almost to 1,000 views...

I checked the counter on my Etsy site this morning and found this

...aka I will most likely hit 1,000 views today!

HOW EXCITING!

Now on to the next questions...

Why do I only have one sale?

How many views does it take to get a sale?

It is time to re-visit how I'm marketing these materials. I originally wanted this site/store to be my at-night, part-time, wind-down, do-for-fun-and-personal-expression project, but those Etsy advice blogs are right again. But I'm happy to do it! This is still FUN! And I'm learning a lot.

It's also time to start thinking about changing my Etsy store name.
(It is currently "tempak.")
I only get one shot to do this, and then it will stick. Any thoughts, friends?

500 views and Etsy milestones!

This week in the TempaK Etsy store features three significant milestones:

500+ viewers to my Etsy store!

AND...

My first sale!

... albeit the least expensive item in my entire store, but hey! Gotta start somewhere!

AND for the third milestone...

I've been added to two "Treasury lists" on Etsy! Treasury lists are groups of items that people put together to show products that they love.

You can see them here and here.

What else would YOU like to see in my Etsy store?

Etsy!

My ETSY site is up and has enough products that I think I can more directly advertise it!

Visit my Etsy store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/tempak

The next item that I will be posting is a 12"x12" pillow made beautifully with this fabric:

(I will post the product once I can re-charge my camera battery to take the pictures of it! Ah!)

A pretty pillow!

My latest crafty venture is to make pillows. Not only pillows, but NICE pillows. Most often these pillows are made out of Remnants I find at fancy stores here in town, but also sometimes made of prints that I just love. I found a 14"x28" pillow and thought it may be a fun size for my first fancy pillow. Below is the final product. Please excuse the floor shots - I don't have any bedding that would be appropriate to show off this specific pillow.

The pillows I had made before this one all included zippers. This time, I decided to mirror some of the pillows I saw at the fancy shmancy Richmond designer store Williams & Sherrill, by using a folded insert pillow back, instead of zippers at the bottom seam. This was a great idea, and turned out to be a) easier to make and b) very professional looking, EXCEPT that on my first try, I accidentally did one half of the pillow back upside down. I guess this means I'll just have to keep this pillow and not sell it! :)

More pillow photos to come soon, as I made 3 pillows last night that all match, that I am thinking of selling on my Etsy store as a set. What do you think? Should I add buttons to the back of these, or keep them as simply folded-over-parts?

Pop Art - 2

Thoughts? I'm considering changing Reese (Kitty)'s picture...

THE QUILT IS DONE!

It only took me three + years of working off and on, and finally..

My Mary Wash quilt is complete!!!!! Oh. my. goodness. Now it's time for the photos of the process...

I uploaded this photo to Facebook on 11/08/2009, with a caption stating I'd been working on the quilt front for a year off and on, so that means I must have started it in 2008...

Skip ahead a handful of steps that involve measuring the front, adding borders, sewing those letters to the quilt, and you get to the next phase, which is when the "face" (I have no idea what it is called, but I think it should be called a "face") hangs up to air out.

And then it was time to set out the quilt backing, which kind of became a random quilt of its own. Reese likes to help with the process.

The next step was to put the different parts of the quilt together. But first, I had to clear a room to find enough room. Therefore, everything from the dining room went into the living room. I'm glad Austin was out of town for this phase. He would not have liked to come home to everything out of place...

The dining room, with the Quilt Front spread out and the Batting resting on it, ready to have the quilt back placed on top...

Ready for Basting, where I make very large stitches with embroidery floss, in order to keep the layers of the quilt together while the quilt is secured.

Pinning the borders!

Working on final buttons...

So close!

FINISHED!!!!

Yay!!

And the Etsy journey begins..

After MONTHS of thinking about it and talking about it, I finally did it: I listed my first item on Etsy. Going through the wedding process enlivened this whole creative side of me that I hadn't fully realized before. I spend my idle minutes during the day dreaming of the crafts I can work on that evening, or what I'm going to do next. It's time I put all of this energy into a productive direction. But first, I've got to figure out whether I can sell my goods...!!

If anyone (Mom, for example...) is wondering what Etsy is, here is their website: Etsy.com. It's a site for people to sell things they make, vintage items, or supplies. It's all privately done, and seems to be a revolution in creativity and accessibility of goods in this country (and the world). Come back and visit My Etsy Storefront when you get a chance! Hopefully I'll have some more items up there soon...

Here's a fun photo from my first ever listing (also a photo I took for my photography class this summer)

Animal Portraits

You may have noticed my interest in Animal Pop Art, by looking at my Pinterest board.

Or you may now how awesome I think my animals are (dingleberries and all...)

You may even have seen that Austin and I registered for "Animal Portraits" for our wedding gifts.

You probably know how much I love Rue-La-La, too.

You may be wondering where this post is going, what are these ramblings about? 

I am so close, so close to ordering the AllPopArt that we registered for! I have narrowed it down to one version: a 20"x20" print similar to this one, 2 of the images for Davis and 2 of the images for Reese:

Now here's the catch: Which images do I choose? It has to be something with good detail, so that the little doggie hairs can stand out in the contrast. I has to be something that can be zoomed in. It has to look cute. It has to go with the house... (yeeahh, I will worry about that one later!)

I've narrowed it down to a possible 3 photos for each of them. Care to cast your vote for which one I should choose? I can pick one for the cat and one for the dog (but there will be 2 each of the photo I select, get it?). 

Here are the options...

And...

What do you think?

Fancy Shmancy!

Hello, all! You may recall my post here where I showed you the chairs I painted for our front porch. Here's another shot to jog your memory:

Yesterday, my friend Laura P sent me a link to a sale on Etsy where very similar chairs are selling for $375!!! I'm nearly certain these are exactly the same color. Sweet.

Recent blog finds!

Oh.My.Goodness.

1) I just read on my Google Reader, from a Young House Love post, that there is a Google program (SketchUp) that helps you to design your home, pick furniture, etc. I have been fixin' to ask Reid, Austin's little bro, to help me figure out how to do this. We are a few years away from a renovation in our house, but I can't help but dream about it on an almost daily basis. The thing about dreaming of renovations, is that you come up with grand plans that are most likely not possible. My plans for the addition are larger than what is physically possible. So hopefully, now that I know about SketchUp, I will have a post in the near future where I am able to identify my visions! ....And figure out what's realistic...

2) Earlier this week, I was watching Extreme Couponing, and found a new motivation for cutting coupons. I then discovered the website Krazy Coupon Lady, and fell in love! I have officially subscribed to her Kroger feed, where she updates the deals on a weekly basis, AND provides links for online coupons. Amazing. I hope it works out as fabulously as I think it will.

We have a fence!!!!!

When we bought our house, Austin had a dream that we would get a fence and cookout for football games. We had no idea our fence would turn out this totally AMAZING! This entry will be all photos of the process...

And of course the final photo...

After Hurricane Irene in Richmond

This entry will be mostly pictures...

Reese surveying the damage outside.




Lots of leaves EVERYWHERE (we were lucky)




Our back fence fell down from the storm. It's the spot that was connected to the shed. Good thing we were planning to have it torn down within a few days.





Close-up of our toppled fence area.




A tree down on our street. It JUST missed that house. This tree fell early on in the storm and thus it already had the pink caution tape on it before the storm was over.




This part standing up is much taller than me.






Repairing... Pay attention to this person's height vs the breadth of the tree.




ABC store closed.




Think for a moment. If you woke up in the morning with no power, where would you go? Walk to Starbucks and take photos of the fallen trees, and then of how many people are in line at Starbucks, of course. It was a 20 minute wait.




There was also a man outside this Kroger, with a Kroger vest on, yelling "WE'RE CLOSED!" every time someone walked by. Odd.




I think the purpose of this picture was to show how this house's porch entirely fell off. Can you see it?





How do you know when things are really cooky? When you get back from the power-less Starbucks run to find Kitty laying on Davis' doggy bed, of course.