Blast off into backstock

Here's a few more. Perfect for your little super hero. Only 3 left. Size 2, 4, and 6. Available in my shop.

Hot Halloween Deals!

Yeah, I know it's August, but I found a whole stash of Halloween onesies and lap tees while trying to organize my sewing corner. I made these last year and seem to still have some left. So, I decided to reopen my etsy shop to sell my back stock - ON SALE, of course. I only have select sizes and styles left. May be just the thing for your little goblin. Take a peek.

Sycamore Bye-bye

I did it. I closed my etsy shop. I've been thinking about it for a while now. Something just clicked this week and I knew it was the right time. The reasons are varied and vague but mainly I need to simplify and focus on getting my head on straight. That's a full time job, ya know.

The actual sewing wasn't more than I could manage. Between consignment, etsy and orders to friends I was about as busy as I wanted to be. My need to close had more to do with the mental energy this endeavor required. With two kids I really need all the mental resources I have left.

In addition to the conservation of my remaining functional neurons, there are numerous craft projects that I want to try. I want to craft for my girls, my family and all the other lovely kiddos in my life. Soule Mama has some fabulous ideas for incorporating children's art work into quilts and pillows. Her flickr group has given me enough ideas for a year of crafting. I stumbled upon The Crafty Crow which posts nothing but the *coolest* arts and crafts projects for kids. Not Martha has tutorials on several non fabric related projects that I'd like to experiment with. I also want to get back to my quilting. I could go on and on . . .

I'm going to continue this blog. Gone will be the posts of shameless self promotion with the not so subtle message of "hey, buy my stuff." Guess it will be simply be a mommy, food, crafting and family update blog. Unapologetically self indulgent.

The crafting community is full of wonderfully supportive and kind people. It is these connections that kept me going as long as I did. Luckily we can still visit in blog land. Needless to say, my blog will always have room to plug the wonderful and talented peeps of etsyrain ~ Seattle's kick-ass street team.

Whew. Here's to straight heads and new projects!

Simply Still - Day 3

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Just finished this gift pack for a friend. This is the first set I've made using the tattoo fabric. Thought it looked pretty cool. Gift packs come with 2 burp cloths and a onesie. You pick the onesie and I'll make coordinating burp cloths. Available in my shop.

Coming Soon

Look at the fabric I just purchased, it's called Peace by Alexander Henry. Soon there will be some new and colorful items in my shop . . . check back.

Green Baby

Organic onesies for your spring chick. Now in my shop.

Totally adorable Buddha belly, not for sale.

Monkey Swap

Love how this one turned out! It is headed to Lisa's youngest daughter as part of our monkey shirts for Big Sister Busy Box swap. I'll be offering similar shirts in my shop soon.

Grape Ape

Trina from Woven Chains was absolutely so supportive and sweet when I posted about my Monkey Love shirts and ended by saying her daughter would love one. So I offered to make one for her. They supplied the shirt and I supplied my monkey magic. I was contemplating the design when I remembered Trina's affection toward purple AND that our monthly Etsyrain creative challenge (thanks KC) was Purple Rain. So behold GRAPE APE:
Finding purple fabric proved to be a bit of a challenge as it is not a color I naturally gravitate toward. However, I ended up having a lot of fun going through all my scrap bags to find the perfect purples for this primate. Humor me a minute while I walk down memory lane and tell you where all these pieces came from. The solid lavender is from the VERY FIRST QUILT I made (see pic). The stripes are from a baby quilt I finished a year ago. The stars and dots are from a yearly strip exchange that we do in my Quilt Club.

Hope it's a hit with Trina's daughter!

Burp Cloth Blues

Slight exaggeration, but the truth is I've never been satisfied with the burp cloths I was selling in my shop. So, for the past few gift pack orders I've used terry cloth as the absorbent backing instead of a cloth diaper. I think they look much more polished and professional. Gift packs come with two burp cloths and a coordinating onesie. Perfect for mama and baby.

Domo Arigato Baby Roboto

Now available in my shop.

Matryoshka Madness

Okay, maybe not madness, but I'm definitely seeing a trend. I bought a yard of some fabric called From Russia with Love about 6 months ago. It has a variety of Russian nesting dolls over it on a black background. My intention was to cut out the images to put on onesies (because that is what I do ~ cut out cool fabric images and sew them onto onesies). Anyway, I had this fabric sitting around for a long, long time. During that long, long time I started to notice that Russian nesting doll were being used in a huge variety of ways on Etsy. Like these cool softies from sewsewsuckurtoe. Or this wrapping paper from enna. I kept running in to all these cool Matryoshka images with this pregnant Matryoshka being my favorite. Created by inkylivie. These creations motivated me to make the Matryoshka onesie I had always intended to. Seems like a fitting thing to put on children's clothes as they really do have many different people inside of them as we all do, I guess. So here is my contribution to Matryoshka Madness. It'll be in the shop soon. What do you think?

M.M.L. (More Monkey Love)

Here are Mrs. Pink and lovely lime green. The pink one has eye lashes and nostrils done with embroidery thread. The lime green monkey really really wanted to have button eyes, but I don't have any buttons. Found some that would have been perfect on a Hawaiian shirt of my husband's. Brown coconut shell buttons. Was very tempted to cut them off but, through a little self-talk, realized that wasn't the way to go. I have a vision of yet ANOTHER trip to Joann's in my future.

Monkey Love

Okay, I've had sock monkeys on my mind since Christmas due to the sock monkey calendar and a devilish sock monkey tree ornament given to me by my mom. So during lap time (not mine) last week I whipped up this shirt for my oldest daughter! Whaddya think? Found the puffy sleeved brown shirt at Old Navy on clearance - wish I would have bought every last one they had. I'm going to make 2 more - for my youngest and niece. I have some pink fabric all cut out. Love pink and brown. Not sure if I'll offer these shirts in my shop although they are very fun to make! I love going through my scrap bags and using up all my bits and pieces. Check back to see more monkey love!

Retroactive Kids

Just finished my first order to Retroactive Kids. 29 onesies & shirts. 4 sets of burp cloths. I'm extremely excited to be in this cool store. I'll deliver them tomorrow, but for now - sleep!

Product Review - Clover Mini Iron

I've been eying this gadget for some time and was super excited when I received it from my mom at Christmas. I hoped it would make ironing the unfinished edges back on the fabric squares I use for my oneises much neater and easier. The good news is that it does work - it actually created a crease that kept the unfinished edges back. However, it took twice as long as my regular iron and didn't keep them back as well. I think the iron needs 3 improvements. It needs to be hotter, heavier and needs a steam feature. The bottom line: A regular iron works *much* better. This will work, though, if a regular size iron is too big for your project.

Have you used a new product or gadget and want to give the low down? Send me your reviews and I'll post them on my blog.

Valentine's Day

I've been thinking about possible Valentine's Day designs for my shirts and onesies. I'd really like to create something new, go in a different direction and actually have a few ideas (acting on them is a whole other matter, unfortunately). But for now, I'm going to make a set of the el corazon (heart), la rosa (rose) and las jaras (arrow) loteria images. I already offer the el corazon and la rosa in my shop but I'm going to take some new photos of them in hopes of capturing just how cute they really are. I keep hearing from people that my onesies are much cuter in person than on my site. It's frustrating because I feel like my pictures are actually pretty good, but I suppose they could be better. Hmmmm, maybe a solid colored background. I did that at Halloween with a big yellow piece of poster board. Thought it was pretty good. So far though, my things sell much better in person than on my Etsy shop. I plan to make a set of the "valentine" loteria images for Rising Stars one of the local shops I consign with. I also thought the Amor Tattoo onesie would be fun to show case for Valentine's Day. Wow, I seem to have a renewed energy for my little basement sweatshop endeavor. It's a Christmas miracle.