Monday, September 24, 2012

Not much...

for me to do this week. I mean really, not much at all. It's a pretty slow week.

I finished the custom order. Yay! Took me forever, but I finally finished. I didn't quite get it to 50 x 50, though. You see, I ran out of yarn. I had more of 3 of the colors, but not of one of them. And Nancy (the lady that ordered it) had been waiting for a long time, and so I didn't really want to make her wait until the next time we went into town, so I just stopped where I was. But, I was at the very MOST 5 inches away, so it's not that big of a deal. I let Nancy know, and she seemed just fine with it. In fact, she emailed me today and said that she got the blanket today and that she really liked it, and couldn't wait to give it to Zachary. (Her great-nephew) That made me pretty happy. :)

I also finished the order for the 4 blankets. I got that shipped early last week, I think. (This is a big 'I finished' post :D)

I still have the blanket for Dad's customer to make. I have to ask Dad if he knows when he's going to see him again. That way I have a date that I have to get the blanket done by. It always helps to have a date. That's why I started saying in my blanket descriptions that I would get my blankets shipped out in X number of days. So I have a goal. It's a lot better than thinking to myself, 'Well, I have to get this done soon, but it can wait'. Plus, I don't have any emails anymore going "When is my blanket going to be shipped?"

I finished a teal blanket and a shell blanket that I had to make today, and I'll get them shipped out this afternoon. Right now there's a guy here fixing the windshield on our van, so we can't go anywhere.

I also have another shell blanket that I'm working on. It's another custom order. Same size, different colors. She wants light gray, navy blue and 'Cleveland Brown' (bright) orange. When I first got that request, I was kinda' hesitant. Not because I couldn't do it, but because I thought it was a strage color combination. But of course, I said I could do it, and now I'm about a fifth of the way into it. And hey, it actually looks pretty good. Not colors I would have chosen, but it is still cool.

Part of the reason that I don't have that much to do is that I deactivated all of my listings last week so that I could get caught up with orders. I just had too many and I couldn't stand any more. I think at that time I had 8 blankets to do. Yup, time to call it quits for a week. But I put most of them back up this week. It was driving me crazy seeing that my shop stats said 0 views. I mean really, it was driving me crazy. There were so many times the past week that I wanted to put them up anyway. But I kept having to tell myself, "Kayla, you have lots of blankets you have to make. Remember earlier this year when you had 10 or 11 to do at any given time? You really want that to happen? Leave them down until you finish. (Or at least are really close)" And I'm really close. So I put them back up. :D

Oh! I just remembered. I do have one more blanket that I have to make. My sister Hannah sold a blanket in her shop the other day, and so I have to make it. You see, the way that it works is that for some of my blankets, if she buys the yarn, she gets part of the money. Then I pay for the shipping and actually make the blanket. So that's the case with this blanket. She put it in her shop, (I would put the link but I don't remember what it is) and it sold! Her first sale on Etsy! Now, the blankets that are in her shop are in mine too, and both she and Sarah have sold several through that. I'm glad for them. And of course, whenever I give Sarah the cash, she always wants to spend it THAT DAY. You know how little kids are. :) So anyway, I have that blanket to make. So technically I have 3 blankets to make right now, and now that my blankets are back up, I'll probably have more by the end of the week.

That's all for now! Later!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

My recent purchase...

Was AWESOME!!! Awhile ago I was just browsing on Etsy, and I happened upon this shop called ForGoodnessGrape. It's a bath and body shop. Well, I started looking around the shop, and I was astounded! Basically what they sell is stuff for your lips, and perfume. So I started browsing around. 209 different flavors of lip balm. 209!!! And they are all awesome sounding flavors. Like:

Cinnamon Bun
Vanilla Milkshake
Rootbeer Float
Waffles with Maple Syrup
Orange Buttercream
Peanut Butter Cup, and
Peaches and Cream, just to name a few!

They also had lip tints, sugary lip scrubs, and lip gloss. Now, I LOVE lip balm, and I couldn't resist! They had a special where you could buy 7 lip balms for a special deal. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. 7?!? Do you really need that many? Basically, yes. Plus, I didn't keep them all anyway. I gave one to Hannah and one to Sarah. Well, they came in the mail yesterday, and they are awesome! I ordered:

Rootbeer Float (for Hannah)
Blueberry Parfait (for Sarah)
Vanilla Milkshake
Vanilla Cream Soda
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Red Velvet Cake (probably going to give to a friend of mine)
and Peanut Butter Cup.

And I love ALL of them. They smell so good! And they're not waxy, like so many other lip balms I've tried. They are so silky, smooth and creamy. I'm in love! They don't color your lips, which is a bonus, (Mom doesn't like lip balms that color your lips) and, like I said, they're AWESOME! They don't taste as much as I would like them to, (just a little hint of the flavor) but I still love them. You can find Lisa's shop here.

THANK YOU LISA!!!!!

(I'll post on my projects probably sometime Saturday afternoon or Sunday. I'm gonna' be gone all day tomorrow and Saturday morning.)

Later!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

What's going on this week

Ok, so first of all I made it to 100 sales, (woohoo!!!) and I decided to do a sale afterall. So right now I have all my blankets at 20% off. Hope it goes well. Actually right now I'm at 105 sales. My goal was 110 by the end of the month. Yeah, I think I'm going to make it. :D

Let's see.... As for my current projects, I still have that multicolor blanket that I'm working on. Last week I had other orders that were higher priorities so I was working on them mostly last week. I think right now I'm halfway done with the multi. And then I have 30 BILLION ends to weave in. Ok, not that many, but a lot. Think about it. about 8 color changes per row, 2 ends for each color change= 16 ends per row. One row equals about 1/2 inch. So, 2 rows per inch. That's 32 ends per inch. Then the blanket is 50 inches..... I think you get the point. That's gonna take awhile. Hopefully I can get the blanket shipped out by the end of this week though.

Also, recently Dad has been able to get me some business through his work. Being a termite inspector he goes lots of places and meets lots of people, and I actually think this is sale # 3 or 4 that I've had through his work. Thanks Dad! :) Anyway, I have a blanket to make for one of the realtors that he works with. And I also have another one that I have to make for the same person, I just don't know what it is yet. He hasn't decided.

So I started a thing awhile in my shop where if you buy 3 blankets, you get one free. So basically I just made a listing for the price of 3 blankets, and told them to just let me know what 4 blankets they want in the 'notes to seller' box at checkout. Well guess what? Someone bought one! Yay! When I saw the notification from my Etsy app on my iPod came through I almost fell over. I've had big sales like that before, but I haven't had one since about April. So it came as kind of a surprise. :) She chose a pink blanket, a purple blanket, one that I call 'Spring' (it's pink, purple, yellow and orange) and my neopolitan ripple. (one of my favorite blankets of all time!) The only problem is I have to make all 4 of them. :D Sheesh. Sometimes I wish that people would just PICK THE BLANKETS I HAVE IN STOCK!!! :D It's fine though. It keeps me busy. Besides, the neopolitan one I already had about halfway done. I had started it and was trying to remake it, but I had to put it aside to work on orders. Yay! So I only have 3 and a half blankets to make for that order. :)

Well, I guess that's it for this week. Oh! I just thought of something. Some of you know that my mom is pregnant, and Monday all 8 of us went to the doctor's office to find out the gender of the baby. And it's a girl!!! Yay! Not only does that mean that I'll have a healthy, beautiful baby sister, but.... I also have a model for my blankets!!! Haha. Does that seem kind of wrong or selfish to you? I mean, the fact that I'm excited about having a girl so I have a model for the first time? I can't figure it out. :)

Ok. NOW that's all I have for this week. Until later!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

My Current Projects

Hi fellow Etsy-ers! (And yeah, I know that there are people on here that aren't on Etsy... I'm just assuming that most of the people that read (or will read) this blog are).

Let's see.... My shop has actually been pretty slow lately. I'm really hoping it starts picking up soon. Christmas is just around the corner! Of course, I don't think of people buying baby blankets for Christmas presents, I think of people buying baby blankets when the baby is first born. Who knows. Technically this isn't my first Christmas season on Etsy, but I didn't start really making sales until March of this year. So, I really have no idea how well baby blankets do for Christmas presents... We'll see.

I do have a couple custom orders I've been working on. Right now I'm working on an gray and white ripple blanket. Not my choice of colors, but it does look pretty nice. Idk. That's what she wanted, so that's what I'm making.

I'm also making a multicolor... Sort of. This lady wanted a blanket that looks like one of my multicolor blankets, but she wanted it in colors to match a quilt that she made for her nephew when he was little, and his son now has it. I guess (based on the pictures that she sent) that the quilt hangs on the wall, and she wants a blanket for the great-nephew to use. Anyway, she wanted light yellow, light blue, light green and a bright blue. Well, the likelyhood that I'm going to be able to find a multicolor with all those colors is really, REALLY unlikely, so I have to try and make all those colors look like a multicolor. So that basically involves LOTS of color changes. And I mean lots. At the beginning it was really hard to try and figure out when to change colors, and what colors to do next, but I'm starting to get my bearings on it, so it's getting easier. I'll take pictures when I'm further into it on my iPod and post them on here.

Oh, and I had kind of a mishap with this blanket. :) So Nancy wanted it to be 42" x 42". Ok, not such a big deal, I've done lots of custom orders that involve different sizes. So, I started it yesterday morning, and when I got to 2 rows I measured it. 42" exactly. No problem. Well, last night when I was about 12" into it, I measured it again..... 50". And I thought, "Oh my gosh. What am I gonna' do? I'm too far into it to start over again." Now, I have absolutley no idea how this happened. It's not any wider at the top than it is at the bottom. It's really wierd. Anyway, I emailed Nancy, explained what happened, and asked if she would like it to be 50" x 50" instead. Well, thank goodness she was very forgiving and was just fine with that. But boy was I scared for a little while. I mean, I spent hours just getting to that point. I couldn't start over again! But it worked out alright. Thank goodness.

Hm.. What else do I have going on? Oh yeah. I do have a turquoise and white ripple blanket I have to make this week, but I'm going to wait until the payment comes through. It was paid for with an e-check, so I have to wait until that comes through before I will make or ship it. Paypal says that the payment should come through tomorrow, so I can start making it then. But I have to finish the other 2 blankets first. I put in my descriptions that all blankets that are out of stock will be shipped in about 7 business days. So I have some time, and I don't have to worry about people emailing me going, 'When are you going to ship my blanket?'

Um, I guess that's all for now. Oh! I am only 2 sales away from the big 100! I am still trying to decide what I'm going to do. What do you think? Should I have a sale... Offer a free blanket to customer 100...What? I'm curious for your opinions. Let me know!

Kayla