Did I Tell You I Moved?

On December 5th I moved from my condo in Palm Harbor, Fl to a house in Clermont, Fl. It's been a month and I'm still unpacking. I'm telling you all this because I can't find my camera and I'm itching to take pictures of some of the new stuff I'm doing. You need pictures to really see it.

I had a new closet set up with shelves in my guest room so that I can unpack some stuff and have a place for it. I'm hopeful the camera will appear. I really miss that camera.

So pictures will be coming soon, I'm predicting.

Moving is tough, the packing is the hardest, finding places for stuff as you unpack, that's also hard.

Where To Sell Part One

These next few posts about where to sell are from my own past experiences with these venues. My Plan For Business needs me to re-look over these ways and make a decision that feels right for me today.  My hope is that this information will be helpful to you as well.   

First you need to know that in the past I've been beguiled by the promise of making money.  You know those guys who say "read my ebook for $49.95 and you too can start making big money"? I was one of those who forked over the money, I'm ashamed to say more than once. 

You know that expression Jack of all trades, master of none well that could very easily describe myself. With all the jumping around I never focused on one thing and did what was necessary to make THAT successful.

So now after all the confessions lets first discuss the web. What's interesting and exciting about the web is the amount of potential customers.  A brick and mortar store could never get the amount of traffic that the web gets and to me in a business stand point this is it's best attribute.

1. Etsy  is a great site with very affordable rates filled with creative artistic people selling their wares. Etsy generates a lot of traffic, maybe not as much as Ebay but still a lot. The advantages to this site is the low fees, the traffic, the place to go for handmade and vintage items, and you can price your items higher on Etsy then on Ebay. It's a different customer base on Etsy than on Ebay.     
2. Ebay  you will hear the complaints about the outrageous fees etc but I have to tell you that nowhere are you going to get the potential traffic that Ebay generates. Logically if you had a brick and mortar store what do you think your expenses would be and does the customer traffic match up?
3. Own Web Site  Nothing like having your own web site, and you might be thinking why bother paying those other guys those fees when I can have my own site. Might be a good idea but remember someone has to make the web site, you need a shopping cart and gateway and all that takes knowledge, time and money.
4. Amazon  is also is a great site with lots of traffic. High fees, higher than Ebay.

For all of the above you can't expect to be successful by just listing your items. There's way more to it than that. It's called marketing and each one might need a different approach.

 For me right now the web is not where I will be putting my efforts. First off it takes a lot being successful on-line.  You have to take great pictures, write great copy for your listings, learn how to get your listings noticed but the real big reason I don't want to do the web is because I HATE shipping things.


Remember how I said in my previous post that I want to get up each morning raring to go, loving what I'm doing, well if shipping some sold items was on my list of things to do for the day I'd opt to just stay in bed.


I've learned from the past to never say never but for now it's absolutely been down voted. 


Am I the only one who hates shipping items? 

Tomorrow I'll go over my ideas for Flea Markets, Farmers Market and Craft Shows.

Plan For Business!

This post is not about doing a business plan or marketing plan like the experts recommend. My eyes tend to glaze over and I suffer an out of body experience when asked to do one of those.  Just can't seem to grasp the whys and hows of it.  I'd like to think I'm more the creative artist type than a numbers person.  One could hope, right?

This is more about doing what I love to do and finding a way to make money doing it. I don't need much, just to supplement what I already get.

So I love to paint small items creating a vintage aged look.  I love to sew, pillows and curtains, and tabletop dressings.  I love to write because I think I might have something to say.  I love thrift store shopping, finding items that might of seen their day and giving them second chances.

So the first part of my Plan For Business is to commit to doing what I love to do.  If..... I want to awake each  morning with a smile, raring to go then I'd best be doing what I love to do. Seems simple enough.

Step one of  Plan For Business is done. I know what I love to do and I plan on doing it.

Come along on this journey with me of discovering how to make it all work. Should be interesting.

Next I'll post about the areas that are available for me to sell my wares. Stay tuned!

New Year, New Resolve!

It's common practice to start the  new year with wonderful resolutions, resolutions that after a few days I mentally block out.  So for many years because of my lack of sticktuitivness I just stopped making them, resolutions that is. 

New starts can happen anytime, a new month, a new week or even a new day, they are all blank canvases.

But this year I'm committed to a new me with a new resolve starting with the beginning of 2012.

2011 was a bit of a struggle for me right up till the end. That's over and I won't look back.

But here is 2012 and it is filled with such promise, a blank canvas to make my own.

So you'll see some new stuff from me, that's part of my resolve.

My next post will be my plan for my business with ideas on how to create your own plan.

Know When To Fold Them! Know When To Walk Away!

"The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers, those lyrics where in my head as I was doing this cabinet.

Let me back up a bit. I'm moving 2 hours away from where I currently live and have decided that most of my furniture, pictures, knick knacks, etc will not fit in my new place. This cabinet was one of those that got the pink slip. It actually was the table that my soap melter rested on for my other business.  So those items that did not make the grade ended up in my booth at Knot On Main Street. This cabinet need a bit of work before I could send it over there and I was up for the challenge.

As I was scraping the peeling paint from it I discovered that it was actually a laminate cabinet that had been painted over, which explained the peeling paint.  I literally had to scrape almost all the paint off the sides and top. A bit of a big job.

So once that was done my idea was to paint the outside a chippy black paint and the inside a burlappy beige color that would look great with the baskets I had for the bottom.

Besides the paint job I also had to do something with the bottom tracks that was used for sliding doors that today are probably still trying to decompose in a landfill somewhere. My idea for the tracks was to get some wood trim at home depot for a cover up.

First paint was a primer (I used Kylz) on the formica to ensure it would stay put and not peel. I did not prime the inside thinking that it was not  laminate and it would be okay.. Here's a picture of the inside after one coat of the burlappy beige primer built in paint. It took three coats of paint. 

I could go on and on with the other things I did to this cabinet and I wonder why it took so long to come to the realization that it was time to walk away.  Here's what I learned.

1. If you are going to resell start with quality and a formica type cabinet doesn't fit my idea of quality. 
2. I love to paint especially the chippy paint technique but I realized that I really am not to crazy about doing it on large pieces.  So keep it small and simple.
3. It's a bit difficult to make something look like something it isn't. Laminate will not look like an old wooden cabinet with chippy paint.  Though it could be that knowing the truth clouds my judgement.

So after many hours of scraping, priming, painting, fixing etc I decided that it was time to just walk away and let it go.  It served me well for about 5 years first as a display cabinet in my store, then as a work space for my melter for soap making. Here's where you might be asking why not use it again as a display piece? My philosophy for my booth is that everything is for sale and this isn't sale worthy.

I'd hate for this to go to the landfill but in back of my development (I live in a condo community) I'm sure someone will find it and give it a new home.

What To Do With All This Stuff!

I love thrift store shopping and when I shop, I buy. So, I do a lot of shopping, a lot of buying and a lot of bringing home stuff. But there is just so much stuff I could personally use

So the idea was born, BUY, FIX, SELL, MAKE PROFIT.  (not an original idea of mine)

Last year I had a booth at an antique mall called Knot On Main Street, but because of some conflicts with my other business I shut it down.  Then in June there was a major fire there and the whole mall closed down until repairs could be done.  This past Tuesday they opened half of their 10,000 square foot space and I rented a small portion of that.  

Here's Bob the owner of Knot On Main Street

Out front of the store

Here's my space already painted but bare

My only job to get it ready for customers was to paint the walls an olive branch green and put up some green shutters I already had for architectural interest.  Oh yeah and bring in merchandise of course.

So here are some shots of my booth finished and waiting for shoppers.

Here's a shot of that wreath I made from the men's shirt collars and also a fabric covered magnetic board that I'll be doing a post on soon. 

Those pillows were such a great find, the quality of craftsmanship is really evident. I got those at a church run thrift store and that thrift store is one of my favorites. I can spend hours there.

A wall of pictures and also my wreath chair.

Here you get to see those napkin pillows, my bon appetit dish and more pictures. Also my ammo box tops turned farmhouse chic chalkboards.

More pictures, more magnetic fabric covered bulletin boards.

Last but not least my men's shirt pillows.

So everything is priced, displayed and waiting for customers, cause as soon as some of this stuff is sold you know where you'll find me.

Fabric Napkins Take On A Whole New Look!

I've had these linen type napkins for quite a few years stashed in my fabric pile . Originally they were my aunt's and I think her plan was to embroider on them. I confiscated them because I loved the feel and look of the fabric and always thought they would make really cute little pillows. Plus you know they were like a blank canvas waiting to be something else. They measure 14" x 14"

Napkins waiting for the day to become pillows

But you know how you have these great ideas and they (the napkins) just sit there until tomorrow or the next day or maybe even the day after that. Those tomorrows became years.

So I'm here to tell you I finally got them made. What explanation do I have for finally getting them done?  I think I heard them calling to me from the fabric stash begging to be the promised pillows. When napkins start calling it's time to listen and do.  Sorry folks that's the best reason I can come up.

The edges were already hemmed so my idea was to just sew two together just below the hem line and then stuff with some loose fill. 

Plain white little pillows are just...... plain and I wanted more pizazz  like transfer image pizazz. I love the vintage french looking black and white images and the graphic fairy has some really great ones. So I went browsing on her web site and came up with a few that I thought would be perfect for the pillows.

This brings up the point of transferring images onto fabric.  Browse the web and you will find all these different techniques on how to do it.  It can be a bit overwhelming. After much research I decided that Lesley Riley's Transfer Artist Paper would be my method of choice. It does a wonderful transfer and it's so easy and I'm all for easy.

So I had enough napkins (10) to make 5 pillows. I used 5 different images from the Graphic Fairy.

Black and white pillows with a french flair

The above picture is just 4 of the 5 pillows and you only get to see 2 of the images I used from the Graphic Fairy . Below is a close up of another image.

This one is my favorite.

I think these little pillows make a great accent up against some larger pillows, maybe on a bed.