Ten Days of Listings

What started as a plan to post an item a day for 7 days turned into 10 new items in my shop!
I skipped Sundays.
Here's how it went down:

Thursday, January 7th


Friday, January 8th



Saturday, January 9th


Monday, January 11th


Tuesday, January 12th


Wednesday, January 13th


Thursday, January 14th


Friday, January 15th
January 15th

Saturday, January 16th


Monday, January 18th

Thanks to good lighting on the 14th, I was able to take pictures of all the scarves I already had, subsequently allowing me to continue listing things without having to make anything new. ;-)

YAY!

Another Shoe Post

Hello!

I do not believe I have ever shown off my amazing, custom hand painted shoes from Alexandra.
Allow me-

Are those unique or what? I got her to fashion the little paintings after some of Helen's designs.

(Because I own the little bird earrings and a tiny lovebirds ring from her. And I LOVE them. )

In other news, I have been on the ball with slipper-making this week.

That one blue background picture with all those green ones is feeling a little lonely. However, it's a better photo all around, so it doesn't mind too much.

Now, I would like to share with you a photo that absolutely made my night when I saw it.

From a super-awesome buyer:

"Your description of the slippers made me think I would love to illustrate that."

Is that just the coolest thing or what?! It makes me soooo happy!
I've gotten a couple of appreciation photos before. They all rock, but this one SO takes the cake!

So, I think I'm off to read a little, and maybe make more brown Elfin Slippers.

Happy Wednesday!

Caitlin

The Elfin Slipper Battle

The words "Finish Elfin Slippers" never made it onto paper yesterday.
The battle is over.
I defied the concrete importance of the written word for motivation.

**singsong**
Guess who feels accooooompliiiiished.
lol
**smug face**
Now to tweak my pattern so's I can make more of these without wanting to die.

P.S. I'm on Twitter now.

Keepin' em and Breakin' em

Records!
I'm learning how to keep records. yay! I spent a couple hours today downloading CSV files (thank you, Etsy, for keeping track of my sales so I don't have to, and compiling the info into neat little files I can load into Excel!), fixin' up my spreadsheets, adding up receipts, totaling profits, and making sure things are in order. GO ME! When tax season comes next year, figuring out my Etsy stuff should be a breeze. Or let's hope so anyways.

As for breaking them, I've never had this many items in my shop at once.
31 as of right now.
Record broken. (not that I've actually been counting... )

Today I listed a couple of new beanies.

Oh, and I finished those black elfin slippers. And wrote the pattern down so I can make more.

And I guess that wraps up today's update. Just wanted to share my little triumphs of the day.
:)
Happy Wednesday!
Caitlin

Last Weekend

Time for
...**drumroll**...
A picture post!

Obviously we didn't go to Six Flags on Saturday because of the weather.
They didn't open anways. :)
I had a wonderful productive weekend at home, making 9 hats and 2 pairs of slippers.
Behold! The fruits of my labor!

These are way cooler in person. Nine excellent, buttery soft cotton beanies.
Well, 8 beanies and one hat that was supposed to be a beanie, and turned out floppy instead.
Perfect for the upcoming spring and summer weather.
You know how I mentioned wanting to make a hat to wear to six flags? This is it.
Now I have to pick which one I want to keep.

I think I want the super amazing most colorful stripey one.
(the fifth picture)
:D

These aren't the slippers I made, but I've had them forever and finally got them listed:

Elfin Slippers!

I'm going to sit down with them tonight and give them a good lookin' over so I can figure out how I did that. Somebody in France wants a black pair, and I don't remember how I made them.

Now I thought perhaps you might like to see some of the pictures from Sunday.

Pine Needles

Dogwood Tree

Archway

Hungry Birds

Frozen Daffodil

Lovely, eh?
If you'd like to see the rest, try this link.

So! I think that's enough pictures for now.
Goodbye!

New Things!

I finally got caught up on custom orders, so I've been able to do a little creating lately! Hooray!
I went to Michael's and bought 3 new colors for scarflings. Red, green, and blue.
I made two red ones and a green one already. Haven't gotten to the blue yet.
So pretty!
Yesterday I whipped up this lovely black beanie from that big ole bunch of yarn I bought and haven't used yet. I guess I've been scared to use it because it's wool. I like washable things, and I have no idea how to take care of wool. It says hand wash and lay flat to dry. But what if something terrible happens? What if you drop your gorgeous wool hat in a mud puddle? What then?!

Anyways, Today I finished this gorgeous green scarfling. It turned out shorter than the red one, even though it's the same number of stitches. I guess it wanted to be original.

I enjoy taking the photos. I'm not an expert, but I generally like how they turn out. Of course, I usually take at least 50 shots of one thing just to get 5 to post on Etsy.
Oh, and did you know that it's hard to tie a headband around a foam head wearing a wig? Really. It's harder than it ought to be. It has no ears, so placement is a little hard, and then the stupid wig wants to slip around, and the hair won't look right... It took forever to get the thing adjusted.

I also took pics of some blue slippers to make a listing for custom ones. And ALL of my slipper pics turned out bad. This was the best one. I had to adjust the color a lot, and then the background turned out super-funky-neon-green. That's not how it's supposed to be! Guess I'll try again. Whatever!
You know what?
This post seems really boring to me.
Maybe you will like it.

And if you don't, let me know, and I'll post one of those survey-question thingies that I filled out this evening. Although that's probably not any more interesting.

Oh! I just made a sale while I was typing this! Cool.
Have a happy day. :)
Caiti

At Barbara's House

"Hello! I'm at Barbara's house! ... in a petticoat! ...
**giggles** ... hey, what is a petticoat?"

I hear the strangest bits of conversation around here sometimes. Above was issued by my 8 year old sister Emmie.

I am tired. And have lots to do. And am getting little of it done. Dear Etsy customers, forgive me. Life is gaining on me. I'm working on your stuffs, I promise, I am.

Guess what?
I made cute slippers a while back. (during a break from custom orders) Pixie slippers. Or at least, I like to call them pixie slippers. I made them rather biggish. Maybe someone out there with biggish feet will like them. I like them.

And then I decided to try my hand at a scarflette with the
remaining green yarn. It, too, turned out satisfactory, though also a little on the big side. Next time I'll make it a couple inches shorter.

M.S. (mid-script) I made my 100th Etsy sale today.

And I'm getting close to the end of To Kill a Mockingbird. 'S'good.
I could really use a cup of coffee and a brownie or something.

Tomorrow's going to be crazy busy, too.
Maybe Friday will be a little more low-key. I could use a little low-key after today.
I could also use some sleep.

Did you know I like my friends? I do. They're nice.
So is rest.
Good night. :)

Headaches , Cupcakes, Coffee

There.
Rhyme and alliteration in one title. Boo ya!

Tom said that when he was leaving school today. "Boo ya, Miss Caitlin!"
His big brother taught him. What cuties! Wish I had a pic of them together.

Today was picture day at preschool. Half an hour before quittin' time, I was totally losing it.
I won't go into detail. :)
But I will tell you part of the problem - Miss Coffee Addict missed her morning fix. Ohhh not good. I had a pounding headache all afternoon. Don't try sugar-free caramel vanilla coffee mate powder when you run out of your regular creamer. It will render your coffee unfit for human consumption. Or any other sort of consumption, for that matter.

I bought a caribou coffee espresso drink thingy on the way to drop Laura off at school. I knew I should have gotten a Starbuck's frappuccino! Hang saving 75 cents. That thing was strange. And I drank every. last. drop. Figuring it would make my headache go away. Guess what? Didn't work. Funny thing about weird coffee drinks, though. Once you're past the first couple of sips, it's usually tolerable. It was definitely better than the caramel vanilla sludge I tried to drink this morning.

The title of this post was originally Books and Buttons. (more alliteration!) I changed it when the first two topics turned out to be headaches and coffee. So, the cupcakes really don't have much to do with this post. I just finished eating one, and I had one earlier. That's about it.


But, along the Books and Buttons theme, I feel compelled to rejoice aloud in my new Calvin and Hobbes collection. I should have taken a picture of it. Tis the Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes. I already had the Authoritative. Now to get my hands on the Essential. Did you know I love Calvin and Hobbes? I do. Swaptree, too. For that's how I got it. Who wants a boring old book about handbags when you can have a book full of the best comic strips ever?!

I returned lots of books to the library today, including House of the Seven Gables and The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. House of the Seven Gables I still plan to read. Just not yet. I just have other things on my priority list. Like Calvin and Hobbes. :P

Actually, I plan to read To Kill a Mockingbird. We'll see how that goes. I got it on Swaptree, too. The Ernest Hemingway stuff, however, I do not plan to read. Ever. I flipped through it the other night, and it was pretty vulgar. There's no point reading a bunch of distasteful stuff just because it's "classic" or well written.

I suppose I could keep rambling about the other books I've read recently, or the other ones I plan to read, but that's enough book talk for now. Time to move on to the buttons part.

I went shopping today to pick up some yarn. I needed buttons, too. Browsing the store, I was beginning to despair, for there were no buttons to be found. Which makes sense - it's a craft store, not a sewing/notions store. Anyways. Then I stumbled across "Grandma's button bags." Little baggies full of random buttons. Yay! Behold - what is this next to them? Vintage button bags! Sweet! They had plenty of buttons that would work for my slippers, and they were way cooler in general than the buttons in the other bag. (I mean, they're vintage. They've had a previous life. If that's not cool, then, ...well... it just is.)

I pulled out every bag and looked into them at all angles to decide which was the best. I never decided which was best, but I did decide which one I wanted, because it had a great big peachy button right in the front. See?

Nifty, huh? I already put some of them on these slippers.
And there are enough of that same kind to do another 2 pairs. Can't wait to see what the rest of them will come in handy for!
So. I need to get back to crocheting.

If anyone has any good book recommendations, let me know. Even though I can't seem to read what I've already got, I'm in the mood for tackling a reading list, so might as well add a few more as I scratch a couple off. :-)

Later!
Caitlin

Happy Fall!

YAY! It's the first day of fall!!
The weather is amazing.
And because I'm so happy, I'm offering free shipping in my etsy shop til Wednesday!

I would enter a picture of the cute little pumpkin hat I made right here, but I haven't uploaded the pictures yet, so I can't. I can, however, show you a goofy picture of myself wearing my awesome little bird earrings.
Nicholas said, "hey, what are those earrings supposed to be anyways? Comets?"... I was like "uh, no. See the little beak? it's a bird."

In his defense, he has terrible vision.


I'm hoping my cool little scarflings will sell well. They're fun to make. I have a new black one up in my shop. So very cool! I like how they can be used for so many things.
I have a couple white ones from when I learned how to make them. Now I need to make a black one and a yellow one for myself. The only problem is, I can't wear them in my hair! It's still too short!

But, as a side note, I do plan on growing my hair back out. I don't know if I had mentioned that again or not. Yes, finally. I'll tell ya what persuaded me, and you'll laugh. (Actually, I had mostly decided to already) I was reading this book that said if I planned to get married, I should live like it. And I figured that since I want to have long hair for my wedding, I should go ahead and start growing it out. You've heard that story about the farmer who prayed for rain AND plowed his field in faith? Well, I'm growing my hair out in faith that I'll eventually have a wedding. And if I don't, well, I was going to grow it back out sometime or another. LOL

So, that was off-topic. This is supposed to be an Etsy post.

I'm actually here taking a break from crocheting.
I have lots of custom orders to work on today. Did I mention how I love custom orders? Especially when people are so nice to me. :)

I'm making some of these pink slippers in a grown-up size. Without the heart buttons. I'm not sure what buttons I'm going to use yet.
I'm also making another Mary Jane style pair in a ruby sort of color to donate for a giveaway a fellow etsian is doing. Yay! Methinks I should make lots of them and offer them more frequently in my shop.

So, I think that's enough Etsy talk for now. I haven't forgotten my next Suggested Writing post. :)
Happy Monday!
CaitiJo