New photos and pattern making updates

I have continued to experiment with my new photography equipment.  I finally have come up with something that I like, and I spent last week redoing all my photos in my shop!

I'm very happy with this new style.  I've always wanted to evoke a mood when people come to my shop, and ever since I moved my sewing machine to my photo spot that had the best natural lighting, I have struggled to come up with a new style. I feel like I have finally made it!  I also have been paying more attention to my non-Etsy site lately, and updated the photos there too.

In pattern news, the more research I've done, the more I realize I need to do before I can release my patterns! I'm currently taking an online course on pattern-making and I'm about to make the plunge and purchase some computer software to help me start.  I have no idea how long the actual process will take me.  I had nice ideas of releasing my three most popular clutch designs simultaneously, but that may be too ambitious.  The nice thing is that people are already asking me to be testers. If you are interested, just let me know and I will add you to the list.

New color swatches

This weekend I worked on a project I have been wanting to do for awhile.  It involved a lot of photography, editing, and tediousness, but I'm happy to have created a new selection of color swatches!

 

To compare, this is what my swatches looked like before.

 I think the new graphic does a much better job of comparing colors to each other and hopefully is clear.  I found the best results by photographing 4-6 at a time and editing them together before cropping into the correct size.  That way I got the correct colors in relation to other ones. 

In other news, I bought a new photography studio setup.  I bought a little mini backdrop stand, which is awesome, as well as a white backdrop.  I have another backdrop coming in the mail for me to experiment with.  I also bought two softboxes.  I like the light they give off.  It's diffused and easy to change around. I'm still experimenting with light direction.

 Here is an example of a picture with these lights.  I like this one a lot.

Fun things in my studio

I have known for awhile that my storage system for my purses was really flawed.  Purses were getting squished, finding them was difficult at times, and one of the places I stored them was right next to a vent, so I was concerned about lint.  So I did some internet research, and ultimately decided that shoe storage was the chepapest and most efficient way to go.  I ultimately bought four of these shoe shelves from Target, each with 15 slots.  I stacked them all up in the corner where I used to have a normal bookshelf full of purses.  We bolted it to the wall.

 I love it!  Most slots can fit two purses, but a one style fits 3 to a slot, and one style only fits one to a slot.  I don't have much more room left for more purses, but they are small enough that I could probably fit one or two in my dining room if necessary.

 And I do plan on filling more!  This is a shelf I bought last month specifically for storing in progress purses.  I'm not even sure how many purses and wallets are cut out on this shelf!  I'm having a slow time working through them, because I always have current orders, but it helps a lot to have them already cut out and interfaced.

 Here's a fun toy I bought last month.  I may not use it much for my business, but I already have a few ideas.  It's a Silhouette Cameo, which is a cutting machine.  I know I'll be using a lot for cutting out quilt appliques and Christmas gifts.

 Here's something I made that I may use for the shop.  I use these postcards to close the tops of my packages.  I tried cutting out one, and I think it looks kind of cool!

 Here is a collage of bridal orders for the last month or so.  It was a busy month! 

 And here is a collage of individual purses that I added to my shop or made for custom orders this month.

And lastly, I hit a big milestone this month!

500 sales on Etsy since starting just over 2 years ago! 

New packaging and other pictures

I've been thinking over my new packaging for awhile. Previously I was using a clear cello bag, closed with a sticker with my shop name, and that's all.  I decided I wanted to upgrade a little, without making it too frilly or creating extra waste for people to throw away.  I decided to use a patterned cello bag instead of the clear.  I also commissioned a new logo from a graphic designer on Etsy back in December.  The final part of my new packaging was to order some postcards with my logo to fold in half and close the package.  Overall, I'm really happy with the new look!

 I've got some personal projects coming up that I'm reallycited about.  My daughter turns 4 in April, and I'll be making her a new dress for her birthday and Easter.  She sometimes accompanies me to the fabric store, and on one trip she fell in love with some coral organza with silver sparkles.  I bought some coordinating fabric and have sketched out a design that should be quite fun.  I don't have a pattern, so a few parts I'll have to wing, but I think I can get it all to work out. I also bought a pattern to make her a stick horse for her birthday.  She will be thrilled, and if my son wants one too, I can make one for him.

 My fabric scrap pile was getting huge and taking over.  My scrap bins were all too full, so I decided I needed more storage!  This is the pile of fabric I needed to organize.

 I bought a third cube shelf to go under my craft table, as well as several storage bins.

 I organized the scraps by color.  I also emptied out every one of my existing scrap bins and went through every single piece.  Anything that was smaller than 2.5" square was tossed.  The small scraps all went back into the plastic bins.  The new shelves are full of scraps that are big enough for a wallet but too small for a purse. At the end of several hours, I had this pile on my ottoman of fabric to be thrown away!  Part of me is sad to see so much fabric go into the trash, but I always get satisfaction of streamlining things and getting rid of excess. 

 I finished a bridal order today.  Love this one!

 And I finished this one last week.

I have two to work on this week, as well as a custom order that is based on a purse the bride found on Pinterest that is basically a combination of two of my styles.  I'm excited about that one.

Some in-progress works

I took a break the week before Christmas from purse sewing so I could focus on my kids' Christmas gifts.  Now that Christmas is over I went kind of crazy cutting out purses to sew!

 There are about 20 purses here and 15 wallets.  Enough sewing to last me...I don't even know.  Weeks!

 Unfortunately my work area needs a little cleaning.  This is my pile of scraps.  These are big enough that I may want to use them later, so I save them.  But my scrap tubs are getting pretty full, so I'm not looking forward to trying to stuff these into their respective bins.

 This is a big part of the reason I haven't done scrap organization yet.  This is underneath my table.  I went through my closet and took out everything that didn't fit, was too old, or that I plain didn't like anymore.  This left me with about four things left for winter!  Instead of trying to replace that warddrobe by buying new clothes, I am determined to upcycle some of these old clothes into new clothes for myself.  So this pile is sitting on top of some of scrap tubs and I'm trying to ignore it. 

 My cousin commissioned a purse for our aunt.  I picked a brown wool with embroidered flowers on it.  I did used my familiar woven design, though I altered the pattern to make the purse a little narrower and taller.  It also zippers up instead of using a magnet clasp; one of my goals for 2012 is to put zippers in all of my purses. 

 It still needs a purse strap, which I will do today.

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Years weekend!  We will be having a sleepover with the grandparents and on Monday I'll be starting the joy of inventory!

My current studio

I glued ten purses last night into their frames. The last time I did a large amount of purses at once I ended up with a numb finger that didn't regain full feeling for over a week! So I tried to be extra careful to not injure myself. I still ended up with red fingers though, so I'm definitely taking a vacation from framed purses and concentrating on some shoulderbags and wallets.

Another view of the same purses. I'll be busy editing photos and listing new items all morning tomorrow!

And now that I've finished the fringe purses I can send off my next shipment to the shop that I consign with down in Florida. Most of these purses I will make duplicates of to stay in my Etsy shop.

And finally, I have a new iron! It's a massive, gravity feed iron. It has a water tank that is suspended above the iron. It's also really heavy, which is nice. You can see my old faithful iron on the left, which is actually a hand-me-down from my mother when I left for college 7 years ago. I think it's the iron my brother used to wax his snowboard! I am way past due for a nice new one. We actually haven't figured out how to suspend the tank yet, so I haven't tried out my new Sapporo yet. But I will this week.

My list of non-purse projects is growing again. I got a shipment of clearance fabric this week that only cost me $25 for 10 yards of fabric! That fabric will be turned into two sheets for my kids' beds, and two dresses for me. We have family pictures on Saturday, so I have to get one of the dresses done before the. I'm making up the pattern myself inspired by I shirt I saw on Pinterest, so I'm hoping it turns out well. There is great capacity for disaster! Once the dress is done, I need to make new placemats, the two sheets, and a birthday quilt for my soon-to-be 2 year old. And then three Christmas gifts for the little boys in the family! I will be busy!

New "studio"

I completely ran out of room with my previous sewing area configuration. When you first walked into our apartment, my sewing stuff took up the entire wall right next to the entrance. So last Saturday I went to Target, picked up another set of cube storage shelves, some metal storage shelves, and then a few night ago I picked up the board to create my new cutting/work table. I moved all the living room furniture to one side of the room, and all my sewing stuff to the other side.
I still need to paint the board, but otherwise my sewing nook is now finished!

This little table was previously where I cut out everything. Now it's my shipping area and place to store works in progress. It also is my new little photo area.

I'm so happy I bought these wire shelves too. All this stuff was stacked haphazardly before or stuffed into corners.

And the really nice thing about this table is that I can store things underneath it too. It has two rolling storage shelves for patterns and other various things. My old sewing machine and embroidery attachment are under there too. That back shelf has mostly my fabric scraps, but also leather and old clothes for upcycling purposes.

I also bought myself a white board for my to-do list. The left hand side is for my shop, the right hand side is non-shop stuff.

And here is my oldest, who loves my new sewing room, as she calls it. She also is happy that there is just enough room under the cutting table for her to walk under.

I also fit all my inventory into another set of shelves, but it is getting quite squishy. I'll need to find more space to store purses because I'm intending on increasing my inventory this month to over 100 items in preparation for the holidays!