Mimi In The Box

I had this box that a yarn order had come in sitting on the kitchen table. I hadn't quite emptied out all of the yarn but that did not stop Mimi from getting in the box and making herself quite comfortable.

And here is something I made with some of that yarn that came in the box. This is made with the craft cotton yarn from Herrchner's, a set of mandala placemats that were a lot of fun to make. These will be making an appearance in my Etsy shop as soon as I can figure out the price.

I also have some sets of dishcloth/washcloths that are quick and easy to whip up.

The first set is made with the same yarn as the placemats, the second with some Premiere Home cotton yarn from Herrchner's, a little rougher utility type cotton that is only $1.50 a skein and also crochets up much easier and with less frustration than the Sugar and Cream yarns, a yarn I will never buy again no matter how tempting the colors are, I just don't like working with it.

And some more coasters with the cotton/poly blend lighter weight yarn.

It's Nucking Futs I Tell You!

I'm having a crazy busy weekend, a good kind of busy but it's nuts! It all started Friday evening when instead of watching TV I was working on my Etsy shops, trying to get all the holiday stuff listed before it's too late for people to order. As I was working away, orders kept coming in. I don't usually get a whole lot of orders a day, just a few, so to have all of these orders start pouring in all at once was wonderful but a little nerve wracking.

The way I work now in the gift tag/postcard and now new chipboard ornaments shop is to make up one set of whatever, photograph it, then list it with a little asterisk in the title so that I know I have one set in stock. I make the quantity available more than one, after realizing that hey! sometimes people may want more than one set. So, once the first set of whatever sells (if it does, some don't) I make any other sets after someone orders them. It saves me a lot of work on keeping things in stock that may not sell, but it also means for a busy day or two if I get more than a few orders. Print, cut, glue, cut again, add ribbon ties on the tags and repeat.

And wow, have I been busy this weekend! I have another 5 orders that came in today as I was working packing up the orders from Friday and yesterday, so right now I'm printing up all the images and then will cut, glue, cut again, add ribbon ties on the tags, and repeat.

I also sold a whole bunch of pins in the pin shop, fortunately those are already made and in stock, but it takes a while to find them all, make their little matching paper bags that I ship them in, and then pack those all up in a box or envelope. I had one order for 19 pins and one for 9 and each of those seemed like they took about an hour to get done and ready for the post office.

Not that I am complaining! It's wonderful but a little nuts right now!

Here is what I have so far to take to the post office tomorrow.

I'm not sure how many orders are in these 3 bags, but it's taken me all day to get them packed up!