Tag Archives: etsy shop

Shop Small This Weekend

Hello everybody. If you’re in the USA I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. My husband and I got to host this year. We worked together to clean the house and cook turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, salad, carrots, corn, potato casserole, and pumpkin pies. His mom brought some homemade bread which rounded out our nice spread. Yum! Here’s a picture of my brother-in-law loading his plate.

joethanks15

Now that everybody’s onto eating pie for breakfast and looking up recipes for leftover turkey it’s time to turn our attention to holiday shopping. I’d like to encourage you to shop small businesses this year. I’ll be featuring some of my favorite small businesses today through Cyber Monday on the quiltartbymegan Facebook Page. “Like” and follow me over there to learn about great entrepreneurs and to shop their deals.

Of course, there are some great deals in my etsy shop too. Everything in there is now 30% off. You don’t need a coupon code as I’ve adjusted each price individually to reflect the sale. Easy peasy!

shopsmall

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Everything’s 30% off Sale and News

Hello everyone. We’re putting moving soon and looking forward to our next adventure. Wish us luck and buy my stuff! LOL seriously though, this is good news for you. In an effort to have less things to pack up in boxes and move I’m discounting all of my items for sale in the etsy shop. They’re now 30% off. No coupon code is needed as I’ve adjusted the price of each individually on the listings. I’ll be adding items to the shop over the next few days so check back for more cool stuff, all 30% off their original prices.

treeskirtssalecollage

I had a great time recently having a booth at the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique. My friend Adva surprised me with a visit (yay!) and took this photo. I learned a lot and did a bit of networking too. I’ll tell you all about it in another blog post.

mybooth

Blog  post, you say? They’ve been few and far between for a few months now but that’s about to change. Cheryl Sleboda of muppin.com will be blogging every day in December. She’s invited other writers to join her and I’ve decided to participate. So buckle up everybody and find your reading glasses ’cause there’s going to be much more action on this site soon.

Come See Me at the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique!

Come see me this weekend at the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique! I will be shutting down the etsy shop  and opening an in-person booth on Saturday, November 7th 2015 from 8:30am to 3:00pm. Admission and parking are free at the middle school location in Ventura, CA. Bring cash or check to buy handmade art from me. Boutique benefits the local no-kill animal shelter.

RGB.PURRSNPAWS.flyer.front

Here’s the details for the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique.

  • November 7th, 2015. 8:30am-3:00pm
  • Balboa Middle School – 247 S. Hill Rd., Ventura, CA 93003
  • Benefits the Humane Society of Ventura County, a no-kill shelter
  • Meet Megan. Buy stuff with cash or check. Hugs included! 🙂
  • Over 30 other vendors.

This is sure to be a fun event. I’ve been busy the past few weeks making some new things. Here are some of them. (For sale in the shop until Friday, then whatever doesn’t sell will be relisted after this weekend.) More are available at my booth that have yet to be photographed.

handquiltedbatikfrontandback selvageheartornaments starcrumbcornamentsstarcrumbpillow

I hope to see you there!

Getting Organized is Messy

getting organized is messy Getting organized can be so messy! I’m looking forward to getting into my new studio soon. Really, like soon soon. We need to give the wood a few days to acclimate to our house then glue it down and install the trim. Then I can move in.

In the meantime I’m getting some sorting done. The more organized I get now, the easier it will be to load up the shelves and get to sewing. I’m starting with my fabric stash. Here are the new categories:

  • Donate
  • Solids
  • Tone-on-tone
  • Batiks
  • Hand-dyed
  • Holidays
  • Floral
  • Prints with animals
  • Prints with fruit
  • Dots and stripes
  • Flannel
  • Everything else

It’s so nice to be able to find everything quickly! Some of these are further sorted by color or type. I started with yardage (anything 1/8 of a yard and up) and am going through my scraps now. I also have boxes for types of items for sale in my shop. The baby quilts are all snuggled together and when one sells I won’t have to search twelve boxes to find it.

march stash bee block Of course, I need to take sewing breaks. So I made this month’s Stash Bee block. Then I traced some baby bibs which’ll be sold in sets. tracing baby bibs
What about you? How do you organize your stuff?

When the Playground’s Crowded

I went to the park today to photograph some baby quilts. I talked about using appropriate props in this post and aimed to do that. Things don’t always work out the way you think they will. The playground was crowded and I wasn’t going to ask all the kids having fun to get out of my frame. So I took the quilts back home and looked around my yard for other options.

blackwhite crumbs backMy fence is actually a pretty good backdrop. I pinned a string of fabric on the back of each quilt for hanging. The strings loop around two nails on top of the fence where we hung Christmas lights last year. I like the natural look of the wood and the contrast it adds.

blackwhite crumbs frontHere’s the front side of the above quilt. How cool is it that this crumb-pieced baby quilt is double sided?! The front has crumb blocks pieced into black, white, and red fabrics. The back has crumb blocks appliqued onto a green, red, and white floral.

raggedy ann frontHere’s a Raggedy Ann and Overall Andy quilt. I paired this sweet fabric with a solid red to merge modern and traditional. The chevron zig-zag looks a bit like a crown too.

floral baby front This one is a simple floral patchworkcharm challenge first cut
I’m working on two more baby quilts. (And I have several more in mind that haven’t yet been started!) One is for this week’s  Project Quilting challenge. It uses only 5″ charm squares of fabric. I’ll be cutting them up and piecing ’em back together. Here’s the first cut. I have one week to finish and enter it.
three more

Quilts and more are for sale in my etsy shop! Here’s a sampling of other baby-sized ones that are ready today. Want something specific you don’t see here? I specialize in custom orders. Let’s talk.

 

Linking up to Oh Scrap!

 

20% off coupon

SALE! Use coupon code: THANKS to get 20% off purchases totaling $25 or more in my etsy shop now through Cyber Monday.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/QUILTArtbymegan?ref=hdr_shop_menu

This 20% off includes any custom order placed before the end of the day on Monday. Contact me at mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com for more information.

 

These items and more are eligible for the 20% discount! Just type THANKS into the coupon code box at checkout.
pink crumb placemats chevron kids quilt orange runner redflowersskirt1 heartonchair Tropical Starburst

 

 

Craft Booth Confidence

Here are the photographs from my booth on November 13th. I finally found that camera! I’ve set up a few other booths in my day like the guild boutique at a quilt show and guild opportunity quilt at the rubber duckie race. (Yes, that’s a thing. It was pretty cute but not so good for ticket sales on the quilt.) Anyway, with those experiences under my belt I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted my tables to look. I started out by getting to the meeting room extra early and draping the tables with bed sheets.

booth setup 1

 

Next I tried to make all of the quilts fit on the table. There was quite a big of adjusting at this stage as I wanted their motifs to still be seen even with the overlapping. If I had decided to add a third table it would’ve been ridiculously long and I would have been running sprints to talk to customers on either end. booth setup 2 Hey, are those customers’ legs? Why yes, I think they are. 🙂 You can see I filled in the other items on top of the table: purses, pillows, bibs, and table runners. I ran out of table room for the Christmas Tree Skirts so they’re to the left on stacked boxes. It’s not perfect but I’m proud.booth setup 3Being proud of my setup and art helped me find the confidence to self-promote. I could put aside my introvert side for a few hours and speak as the artist-in-residence, business owner, expert. I can hold off on buying this t-shirt. 🙂 sorry i'm awkward sorry

Have a great Thanksgiving everybody!

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are coming up in a few days. There are some great gifts and deals in my Etsy shop. Be sure to check it out! I’ll be adding more items as they’re ready, including an I-Spy quilt that’s being bound tonight.

I specialize in custom projects. Do you have someone or something special in mind? Let’s talk! mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com I’m being very productive these days so the waiting list is getting shorter. It’s likely I’ll have your project done by the holidays, if that’s what you’d like.

Goal: Have a Sales Booth in 2014

I made some new year’s resolutions in January this year. Usually I don’t bother but mine in 2013 really helped keep me focused. It was two things: be my own advocate and focus on the good. For 2014 I had some specific things in mind for my business. One was to have a sales booth for my quilting items sometime this year. Well, it’s happening!

I’m get to have a sales table during a quilt guild meeting on Thursday night. This is for my old quilt guild where I used to live, about an hour away. Due to some kinks in the new laws about non-profits, among other factors, the guild’s a little low on funds this year. So my proposal was simple: please let me help you by running a fundraiser. I love when opportunities turn out to be win-win.

So here’s the deal. Most craft fairs run for 1-2 days at six-eight hours not including setup. Depending on the size of your spot and how popular the fair is the fees to have a table can be upwards of $100. What I worked out with the guild is that they will get 50% of the sales from my card holders. Then they’ll also get 25% of all other sales. No money up front from me. If all goes well they’ll get more than the traditional $100 booth fee. No risk on either side of a loss… and an opportunity for both the guild I love and myself to make some moneys.

Sometimes it pays to be creative! I suspect that if I just asked to have a booth flat out the answer would have been no. What’s in it for them? Now there’s plenty in it for both of us. booth card holders

As you can see, I made a LOT of card holders! 108 to be exact. There’s actually another layer underneath the ones photographed. They’ll be on sale for $6 each and have been pulled from my etsy shop. I’ll get the leftovers back up on there after my sale. booth box 2 booth box 1 I’m busy organizing my inventory and adding price tags to everything. Above are two of the boxes-in-progress.

If I have time, I have five small tree skirts, 11 baby bibs, three baby quilts, two table runners, and four pincushions in various stages of sewn-up-ness. They’ll be added to the inventory as I finish them. If they’re not completed (and they can’t ALL be) by Thursday night no biggie. They’ll go up in my etsy shop for you guys just the same.

 

The December holidays are coming! Birthdays too. Let’s collaborate on the perfect gifts for your loved ones. I specialize in custom work. mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com Let’s talk.

That Crumb-y Pillow is Awesome!

I’m so blessed to have friends who will brainstorm craft ideas with me. This time it was the snowflake mini-group who helped me out. Soooooo… in addition to offering the super-cool letter pillows, state pillows are making an appearance in my etsy shop.

Founding snowflake, Trisha, ordered the first one so I could use it as a sample. She got a 16×16 inch square pillow cover. The crumb block is reverse-appliqued and in the shape of Wisconsin. Can you see the little heart? That’s over the city of her choice. I also hand-embroidered the word “Wisconsin” on it. Cool, huh?

Trisha's pillow cover

Here’s a close-up of that heart button. It’s sewn onto a yo-yo and is a little shiny so that it pops out and can be seen against those crumb fabrics.

city heart yoyo and buttonAnd here’s a close-up of the hand-embroidery.

one word hand embroidered

 

Trisha didn’t need it, but I also sell the pillow forms. Order from me and it’ll save you a trip to the craft store.

12 inch pillowform

You can have these be as simple or complex as you want. Just the state? Order that. The other options are add-ons for a few more dollars. What about getting a letter “J” pillow embroidered with Jaime’s name? I do custom orders! What’s your idea? Maybe a football with your team written on it, or a heart that says, “Will you marry me?”

Check out the pillow covers and more in my etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/shop/QUILTArtbymegan

Follow me on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/QuiltArtbymegan

Coming soon: an update on the turtles and turkey quilts for summer camp, a portrait quilt of a dog and her owner, some baby quilts, and giving new life to an old quilt. Stay tuned!