Stuff we did during Spring Break

Spring Break was the week of March 12-16th.  My son was out of school and my husband took the week off.
We stayed home most of the week and had a staycation.  YAY!  I hate spring break trips.  You're in a hurry to leave and a  hurry to get back.  Everything's rushed.

So here's some stuff we did (not rushed :)

I had my birthday on March 10th.

 We all worked in our backyard garden.  We weeded, planted and mulched.  All of the bushes and small plants on the left side of the flower bed are new.  We planted Nadina, Stella D'Oro day lillies, Red Asiatic lillies and white verbena.
So, now we have plants on the left side and right side but the middle is empty.  It's a work in progress.

 The red Asiatic Lillies.  They look orange in this picture but they are red in person.  Very pretty.

 We went to see a production of Young Frankenstien.

 We cleaned up the front porch and replanted containers that had died.

 Got some new fabric - the picture is horrible though.

More new fabric.  I'm working on some new aprons for my shop.

Also, we went to Dallas for the day and went to the Half Price book store, which is always a treat.  We also went to the Ikea store and ate at California Pizza Kitchen - Yumm!

It was a great spring break.  We spent alot of time together and that's always the best part.

Happy Birthday to Me

This past Saturday, March 10th was my 107th birthday.  At least, that's how old I feel.
My sweet family helped me celebrate.

My giant son (who's playing baseball in middle school!! I'm so proud of him!!)

Here are pics of my loot.

My hubby bought me some tulips - which are 1 of my 2 favorite flowers.  I put them in a low vase that would let them droop.  My hubby hates that.  So he tied them up with some ribbon from my presents.  Now they look like they're in bondage. :)

My cake - from a local bakery Chez Bazan - it's yummy AND pretty.

Who put all those stupid candles on my cake?  I wasn't too happy about those.

Anyhoo, the weather was rainy and stormy all day but  I appreciate my family helping me to celebrate.  We saved my birthday dinner until yesterday when the weather had cleared up.  Now, we're having warm temps with some wind and sunny/overcast skies.  Time for some yard work!

On a crafting level, I've ordered some fun new fabric (my addiction is getting worse) and I've completed 3 more half aprons which I will start listing today.  I'm cutting out 4 more aprons with the fun new fabric and hope to start working on them today.  What are you crafting on today?

Happy March 1st!

Hello all my fellow crafters!  Happy March 1st!

Isn't it wonderful?  Spring is almost here.  Actually, it's suppose to be 81 degrees where I live today, so YAY!  We've had a pretty mild winter but I'm still ready for it to be over.  Here's to hoping that this summer isn't 110 degrees everyday.

Anyhoo, in recent happenings, the team that I belong to, EtsyMoms, has an ongoing contest for treasury makers.  Team members are asked to make as many treasuries (featuring EtsyMoms) that they can in a one month period.  The top winners get to choose a prize given away by sponsoring shops.  I've won the award a couple of times, so I thought it was time that I gave back.

The winner who selected my prize was stayhomecupcake.  Her prize was a coin purse from my shop.  She chose the sleeping owl fabric for her little purse.  It came out super cute.

Check out stayhomecupcake's shop - she makes playfood for little ones as well as other fun goodies.  I love this pincushion:

She received her little purse yesterday and in her own words, "it is so stinkin' cute!".
I'm so glad she liked it. 

I'm trying so hard to catch up on listing things in my shop but sometimes it feels like I'm spinning my wheels.  I seem to be getting "not much" accomplished really fast.  Oh well.  At least it's a beautiful day :)

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. :)