Cute Pin Cushions

Happy "Black Friday"! I just announced in my shop, that I am running a 4-day sale, from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.
- BUY ANY NECKLACE WILL GET A PAIR OF MATCHING BUTTON KNOT EARRINGS FOR FREE.
- 10% OFF ALL ORDERS $30 OR MORE.
- 20% OFF ALL ORDERS $50 OR MORE.

I will list more new items for holiday shoppers soon. This little cutie is just the beginning. I absolutely love this circus elephant fabric. I bought this small square a while ago from Fabric Place (so sad they closed shop), wish I bought more, so I can make a pillow or something out of it.
And I did a quick search on Etsy, and found lots of fun pincushion as well. This first one is from Loose String. You probably can tell why I love it. Yes! Another cute elephant!
This cute little mushroom is from Zafras.
This pear looks so delicious! It's one of Retro Mama's creation.
And this little darling stole my heart. It was love at first sight! Come on! Who can resist these little cuties from Squirrel Momma.
Oh, just found this beehive on flickr. It's so cute, I just have to share it here. Cannot download it, so you just have to trust me and click this link.

Ready For Thanksgiving?

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but I do wish everyone a very happy holiday! Enjoy your turkey and all those wonderful dishes! But most importantly, enjoy your family!

There are tons of decoration ideas and special recipes on the Internet. I found Martha Stewart's website is a great place for these information. I specially love this set of pictures from Martha Stewart. This little pinecone turkey for place-card is just so cute, I might go out to collect some pinecones just for that purpose.

Craft Fair - Part III

Here are some great tables at the craft fair. I tried my best to collect all their information, so I can link you to their shops.

This is Joanie Swartz from Joanie's Gems. She has been making jewelry for years, her crystal jewelry was a great hit at the show. She has been a vendor at this show for several years, so lots of returning customers, and they also brought their friends over to support her. So, she was selling non-stop!
And here is my neighbor, Christine Guanipa, from Little Man Originals. Christine has very sweet personality, and I really enjoyed chatting with her. I also got some great tips from her, like how to accept credit cards at a show, and where to get great deals on plastic shopping bags and stickers. Her bags was so well designed, and fabrics were all very modern and chic. Everyone loved her "Tom Boy" line, she had only four of those left at the end. Amazing! Wish I can find great fabric like that. You can also find her gorgeous bags in lots of shops in many states, even in Canada. And her DH designed that little man logo for her, very unique and memorable.
Claire Goodwin is one of the nicest person I have ever met. She knew I was a first-timer, so kept coming over and talking with me. She kept complimenting on my knots, made me feel really great. She told me about their knitting group, and she even gave me this gorgeous origami box she made. She loves crafting, and always keeps her eyes and mind open for new skills. She knits, crochets, and decoupages, you can contact her at 617-734-7806 to see her works.

I didn't take pictures of all tables, just the pretty ones, and the ones with wonderful owners. Yeah, there was one lady very rude to me. I asked her nicely whether I can take a picture of her great table for my blog, she was so offended or something, and ran towards me with her hands waving like crazy, and yelling "No pictures! No Pictures! Go away!" I was not trying to steal her design or something, if she didn't want it, she should have post a big sign saying "No Camera Please!" What if I took the picture without asking her? She probably would force me delete the pictures or break my several hundred dollar camera! She is definitely not my kind of people, very weird! But all the other people were great, they all gave me the biggest smile, and even thanked me for it!

This was Suzanne Parker's table. Her arts had the most amazing colors, and her recycled glass pieces were wonderful too. If you are interested in Suzanne's art, email her at barkingfoxart@yahoo.com.
This is P.J.Szufnarowski, from Art On Tour.
These fun pottery pieces are made by Karissa Chase, from Lilly Bug's Mum.
And who doesn't want to throw a tea party with Janet Frank's great products. Janet has the cutest tea pot set I have ever seen. Check out the pink set on the right corner.
Oh, almost forgot Tess, from The Maddest Hatter. I was very happy to see another Etsy seller at the show, and she was such a happy person. Since she has been here before, she had lots of friends, so lots of hugging and laughing. Can you believe it? She came from NH that morning, her hubby put her on the bus with 2 huge luggages full of all kinds of hats, and her daughter picked her up in Boston. We all checked in at 6Am, and we packed up around 6:30pm. She was still very energetic, while I was about to drop on the floor. Too bad I forgot to take her picture.

And here are some other tables that I forgot to collect cards.

Craft Fair - Part II

Finally, I uploaded all the pictures to the computer. My table was on the second floor, where the lighting was pretty bad, so sorry about the picture quality.

This is me at my table. My friend took this picture in the morning, so I was still very energetic. Sorry about my face, I don't like the idea to post personal pictures online, just have to blur it. Oh, see that gorgeous necklace I was wearing? That's my favorite this year, and I got tons of compliments on it at the show.
Here are some closer shots of my table. This one is the right side of the table, you can see some necklace on displays, earrings, bracelets, bookmarks, and the "Free Goodie Bags". The little orange thing to its left is my cellphone holder, but it worked great as business card holder.
This is the left corner of my table, with more necklace displays and some of my sterling silver/14k gold earrings, with semi precious gemstone.
This is my favorite chinese painting brush holder my dad bought me years ago. It has two carved dragon heads on top, and some clouds carved at the bottom. I absolutely love it. And it was the perfect size for display some of my decorative wall hanging pieces. Oh, I also hang some cellphone charms on one of the dragon head.

I will post some pictures of other tables at the show tomorrow. Forgot to bring their business cards with me, so don't remember their names and websites. At the mean time, here are some pictures of my new Badge Holders. I made one months ago, and it was my first sale at the show. And just sold two more to that customer's friend. I should have brought more to the show, what was I thinking? Everyone in the hospital need a better badge holder, those blue ones just so boring, don't show personality at all. These are much better.

Craft Fair - Part I

Finally, the show is over. I took lots of pictures, will post them later. Here are some pictures of the great promotional items I got from everyone. So many wonderful ideas, and very talented artists. I can talk more once I recover from yesterday's craziness. Please enjoy the pics for now.

I apologize for the picture quality. I was assigned to a table on the second floor, which has really bad lighting. Most of the pictures I took turned out very yellow. And this one even blury. I put all promos in plastic goodie bags, and used raffia to tie the bags to the bigger catalog and flyers. Each bags contains tons of goodies. Those customers who got them were very happy.
This one was taken during assembling stage. Each little pile was for one bag. I had these piles all over my living room.
Here are the buttons, magnets, homemade soap. I cannot believe I didn't put some of those big pins in there. Now I don't have any left, I cannot even photoshop it in. :(
There were lots of bookmarks too. The one in front, with a gorgeous necklace, is mine. I really like the way it turned out. I put several pictures together and made them one postcard image, and had vistaprint printed them out for me. I then cut them up into bookmarks, and smaller tags. Love it!
Here are some postcards.
Here are some greeting cards and gift tag. The cards were so professional, and the designs were absolutely elegant.
I also got lots of business cards, and coupons. They inspired me to work on my next batch of cards.
These are some of the most amazing flyers I have seen. The smaller one is from the new new york team. They also sent me lots of their catalog. They are so lucky to have 5 graphic designers in their team, that's why their stuffs are so professional. So jealous! I think I had one of their catalog left in the box, will take pic of that and post it here later. You guys just have to see it.

Here is a list of all Etsy shops paticipated this time. And big thanks to everyone.
2ofakindphotography
AlwaysAmy
BellaMental
biancadenise
bluebirdsandblossoms
caelum
christiecottage
dragonflygems
fubabee
janetsdolls
JNPpottery
JodiesCraftEmporium
lepetitboutique
meekiyua
minisforeveryone
mskittyfantastico
nicherndesigns
nickileigh
pennydog
sedruola
softpencil
StylingPupPillows
sudlow
sun2create
sweetcarolines
tagsandbuttons
the {New New} York Street Team
TheEarringJunkie
thesleepingdog
threelittleladies
tiggerstreasuretrove
tinybubblessoap
tudordesigns
twohanddesign
and me, TranquilityKnots

Last Minute

I decided to take the afternoon off to finish whatever I need to do, finish some of the bracelets and decoration pieces, attach individual price tags, make the signs, assemble the goodie bags (take some pics), input everything into the inventory sheet, finish the "catalog" (more like a simple scrapbook of all my pics), and test with the table setup. I don't think I can finish all these. Really have to push harder, till the very last minute. I will pull everything out of my shop before I go home. Oh, almost forgot, I have to go to the post office to send out 3 packages. Hope tomorrow will go smoothly, and I will post pics afterward. Wish me luck!

Super Busy

I don't think I can finish everything I planned for the show on Thursday. Really! I am so tired working every night after dinner till midnight, and I have been making things on the train. I think I will stop making new items now, and print out some order sheet to take in orders at the show. I have to take pictures of all my items and make a simple catalog, so when later at the show lots of items are sold, I hope, people still can look at the catalog and find what they like and order it. That will be a very time consuming job. I am seriously thinking about taking tomorrow off, and work on the last minute things. And I posted a note on my shop front page last week, telling my customers to buy whatever they like right away, because I am going to take everything out of that shop for the show. I got several sales! I am so excited! But unfortunately, two items were just sample pictures, so I have to make them immediately. It won't take too long, but definitely will take a big chunk of my time on preparing. Please don't get me wrong, I am really happy about the sales, and really appreciate people buying my pieces as their holiday gifts. I just wish I have more hours each day. A friend of mine also ordered 4 more items for Xmas, I told her to wait for at least a week. She is very understanding, and even paid me full in advance.

Here are the items I just sold! I probably don't have time to make these again for the show, the customers just have to look at their pictures.

The Winner Is

Amanda, from Ulixis Crafts. And Oh, if this is your first time reading my blog, I just had my first blog giveaway last week. I probably will run more later, so don't worry, you will get your chance. And big thanks to all of you who responsed. Loved all your suggestions, and of course your compliments! :) Sorry I don't have too much time to blog recently, since I am crazy preparing for my first show this Thursday. After that, I probably will have more free time blogging. Oh, I called out on Etsy forum a while ago asking for promos, and got lots of response. So far, I already received a huge box full of wonderful promos and coupons. Some shoppers at this show will be so very lucky to receive these goodies! No matter how much I wanted to keep some great ones for myself, I cannot be that selfish! So, all of you who sent me promos, don't worry, they are going to the potential shoppers. I will take some pics while assembling the bags, and of course I will take tons of pics of my table and the show. As soon as I catch my breath after that, I will post them online and share with you guys. So, wish me luck!

Table Display Ideas

I had yesterday off, and all of sudden I felt very nervous about my show next week. I bought some jewelry displays already, including several necklace display, a big earring stand, two tiny earring displays, and a T-bar for the bracelets. They are all black velvet covered, very professional looking. But my problem is every single necklace is so different, and I won't have enough space to show off all of them. I planned to display only the cheaper earrings on the big earring stand, and keep all the expensive ones in their own little boxes, and line them up. Probably need some kind of support to elevate them and at a angle. I heard people like eye level displays, and hate to look down to the table all the time. We will see. I think the bracelets are fine. I made some little pillows to showcase some, and put the others on the T-bar. Then how am I suppose to display my keychains and other smaller accessories? I am thinking about using my antique wooden tray, it's very dark, I think it will go very well with the rest of the black display. Next is my biggest concern. How should I display my nursing covers? I don't have a mannequin, so people won't be able to see it from a distance. I am thinking about keep most of them in their own plastic bag, and only leave one or two out for demo and display. Maybe I should borrow my neighbor's huge stuffed animal. Hmm, a big bear with a nursing cover? Weird! Any suggestions? And since this show is indoor, it's kind of dark there. (we are not allowed to use extra lighting, for safety concerns. It's a hospital.) So, I am thinking about putting some framed mirrors on the table to reflect the lights, but worrying about distract people. I found some boxes, and wrapped them up, so I can elevate some of my displays to eye level. I found some great ideas on flickr, some are elegant, some are cute. Mine will be totally different, since I have both jewelry and sewing products, and my stuffs are all very colorful, I think professional and elegant should give people some calm feelings. I will start testing with what I have, and post some pictures here for suggestions. Ok, here are the ones I like. This one is from Adorned By Robin These three are A Pretty Rock's tables at different shows.These last two are from Destiny's Creations.

My First Giveaway!

To celebrate my 50th sales, I decided to host my first giveaway here. One lucky reader will win this cute little keychain. I don't have that many readers here, so you will have bigger chance to win. Just visit my store, then leave a comment here telling me what do you think about my shop apperance, what do you like or dislike about my products or pictures. All suggestions will be deeply appreciated. I will randomly pick a winner next Sunday (Nov. 16th) night, so you will have more than a week to response to this. Just remember to leave me your email address, so I can contact you if you won. Oh, boy! This will be fun. Keep the comments coming.

Owl!

Have you noticed recently there are more owls around us? I meant on the market, you can find T-shirts, greeting cards, decoration, and even jewelry, with owl design. Some cute, some scary. Personally, I like all things cute. Here are some really cute ones I found on Etsy. See which one wins your heart.

Ginger Blossom lil Hoot from Manic Muffin Totes.
Crazy Little Owl (OvO) from Melanie Favreau.
Susie the Owl from Cuore.
Petit Hibou - Brooch from Smeeta.
Together from Marmee Craft.
Owl couple from The Runny Bunny. They look like a really grumpy old couple. :o)
Handmade Glass Pendant from Natural at Heart Too!.
And much more here.