laid newspaper down. The 3M people really know their glue! I’m hoping vinegar or something is going to help that. And I still have more labeling to do. I’ll continue tomorrow night.

I’m quite excited for this show because I’ve given the packaging a facelift and introducing some new stuff. There’s the new perfume oil debuting in Lavender Patch, a very popular scent in soap and lotion. I’m not fond of licorice but I got some anise in for a new soap awhile back and now have Licorice lip balm. My little toddler terror seems to really like the licorice because he’s constantly sniffing the soap. I’m thinking his next lip balm will be the new stuff also. The other day I think he ate a tube of chocolate lip balm. He loves his lip balm. Thankfully, it’s all natural edible ingredients!

I’m still working on marketing materials other than the small informational brochure. If I get to it tomorrow, on my list is making vinyl decals. That’s a small start. I have a t-shirt design, I just need to get shirts and get a screen around to print. Keeping up with soap and lotion production is time intensive so getting to this other stuff just keeps getting pushed back; 

That’s okay though, I get the chance to have these wonderful late nights to myself. Craft on, mama. Craft on!