Presenting...

I'm kind of... okay... very excited to announce that I am the featured artist of the week on the AREtsy Street Team (Arkansas Street Team) blog here. I was all giddy when it was posted this evening. You all should read it and stuff... because it's cool!

Today was day 7 in the Yarn Everyday in April challenge and yes, I spun yarn. I'm going to ply it up tomorrow with some thread and poofs of wool and hopefully have my first, true, art yarn. If it turns out in real life like I'm picturing it in my head, I'll be a very happy girly.

I'll leave you with my Etsy purchase of the evening -

It's from moonrover and I couldn't NOT have it. My heart melted when I saw her post it on Flickr. This is going to be knit into the most fabulous scarf to ever grace the streets of Fayetteville next year. See it here.

In hindsight

I should have known better. Somehow or another, the organizing/cleaning/redoing of the bedroom turned into spring cleaning the entire house. I'm not quite sure when it happened or why it happened, but I think it might have started when I found some expired salad dressing in the fridge while making out a small shopping list. That led to cleaning out the fridge which somehow led to deep cleaning the kitchen which led to moving the couch to sweep under it... yeah, I'm not sure what went wrong either.

I did get to my bedroom and I've got it organized like I want it. It's still ugly, I'm not going to sugar coat it, but now I know what to do next. PAINT! I've got a reddish dresser that needs to be brown and a weird corner table that came with the house that needs to be brown. The room also needs curtains and end tables and more rugs, but I'm on the way to liking it.

Somewhere during the spring cleaning activities I hurt myself, badly. My right arm has been screaming at me since around midnight when I rolled over on it and woke up going "ow ow ow ow". I've been very tender with it since, but still, it screams. This is going to be a damper on my spinning every day challenge, but I will not give up yet, no, I will not give up.

Onto crafting news (because I know you don't read this blog to see which part of my house I've decided to organize). Sometime last week I decided I needed to participate in a fiber festival OR a different type of craft show this year. The shows locally are fabulous craft shows - HUGE craft shows - busy craft shows - but they are very generic craft shows. My scarves sell well and my jewelry does okay but I'm not sure my yarn and roving will do well locally. I'll know more after October once they have come and gone, but in the mean time, I need to branch out. I'd love to head down to Austin for some shows down there, but they are on the weekend of a very profitable one I do up here, so those are out. There is the Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle which I am very interested in and a couple in Chicago. I need to get busy and start making a list of which ones I want to go to and see if any are even possible.

Any show/festival suggestions to send my way?

Oh - I dyed some more this weekend - you can see my favorite addition to last night's shop update above. I love this dyeing thing :)

Betcha didn't think I could do it...

But I'm still spinning. Day 4 of the Yarn Everyday in April challenge is almost over but I managed to get one done early today. This yarn was spun up from some lovely samples I've received in the Phat Fiber boxes. I killed two birds with one stone with this project, I managed to spin for the 4th day in a row AND I was able to post in the Phat Fiber forum over at Ravelry about the samples. Don't you love it when it works out like that?

I also spent the majority of my day dyeing what was left of my roving. I'll be posting that throughout the week.

Tomorrow is going to be dedicated to making my bedroom livable (have I said that in this blog yet - I feel like that is my project every other weekend). It's just UGLY and I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm going to start by cleaning it up and getting the clutter contained. I have an idea of what I want it to look like, but I'm not sure how to get to that point. There are currently 2 dressers in the space, a weird corner table (there when we moved in) a cute antique table perfect for a jewelry box, a hamper, cedar chest, bed, and TV trays being used for side tables. It's all just there - no rhyme or reason for where the stuff is. Since it's supposed to be frigid (mid 40s is the high - yeah, cold for April) tomorrow, I don't see myself workout outside at all, so indoor improvement will be a good project. If I'm successful, I'll post pictures.

Judging by my lack of anything interesting to say this evening, I think it's time to call it a night. Hopefully the interesting stuff will come to me soon. Goodnight.

A Challenge

I have enjoyed spinning since December of 2007 when my mom gave me a drop spindle for Christmas. If you have followed my blog, then you know I purchased my spinning wheel this past fall. I have spun, spun, and spun some more ever since. I've tried to fill my shop and my Holiday craft sale tables with my handspun lovelies and have succeeded in doing so.

Since getting some wool to dye a little over a month ago, my attention has been diverted over to the dye pots. Spinning was put on the back burner as I mixed dyes and steamed roving. A challenge set up by Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique was JUST what I needed to get back to spinning. She set up a group in Ravelry to spin or dye everyday in April. My challenge to myself is to spin everyday.

I'm only 2 days into it but I discovered something while spinning tonight. I'm not choosing wool to spin in order to fill my shop back up with yarn, but instead, I've spin for the past two days just for myself. I picked roving that I purchased for "me" yarn and I took the time to try a realllllly thin single in order to ply it into something not so artsy and bulky. I wasn't spinning this to sell, I was spinning this just for the pure delight of spinning this lovely wool.

Huh. Who knew this challenge would lead to that so quickly.

The yarn I worked on last night and tonight is seen above. Spun from roving from kcknits.etsy.com on my Fidelis wheel. I cannot wait to knit something from it. I'm keeping this one for myself.

All In A Day's Work

I was busy on Saturday. I dyed a lot of roving - I had a count, but I've lost it and don't feel up to counting them again. You can see some of the fruits of my labor above.

I was also busy today, but don't have a product to show for it. I went out to mom's place to help her do some things around there and to visit with her. We walked around her house for a bit and I got a TON of pictures of spring's beauty. I love this time of you - you can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehwin/

I have to admit, I've lost my ability to photograph jewelry. I'm not sure what happened. I used to do a great job with almost every shot coming out how I wanted it. Then I moved. I've struggled with good jewelry photos since last summer so I can only attribute it to moving. I just haven't found that special spot to use as a back drop where the lighting is perfect. I keep looking but in the meantime, my poor jewelry gets ignored. I've got stuff to post, I make new things almost every other day, but only a few things come out good in photos. *sigh* I'm sure I'll get my photo mojo back... someday.

If you're wondering why I'm not posting about an herb garden update, it is because it snowed all day yesterday. Yes, snowed. Snowed yesterday and nice a sunny today. Ahhhh - gotta love this time of year. Hopefully I'll have herb garden news to post next weekend - so stay tuned.

Discussing Business Cards

Okay peeps - business cards have been tricky for me since I first made some on my computer over a year and a half ago. I've struggled with finding what it is that represents me and my shops. My first cards were easy. I picked my favorite font on my computer (Sybil Green - still love it), went with a nice black and teal color scape and added the basics: Shop name, my name, web address, email address, and phone number.

I was so proud of them but man, they were homemade as it got. They had rough edges because they were the tear apart kind, they curled when humidity was present, the ink would bleed if they got wet (you have to be prepared for all kinds of weather when doing outdoor shows) and eventually, I thought they looked amateur. They were... there was no getting around that. However, they did start me on a path of trying to keep some things consistent when marketing my shop. I kept the teal color that I had featured on those cards to use on my gift bags I took to shows, ink pads for Idyllhands stamps, etc. I even used the font for my Idyll Hands rubber stamp - had I branded myself? :)

My next batch of cards came from Moo - I got some of the mini cards. I was very pleased with these. The pictures were good, the card stock was strong, and they were a bit smaller than the rest of the cards out there and this made them unique. One problem - they are pricey. I still use Moo mini cards for tags and such on my jewelry for shows and also on my yarn, but I don't hand them out like I used to - I just can't afford it. I also tried a large amount of cards from Zazzle in the style of Moo mini cards, but regular size. They had pictures on the front and info and a small picture on the back. I couldn't do 100 different pictures like I can with Moo, but no matter, these looked good. However, they are also a bit pricey.

I've been lucky enough to have enough of the batch from Zazzle to carry me through until now. I'm running out and honestly, want something that looks different and is very eye catching. I also want something that will double as tags when needed for yarn and jewelry. I've decided to try to design my own cards in Photoshop this time. No more relying on templates from Zazzle, time to get serious (or as serious as I can be). I've come up with some designs for Woolyhands (one is posted above). They are simple, colorful, and will look great either as a card or as a tag. I'll put minimal information about where they can buy things and how they can email me but that is it. The extra room on the cards will allow me to write prices, info about the product, etc in the case that they are tags.

What are some of your ideas for the perfect business card? Have you seen some you loved? Have any made for you that suit you perfectly? Also, what do you thin is important to have on a business card? Do you try to match your cards to the "look" of your shop? Share - I'd love to hear your ideas on this topic.

A Few of my Favorite Things

Not a single day goes by that I am not floored with the talent I find within the internet walls of Etsy. There are amazing artists and crafters all over the place. Some have made me beautiful items, some of helped me when I've had questions about new hobbies, but all have just been wonderful.

I love finding things on Etsy to add to my favorites list. I try to keep it clean (i.e. - remove the "sold" items and replace them) when I can so it can be a great up to date "wish" list for me. I even have some family members who use it - love that! I always keep an Etsy mini with my favorite items down at the right of this blog, but I thought I'd feature them in high style here, in a post:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade idyllhands.etsy.com

Enjoy (ps - it's okay to send me something, if you'd like, I don't mind).