Upcoming shows

I’ve signed up for the new season of the Scottsdale Street Fair in, of course, Scottsdale, AZ. Held on Sundays through mid-may, the first show is October 7. I’ll be displaying my embroidery, quilts, and baby items.I’ve also starting doing screen printed tees. In addition, I’ll be selling my Scentsy warmers and fragrances and Velata, Scentsy’s new line of fondue warmers for Belgian chocolates. They have attendance of between 2,000 and 5,000 people weekly.

I’ve also signed up to be at Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale for their monthly fund-raising. Will be doing the hand crafted items there. It’s organized by fellow shoppers I know. This is their first independent venture, and had about 25 vendors last month. I’m looking forward to working with them.

For more information on my wares, please check out my Etsy shop, KristaBDesigns and my Scentsy site at homescentsbyjanice.scentys.us.

Wedding quilt signed, sealed, and delivered

The quilt looked wonderfu, and was mailed to the wedding couple a week or so ago. They loved it! Which is a good thing because then they would have had to send it back to me and only get a check for the wedding instead! The wedding is this weekend, and from what I understand, there were be about 200 people. Can’t wait to go. Doing my Mom’s laundry now so she has something to pack!

Contest is up and running

As I stated in my prior blog, one of my baby bibs has been selected to be in a contest for the Certified Tax Coach website. The contest is up and running now, so please vote for me.

The link is http://www.certifiedtaxcoach.org/blog/help-us-select-a-fun-product/

 

My item is #4.

The details:
How to vote?

Twitter mention your favorite with the HashTag #CTCVote = 2 points (must have hashtag to count!)
Blog comment below with product number = 1 point
Write your OWN blog post on your blog and give them the link in the comments section= 10 points! (whoa!)

So have fun!

Please vote for me

Most of you know that I sell my t-shirts, quilts, and baby items on Etsy as http://www.kristabdesigns.etsy.com. I received an e-mail the other night from Jon from Certifiedtaxcoach.com who wanted to know if I wanted to be included in the contest they are planning on having. They are an accounting group who were looking for 10 unique tax or accounting related items. My “tax deduction” bib is going to be included. The item with the most votes will have the item listed for sale on their site.

So if you get a chance later next week, please vote for me.

The craft shows are coming!

The temperature is coming down- thank goodness! For those of us in the Phoenix, AZ area, that means temps are now down to only two digits!

It also means that the Briar Patch Marketplace craft shows have started, and I’m behind the eight-ball once again!

I’ve expanded my products to include t-shirts and lots of bling! I continue on with my bibs and small quilts. I got a heat press in June and can now do screen print transfers for team events, sports, etc.I’ve been having fun with the press, although there’s been learning moments-like the lightweight distressed little black tee with a beautiful cross on it. I must have heated it a smidgen too long because the glue went thru the front of the shirt and on to the back. As I was separating the front from the back, I found I had a really distressed look- the glue had ripped holes in the back! Oh well, now I have an opportunity to embroider something on the back of the shirt to cover up the holes! And I can’t have the iron on if the heat press is on because the circuit breaker goes.

Here’s the link to the listing of the Briar Patch shows.
http://briarpatchmarketplace.com/upcoming-events/

Please come see me if you’re local. Note- I may not make the 9/17 show, it’s AZ quilt shop week.

FYI- I’m Janice of Krista B Designs. You can also see my products on etsy at kristabdesigns.etsy.com.

So much fabric, so little time

Well, I finished up the last of the Memorial Day fabric sales today (Tuesday). Good news- I found that the underlining that I already had could face the back on an embroidery design on a child’s shirt-which is adorable by the way- an appliqued heart with wings on a pink tshirt. So I got sashing fabric for the monsters I’m embroidering on green dot fabric. The sashing is navy blue with yellow fist bones. The binding will be green with yellow and blue dots. Sounds unusual, but it will look great when done. I’ll post pictures. Both the flying heart and the monsters are from Anita Good-designs (Sugar and Spice and Lil Monsters respectively).

My cheap purchase was a stencil of a circular quilting pattern. Will be tracing that onto a black tshirt and using varigated thread and lots of glitter from Art Glitter Institute in Cottonwood AZ (http://www.artglitter.com/. Should look fantastico, maybe add a Laurel Burch cat or horse on the bottom left hand side. Photos to follow.

Now for the rest. I got a pack of 25 batik fat quarters named Autumn Leaves. Going to use a pattern called “Fight North” room Mountainpeek Creations, http://www.mountainpeekcreations.com/. It’s a panel in the middle with large flying geese around it, then an wide border. A picture is on the home page of her website. Going to use a Japanese print for the center. Then I also have a Laurel Burch print (several as a matter of fact) to use with geese made out her coordinating fabrics. This pattern will be great for any fabric you can’t bear to cut up!

The last little stuff I got was all-purpose inks for fantast/x made by Tsukineko. I just thought it would be great for glitter or stencil shading. Have any of you used it at all? If so, please let me know.

So many projects, so little time!

Talk to you soon,
Janice

Confessions of a Fabricholic

Several months ago, in January, when we were all making New Year’s resolutions, I foolishly said I was going to cut back on my fabric and embroidery purchases. Although I’ve bought bits and pieces, the Memorial Day sales, brought me to ruin! The sale was 25% off of everything except for sewing machines. I went overboard! The good news is that I saved over $100 at that one store. Of course I’m not counting the sales at Joanns, the glitter at Art Glitter Institute that was on sale for 50% off, or the larger purchase I had to make (minimum was $100) so that I could buy a $14 rhinestone headband for my niece’s graduation. The other good news is that my grand-daughter is also graduating high school so she’ll also get a headband- since I had to buy a minimum of three. To get to over $100, I ordered an assortment of rhinestone necklaces, so I have a head start for the fall craft shows.

Speaking of quilting, I started another Diamond quilt. Decided to get rid of some beige fabric, so cut it all into 8.5 inch squares. Had enough for 60 squares which will make two quilts. Drew a line down the middle, another line two inches from that. You just have to sew and flip six million 1.5 inch strips, leaving beige in the middle. Square the blocks, lay them out, add a border and you’re done! I’m almost done with the squares, thank goodness!

Also did some work on my embroidery machine. The very cutest purple and pink heart with wings, with a white ribbon with “Angel” on a hot pink t-shirt. Should have it up on Etsy in the next few days. Also stitched a towel with one of the designs from Balboa. That was my big purchase at the end of last year. Turned out nice, very good digitizing.

Back to my day job tomorrow morning. Finished with the month’s work last Monday. One more day of boredom before the new month starts. Can’t wait!

Almost back to creativity!

My husband and I packed up the rest of the Mom’s apartment and took all of it to the storage place. Mom’s in a group home, doing well, but still needs oxygen. We don’t know why since her lungs are clear. However, my sister will be coming out later this month to ask many, many questions of the Doctors. So hopefully, with the apartment done, Mom will make a full recovery and I will have to move her- again. Such is life.

I’ve been relatively good with my New Year’s resolution of using the stuff I have, rather than buying new fabric. While my spending for fabric is way down, I’ve discovered stamping and zantangles.  My goal for the stamping is to use the stamps as my starting point for making decorated t-shirts, embellishing with embroidery and glitter. Of course my shirts are going to be better than anything that Laurel Burch ever designed! Same contemporary feel with a southwestern twist. I went to the local stamp show, trying to find glitter, and poof, down goes the balance in the checking account.

Check out these:

Book- Glitz It with Glitter by Elaline Waldschmitt. I’m doing the horse design now.

Glitter-artglitterinstitute.com. They are having a sale now.

Stamp store-Frenzy Stamper where I took the zentangle class

Zentangles.com- a way of doing abstract drawings that are very addictive. I color mine in.

Terry Medaris stamps- out of Tucson. I’ve fallen in love with his stamps

Wholesale apparral blanks-McCrearysTees

Hand crafted versus store bought

I went to a baby shower today. My friend and her husband are expecting their first child in just a few weeks. With about two dozen people in attendance, she got a lot of very nice things. And since she will be having another shower in two weeks, the baby will probably have so many clothes, that she won’t be able to wear them all before she outgrows them.

As big bag after big bag was being opened, I started feeling that my hand-made gifts would really disappoint her. She got several dozen onesies, minkee blankets, socks, mittens, a baby bouncer, and more.

I gave her a 36×48 quilt with pink princess blocks alternating with pink blocks with dots, two handmade pink heart bibs, and an embroidered bib with “baby diva” in pink. In addition, I included a little scrapbook that one of my fellow crafters had made. She said she really liked everything, but internally I feel like I didn’t do enough because I didn’t “buy” something.

How do you feel about getting or giving hand crafted gifts versus store bought?

I don’t know if there’s enough of us sewing or crafting now. I went to two Joann’s after the shower and they all have so much open space in them, which is quite a change from just a few years ago.

Let me know. I’m off to stitch out some designs from Urban Threads. For those you machine embroider, bunnycup embroidery has some cute Valentine designs.

Janice

Moving the business forward, one widget at a time

I’d like to thank Cheryl and my husband for tonight’s post. First to Cheryl for her suggestion to use widgets so that I could link my Etsy shop, and then to my husband for setting it up.

Thanks!