The Store Is Open For Business!

Sooo...I've finally {FINALLY} added all of my new items to the store (minus two that I forgot to photograph...oops)!  Let me just say that creating titles, discriptions, tagging and adding photos was much more work than I had imagined.  I'm the type that thinks of doing something and then assumes it will be done in a matter of moments...I am always wrong in my estimation of time! 

Anywho...here's a little peek at all of the new stuff!  I would LOVE for you to check out the whole store!  I will be adding some more new items very soon...I can't wait!!

A Fresh Start...

Well hello there...I don't really know where to begin.  Months and months and months ago I decided to take a wee little break from blogging which turned into a ridiculously long break that left me feeling a bit stumbled and confused as to what I should do with this sad little place on the worldwide web.  This wee little break also turned into a semi-break from my Etsy store.  Okay, let me back up a bit...

So, back in November I had already completely slacked on my barely breathing blog when I went to this fabulous craft show that is held twice a year here in Vegas.  Seeing many of these booths that were so inviting and lovely, I decided that this was going to be my new calling for my store.  When Etsy changed their automatic viewing to "relevency" about a year ago, I had become increasingly discouraged and exhausted with all of the new work that this was creating for me and with very little reward for all that I had to do.  I had lost my desire to create.  So finding this craft show gave me renewed energy to sit behind my sewing machine and sew away.  I came up with a few new designs and items for my store and updated my existing designs.  I was starting to get on a roll and was feeling some renewed excitement.  I had made the plan that I was going to enter the November '12 craft show and was coming up with all of these fun ideas for my booth.  BUT...I had also read that this particular show was going to be downsizing without really downsizing the price of a booth!  $595 (not including all of the things needed for a booth) is quite an amount to pay and if I wanted a corner booth it would be another $100.  That's quite a chunk of change in my piggy bank!

Fast foward to April, my mom and I went to the spring craft show to shop around and also see how this new downsizing change would effect the greatness of this craft show that I had become so excited about.  Well...my excitement fizzled!  It just wasn't the same.  Call me wishy-washy, that's fine but I could not see spending that amount on a booth when the luster was not there anymore.  I know there are many other craft show events and I would have entered those as well but the dream was gone.  For now at least.  

Which brings me to now, I feel like I have come full circle in my decisions for my store.  I have renewed my love for Etsy and I have a renewed view of what I want my Etsy store to be.  Previously, I had seen my store more as a hobby, which allowed me to pick and choose when I wanted to put something new in it and be lazy when I didn't feel like creating.  Calling it a hobby was a great excuse for not having to focus or put massive amounts of effort into it.  I could disguise my lack of confidence and insecurities as a "Oh well, I'm just doing this for the fun of it" kind of additude.  The truth is, as much as I loved my quilts, I was absolutely insecure about what others thought of them.  Even more so, (and this sounds so stupid), I was insecure about what my competition thought of my quilts.  I was focused on the wrong people.  But somewhere in all of this, I realized that not everyone is going to love my quilts but there are people who will really, really love them and it wouldn't be fair to those people if I just gave up.  More so, I would be doing an injustice to myself if I didn't do what I loved! 

So, I've pulled up my "big girl undies" and have decided to grab the bull by his balls, I mean horns, and start anew!  Yep, I'm gonna do this!  I'm also thinking I want to rejuvenate this blog with more than just showing you a few quilts here and there.  So beware...I may talk your ear off about what it's like for me to restart and refocus my intense desire to create...as well as other random tidbits about who knows what.  And don't say I didn't warn ya...I can be a chatterbox!

Thanks for stopping by...have a SUPER Day! ~ Mary Carole 

A Little Annoyed but Ruby Sure is Making Me Smile!

So, I'm sure that all of you who sell on Etsy are well aware of the new changes (specifically one) that have taken place this last week.  Some of you (those who have 100's of items that are now everywhere within the search listings) are probably overjoyed with the new change but me...not so much!

Prior to the 10th of August the item search was set to Most Recently Added.  Not that I was a gigantic fan of that either but at least I knew that when I renewed my items they would move to the front of the page listings so that when someone did a seach for "Rag Quilt" mine would be at the front for at least a little while.  But as of August 10th, they have changed the automatic search to Relevancy.  The problem is that I don't see how they are figuring the relevancy.  And for my little store that only has 10 to 15 items at a time (and that's on a lucky day), I feel like it gets swallowed up by all these other stores that mass produce their items.  What happened to the one of kind, ready made items that made me want to sell on Etsy? 

Granted, even with the "most recently added" search, there are a few stores that seem to renew EVERY single item in their store 15 times a day (which is also very annoying) but at least I had the option to renew as well and get mine closer to the front if I wanted.  Now, the same items stay at the front of the relevancy page for DAYS and they haven't renew those items for weeks!  I've tried to figure out the keywords that will move mine closer...and some of my items are close to the front but I don't want to spend half my day guessing what will work!  UGH...

Okay, sorry for my ridiculous complaining...it's just that it has eaten up my desire to create for my store.  So much so that it took me 4 days to list my newest item.

Speaking of my newest item...I.AM.IN.LOVE!  It's a rag baby quilt  using the lovely new fabrics from the Ruby collection by Bonnie and Camille. 

Check her out:

Isn't that the most beautiful fabric? 

Okay, so I'm pulling up my Big Girl undies and I'm going to learn to deal with these new changes...I do NOT like change! ;-)

If any of you have any ideas as to what keywords will work...let me know.  I've been researching for days now! 

Thank you all for reading my boo hoo's and still liking me afterwards! 

 

Give Me A Break...

Oh wait...I think I just took one...(from my blog, that is)!



Out of the 5 members in our family we almost have a birthday a month from December through May (maybe we should have one more baby to fill up the February slot...um, nope)...and let's not forget Baby Jesus' big birthday day right in the mix of all that!  So by the middle of April I'm pretty much just done with thinking.  Not to mention the end of the schoolyear/beginning of summer craziness that makes me feel like I'm running a marathon in flip-flops.  I know that all of you mama's out there feel me on that one!  With all that said, don't mind me and all my update posts these next few days/weeks (whenever I get to them)!  So let the updating begin...




Here a little "Work in Progress" and finished product I just fell in love with!

Doesn't my Bliss pincushion by Warm n' Fuzzies look lovely with the Strawberry Fields fabric?

And after lots of cutting, sewing and snipping here the finished rag quilt ready to go:

That's all for now folks...

I've been wanting to post these AMAZING photos for the last week but between signing up my oldest for her first year of high school next year, 3 dentist appointments, a soon to be 3 year old who has decided to test out what it's like to be in the "Trying Three's" club and me just not having the mental capacity to attempt to think...I am just now posting them!  This last week has just not been super swell.

Anywho, on to better things!  The wonderful Miss Ashley of Mud Goddess is now using two of my rag quilts as part of her props in her photo shoots.  Can I just say that I LOVE the way they look in her photos!  So exciting and I am truly honored to have my quilts used in her beautiful photography.

Here are a few of the photos:

And look at that baby... ADORABLE!  Makes me want another one.  April Fools! 

But really, that sweet baby IS precious.

Hope you all enjoyed! 

Have a BEAUTIFUL Weekend!

Pop Garden = YUM!

I LOVE Pop Garden....

In STORE Now!

Hope you are all having a SUPER Weekend! :-)

I Am M.I.A. No Longer

So I find that when I am in the middle of trying to get something done quickly everything around me slows me down!  I started this custom order well over a month ago thinking that I would have it finished within 2 weeks but it seems that every time I make a prediction for how long something will take to be completed...it takes twice as long.  I feel like a construction worker! :-)  Within the amount of time it has taken me to finish this quilt I have celebrated 2 of my 3 children's birthdays.  Two very special birthdays I might add.  My oldest just turned the BIG 13 and my youngest just turned the Terrible Two...and he has proven his new title very well.  Boys are definitely different than girls and he is ALL boy. 

Anywho, I am thrilled to announce that I have FINALLY completed this lovely rag quilt for one fantastic lady who I have had the privilege of working with.  I definitely have a special connection with the quilt after all the fabric issues that we endeavored putting the look of this quilt together.  For example, I had found the Dorothy fabric collection that is out of print at an online store and was super shocked and excited that they had all the material I needed in one store only to find out three days later (when I thought it would be arriving in the mail at any time) that they didn't have ANY of the fabrics and had never taken them off their site...UGH.  So then we thought we had found some fabrics to accompany some the fabric I already had only to see that when it arrived...it didn't match with the other fabircs...UGH again!  Finally I found just the right blend of colors and am so thrilled with the outcome.  Here's some pictures to show you the final product...YAY!

Now I am off to work on some new stuff...like the final quilt to add to my Dog Park collection! 

~ MC

Little Miss Goldie...

So, you've met "Big Blue" (as in the rag quilt):

Now let me introduce you to his sister, Little Miss Goldie:

You can find both Big Blue and Little Miss Goldie in my store!

I've got one more that matches these two rag quilts that I will be posting soon.  Here's a hint...it's titled "Ollie Pup at the Dog Park".  So, can you guess what the next color scheme is going to be?  For those of you who know this line of fabric by Heather Ross, I'm sure you can guess what the color combo is.  :-) 

Alrighty as always, I hope you all have a SUPER Day!

I've Been Bitten...Bitten by Heather Ross' Fabrics That Is!

Yes it's true, for the longest time I avoided REALLY checking out many of Heather Ross' fabrics because 1) they are out of print making them much harder to find which leads to 2) making them more costly.  But, after much will power I have crumbled and I couldn't be more thrilled.  I LOVE her work!  In the past few months I have found some fantastic prints of hers and many of them I found awesome deals that made it much easier to reason with buying!  YAY!


Here is my first quilt with her Mendocino line in aqua. 

                  Under the Sea Adventures Baby Rag Quilt in Aqua

This collection is one of her newer lines that just recently became out of print so there were only two or three fabrics that I really had to search through the jungles to find.  Of course, that is the detective work I live for so once I got started...well, let's just say I now have many fabrics from the Blush colorway and the Fuchsia colorway as well.  Once I conquered that find...I started seeing other HR fabrics that I just HAD to have which means you will be seeing LOTS of Heather Ross in the near future with me!  Yippee for you, right? (okay...yippee or ME)!  


Anywho, you can find the Under the Sea Avdentures Baby Rag Quilt in Aqua in my  Etsy Store !

Have a TERRIFIC Day! ;-)

My Kind Of Candy! ;-)

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I am really very excited about this year for many reasons but partly because I have so many plans for my Etsy store that I just CAN NOT wait to get started on! Of course one of those plans is for more rag quilts and rag quilt loveys but also I am going to be adding some new diaper cakes (finally)! I really haven't worked on my diaper cakes in a while and look forward to getting back into the swing of things.

For those of you who are new to my blog or have only recently visited my store, you probably are not aware that I create diaper cakes as well. For the past few years I had been running my own website (Dolce Baby Diaper Cakes) but when I decided that I wanted to focus more on my rag quilts I didn't think that the diaper cake website was the best avenue for anything other than diaper cakes so I started my Etsy store. At one point I had so many different outlets for selling my diaper cakes that I often felt like my head was going to fall off. Not only did I have my website but also an Ebay store, another Etsy store and I was selling wholesale to quite a few other stores which became too much. Because I am almost positive that I have some type of attention deficit disorder I was feeling overloaded and I wasn't enjoying what I was doing anymore and needed to slow things down a bit. Not to mention that during all of that I had just delivered our third child and was worn out from that alone! So now that our big guy is quickly approaching his 2nd birthday I am finally feeling like I see a little more time becoming available for some crafting...yippee!

I also have a few other new fun things up my sleeve but I'll tell you about those some other time! I am seriously excited about all of it!

OH...and of course I promised you all a peek at the Nicey Jane fabric by Heather Bailey and the Dolce fabric by Tanya Whelan a while back and I KNOW that you have been waiting on pins and needles for me to post it! ;-) Oh wait, maybe it's just me who has been that thrilled but come people...pretend a little for me! :-) AND, I am also posting another lovely fabric that I just received the other day! Woohoo, I know, you can hardly wait to scrolled down! The newest fabric is the Mezzanine fabric collection from Patty Young...and oh my is it wonderful!

Here are a few pics of the Nicey Jane fabric...yum!

And here is the Dolce fabric collection from Tanya Whelan...mmm!

And last but certainly not least...the Mezzanine fabric collection by Patty Young...can you say fantastic?!

Well, I better go get started on all of these fun things...

Have a BEAUTIFUL Day!

~ Mary Carole