Welcome Baby Banner

I was working on this adorable Welcome Baby Banner, a request from a grandma-to-be as she is prepping for her daughter-in-law baby shower. Psst!

 

The theme is owl. Who doesn't love owls??And since they find out it's going to be a boy, this banner has somewhat 'blue' theme. I had helped her with baby shower invitations a couple months ago prior finding out the baby's gender, and we started with green.

Want something like this? I'd love to help you.

Here is the Birthday Banner I created in May.

My Creative Space

This is what I'll be working on today or tomorrow, teabag holders for this holiday season. A sweet lady bought all I have in stock plus more.


But really, who can resist the cuteness of nature critters?

On the side note, I need to make more of teabag holders, such a great gift for any occasion.

For more creative space, visit kootoyoo site.

4 Etsy-Versary SALE

I could not believe that it has been 4 years being on Etsy. It has been Wonderful!
I made sales, yes! 811 sales so far. Received 731 feedbacks! Thank you so much to all my customers who made this happened. Thank you for your continuing support. Just the other day, I chatted with my 1st buyer on twitter. She even wrote a review on my shop, one of the first reviews I honorly received.

But what I love the most as being part of Etsy community is the friendship that I found over the years. I've meet many friends through Etsy. An extraordinary gal, owner of LeasLetters convoed me out of the blue, welcoming me to the world of Etsy and since then we we've been friends. First friend on Etsy that I'll never forget :-)

As is in a real life, not everything is all-okay. Though there were a couple of occassions where I had bitter experiences ( I hate hurtful accusations!), I will not let that stain my appreciation and love to this Etsy community.

So, enough rambling here.

SALE. Big Sale!
From November 4 to 7, everything in my adorebynat shop is on sale.

And....to top that up. Every purchase that you make, you are eligible to be entered in BIG GIVEAWAY that Etsy Greetings team currently has. For the month of NOVEMBER, purchase from my shop or from my teammates in EtsyGreetings and have a chance to win 20+ handmade greeting cards. One entry is for one item, the more you buy, the better chance you have. ASK ME for details or visit the EtsyGreetings blog. Unfortunately only those individuals in the United States can enter the giveaway. Sorry guys, you know how I love international giveaways and this time, I wasn't the one that made the rule. But you still can purchase anything in my shop in discounted price for the next 3 days :-)

My Creative Space - the Holiday

The Holiday Season is fast approaching!

I have a few things going on including making more and more holiday cards and tags.

I love how this card turns out. A vintage Santa image is used, how classy and friendly he is! And yes, the felt tree looks smashing, doesn't it?

A few exciting news I'll share with you soon, just need to put everything together :-)

For more creative space, visit kootoyoo site.

My Creative Space

I received a custom order of 40 favor bags. It's for a repeat client. Love the fact that my clients loved what I made for them and they came back :-)

The original idea came from this favor bag, but you know... I LOVE custom orders!

These are great for bridal shower, wedding favor, baby shower and baby baptism. You can fill the bag with candies or in this case, almonds.

Since she needs to fill the bags with almonds, I would need to let her to do the final assembling. I think she's going to have fun doing it. Don't you?

Personalized Owl Tags

Lately, I've been busy with owl tag orders. Well, who could resist these adorable owls? One of the orders was to have them personalized with Etsy shop name.

Voila!!
I'll show you more of custom orders that I've done. Stay-tuned!

Giveaway $15 Gift Certificate from Pinky Crafts

Win $15 gift certificate to spend at Pinky Crafts. 

Mishelle of Pinky Crafts is our Saturday Artisan this week. If you missed reading the interview, be sure to head over to yesterday's post. Mishelle generously sponsored this giveaway, giving away one lucky winner to spend $15 on any item in her shop, including custom order!! 

 Do you have a pile of photos that are just to precious to be neglected? I am! I'm working my way to finish my scrapbook albums as I am keeping us with the little one who grows wayyyyy tooooo fast!!

There are many ways to enter. Please make sure you leave a separate comment for every entry. 

How to enter to win: 

Mandatory entry:

• Go to Pinky Craft's. Return to my Adore By Nat blog and simply leave a comment here about your favorite item from her store. By the way, she has Christmas in July sale going on, so be sure to take advantage of that! :-)

Extra entries (only qualify once mandatory entry is fulfilled):

• Earn 2 entries - Go to yesterday's post to know her more. Leave a comment there (yesterday's post) on at least one the following: what you learn from the interview, what you want to see more on her shop and why, or any constructive feedbacks are always appreciated. Come back here and leave 2 comments that you did, to ensure your entries are counted.

• Heart Pinky Crafts and earn an entry. Simply let us know your Etsy username.
• Follow Pinky Crafts on twitter to earn an entry.
• Follow Pinky Crafts'blog and earan an entry.
• Follow my blog and you earn another entry. If you're already a follower, you still get an entry, just says you're following already.
• Tweet about this giveaway, add "@adorebynat or @PinkyCrafts" in your tweet. Each tweet worths one entry and you can tweet each day until the end of the contest (a maximum of one tweet per day is counted). That's a total of 7 entries!

• Blog about this giveaway to earn 2 entries. Leave two separate comments here please providing me with the link to your post.

• Tell us how did you hear about this giveaway and you earn an entry.
• Refer your friends and family to enter this giveaway. You'll earn 3 entries (Leave three separate comments) for each referral. Be sure to let us know their names and simply ask them to mention your name their entry as confirmation.

• Purchase an item from Pinky Crafts and earn 10 entries for each purchase. Don't forget letting us know by leaving comments :-)

Contest starts now and ends on July 24th, 2010. Contest opens worldwide.

Don't forget to leave me your e-mail address. Entries without contact information will be disqualified. Entries that do not follow the rules will be disqualified. Contest winner will be drawn on Sunday, July 25th by a random number generator, by the artist. Winner must respond within 48 hours after being contacted otherwise another winner will be randomly selected.

Saturday Artisan: Pinky Crafts

Meet this week Saturday Artisan, Mishelle, the creative designer of Pinky Crafts. As a papercrafter myself, I adore her creations and totally understand how addicted working with papers and those cute sparkly embellishments.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what arts/ crafts that you make?
I've always loved crafts, but I got my official start in 2003, when I decided to create my own wedding invitations. I loved the process and how they turned out! I then moved into scrapbooking; I love to give framed scrapbook pages or personalized albums as gifts along with making stuff for myself. I'd been told that I should turn my scrapbooking into a business but I never had a chance - until my husband and I decided to make a huge change in our life. In January 2010, we quit the stressful careers that weren't making us happy, moved across the country, and decided to pursue careers that made us happier. My Etsy shop was born in April 2010, and it's made a major difference in my life! Its a huge change, going from an administrator at a community behavioral health agency to being a full-time crafter. My husband and I are both very happy so far, and I hope to keep this shop as my full-time job. I started by specializing in custom and premade scrapbooking, fun gift tags, and unique magnets. I've recently added party supplies - paper goodies for baby showers, weddings, birthdays, graduation, etc. I'm having so much fun.

What is your favourite item in your shop?
I'm partial to any of my wedding-themed items; I love weddings!


How does your day go in general?
I'm most comfortable with routines and structure, so I try to keep my days much the same as they were when I worked outside the home. I usually get up when my husband leaves for work in the morning, feed both myself and Pancakes (my adorable bunny), get my workout in, and then I spend the rest of the day working on my shop or creating new items. If I'm really excited about what I'm doing, I sometimes have to force myself to take a lunch break! I try to be finished by the time my husband gets off work, so we can spend the evening together and play with the bunny - but I do sneak off to check on my shop throughout the evening.

What is your goal for 2010? And are you on the right track?
My husband and I had a joint goal for 2010: we want to work to live, not live to work. We're definitely on the right track, having quit the jobs that were taking us away from our families and turning us into mega-stressed versions of ourselves. I think we'll get make it!

What is your favourite tool that you cannot live without?
Although its not technically a tool, I couldn't craft without rhinestone embellishments. I like to put some sparkle into my work!

Any advice for others running their on-line shop?
I had friends selling on Etsy, and I truly believed that the key to success was simply having a cute product. Not true! So much goes into having a successful shop, and you need to be prepared to put time and energy into every aspect. It's not only about the product, but how you photograph it, how your run your shop, how you market, etc. I'm still new at this, but I'm working nearly as much to get this off the ground as I did in my "real" job before Etsy. But this is much more fun!

Stay-tuned for tomorrow's giveaway!

Creations of the Week

It seems that I've been blogging about other shops a lot lately. It seems that I haven't shared with you MY creations as much as I used to, as much as I intended to when I started blogging.

I'm going to post my creations of the week on one of these days starting this week *fingers crossing*: Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Fridays. I don't want to commit to a specific day at this point as I honestly feel that I need to give myself a little break and not be tight with more schedules. Flexibilty...yeah that's what I need right now.

The Spotted Tuesday and Saturday Artisan will continue as is. I LOVE featuring other artists. Hopefully I can host giveaways every Sundays, but this is not a promise either.

Without further a due, here are my newest cards:

The little tweet bird is back!!! Every now and then, I miss these felt birdies.


Mother's day is just around the corner. This year, I have a great start. A few of these cards have been sold. Really, are there any mothers who don't deserve this card?


More felts. And with all these details, $3.50 seems to be a great bargain! :-)


Yes, spring has sprung!


Check out my shop for more selection of handmade greeting cards.

Decoupaged Clothespin Clips

I can't remember posting my decoupaged clothespin clips. I guess it must have slipped my mind. Oops!

For the longest time, my shop announcement and business cards saying I have greeting cards and other papercrafts available and yet only greeting cards available, and okay...maybe some tags :-)

So without further a due, now I have decoupaged clothespin clips. They're just fun to make and yet functional.


What can you use them for, you're asking?
Use them to close up your chip bag, hold few sheets of paper together to get organize at office/ home, hold place card setting for a party, or attach your gift tag to it as part of present decoration.


Each clothespin clip is embellished with beautiful scrapbooking paper on both sides. They are decoupaged and sealed a few times to ensure they last longer (they're not waste resistant!).

With the price that is so reasonable, there is no reason for you not to grab a set or two and start to add a splash in your home or office.

I made a few more sets last night with scramptious designs and will list them once I have natural light to take picture with. It snowed a bit by the way this morning. Can't wait for a white christmas!

Update on the Port Moody Craft Fair

Just a quick update on the fair that I participated. It was GOOD overall. I didn't make a lot of sales but good enough, actually considering the low traffic that we had, I made enough sales.

What is more important is that I met 8 other crafters who are very crafty in their fields. We managed to fit our tables in a basement where the craft fair was held. Some of them are Etsian sellers and some of them sell locally. We learned from each other, not only about crafting and turning a hobby into business but also sharing our life as a mom. Most of these crafters are moms of young toddler like myself.

Furthermore, an idea came up to do another fair at a different venue. Apparently one of the ladies lives in a great complex with 'captive' audience with a gym that we can book. Sharing the cost definitely can make the pricebecome reasonable. We'll see how it goes.


These teabag holder seems to be a hit. You can find them at my shop. They are really great for stocking stuffers.

The Almost Finished Custom Order

So here is what has been making me busy (among other things, of course), making sweet pink favors with adorable dress for a sweet client in Greece.

Here are a few snapshots I took while working on them.

Cutting each paper and ribbon out . . .


Working on wee hours . . .


A big pile of adorable dress in scalloped circles . . .

Assembling them . . .


And the almost finished favor . . .


Why the almost finished custom order? Well, firstly because they will be sent flat as in the picture, ready to be tied on. They will need be filled in first with jordan almonds, a part of Greek tradition, which will be done once they arrive in the destination. Secondly, because this sweet lady is too sweet that she can't get enough of them. *bragging* LOL. She asked for 10 more favors to be added to her order.

How does the favor really look like? Go look here.