Crazy Cutey Patutey Season

I had a bunch of scrap paper which was uniform in size. These scraps were left over from making photo booth strip envelopes for customers. What could I do with them? I decided to try my hand at making note pads. Surely I could print them, bind them together with padding compound and then sell them! I decided to give it a try.

Boy, did they take off! I have been selling notepads by the dozen! They started taking off immediately as Lunchbox Loveys (to include in your kids' lunchbox), but then folks started ordering personalized ones for their teachers and coworkers as thoughtful gifts for Christmas. This made for some pretty long nights and lots of printing (and a bunch of help tying baker's twine by the kids and packaging by Taigen). Let's just say that all of my white scrap paper is gone and I've ordered lots more in hopes of getting me through the Christmas season!

Cutey Patutey Cards

If you have looked at the blog for any extended period of time, you know that I love to make cards. There's a little rectangle on the right sidebar that "advertises" the cards I make and list for sale in my Etsy shop. Etsy has proven to be a wonderful vehicle for earning a little bit of extra cash. I mostly sell my handmade, handstamped cards, but one thing has brought in some business that I didn't expect.

Many of you know that my step-mom works for Leanin' Tree greeting cards. She is the manager of the sales department. Let me just tell you that she is very good at what she does. She is a hard worker, a wonderful manager, and a very valuable employee. She is able to purchase cards right there at her company so she doesn't typically need cards from me. She has expressed an interest in me making cards for her so that she could give gift cards as thank you's or encouragements. She needed gift card holders. So this was my inspiration, but how could I do it?

I had gotten a gift card from a company for my birthday last year. It had come in a gift card holder that was so nice, but simple. I carefully tore it apart to see how they had assembled it.

"I bet I could do something like this." I said.

I took a scrap piece of paper, and an old gift card, and played with it. I figured out where to score the paper, how to fold it and place my adhesive, and how to get it to stay closed. It was easy. So, I made a couple and put them in my shop. They weren't expensive and weren't fancy-schmancy, but they were a big hit.

So far, I've been able to sell custom-made gift card holders to many individual customers, three salons, a photographer, and most recently Judith Bright, a jewelry designer who has locations in Tennessee and Georgia (with another location preparing to open up in LA). It was quite an honor to prepare her gift card holders and I had a lot of fun. Her work is amazing. To be honest, it's somewhat intimidating to be working with someone on this scale. I want to make sure that even these little gift card holders match her quality of product!

I'm currently working on her second of three batches. She's a gem to work with and I appreciate the business.

Judith Bright's first batch, ready to have her logo attached.

I LOVE her colors: dark brown & a pretty pale aqua.

 



 

All packaged up and ready to ship!

Making cards is proving to be a wonderful hobby and I'm thankful for the opportunities it brings and the wonderful people I get to "meet."

Austria Trip - The Final Hours

Today is the day that we begin the long journey back home. I am so excited to see the kids! This has been the longest that we have ever been apart and I must admit that I have probably missed them more than they have missed me. We've tried to email them every day and we had the opportunity to Skype them once, but I'm eager to snuggle and be with my little buddies once more.

We got up and ate some cereal with Stan, Grace and Kirsten before leaving. I was able to prop the camera up on the piano and get one last picture with our dear friends. Today was drizzly and cool. We quickly loaded up the van and took off for the Vienna airport.

Stan drove us. He said again and again how much he appreciated our coming. He said to be sure to give our greetings to all of our church folks back home.

Our flight took off for Helsinki without a glitch. This is a short flight and as I was not tired, I was able to see some landscape as we came into Finland. The Gulf of Finland looks gorgeous from the plane. We de-boarded and navigated our way through the airport to the exit. Our flight for Paris wasn't going to leave until the next morning. We had booked a hotel somewhere near the airport, but we had no idea how long it would take us to get there. I had hoped to be able to go and see the Sibelius memorial. Jean Sibelius composed a beautiful piece entitled Finlandia. You might know it better as the tune to the old hymn "Be Still My Soul." He's somewhat of a national hero in Finland. My thought was, "My chances of getting to Finland again are pretty slim. I might as well make the most of it and see what I can." Unfortunately, we were short on Euros. The tour to go see the memorial was outlandishly priced. We didn't want to have to withdraw any more so we decided to explore Helsinki on foot instead.

We took the free shuttle to our hotel. On our way there we quickly realized that our hotel would not be near downtown or anything scenic. It was located basically in an industrial park. A little disappointing, but it didn't matter to us. We were happy to be in Finland and made ourselves comfy in our hotel room before taking off for the local shops. Our room was terribly hot. I remember dozing and then waking up all hot and sweaty. I checked the thermostat in the room and had it turned down all the way, but that didn't seem to make a difference. We asked the lady at the front desk about it. Were we doing something wrong? She informed us that they had been having air conditioning problems in that wing and if our room was still hot when we came back from our walk, they would move us to another room.

The shops were a nice little 20 minute walk away. Taigen and I enjoyed talking about our trip as we walked there. So many good memories!

What we found was a huge mall. We meandered around, looking for a momento of Finland that we could bring home. We ended up going into a store that was similar to a Macy's and I asked the sales clerk what I could purchase that would be uniquely Finnish. She pointed me in the direction of a few items, but eventually I fell in love with these little cappuccino cups and saucers made by a Finnish company called Iitalia. I asked the sales clerk about the significance of the owls that were printed on every cup. She didn't know, but thought it was due to the fact that there were a lot of owls in Finland. I have since made a contact with a lady in Finland (who happened to like my cards on Etsy), and she told me that the cups probably have the artwork of an artist named Klaus Haapaniemi. I looked him up, and sure enough, she was right! She also told me that the print is called "Taika" which means "the magic." Isn't that a neat factoid?!? The design isn't particularly my style or what I would consider beautiful, but it is from Finland and uniquely Finnish and I was thrilled to have my little owl for my kitchen shelf.

While I was waiting for the salesclerk to wrap up my cup and saucer, she explained how excited she was to have a United States citizen in her shop. She said it is very rare and she was happy to practice her American English. What most Europeans learn is British English and so they are eager to practice American English when they can. She chatted and chatted with me and was very personable. We had a great time in her store.

When we were done making the purchase we went in search of food. Unfortunately at the mall, there wasn't anything authentic to Finland. There was Italian, burgers, Mexican, etc. Isn't that funny? We ended up finding a small woodfired pizza place. We ordered a chicken barbeque pizza that had bacon, barbeque sauce, pineapple and chicken. It was outstanding! After pizza, we walked around some more and then finished off the night with ice cream. We ate as we walked home.

Our room was still hot, so we were transferred to another room. We got hooked up to the hotel's wifi and were able to contact folks back home and let them know that the first leg of our journey was complete. Tomorrow was Paris and then home.

Creativity Outlet

Years ago, a friend of mine (Janelle) got me interested in card-making. When you figure that typically spend over $2 for a card at the store (typically Wally World), it can get expensive. Be sure to also figure in that you have to weed through trashy ones while constantly averting the eyes of the kids that you have in tow (since sometimes those cards are right at eye-level) OR read through ones with cheesy jokes that aren't in any way, shape or form funny. It's just not worth it any more. (Okay, with the exception of a few Hoops and Yoyo ones. But those can be pricey!)

Making cards simply takes the right tools, supplies and time. Since doing something creative is fun for me, I enjoy this type of craft, especially since it also saves my husband money...and I'm ALL about that. It's also the type of craft that you can drop at a moment's notice and then pick right up where you left off. This is perfect for me! My life is full of interruptions.

Over the years, I've accumulated some of the necessary tools & supplies (many thanks to people to feed my habit with crafty gifts, gift cards and birthday/Christmas money) so that I can sit down at any "free" moment and whip out some cards. Lately, I've not been doing a card, but sets of cards. The kind you would get in a box at the store. I make them in a type of assembly line. I do the base of the card and then tailor-make them to wish someone a happy birthday, congratulations, I love you, etc. What fun! It's a great outlet for me. Let me know if you ever need anything made. I would love to help.