Craft Show Success

Last weekend was The Polkadot Owl Market and it was a success!  Veronica and I have been working on this Market for a few months and all of our work paid off. 

 We ended up with 18 vendors, around 80+ people stopped by to shop and visit and everyone wanted to know if we could do this every weekend.  umm, Not!  {but I did think about how we can do it more often}

Day 2 

Here are a few pics of our vendors and shoppers:

Smashley Style 

She put 28 feathers in customers hair- awesome at 11!

You can find more pictures on our facebook page here: 

You can join our emailed newsletter by sending us our email to polkadotowlmarket@yahoo.com

and please LIKE our facebook page to stay up to date on vendor specials, coupon codes and our next event~  

Thanks to my partner in crime, Veronica for making this event run so smoothly and to all my family and friends for supporting my business and helping me build my dreams ;)

Trunk Shows

So my friend over at Art Box Designed Fused Glass posted a link about having a successful trunk show with pictures of beautiful trunks.  It made me think about the beautiful cases and trunks I brought home from my grandmothers house after she passed away last year.  Beautiful worn leather and chunky straps in browns and reds.  I made my husband keep them and store them safely in the garage and was sure they would never be used again...... Until now.

As I'm planning my craft show display I'm really excited to use her cases to display my headbands, onesies and tophats.  I still need to set up the table {that's for another post} but I'm really excited about actually using her treasures.

Last week my husband and I took a trip to Denver, Co and went to antique row.  I found so many ideas for trunk shows:

Love this blue trunk!

Don;t you wonder who traveled with this case?

I would love to have this stack of cases but they were a little pricey

 One word- "Gorgeous"

So, next time you see a trunk- grab it and make it a great display piece for your craft show or participate in a trunk show in your area.

Have you ever done a trunk show????

Spring has Sprung

The past few weeks have been filled with orders from my etsy shop, kids going to Sea Camp, more college applications, taxes, garage sale, getting organized AND planning a Spring Home Boutique with my friend Veronica at Life in the Thrifty Lane.  

Veronica and I are so excited to have our first of hopefully many Home Boutiques. We are seeing a trend in California and wanted to bring it to Las Vegas. So here we go.........We named it The Polkadot Owl Market.  Lots of brainstorming to get that name and we ended up liking owls and liking polkadots.. {so there ya have it}.  Elena from worldwidemom designed our logo and we love it!

Right now we have 15 vendors of all handmade items.  Now that we have commitments, we are in the planning and marketing stage.  Fun!  I just ordered business cards and lawn signs from Vista Print and we opened a facebook page here.  {I would love for you to like and share our page, plus you can stay up to date on our current event and vendors and our future events as well}

I hope to see you at our event!

DIY Headband- Anyone going to Disneyland?

I just got the best email from a happy customer!  I love those.  She said I could share her tutorial with you so here we go:

Last month she emailed me asking about my wholesale headbands and if they would fit both children and adults.  They really are the most comfortable headbands I've found.  You can find them here:

This is what she had to say:

The ears were the hit of the party, everyone loved them! Your headbands worked perfectly for creating Mickey and Minnie ears. I found a template for the ears here:family.go.com/crafts/craft-766435-mickey-and-minnie-ears-t/
After a lot of cutting, I just hot glued the ears on and added ribbon to the Minnies. 
Your headbands were absolutely perfect, they fit the kids and the adults and we all had fun wearing them :)
Here is a picture of my little ham, the birthday girl, wearing them. 


She went to Joannes and got the the stiff felt for the ears

This was by far the easiest way to make them. Other blogs suggested using the wider plastic headbands and covering them with felt then cutting circles and covering them with felt. Your headbands saved me several steps and since they are so thin, they will fit any head comfortably. We even got them on a couple of grown men for a minute but they will deny it!

Here is a the end result!  Utter Cuteness!!! 

Thanks so much Lizzie for sharing your precious pics and tutorial with us today!

A little update

Whew, it's been a long week and a fabulous weekend.  My husband and I had a brilliant idea to have a garage sale.  We chose a date which meant we actually had to do it.  The cleaning and clearing of the house started about 2 weeks ago and this past week we were down to the wire.  Saturday morning came way to quick.  The weather was perfect {70's here in Vegas} and ALOT of people came.  We ended the day around noon with almost everything gone.  Success!

The hubs decided to use the money and take a little trip with my brother to Harbor Freight and get a new HUGE rolling toolbox.  Yah, I knew I wouldn't see him the rest of the weekend but he was so happy to get organized.

Spring has arrived- What are you doing to get ready? Organizing? Cleaning? Decorating?

{Check out this Calendar to get you motivated}

www.mysimplerlife.com

Have a great day!

What I'm reading

I thought I would share a few books that I'm reading right now that give me inspiration, ideas and help with my business and personal life.

1. Handmade Marketplace is one of the best books I've read so far.  I'm about halfway through and have learned so much. It's my number one pick if you have or are wanting to start a handmade shop.

2. A New Earth: Awakening your lifes purpose- sits next to my bed and when I need a little inspiration and enlightenment  I pick it up and read a chapter. 

3. Blogging for Bliss is a great easy read book if you have a blog or are trying to understand how to blog.  I have read it about 3 times and always refer back to it. 

4. One Yard Wonders is an easy sewing book and Ashley and I always pick it up when we need a project.  She made the bedside holder for her Ipad and remotes a few weeks ago.

5. Sewing Bits and Pieces and Simply Sublime  Gifts are just beautiful sewing books and will inspire you to get to the sewing maching out and make something. Check out the cover of these books and you will want to sew.  {I really really want to make that cardigan!}

6. Stitch by Stitch is great for beginner sewers and Sew Serendipity by Kay Whitt was my first sewing inspirational book.  Its a beautiful book with beautiful clothing that I hope to be able to make one day.  It comes with full patterns in the front so you don't have to print them like most books.

Have you read any of these books?  What are you reading now?

Family Pictures

I had this great idea to hire a professional photographer and do family pictures for my stairway while my oldest daughter was home.  {That was the easy part}. 

I hired Pure Photography {she took my pictures for Tutuland and is very talented}

Now the outfits!  I decided on Coral and Blues.  I started searching Pinterest for some ideas-

I had a lot of choices and that's not good.  I went crazy.  

Ashley and I went shopping and found shoes. I know that's backwards but that's how we roll.  I found her a pair of electric blue flats with rhinestones and myself a pair of tan shoes with rhinestones.  It was a start.  6 stores later I found Amanda a pair of electric blue shoes with flowers. Yay, I'm now getting somewhere!  

I decided Jeans for everyone and the hubs could wear a white shirt.  {Easey Peezy}

I found Ashley a cute blue shirt at Justice and Amanda a White Shirt with belt at a local store.  

{both of the girls wore the outfits but will probably never wear them again}

We headed out to Bonnie Springs- A local place that is ranchy and great for pics.  When we arrived our photographer said she heard through the photog grapevine that they were getting ran out of there for taking pictures.  We decided to leave and head to Spring Mountain Ranch; mind you it's 4pm now and daylight is dimming.  

My Rescue Hubs decides we would hike back to the "lake".  Umm, the lake was a hole in the earth with a little water and lots of bugs! At this point, Ashley had lost a stone in her shoe, I was sweating {hiking over 40 in full makeup is not my thing}, Amanda was fighting flying bugs and my husband had taken off without us while I helped the photographer and her gear.  

Since the sun was still shining {in a bad way} we decided to sit on a thorny log and SMILE.  

We took a few more pics around the "lake" and decided to leave and head to Redrock while we still had sun.  We ended up with this really cute picture {totally random} and my favorite. 

The moral of the story:

All of the trouble is TOTALLY worth it!  I have pictures that I will cherish for life!