Don't MONKEY around!!!!

In my quest to expand my zoo – I have just finished my monkey baby security blanket.  This little monkey features lovely textured brown minky fabric, a felt face and tail, and is full customizable, as you get to choose what color satin you want.   Buy him exclusively here – http://www.etsy.com/shop/BBsForBabies

Spring time is here

Spring is one of my favorite season, as I get to see my garden come back to life.   All those beautiful little green sprouts pushing through the ground brings such excitement.

Here are some of my favorite ETSY spring inspired items.

I love this poppy pendant.   When I lived in California the hills came to life with bright and beautiful poppies and they will always be one of my favorite flowers.  LittleGreenRoom has crafted this beautifully designed Poppy



You cannot have spring without in-visioning beautiful yellow daffodils – and I am in love with this Yellow Daffodil Bookmark.  This is incredibly well crafted and looks lovely sticking out of  a book!


Love purple in the garden, well love it on your jacket too with this lovely Spring Blossom Brooch!  This blossom brooch is upcycled from vintage jewelry! 

New Product!

In my quest to make new products for my shop - I always look to the toys and items that my children presently have. I look at the items they love and how they play with them, and the items the hate and don't. I am always trying to improve the designs of those things that they cherish the most, making them more durable, cuter, more lovable.

This latest design is inspired from a cute bag I bought for my daughter a year ago. It is an adorable bag, but is too big for a little girl to lug around. Additionally her flawed bag did not have a flat bottom so she was always struggling to fit things in it. I got fed-up watching her try to shove her baby doll in that bag. Thus my new product was born. This bag is designed to allow for deep storage - that baby doll fits just fine. It is flat bottomed so it doesn't fall over when filling it, and it's long and thin so it can carry a lot but it is not so heavy that a little one cannot pick it up.

I designed the pony - which my daughter is into now, using my tablet, then converting it to an embroidery file. I put a little purple flower in it's mouth to give the bag some dimension. I have a monkey that I'm going to do in the coming weeks, but I yet to convert that file to an embroidery design.

view it here - http://www.bbsforbabies.etsy.com

Friday After St. Patrick's Day

Having a good Irish last name, St. Patrick’s day was never forgotten in my household growing up and is never forgotten in my own home with my children.  This year, due to a crazy working schedule, I could not cook my favorite buttermilk soda bread or the traditional American St. Patty’s day feast of Corn beef and Cabbage.  Therefore my St. Patty’s day got post poned a couple days to today.  Since it is Friday and I LOVE to blog about fun ETSY items, I figured I’d make it all about St. Patrick’s day today.

This first item I just love.  It’s a Felt I-phone case featuring an adorable four leaf clover.  Entirely hand-sewn this beauty will fit any gadget.
Check out these fantastic lucky clover hoops from Twisted Designs.  This design is truly unique and is causal enough to fit with any outfit, on any day (not just St. Patrick’s day).
And lastly, enjoy some Guiness, the cure for all ails, but instead of drinking it, scrub with it.  I love this soap made with this very famous stout beer.

Just in Time for Easter

I have been wanting to add a cute little bunny rabbit to my list of BB blankets in my ETSY shop. I’ve had the pattern done for awhile, but it always got pushed to back burner. Finally just in time for Easter, I finished my first one, soon to be followed by a second one in yellow.
Made with the ever popular MINKY fabric, this little bunny will look adorable Sunday morning in your child’s Easter basket. The front of the Rabbit is an adorable cotton print, little bunnies hiding behind tulips and Easter eggs. I’ve embroidered Easter across the little bunny’s ear and tied a cute carrot/bunny themed ribbon around it’s neck.  You can view this Item here http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42526248

Cyber WEEK Promtion

I am pulling out all stops for Cyber Monday and turning it into Cyber Week for my ETSY shop. I am super excited about this.

My first promotion is FREE SHIPPING on all items.

My second promotion is giving away these lovely created Holiday candles with any purchase from my shop. The present on the front is a box of matches!

My shop is - http://ping.fm/XZddS

I have a great many Christmas decorations on my site now as this will continue to grow throughout the week - http://ping.fm/iuYVn?section_id=6508217 

 And as always my loveable animal security blankets: http://ping.fm/00MYA?section_id=6345276

Helpful ETSY ideas for New Sellers

So being a new ETSY seller myself and after spending many, many, many hours pouring through the forums and resources on the ETSY website, I decided to go straight to some successful sellers and ask them what there best advice if for new members.
Jack-pot – What a gold mine of great information – all of which I happy share with you!  This forum can be read at http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6288809 or you can just read below and continue to check back under the “ETSY help and Support” Category.
skybluedesigns2 gave some fantastic information about having GREAT photos, to really capture the viewer.   The viewer assumes if you have great photos you MUST have great stuff.  Make sure you use all 5 slots, front, back, inside, outside, bottom, top.  I know with me I always have way more photos then slots for.  skybluedesigns2 also indicated that you must give your location, as people like to know where they are buying from.  I know that when I look for items to purchase, I always go through the items in my home region first, as I like to support the local community.    skybluedesigns2 also suggests to use all 14 tags.  I know this can sometimes be hard.  If I cannot think of more tags for my items I’ll usually search for something similar on ETSY to see what tags they used.
Athenianaire says to get business cards.  I personally just ordered some from VistaPrint, as they are always running promotions for free cards.  All you have to pay is shipping and handling, assuming you do not want to upload your own logo or get too fancy.  But they have a great selection.  And carry them on you at all times.  The other day I was at the fabric store and the lady next to me started chatting with me about making blankets.  Little did she know just how many I make!  I offered my advice as best I could and helped her with fabric selection but kicked myself that I did not have a business card on me to give to her.  That’s the last time I’ve been without them.
AnnaArtiste gives the advice to re-list a few items daily, a couple in the morning and a couple in the evening.  I had no idea about re-listing until just recently and now I see that everyone does it.  How can anyone get along with out it.
More to come…
But if you have ideas about helping new sellers on ETSY, please comments below or hit the thread at the above given link.

Great Etsy Tips for Increasing your Traffic

I am absolutely obsessed with promoting my shop. I have pages on facebook, twitter, blogger... I'm using twitterfeed, google base, youtube.... style, fashion, handmade, networks... and this is just tip of the iceberg. I am being patience and praying that some of my handwork will pay off. As you can see - http://ping.fm/hVuib - I haven't really been successful. But this is just the beginning.

Anyway I found some great resources along the way that I wanted to share to to other who may be looking to promote their site too:

http://ping.fm/5m9Cu -- this resource is AWESOME! This give the shop hopeful some unconventional tips and sites that will allow you to build your online community.

http://ping.fm/nu7dR - This is actually the blog of person who sells an online marketing package for Etsy. However their blog is wealth of information and it is now a daily stop on my road to increasing my view/hearts/sales.

http://ping.fm/ICrsq - Indiepublic is an independent art and design community. This is a fantastic resource to get feedback, tips, ideas, etc. on your site and/or your products. I have just been a member for a couple days now, but I already love it.

I will continue to post good resources on this blog as I find them. comment or email me if you have any other great ideas on how to promote your Etsy site!

To Rip or Cut?

During the process of making blankets, which are generally square, the repetitive action of cutting little squares over and over becomes tedious.  There’s got to be a better way.  Consider the rip!  Although many talented quilters would probably cringe at the idea of ripping fabrics, as they love the careful precision of neat little triangles and squares.  I think my life better parallels the quick and dirt rip method.  Grab that piece of satin and rip to your heart content.  I work with satins quite a lot and they tear wonderfully!  Good cottons will keep their line too.   So embrace the rip!

The rebirth

In 7th grade Mrs. April called me super woman for threading my sewing machine needle backwards at my first ever attempt. There was nothing super about it, just a 12 year old over thinking the process. I loved that home economics class. I don’t even know if present day Jr. High and High schools still have the same sort of classes. Always geared toward girls, sewing (certainly my favorite aspect of the class) should be a pre requisite for all boys and girls alike (that’ll be another post).

Mrs. April gave us the creative license to generate whatever sewing projects we wanted. Some girls took on clothes, pillows, quilts… But I was very fond of designing my own patterns and producing adorable stuff animals.

Years later schooling, a professional career, usurped any creative energy that I had years previous. Desperate to regain that bug, I started sewing again, but what to sew? I came back to my creative roots and started generating homemade patterns of adorable animals. Having young children of my own, I catered those projects to my little ones.
The purpose of this blog is to showcase those items while creating a resource/inspiration for other to again go through their own rebirth, or try something new.