Christmas Pics

Ok.  I've climbed down off of my high horse and finished ranting.
So, I thought I'd share a couple of Christmas pics with you. 

Coming soon - pics of my repainted living room and my new sewing room.

 My newly repainted mantle, decorated with our Christmas stockings.

My sweet son and his sweet dog, Ben and Mac - Christmas 2011.

Now, back to sewing and crafting. 

Customer Service

I have read a lot about poor customer service on the Internet lately.  Large sites who have arbitrary rules that their employees don't seem to understand or know how to follow.  Small sellers, such as etsy sellers, who can't even seem to say "thank you" to their customers, let alone actually send a packing slip or business card with an order.

I've actually written a long rambling rant that I was going to post on my blog but I just don't have the energy to finish it.  But I will share what really got me to thinking about customer service. 
It was this line that one of my dear customers left in my feedback:

"Oh so lovely, received super fast, with a thank you note!!"

This wonderful person, who supports handmade and who has made quite a few purchases on etsy, made a point of saying how wonderful it was to get a thank you note with her purchase.  This leads me to believe that she hasn't gotten very many thank you notes which makes me very sad.

I've shopped on etsy for years and have loved most of my purchases.  But the ones I love best are the ones who at least say thank you.  It's such a small thing but it makes such a BIG difference.  Maybe even the difference on whether or not you'll get future sales.

Maybe we've forgotten what we learned as children and what we all strive to teach our children?
The three most important words are Please and Thank You.

Thoughts?

12 Days of Christmas Treats

Last Christmas, I did this blog post for the EtsyMom Team showing how to make a 12 Days of Christmas Treat banner. 
This year I wanted to do something a little bit different.  Mainly because I didn't have any place to hang the treat banner from last year that was easily accessible to me.  My son could easily access it anywhere as he is now a giant.  But since I stopped growing 30 years ago, I can only reach so high without dragging out the step ladder.

I decided to make a treat sac that I could hang on his doorknob.  It's bigger than the treat sacs from last year, so I could get bulkier items in it.

 I started with 2 rectangles of cute Christmas fabric - I think it was about 9 x 6 inches.  And a strip that was long enough to go all the way around the top.  I sewed the 2 rectangles together, right sides facing and then pressed the seams open.  Next, I put a button hole horizontally in the strip so that I could pull a cord through the top.  Pin the strip of fabric all the way around the top of the sac.  I folded mine in half and ironed it first so that I would know where the top would be.

 Once, you get it all pinned, sew it up.  I then folded the strip it half at the iron line and sewed it down on the inside of the bag.  I also did another seam around the top edge of the bag.  Then I threaded my cord through the top using a big ol' safety pin.  I tied knots to try to keep it from fraying or getting lost back inside the bag.

 Then, I hand stitched my son's initial, "B", on the front of the sac.  I used felt and embroidery thread.

 Now, all I have to do is put a treat inside and pull the cord closed. 
I did 12 days of Christmas treats, so I started on the 13th of December.  Some treats were really small like a ring pop, or box of jelly beans.  A few were larger items like the Nintendo Power magazine he likes to read.  In all, I spent about $25 on treats for his sac.  This doesn't include gifts or stocking presents for Christmas.

I know it makes it seem like he's spoiled rotten, but he's such a good kid.  He makes straight A's in school, he's so laid back and sweet.  I just wanted to do something extra.  Plus it helps him to get excited about Christmas.
So, I don't care if it seems like I'm spoiling him.  He's my only baby and he's growing up so fast.  I want to treat him special for as long as I can.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

Short post to start catching up

Ok, I'm trying to catch up on all the blog posts that I haven't made in the past month.  So here we go.

About 3 weeks ago, I got a big pile of fabric in the mail.  I LOVE fabric order days!  Expect to see new aprons coming soon in my Handmade Whimzy shop.  Some of this fabric is scrumcious!

Also, a couple of weeks ago, my sweet hubby talked me into getting a tablet.  One of the back problems I have manifests itself in my shoulder and using my laptop really irritates it.  So, he researched all the different tablets out there and made me go look at all of them until they all just looked the same to me.  I liked the bigger screen size because I'm blind as a bat.  We finally decided to go with the Toshiba Thrive.  It has a full size USB port that I can hook my printer into, or my camera or anything else with a USB port.  This is unlike the Apple Ipad which has Apple specific ports only. 

I really like it so far.  I'm able to surf the internet and do other stuff that I haven't been able to do for awhile without alot of pain.

So thanks to my sweet sweety for thinking of it. :)

Christmas Stockings

I've been busy lately with custom orders for Christmas Stockings.  Specifically, quilted elf stockings.
I love making them but I finally just got overwhelmed and had to deactivate the listings.

I'm hoping to have some time this next week to work on more aprons and also some "ready to ship" Christmas stockings.

Anyhoo, here are some pics of some of the custom ones.  They've all turned out so cute!

Meanwhile, my hubby is on vacation this week and is helping me finish the painting in my living room.  I hope to have it done this weekend so we can start decorating for Christmas.
I'll be sure to post pics when we're finished. 

Veteran's Day

To all those who have served our country and who continue to serve, thank you.

 The very poignant Korean War Memorial in Washington DC.



Tales from the Crypt

My son helped me decorate for Halloween this year.  He also answered the door every single ring.  Of course, he did it by running up to the door and slamming into it and acting like a monster.  He scared some of the little kids really good.  One kid was shaking so bad he could hardly hold onto his candy sack. 

The older kids (8 and up) loved it though. 

The signs were my son's idea.

It was scarier at night with the lights and all.  Plus we have this skeleton head that is motion activated.  It wiggles it's eyes and makes this aweful noise.  We have it on the porch where people don't really notice it until it scares the crap out of them.   MWAAHAA