New Heather Ross Mendocino Auction Listings!! This one's a biggy!

So last nights "Ending Party" was quite fun, I must say!  And I am so excited to see that my Heather Ross treasures are now going to awesome new homes so that they can be enjoyed and maybe even actually used.

With that being said, I have added a whole bunch of new Mendocino fabrics to my Auction Listings.

These listings are all Large Fat Quarters for the most part (except for one that is just under a FQ size.)  And they all started at 99 cents!  Woohoo!

You can check the listing out HERE!

Fuchsia Colorway

 

 

Aqua Colorway

 

 

 

Blush Colorway

 

 

 

Have FUN Bidding!

Auctions Ending Tonight: Heather Ross Mendocino Fabrics

 

The first of my Heather Ross Out of Print Auctions is ending this evening!!  All of listings ending tonight are from her very much sought after Mendocino collection and are absolutely beautiful.  There are 15 different listings that begin the "Ending Party" at 6:00pm PST.  Check out the listings before it's too late!

You can find all of my auction listings HERE!

I will posting more listings tonight after the first "Ending Party".  I'll blog about them tomorrow but if you want to get a view of the new listings before then drop by my Auction Page after 6:30 PST to get a first look...and maybe even a first bid! :-)

Heather Ross, Far Far Away Auction

This weekend has proven to be a nonstop, go here/go there, end of the school year type of weekend.  Yes, I think I need a nap...

With all this busyness going on I hadn't had a chance to post the newest Heather Ross auction listings that I placed on Ebay this past Friday.  All 6 half yards are from her first Far Far Away collection and are still at the low starting price of 99 cents. 

You can check out the auction listings: HERE

 

AND, the first of the auctions that I had posted last Monday are closing tomorrow so if you are wanting one of these prints below make sure to run over to the Auction List .

 

 

 

 

I hope you are all having one SUPER Weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding New Homes for My Heather Ross Fabrics. A Sad Goodbye...

 

 

 

For years I have been...how do I say this without sounding crazy...hmm, COLLECTING fabric (it sounds so much better than hoarding).  I will admit it, I love fabric!  I could spend my whole day rearranging my fabric cabinets and dreaming up new things to create with my fabric.  Writing down plans for what I want to do with the different collections but the truth is, I'd have to live to the ripe old age of 237 so that I could actually make all of these different ideas!!  At this point in my life I just don't have the time to do it all. 

So after much thought and consideration I have decided to let my Heather Ross Out of Print fabrics go to new homes.  Yes, it breaks my heart but I figured that there would be others out there who would love to add to their HR collections and maybe even actually USE the fabrics instead of hiding them in their protective bags inside there safe cabinet so they don't get hurt...no I am not crazy and I am only kind of kidding...sort of! :-)

My biggest dilemma was trying price these prints that are so sought after knowing that I had spent a pretty penny myself on some (okay fine, MANY) of them.  So I have decided to not price them but to set them up for a 7 day auction on Ebay.  Starting today I will be listing each print no matter what size cut at 99 cents!!  Yes, I just may be loony crazy after all.  Have at it, ladies (and gents)! 

Here is my listing page so that you can check out all the different auctions.

Click here: My Heather Ross Fabric Auction Listings


I will be adding more every few days so stay tuned.  I'll post the next sets here on my blog as I add them to the auction list so don't go too far, you may miss a great deal!!

And if you would be so kind to share this with your other fabric addicted friends, I would genuinely appreciate it! :-)

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...

A Fun Little Giveaway!!

Do you ever see something that is so cute that you just have to have but you can't decide which design or color you like best so after much thought and consideration, (like a whole 2 minutes worth) you just buy them all?  Normally I don't have the luxury of saying "I'll take 'em all!" but when that item doesn't cost "an arm and a leg", it does make it a little easier.  I found these sewing pins that seem to only be sold in the UK and I couldn't choose my favorite so I bought one set of each.  Hey, if they're going to take a ride across The Pond, you might as well get all of them, right? (Yes, that was one of the many excuses I made for buying them all!) 

 Aren't they lovely?

Being that 30 pins come in a set and I don't think I will ever need 150 sewing pins at one time, I thought this would be a great little Giveaway for my blogger friends.  Plus, I wanted to give each of you the chance to have the set that would have made it much easier for me...one of each design in each color.  In other words, you can't find this set assembled in stores...clever, eh? 

This one could be yours! :-)

I know it's something little but after my ordeal of trying to decide, I thought I'd make it much easier for one of you to just have 'em all! 

You have up to 3 ways you can enter (make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry)~

1. Leave a comment telling me which design and color of the sewing pins is your favorite of the collection.

2. Follow my blog.

3. Blog or Twitter about the giveaway.

The winner will be picked by random selection via Random.org on Wednesday, July 14th @ 9pm PST!

Good Luck! :-)

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

Looky, Looky At All The Pretty Colors!!!

I can't even explain the excitement I have right now...it's like Christmas morning as a child! For those of you who couldn't care less about fabric...well, you won't quite get me here but for those of you who understand the addiction to beautiful fabric or at least appreciate color...you'll probably get my joy...maybe!

Anywho, so yesterday I received the loveliest package full of some of the most beautiful fabric, Sandi Henderson's complete collection of Meadowsweet! It took my breath away as I went through each of the 30 different patterns...love it!

What's even more exciting is that I get to experience this childlike Christmas morning felling two more times in the very near future! I ordered both Heather Bailey's "Nicey Jane" fabric collection (which is oh my gosh gorgeous) and Tanya Whelan's "Dolce" fabric collection! Besides the fact that the Dolce Collection is super lovely, I had to buy that for the name alone...hello...if your last name is Dolce it's only logical that you own the Dolce Collection, right? Yep people, that's a lame excuse but I HAD to have it...don't judge me, okay?!! ;-)

Alrighty, so now that my craziness is being fully displayed, I might as well say that I also received the Heather Bailey COMPLETE Collection of Pop Garden, 63 different designs (I got a KILLER deal on it) and CAN NOT wait to play with it! Yes, I know, I am not only fabric crazy but I have this thing where I have to have every piece of a collection...again, don't judge me!

With all of this confession being spilled out, I'll share with you a few pictures of the new Meadowsweet fabric and the Pop Garden fabric collections! AND, as soon as the Nicey Jane and Dolce collections get here I'll give you a little sneak peak of those, too! Because I know that you just couldn't go on without it, right? Come on people, let me indulge myself in this silliness a little longer...hehehe!

At some point I hope to share some pictures of my WHOLE fabric collection but that will DEFINITELY have to be another time because I have WAY too much fabric for one little lady...let me tell ya! But when I have the time I am determined to photograph all of my beautiful addicitons...

Here a picture of the Meadowsweet...you only get one pic of this because I'll be posting a few new rag quilts from it soon ~

And here is a more indepth look at the Pop Garden Collection ~

Pretty, huh?!!

Have a SUPER Day!

Mary Carole Dolce

****From the La Dolce Boutique Blog, http://www.ladolceboutique.blogspot.com/****