Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Spinning Tools

 I now have a few tools for my spinning!
The first picture is a wraps per inch gauge, made out of pine. The bigger slot is 1 inch, and the smaller is 1/2 inch. the 1/2 inch slot is great for measuring lace yarns.


This second picture is of a plying template-a nice tool to use when plying yarn. I'm gong to see if I can also use it as a diz-a tool to help draft roving.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

baby hats and laws

Been reading up on the laws regarding baby items, seems to be a huge seller on etsy.

And I have determined that due to the very weird laws that I don't have the slightest clue about how to untangle, I cannot do baby items.

Sad really, all the extra paperwork required, as if us micro businesses didn't have enough already, is going to slowly make it so that only bigger companies can do baby stuff- more "made in china"

I'll make baby patterns, but that's all I can do for now. Here's one: Anna's Grow With Me Skirt

Friday, March 18, 2011

Listing Frenzy

I've been listing more than my usual 1 item a day as an experiment.

Some things I'm hoping to learn from it:

1) Do I get more traffc?
2)Do I get more sales?
3)Am I able to list enough everyday to possibly make this my full time job?

We'll see how it goes!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

New Journals up!

About time! I purchased an Xacto paper guillotine (going back, btw, new one arriving in the mail tomorrow) and made up a few journals. These are listed on my site now!

I spent about 6 hours making fonts to put on the covers. that gimp tool is neat.

So now there are personalized pocket journals on Stephanie Makes All.

Let's see how it goes.

Friday, March 11, 2011

helpful paypal tutorial for tax preparation

I found this in the etsy forums, really good info, I didn't even know I could do that!

How to download your Paypal history:

http://www.gotogreatpanes.com/blog/2010/03/25/download-your-pp-history/

hope you find it as useful as I did!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

A new milestone!

My duo of busnesses, Stephaniemakesall and One Stitch Designs, is now in the black! As of today, i am now $4 ahead between them both!

Plans for the next profits: paper guillotine and plaster.

I plan on upcycling my daughter's baby formula cans into nice piggy banks, making pocket journals, and making little favor boxes. I may offer an option on the favor boxes to add a lace applique. Wouldn't that be cute!

So many plans!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Cotton yarn

I just learned that the price of cotton is going up big time because of the storms and droughts this past year.

Oh no, and just when I found a product that sells great. Guess what it needs? yep, Cotton yarn!

That's OK, The yarn isn't supposed to go up that much.

whew! 6 sales in just over a week!

And that's just the ones that are finished, I still have a couple custom orders to take care of, but that'll only take a couple hours to complete.

All but one of these orders is for trading, though. so I'm getting lots of goodies in the mail soon!

I'm gonna have to start limiting my trading, and learn to say no. here's a couple of my recent sales:


I have lots more of these!