King of the Castle

As my daughter well knows crowns of all sorts are very necessary accessories. If you think about what it must be like to go through a day with the imagination of a four year old and a crown on your head the possibilities are endless.

Making A Life

Whenever I get out crafting supplies one of my kids asks what I am making. When I told my oldest that I was making crowns to give as birthday presents for a couple of upcoming parties, he requested one. I had a crown pattern drawn with stars on it and when I showed him he requested more points and to change the stars to diamonds. So this project was designed by my oldest and sewn by me. He is my biggest critic, greatest source of inspiration and the king of the castle. At least one of the kings of the castle, my youngest is challenging him at every step. No one around here wants to be the dirty rascal.

My youngest is yelling to the neighbourhood “I’m the king of the castle you are the dirty rascal”. He is also sporting his superhero cape and his love shirt.

If…

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Washi Tape Stickers

Washi Tape Stickers.

Sewing For Kids By Kids!

Thanks so much to our friends and their son for recording their project. He did a great job getting started with his copy of Hy-Jack the Fox Terrier as the pictures and videos below show.

Handmade Charlotte’s Beautiful Spring Project is a Hole in One

Beautiful Spring Toy

Create A Cup-and-Ball Bouquet
Wooden cup-and-ball games have always mesmerized me. They’re so simple, yet before you know it, you’ve spent hours trying to toss that little ball at just the right angle so that it lands in the cup. 209 MORE WORDS

Ms Mickens Sews Again!!

 

So, Ms Mickens of Battle Creek Central continues to move Twinzy forward with each new prototype.  Following are more pictures of the various models we are experimenting with.  A few of the details are still being worked out at the print shop for the final details but the day when kits and dolls will be available on Etsy is steadily approaching.

 

Our lovely daughter was kind enough to take a break from Sunday morning festivities with “Tangled” and word puzzles to indulge my long overdue blog post photo op request. These models are black and white and the idea is to also add a limited run with original colors pre printed as well.  For those more inclined to DIY they can purchase a kit or a finished doll and sew and/or color it themselves.  For that intrepid bunch please be sure to use child safe paints and share your creations by sending us pictures of the process and final product!

 

Mari Richards’ Puppet Show (and Tell)

7 Super Fun DIY Sock Puppets

MAR04

I dis­tinctly remem­ber a phase of my younger years when pup­pets were the only thing I wanted to make. There were mar­i­onettes and reg­u­lar pan­cake pup­pets, a foam ball head with arms and sticks à la The Mup­pets. And, of course, there were sock pup­pets. Unfor­tu­nately, they were made from really worn out 1980s socks.

It’s clear craft­ing has come a long way since 1985. You can even buy a pre-fab craft kit filled with fresh, clean, brightly col­ored socks and lots of crafty bits. But I think we’re all itch­ing to make our own versions—to heck with pre-fab, I want to pick my mate­ri­als myself. I also love find­ing crafts that you can get cre­ative with after the craft is done—time for a pup­pet show!

Meet The Contributor

Mari Richards is a shiny object addict, closet pianist, and all around creative-type. With 400+ designs and 30+ indus­try awards, she is a free­lance prod­uct designer and a design blog­ger at Small for Big.

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Our Spring Dining Room

Love the Daffodils. Hopefully the outside will see this through your window and remember how to be warm and green again.

Cornbread & Beans Quilting and Decor

I’m too chicken to drive whenever it’s snowing, or if there is snow/ice on the roads. I haven’t been antique shopping since before December. So when we had a little break with clear roads this weekend I was outta here!  I drove to all my favorite antique spots and to the local green spot to get some springy plants to scatter around our house for some much needed cheering up. Enough of this cold snowy winter I tell ya!!

This cheery pot of daffodils became the center of the spring table arrangement in my big dough bowl.  I added some moss balls, eggs, and cabbage heads.

I found many new ironstone pieces at really good prices while I was out. Here is one of the little servers on the plate rail. I threw in some faux sprigs in the mercury glass vase.

On the other side, I placed a couple…

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Thrival of the Craftiest

The Build a Better Creative Business Course is Back!

 

It’s the moment many of you have been waiting for: Tim and I are about to launch the Spring 2014 session of the Build a Better Creative Business course! If you’ve never heard of our program, then oh boy, are you in for a treat today!

Last year, Tim and I got to talking, and we discussed how the marketplace with which we’re involved is overcrowded and growing more saturated every day. The sad news for sellers is, it’s already difficult to stand out in the crowd, and it’s only going to get harder from here.

Tim and I deeply understand your plight. We’ve pushed through uncertainty, and we’ve each built businesses around our own creative dreams. We feel that THIS is your year to make it, before everything gets too vast and everyone gets lost in cyberspace. You need the tools and resources, and you don’t have the luxury of time that I had even a couple of years ago to figure it all out.

So, we created a learning curve.

We launched the first session of our 8-week course in early 2013 to positively rave reviews. This is our third running, and it simply gets better every time we open enrollment. I’m not going to waste your time (or mine) repeating all the things that have been said about this course. I will, however, link you to the hours worth of FREE materials we’ve created to help you realize how important this course (and this movement) really is:

31-Day FREE Series to Build a Creative Business

Shop Critique Webinar

Etsy Shop Suspended Webinar

Social Media + Copywriting for your Etsy shop Webinar

+ A breakdown of all that is included inside the Build a Better Creative Business course

Here’s what makes us different from every other course out there: The methods we teach inside the Build a Better Creative Business Course are tested and proven. We teach from experience … 

Tim’s been in this industry since 2007. He knows how to sell online, how to gain press, how to grow a blog into a community of 20,000 creatives, and how to attract 50,000 Facebook fans.

In 2010, I started an Etsy shop and set out to build a work-at-home career. To date, I have marketed my shop into a top-selling success story and made more than six figures with my creative business. It now provides my family a hearty and reliable second income.

The Build a Better Creative Business course opens on March 3, 2014.

This is a semester that you don’t want to miss! We know we have a spectacular course for you, and we want this to be the biggest running yet. The 2014 spring session includes more lessons, more bonus materials, more workshops and worksheets and more personalized attention than ever before.

On Thursday, February 27, we are going to announce an early-bird special that is so amazing and valuable, you simply won’t be able to pass it up. We’ll be sharing all of the details very soon, but sign up here to be the first to know.

 

 

Like this:

Printing Progress to Co Creative Etsy Success!

Miss Mary for You!

Saddle Up!

 

 

Wabbit Season?

I have been exploring co creation with customers I decided the time was now to launch the first Twinzy product. Co creation has been a focal point from the very beginning of the refounding of the Twinzy brand and the commitment will continue as we launch more characters and media.

These three characters will be the first to be sold on Etsy as kits.  These kits will include the character art in black and white printed with 100% safe soy ink on organic cotton and hemp muslin, organic cotton stuffing, and organic cotton thread.

Photos of the original art work in color are available in the gallery for reference but we encourage our customers to make the dolls their own and then share the results with us so we can post them on the blog for others to enjoy.

The materials have been ordered and the final touches for the silkscreens in progress.   The link to the Etsy store will be available when the first 22 kits are available.

I will also be providing a code for the first two people to place orders when the site goes live.  If they are able to get 10 friends to place orders using the same code they will receive a 50% coupon for their next purchase!

Thanks to our daughter for helping with the pictures posted above.

Enjoy the week and let us know what you think of our plans.

 

Handmade Help for DIY Development

The Breakdown of Branding Your Creative Business

Vintage Branding Iron | by: bellalulu

Article by:  Jacqueline Jewelry

Branding is like a person’s fingerprint, showing your customers how your business is distinctive from the competition. It involves creating an image for your company that reflects your style and your goals in a way that appeals to your targeted customers.
As you develop your brand the key is to identify and describe your business in a way that your customers will accept. Managing your brand comes with the steps you set up to make sure you are consistently delivering your brand promise to your customers and your target audience. The branding process translates your attributes into various tools that deliver your message to the mind of your audience. So how do you make sure your fingerprint is translated the right way?

Take a look at how the branding process works:

1. Discovery – Identify what type of business you are, what you can be, and what you want to be. Next, take a look at the competition, perceptions of your industry, and challenges to growth. Lastly, write down attributes that describe your brand.

2. Foundation – Translate the information from Discovery to define your brand promise, story, tagline, language, and to create imagery tools to guide your brand.

3. Expression – Your brand comes to life with your marketing communications from ads to brochures, posters and your web site. Your brand Foundation tools help focus on how the visual Expression of your brand will motivate your targeted customers.

4. Standards –This is all of the critical information regarding your brand, from your distinctive brand story to technical specifications of logo usage. Having these details on hand insures that everything is consistent.

5. Education & Launch –The best way for a project to succeed is understanding how to deliver the message. Make sure as that you understand your brand and the goals.
The difficulty isn’t as much a perfect strategy, but to be focused, differentiated, and consistent. Having a targeted brand assures that you deliver the best first impression to your customers. Having the tools supports the delivery of your message. Offering value to your customers helps build your brand and your reputation. Are you prepared to deliver your message?
Remember…first impressions count so if you fail to get your message across and don’t know why then look at your brand!

Can you answer these three questions?

What do people value most about your organization?

What makes you distinctive from your competitors?

What is it that you do well and consistently deliver to your customers?

Find more great articles here>> Jacqueline Jewelry