W.I.P. - rain bow cowl, and labeling

This week is tech week, so I've been rather busy, and very anxious about the play this weekend. YIKES! Still I've managed to work on a few things this week.

 First off, I've been trying to access the "To Do" list before the craft show in a few weeks. I know its going to sneak up on me faster than i know it so I really need to start getting everything 100% completed. That means, ends weaved in and cut off, tags sewn on, lint rolling items, etc. So I've come up with an assembly line of need to be labeled projects organized by what thread I'm stitching the labels on with. Some need to be hand stitched, but others I'm just going to run through the sewing machine quick.

I made another cowl this week. One I've wanted to make for a long time. It's a rainbow one, I originally wanted to do a thicker infinity cowl with it, but I knew I didn't have time for that this week. So I just did a simple circle cowl. I knew I loved this one from the time I decided on the shades I wanted and had them lined up on our bed in the perfect order just waiting to jump in! :]

My other two projects this week were some bow rings and the foundation of some ear warmers :]

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W.I.P. - custom orders

This week I was working on several different custom orders. I was lucky enough to have several people take part in the birthday sale! So this week I worked on a hat, two pairs of boot cuffs, a chunky infinity scarf, and packaging. I also worked on some templates for personal notes to add to orders and cute little fold overs that I can staple on a bag for small items that do not get chelseaMADE labels sewn on.

I should of taken more pictures of the goodies while I was working through out the week, and of the packages for them. Two of my orders were from lovely ladies at my school, so I got to dress theirs up like presents since I could deliver those in person instead of via mail. Above are pictures of the order for a custom slouch hat in hot pink and the lovely soft pink green and brown cowl I made earlier this month :] You get to see it in its cute little bag, with tissue paper and the care instruction cards on top.

This picture is of both orders waiting to be delivered!

And below are my templates! I'll have to do up a bad so you can understand what the fold over things are. I just wanted something to look more professional so it looks more like it'd hang on a retail store"s shelf now :]

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W.I.P. - bootcuffs, and more scrafs

This WIP Wednesday is full of boot cuffs! I have recently fallen in love with the new fad for these lovely little accessories that are a quick fix to spruce up any outfit. I have so far made four pairs! So far on Instagram people are just loving them! I love the quick and easy feedback that Instagram allows. I don't like using a lot of social media stuff because it's hard to keep up with and I just don't have the desire to sit on social media sites all day. I always have the desire to take a quick picture and show off my most recent creations though and Instagram is perfect for that! If you have an apple product and don't have Instagram yet, this is one thing I would urge anyone to jump on the band wagon with. Its a great tool, and a fun way to keep in touch with your friends without having to find them and go through their posts, and blah blah blah. You get a quick look at their lives at the moments that they think are worth remembering. I don't know about you, but for me, its exactly what I want, a quick glance to see how you're doing, and be on my way. :]

Now, more about the bootcuffs, here are the couple styles I've designed so far.

Plain Jane lilac boot cuffs made in the most simplistic of forms
Sophisticated Spencer bootcuffs in baby blue with a darling white ribbon tied in a bow on them
Classy Scallops in a tan color and some boot cuff minies in a salmon


The other projects I've been working on have been similar to the infinity scarfs. They're much more light weight though, easy to go from outside chilly weather wrapped tightly around your neck with a jacket, to then unloop it a bit and wear it looser and lightweight as a necklace once you get to your classroom, the grocery store, or the office, etc. I also have one done in the most precious of pale pinks :]

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Birthday Sale!!!!

Today is my birthday!!!

To celebrate my birthday I am having a sale for 24 hours straight! Any purchase made through my instagram or the store, or this blog, will be given 30% off! Also, any custom order made today will be given 10% off! YAY! Hope you guys have fun celebrating with me ;]

www.zibbet.com/chelseamade

Today Vincenso and I went to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins to carve as part of my "birthmas" celebrations as he called it :] I'm a pretty darn lucky girl! There's nothing I love more then the fall with the leaves, and pumpkins and Halloween!

I'm just terribly lucky that he loves all of these things too and we get to have a blast celebrating our birthdays with each other. Only ten days till he turns 23. Eww, what an old fart!

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photo shoot!

 It's finally here! Today was the day I've spent weeks preparing for! As you can see from the picture with the bags filled with crochet that I had LOTS AND LOTS of goodies that needed to be modeled so all of you lovely readers and my followers on instagram could find these pretties listed in my store finally! hopefully they will be up soon. If they're all up and listed by November I will feel VERY accomplished! With midterms this last week, and tech week for the play creeping up so fast I'm surprised I find the time for anything these days! Jenna was my amazing photographer like always! She's so amazing. I'm never disappointed with the pictures she takes, and there is always a TON of pictures to pick from which can be very hard sometimes as they're all so cute! She's so professional about it too. Sometimes I forget shes not just my wittle baby sister anymore and that shes a grown women going to college. YIKES. That's a hard thing to try and get use to!   

And with everything we do, there is always a bit of goofing off to go along with it ;]

Photography credit goes to miss Jenna Garza

Model credit goes to miss Jessica Baker and Theresa Beasley

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W.I.P. - infinity scarfs and business cards

This week has been pretty productive, though it doesn't seem that way compared to how many products I made. This week there was only two, but I did work more on some of those coffee cozies this week! Everything is assigned a design, so all that is left is to get stitching! 

I actually bought myself a present this week :] Well, two really ! I've been eyeballing this multi-colored skein called fruit punch forever! Finally I just said, "Chelsea, you deserve that yarn!" , and I bought it :] I also bough the tiny circle loom set from Walmart that I have been eyeballing for a while as well! These two scarfs are my recent projects that have spawned from it! 

The first is from the red heart fruit punch skein that I love. I was terribly attached to this yarn, just like the super soft fuzzy grey yarn that I made the bubble cowl out of. I knew I couldn't use the yarn on just anything,  it would have to be the PERFECT item that showed off just how beautiful this yarn was, and this scarf does it! I adore it! Absolutely adore it! The way it is dyed works just perfectly to make these perfectly matching sized rings of color throughout the infinity scarf and I just can't help falling in love with it!

The second scarf this week is also an infinity scarf made from the loom. This one uses a much more chunky style of yarn that I purchased at Jo Anne's a while back. This one went a little quicker compared to the non stop 4 days worth of free time the fruit punch one took. 

In other exciting news, this week I finally printed some quick DIY business cards printed on card stock and used my paper cutter to slice them up too! I couldn't find the file I had wanted to use on the back of them since my computer crashed, but these will do for now :]

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W.I.P. - coffee cozies, and scarfs-galore!

This week was busy busy busy!! I designed my firs coffee cozy, as well as making lots of scarfs, even finishing a WIP I've had laying around since my freshman year of college....yikes!

I'll start off with the three year old WIP! its a really simple yet classy and elegant scarf :] I uploaded two looks on Instagram and had a vote for it since I couldn't decide myself which way I wanted to go. Even though I only had two participants in the vote it helped me make up my mind even though it was a 1:1 vote ratio. I decided on the look pictured to the left. I like the simplicity of a plain long rectangular scarf since most of the items I make these days are cowls. I can't help it, they're my favorite right now :] This little darling was crocheted in a pale yellow, using a repetitive double crochet stitch. I then decided to pair it with a jumbo sized white rose broach in the front. I really like the feminine touch the rose added.






The next scarf from this week was a plain cream classic cowl. This one had a very simple stitch as well but I didn't feel the need to dress it up as it was such a nice soft texture of a yarn I wanted it to speak for itself. I have the label at home so maybe later I'll update with a note as to what brand it was and the name of the color. For now, it was soft, cream, and purchased at  Jo Anne's fabrics. The whole thing was stitched in a half double crochet.


The next picture is of the first coffee cozy I designed and finished completely :] I have about 8 more just plain colored bases done with out details sewn on or appliques made. The colors are all different, and hopefully I'll have a good image of them completed on next week's WIP Wednesday. For now, this is the only one :]




The scarf in the next picture is to die for! I just think it is absolutely gorgeous and I adore it! I bought this skein at Jo Anne's as well. I might have the skein label for this one at home too. So I'll have to check, but this yarn was also very soft and cozy. The color of the skein was a elegant fade between pinks, greens, and brown and it just worked beautifully with the pattern I made for the cowl. It was worked length wise in a connected circle vs width. The picture to the left shows a close up of the pattern.

Geez! I bet you're all thinking, when she said scarf-galore, she meant SCARF-GALORE! Hahaha :] There's only two more I swear! The next one is a custom order made by my mum! She came to visit this week and while she was in town checking out all my goodies I've made recently she decided she needed one too! or a few really, lol, but we decided to start with just one for now and make our way through her list of requests! This skein was purchased at Walmart and is also a super lovely cozy soft skein. Its colors faded rather nicely as well. I have a pet peeve sometimes when it comes to multi-colored dyed yarn because I find that many times the yarn is NOT evenly distributed color wise, and that rather bothers me. I don't want to look at the outside of the skein and think, "oh i love that!" just to take it home and have a decent amount of time into a piece to find out, eww, this yarn is NOT at all how it looked!

Last, but not least, is the Halloween inspired infinity scarf I made using orange and black yarn. It is knitted using both threads at the same time. Not much else to say about this one, just that it is super cute and you can wear it all kinds of ways! 

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GRAND OPENING

YAY! It's official! Today is the day! chelseaMADE is officially open! 

www.zibbet.com/chelseamade

                  

The store is live and I'm terribly excited, but there's still a ton of work to be done. I took some time off work lately to just create create create! There's going to be a photo shoot soon and I wanted to have plenty of things done since I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to have Jenna photograph things again. So I want to make sure I have as much as possible ready to be shot on the 14th :]

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