The Sweat Shop

With the exception of church and the grocery store, my entire weekend was spent at home. Kinda rare for us, as we're usually on the go. I cleaned some places in my home that haven't been cleaned in sometime. I ironed three huge baskets of laundry, and put them away (and swore to myself I would never get that far behind again). And I sewed and sewed and sewed. I tried out a couple new projects that I'm planning to list later this week, and finished up some cute things, including this set, which I have listed in my shop today:

It is so cute in person, and can be made in any fabric combo. This set can be made in sizes 6mos to 10yr. I'm loving the fabric!

I have a new pattern for a peasant style dress that can be made with short or long sleeves that I'm wanting to try out. It will be great for fall, I think, with tights or leggings, or with a pair of ruffle pants like in the picture above. I'm anxious to try it out and hope to list it soon.

Finally, I am very excited about some new fabrics I have coming. Some I ordered online, and some I ordered my sister to go and buy for me in her much larger town. I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival and will post pics soon.

Announcing

For a while now I have toyed with the idea of opening a shop online. I have found something I really love to do, which is sewing and creating, and I am past the point of making things for my girls. Believe it or not, little girls CAN have too many clothes. After some encouragement in the direction of selling the things I make, I have finally got this shop up and going.

Introducing:


I have opened an Etsy shop that you can find here:
http://www.monkeystyleboutique.etsy.com/
Please understand this is still in the infancy stages, and I will be fine tuning and adding to it in the coming weeks.

Why the name? I don't know about your kids, but mine are monkeys. I call them monkeys, they act like monkeys, they hang on me like monkeys, they are LOUD like monkeys, and so that kind of became my jumping off point...boutique style for my monkeys. My goal is to make clothes and gifts that you would find in boutique stores, for a fraction of the price. Right now, I've only got dresses and skirts listed, but I have lots and lots of ideas for the future. Mainly some boy stuff...although I'm not a mama to any, I've got some precious boys in my life that need cute stuff too. Also, I hope to add more "gift" type items (burp cloths, bibs, blankets, etc) soon.

Let me just say that I am waaaaaaaay outside my comfort zone here. Me? I'm right here. My comfort zone? Miles away from here. I have second guessed myself a hundred times on doing this, talked myself out of it dozens of times, and finally decided to just go for it. I may fall flat on my face and never sell one thing, but at least I will have tried. Self promotion is not my thing. Marketing is not my thing. But sewing? I think that's my thing. We'll see how this goes.

As Beth Moore says, you would not waste a prayer on me right now. In fact, I would covet your prayers as I try to get this going. Pray that God would bless it, that I will find a balance between this, full time work, and family life. Pray that my talent and skill will develop. And pray I don't lose my mind.

Weekend Over?

Another weekend over, and back to work tomorrow. Ugh! I have spent the weekend working very hard on something new, and hope to reveal it soon. And I've been giving my Singer quite the workout, which is work I enjoy doing. Have I mentioned that I love fabric? It's a new addiction I've formed. I love beautiful colors, beautiful prints and designs...it's very inspiring to me. This is my newest stack I'm working on...already some Christmas stuff in there too.

I finished this skirt for Mattie last week, and it has been a hit with her. It's very "twirly", she says. These skirts are so cute with tank tops and flip flops...perhaps I should start sewing for myself some.

And, I shared this on facebook, but Presley got her first pedicure. I started painting Mattie's toenails when she was about this same age, but I don't remember Mattie being such a squirm worm. If you're wondering, I do this while she's in the highchair eating, and use quick dry nail polish. It was still kinda messy, but the results were worth it, I think:

This is exactly what my feet looked like in the last weeks of my pregnancy with Presley. Seriously!

Cutey Booty

I have been working on something new for Presley and I finally finished it....ruffle bloomers! And I could not love these how these turned out more! How cute is a tiny booty with ruffles on it?

I'm gonna be real honest here. I think I have mentioned before my love/hate relationship with headbands and big bows on babies. It's not something I typically love, and although I have done it, we usually stick to little baby bows on Presley. However, the day I bought the fabric for these bloomers, I was perusing Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite past-times), and I saw they had these headbands and flower clips for basically nothing, so I thought "what the heck"...it matched the bloomers I was making, I thought it might make a cute picture, and I spent less than $5 for both peices (did you mama's who buy these headbands and flowers know that Hobby Lobby has them? Way cheaper than boutique store prices).

And I have to say, I don't know that my baby has ever looked cuter to me! I laughed the whole time this was on her head because I could not get over the cuteness. And this is maybe my new favorite picture of PK:

I'm planning to have her pictures professionally made soon, and these bloomers will definitely be one of our costume changes.

I also wanted to share that the lady I bought the pattern for these bloomers from is the same one that I bought the ruffle dress pattern from. She has a great Etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlelizardking

and also a great sewing blog. She recently featured me in one of her customer creations posts here (at the very bottom of the post):

http://littlelizardking.blogspot.com/2010/07/customer-creations-featuring-you-3.html

Kinda neat, I thought.

And finally, I am currently considering taking some sewing orders. I've had lots of interest in the things I've made, and lots of encouragement in that direction. If you or anyone is interested in me making something you've seen on here, or something different, please email me at:

nashley99@hotmail.com

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

A Prize for Mattie

This is a project I worked on tonight after both girls were in bed.

I have seen these things before, and have thought how nice it would be to have one. We are very often in situations where we carry crayons and a coloring book with us as an activity to keep Mattie busy...to church, to weddings, to restaurants...basically anywhere you need a child to sit still and act nice. These twistable crayons are great, but they will NOT stay in the package, and I always end up with a bunch of them floating around the bottom of my purse. So, I thought I would try to make my own crayon roll out of some scrap fabric instead of buying a pricier one online, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. And now Mattie has a prize waiting on her when she wakes up in the morning. What a great way to start the day.