#bjune

In my last blog post, I wrote about how I got started appliquéing.  This lead into another new venture, making t-shirts; I wanted to share that journey with you today.  Around the time that I started appliquéing dresses, I had several friends with little boys ask if I was going to make boy’s outfits.  I was hesitant as all my designs stem from my children, meaning I’m not going to make something…

Several blog posts back, I wrote about how I got into making t-shirts using heat transfer vinyl.  I explained all the tools and materials needed, but I didn’t go into how I actually made the designs to go on the t-shirts.  For me, as a trained biologist, you could say art is not my bag.  I have never been very good at drawing or painting; I dabbled in photography in high school, but writing was…

This week I wanted towrite a quick blog post about the Giving Capes.  You can read all about the inspiration for the idea here.  I'm so happy to report that the Giving Capes have been a hit.  As of today, I've sold 6 capes and I hope to continue to sell these until March.  

Here in Texas today the high is 81 degrees, so I haven't even really gotten to use one with my kiddos yet, but thankfully I have some big supporters in the colder climates and have been fortunate enough to sell a few up north.  I'm excited to hear how they have made traveling easier.  I really think that is such a huge advantage to these.  All the photos in this post are custom capes I have made for clients.

I love making custom designs.  When you contact me to create a custom design, first off I'll ask for colors/themes that you would like.  Then I'll send you at least six fabric ideas and we can go from there.  Lastly, I'll ask for any additions such as monogramming, ruffle, trim, etc.  Pricing will be the same as my pre-made capes.  The base price is $50 and then any additions are $5 each.  And I will still be donating one to a local charity for each one purchase.  

The details of how I will do this are still being fine-tuned, but I'm thinking the most efficient method is to donate in the Fall when the weather is getting cold again.  I'm afraid if I donate in February or March, they won't get utilized because the weather will be warming up. This will also give me time to work on them over the spring and summer.  

I'm still looking for the perfect charity.  I know of a women's shelter/resource center close to me and I met a mom last year who was working with a local charity that has a van and goes to children's homes over the summer to provide meals.  If you know of any other Houston area charity that would appreciate something like this, please let me know.  There are a ton of wonderful charities and a lot of ways to give, but for these I want to make sure they are directly distributed to children in need in my local area. 

I started out with just using the online software that came with my Cricut; it's called design space.  I was able to do almost everything I wanted to initially using this software, like the dinosaur birthday outfit.

I found a free, no licensing required, graphic of a dinosaur that I uploaded to design space; I then added the name and age within the software.  Unfortunately, even a task like this would take me about four times as long as I thought it should because the online software was often glitchy for me, so I'd have to constantly refresh my browser and lose unsaved work.

Since I had just spent quite a bit on all the other supplies to get started making t-shirts and I have absolutely no photoshop/illustrator experience, I didn't want to spend a small fortune on software I wasn't sure I'd be able to use.  Honestly, I have only ever created things in powerpoint, like posters for science conferences, so this really was a huge obstacle.  I did some online research and found free software called Gimp.  With a lot of patience and a lot of hours I was able to figure out very basic things, like making transparent backgrounds and simple graphics.  But I really couldn't do much more in this software because again, it was glitchy, and crashed a lot and I just didn't have enough knowledge in graphic design for it to be as useful to me as some had found it.  

Here's a shirt I designed with Gimp.

At some point along the way with a lot of googling I figured out that if I could purchase svg files, then it would be an easy import into Cricut to do my vinyl work.  I have to have different layers for each color I use in a design, so if I just uploaded a graphic as a jpg or png, the whole thing would just cut out in one color.  That would not work.  But with an svg, it would be automatically imported into the software and separated by color layers, so all the work would be done for me.  Here's a shirt I made using an svg I purchased on Etsy.

So I thought, okay, if I want to design more complicated shirts, I will just have to buy the graphics pre-made or hire a graphic designer to create them.  This was not ideal, but it was the conclusion I came to.

At some point along the way, I also realized that Cricut design space worked loads better in the chrome browser than in safari, so once I switched over to using that exclusively for Cricut, I stopped having all the glitch issues.  Sometimes it can still be slow, but I don't run into nearly as much troubleshooting.

Fast forward to December and my sales completely tanked.  I simply couldn't and still can't explain what happened, but I thought it would be a good time to make improvements since I wasn't busy sewing.  I knew I really needed to upgrade my photographs; I hate to admit it, but I was taking them on my dining room table with my iPhone.  I knew the whole time this wasn't ideal, but I would spend so much time sewing and designing and I was so excited to get my new pieces on Etsy and my website that I would just hastily take a few pictures so I could list them for sale.  Of course, though, when you are competing with thousands of other items on a site like Etsy, the pictures are probably the most important piece to the puzzle.  If someone is going to click on your thumbnail, it's because you have a great photograph.

So our amazing family photographer, Amy Vecchio of Captured Simplicity, let me come over to her house and gave me a quick and dirty photography tutorial.  With her tips, my fancy slr camera and cooperative weather, I was really able to improve my photographs.  Maybe I'll write about this next week!  But I still needed to make edits to things like the white balance and brightness.  The free photos from mac software just wasn't cutting it. Amy had suggested I purchase Lightroom, but I hate that you now have to do a monthly subscription to Adobe rather than just but the software outright. I probably could have found a hard copy, but it would still have been above my price point, which is basically whatever is available in my Birdie & June checking account at the time.  Trust me, this balance has not exceeded my expectations yet, haha!  Again, thanks to professor Google, I found Affinity Photo!!  It was on sale for $40, which fit my budget and I am so so happy with this purchase.  It has made my life so much easier.  There are lots of tutorial videos online and I've been able to figure out most of what I've needed to so far.

As an added bonus, I've been able to design some pretty items using it.  Affinity has software that is strictly for design, but so far I haven't needed it.  At some point, once I'm more skilled, I will probably upgrade, but for now, this fits the bill.  The nice thing is I can save files as svgs and then easily import them into design space, so it's been a breeze.  Here's a gift I made for my son's teacher for Christmas using the software (but not my newly learned photography techniques as I made it the night before so didn't have much a of chance to get a great photograph.)

So what would I make for boys?  I looked into pajamas, but in order to sell pajamas, they have to be made with special fabric that has been treated to be flame resistant, which translates to me not being able to make kid's pajamas. I didn't want to sew t-shirts as they are time consuming to make but so easily available and inexpensive to purchase; I didn't think that would be worth my while.  But I could see designing graphics for t-shirts.  So I thought, how about I make matching shorts and t-shirt sets?  I started very simple.  I ordered a few plain t-shirts in different colors online and I made a pair of shorts out of fabric and added a pocket to the t-shirt in the same fabric.  These were simple and sweet.  

However, I was getting requests for personalized birthday t-shirts with a name and age.  So I pulled out my embroidery machine and started doing embroidery and appliqués on the t-shirts.  In all honesty, though, I was not enjoying it.  As I've mentioned, my embroidery machine is very basic and I was finding working with the stretchy knit material that t-shirts are made of was frustrating to say the least.  Mistakes were constant and that would either mean a ruined product or an hour or so of downtime fixing the mistakes.  

My husband also pointed out how much he would have hated the feeling of the appliqué on the inside of the shirt.  I was using a material that would be a barrier between your skin and the thread of the appliqué, but it still could end up feeling itchy.  At that point, I decided I would continue doing custom work on t-shirts, but I would not start selling these items in my shop.

I kept going back to the t-shirt idea, though.  I saw all these wonderful shops on Etsy that were selling graphic t-shirts out of their home, so I knew there had to a be a relatively inexpensive way to design and produce graphic t-shirts at home.  Several of the shirt designs I liked were made using heat transfer vinyl.  I had no idea what this material was at the time, so I did a little research and I had a little luck.  I found out that heat transfer vinyl is basically these large sheets or rolls of ultra-thin vinyl.  They come in a wide variety of colors and even can be glittery or shiny like metal.

In the simplest terms, you buy a sheet of heat transfer vinyl in whatever color you prefer and you cut out a design from it.  Then you put this on a t-shirt like a sticker and apply heat.  The vinyl is permanently adhered and will last the life of the shirt no matter how much wear and tear and washing it goes through.  This seemed like a really good way to start.

There are other methods to making t-shirts like sublimation and a t-shirt printer.  I ruled out sublimation because of how complicated it seemed to set up in home and the t-shirt printer was way out of my budget.  My only limitations with vinyl are color, as each color has to be cut out separately and applied separately, so I stick to less than 3 colors for each design, and details.  Very small, intricate details are nearly impossible to do with heat transfer vinyl.  I knew most of the work I wanted to do, though, would be text or very simple shapes and cut-outs, so these were things I could easily deal with.

The luck mentioned above was that my neighbor had recently purchased a cutting machine and had been telling me all about it.  Now I mentioned earlier that you cut out your design.  But what's better than hand-cutting a design?  Letting a machine do it for you!  I hadn't even heard of a cutting machine prior to my neighbor's purchase.  She got a Cricut Explore but they are several on the market.  She let me come over with some heat transfer vinyl and I made my first t-shirt for my husband.  It was a simple logo from a band he likes.  I layered two colors together.  Prior to actually cutting out the vinyl, I was able to use her Cricut software to import the band's logo into the program and clean it up.  Cricut makes it super user friendly to get started.  You don't need any graphic design skills at all and there are tons of tutorials online.  I should mention that I am not in anyway affiliated with Cricut or trying to promote their products; it's just what I use and like.

For this test shirt, I just used my iron to apply the design; we ran it through the wash several times and it stood up, so I was confident that I could sell a quality product. 

I used a 20% off Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon to purchase my Cricut, woo-hoo!  Then I found an online supplier for heat transfer vinyl.  It is soooo much cheaper if you buy it in yards from an online company rather than buying sheets of it from a craft store or Cricut.  Last, I knew I needed to get a heat press.  The iron is okay if you are making shirts as a hobby, but if you are looking to sell a quality product, you really need a commercial heat press to make sure the vinyl is adhered correctly.

I initially ordered a heat press from Ebay; big mistake!!  It came with no instructions, no customer support and no returns.  I could never figure out how to get it to work correctly and it was a big waste of time and money.  So I decided I would invest in an American made, American company this time around with good customer support.  I found what I needed in Pro World.  They were having a deal where you could get a t-shirt heat press for $99 if you purchased $399 in supplies.  I knew I would easily use that much in vinyl and it was a hell of a deal, so I went for it.

My heat press is wonderful!  I did have to call customer support when it first arrived but they answered all my questions and I had it up and running within an hour of delivery.  I have a very basic one, but I couldn't be happier as it does the job perfectly every time.

So that's how I got all set up to make t-shirts and I haven't looked back since.  Not only do I love customizing shirts for clients, but I love being able to make t-shirts for my family and friends.

Now I have several designs in my shop using heat transfer vinyl, like the one above.  Half of the t-shirts in my son's drawer were made by me, which I think is pretty nifty.  Next week I'll focus on how I went about creating designs (with no graphic design experience).  That will definitely be one of those fumbling around in the dark, lessons learned blog posts.  

Do you have a cutting machine?  Have you designed any t-shirts?  I'd love to hear all about your experiences!

Initially when I started my business, I was only making baby & toddler dresses.  They were simple, no appliqués or personalization.  I have a Janome Magnolia 7318; it is a very basic, well-made machine, but doesn't have any bells or whistles.  I started with patterned fabric and white buttons. Then I started to experiment with my own designs and I added a pocket and bodice to the jumper.  

I loved adding the little details to this style of jumper.  I wanted to stick with the jumper rather than expand my styles too much for several reasons.  One, it is relatively quick to make, meaning I can get one sewn in a nap time or after my kids go to bed.  At the beginning it definitely took me longer, but I've learned a lot and have just gotten more efficient as time goes by.  Now I can make a jumper with no embellishment in about one and a half hours.  Second, these dresses are very giving when it comes to sizing.  Since it's loose fitting, kiddos can fit in several different sizes easily, which makes it much easier when selling online only.  Third, it turns from a dress to a tunic/long shirt very easily.  You can also add leggings and a long sleeved onesie or t-shirt underneath and wear it all year long.  Fourth, it is very comfortable.  Little girls can play in them and still feel frilly and pretty.  My little girl loves to dig in to the sandbox but also loves to twirl around and put on mommy's jewelry and makeup.  These jumpers really fit the bill on so many levels for me.

So how would I continue to make this one style but add to the diversity of my collection; well appliqués of course!  Appliqués are embroidered patterns that you can add to any other fabric.  Unfortunately, you need a special machine to do appliqués.  Luckily I have a very kind husband and he bought me an embroidery machine for Christmas 2015.  I was so excited!  It was a little bit of a learning curve.  I ended up having to buy a program to edit designs since I have a mac and the software that came with my machine was only for pcs.  Every little purchase, like the software, made me extremely nervous since I was putting everything on credit at the time.  So I was very frugal with my finances.  Starting my own business made me incredibly nervous and I really only wanted to invest a small amount so that if it tanked, I wouldn't feel awful about our family's budget along with not doing well.  Luckily, though I didn't need to take any classes at cost to learn to appliqué.  I was able to learn with google U, haha!  Seriously, I was watching youtube videos and googling tutorials like you wouldn't believe.  But it worked.

My first design with my embroidery machine was a Valentine's dress.  My machine already had a heart appliqué on it, so I didn't need to purchase any digital files.  That was another thing I didn't realize, that I would need to purchase digital design files.  I thought I could design them myself...oh boy, I really didn't know much getting into this.

Sidenote: Most of my pictures of kids in my clothes are of my own. I'm not a photographer by any means and trying to take pictures of toddlers modeling clothes is not easy.  So I make my first runs of new designs in my children's sizes and while they are wearing them I try to snap a few shots.  Sometimes I get good ones, sometimes I don't.  I also really appreciate when customers send my photos to share.  I eventually hope to have professional pictures done of several different children in different ages, but for now, this is what it is.  I have so many ambitions; I just need the time and finances.

My embroidery machine is a Brother SE400.  It's a combination sewing and embroidery machine.  It's a starter machine for sure and only can embroider up to four by four inches.  So for my Valentine's dress, I added two hearts to make the appliqué a bit bigger.  

My next design was for St. Patrick's Day.  I found a free shamrock appliqué digital file online and downloaded this to my machine to use.  

By this point, I had started offering my jumpers up to size 10.  But I quickly realized, as shown in the picture above, that the four by four design really wasn't large enough for a dress any bigger than size five.  Plus, I would need a substantial amount more fabric to make larger sizes, but I hated charging more for the same dress in larger sizes.  So I went back to make size six months up to size five dresses only.  Really baby & toddler clothing is of a different style than big girl clothing anyway, so this made more sense in my opinion.  

Now that I've been appliquéing for about a year now, my designs have gotten more intricate.  I made these dresses for friends' daughters for their first birthday last month.

Here's a 101 Dalmatians appliqué I recently did for a client.

And here's the most intricate appliqué I've done thus far, Winnie the Pooh on a boy's jon-jon for a friend's son's 1st birthday.

 Along with appliqués, I also personalize outfits with names, ages & monograms.  I love embroidery and all the little details, how about you?  You will continue to see them in my shop.  A lot of pieces are custom made, as the three above.  If you have a custom idea, let me know.   I'd love to help you make it a reality!

A couple of weeks ago, I went into how I got started sewing.  Last week I needed to write about current affairs that were on the top of my mind, but this week I'm ready to tell you how I went from a sewing hobbyist to a small business owner.  

I have to say my friends were the ones who inspired me to start selling my clothing.  Every time I made a new dress for my daughter, I would post a picture of it on Facebook.  I would get so many likes and comments from friends, way more than I would ever receive on any other posts.  I also noticed that I was spending a small fortune at the fabric store.  I felt like I always needed to have a project on the docket to really feel fulfilled.  I had so much fun with it and I felt like I was 'using' my brain again.  Also, at this time, both my children were thankfully taking two hour naps, so I had two hours of uninterrupted me time in the middle of the day.  If I didn't have a sewing project to work on during that time, I started to feel anxious.  Don't get me wrong, I had plenty to do between cleaning and groceries and all sorts of chores, but these were not things that made me feel inspired and accomplished.  So I needed to find a place to start selling in order to keep sewing at the same pace.

My son's 3rd birthday and one of my first attempts at handmade, an appliqué shirt for him and a onesie dress for her.

  I had bought things on Etsy before, so I knew items sold there were handmade but I really didn't know how the whole thing worked so I started researching it and found I could open a shop on just a few dollars, enough to list a few items.  Each item that sold, they then took a cut of, so there wasn't any overhead investment initially.  I decided to give it a go.  I bought fifteen yards of fabric in three different designs initially.  I bought a Christmas pattern since it was November 2015 when I opened my shop.  I also bought a cute little print with bunnies, which in retrospect is really a spring pattern, but I just thought it was adorable.  And I bought more of a abstract pattern on pink.  I knew I wanted to start with jumpers as I'd made my daughter three or four of them so I felt confident I could make them sufficient enough to sell.  I made a couple dresses out of the fabric in three sizes and then I listed them and waited.  

 Charlotte did not enjoy being one of my first models very much.  This was the pink dress, one of my first designs.

  I was very lucky to have a supportive family and supportive friends, who were my first customers.  I needed to build up a little steam.  On Etsy you are able to see how many sales someone has made.  I wouldn't buy from a store with 0 sales and no reviews so I can imagine most people would feel that way.  But I was able to slowly build up my sales and my reviews and within a month or two I was selling to more strangers than friends from all over the US.  I added designs to my shop and started making items as people purchased rather than ahead of time so I wouldn't have a size 2 sitting around when I had three orders for size 12 months.  I learned a lot of lessons along the way of what worked best for me and my sales numbers.  I found my groove and tried new designs and saw what attracted buyers.

I branched out into making boy's outfits too and t-shirts, which I will talk about more in depth later.  My main goal with this post was to share how easy it was to get started.  I'd like to write about my financial investment and how I purchase supplies and the lessons I learned along that path in the future as well.

Do you have an idea for a creative business you've been wanting to try out but have been afraid?  I was there and I say take the leap; what's the worst that can happen?  If nothing else, you will definitely grow as a person from the challenge!

Today I really want to write about my adventure into making hair bows, but instead I feel like I should start at the beginning.  I've had my etsy shop for a year now and while I'm still a newbie, I do think there are a lot of lessons I've learned this first year.  I have so much longer to go on this journey and I'm very excited to see what it brings.

But I thought first, I should bring you up to speed on how I get started on this path.  So we're going to go back, I mean waaaayyyy back.  Let's start in high school.  I'd always been a bookish, creative intellectual (probably kind of snotty) kid.  I loved poetry, photography, writing, literature...etc. etc.  Drawing and painting always baffled me but otherwise, I was pretty artsy fartsy.  

Fashion was a big deal to me in my teen years.  I genuinely wished they offered home ec. at my high school so I could learn to sew, but they didn't.  Our spanish class had a mock quinceañera and the girls each wore matching dresses.  As we were a variety of sizes, our moms got together to sew the dresses from scratch.  I was fascinated by the process.  My mom couldn't sew, but she helped as she could.  I really wanted to learn but it just seemed so foreign and I forgot all about it.  

As I was so humanities focused, it came as a complete surprise to many of my peers when I choose to go into the sciences, specifically biology, in college.  Many had assumed I would do something in the liberal arts.  Oh, and believe me, there were days in college when I was cross-mutating fruit flies in the lab that I would longingly look over at the english lit majors as they sat outside in a circle contemplating their current read.  

My passion for science came from my love for animals at an early age.  I adored kittens and puppies.  I could watch a squirrel burying nuts for an hour.  I would listen to bird song and wonder what they were saying to each other.  I was a nature kid.  I spent most of my time outside making mud pies and using my imagination.  As I whittled away the hours, I would watch the animals around me foraging, playing, running, etc.  I never understood how people could say animals had no emotions and were unintelligent.  My mission in life at an early age was simple; I would prove these people wrong.  So I knew that's where I wanted my career to take me and I was determined to meet that goal. I went to graduate school to study animal intelligence.  I studied social behavior and intelligence in monk parakeets.  They are truly an amazing species.  I could bore you for hours with information about birds...but that's probably not why you are reading this blog.

After graduate school, I started my career at the Children's Museum of Houston.  I adored teaching children about the environment, animals and science.  It also allowed me a chance to start getting creative again as I had to come up with fresh and new fun, educational activities & exhibits. Another moment that stuck in my mind was watching our collections assistant sew handmade toys and games for the exhibits.  She had a desk near me and I thought that was the coolest and was very envious.  Again, though, it just seemed like something I wouldn't ever be able to grasp.  I couldn't even understand how you made a seam at the time.  If I lost a button or had a tear under an armhole, I would usually get rid of the garment.

As life progressed, I became a stay at home mom.  All my focus was on nurturing my little boy & girl.  And let's be honest, I felt like a part of my brain wandered off with boredom.  Not physical boredom, right.  I mean, there was always something to do and never any downtime, but intellectual boredom and feeling like I wasn't doing anything, even though I was constantly busy.  Then my cousin got a sewing machine and I started to see all of her fabulous creations on Facebook.  Her and I are very much alike.  So I peppered here with questions and found she was as clueless as I was in the beginning.  The thought of being one of those moms who was able to hand make their children's costumes and fancy clothes excited me to no end!    

I had a birthday coming up and so I decided to get myself a sewing machine.  I started out thinking I could just teach myself with youtube videos and wing it.  Haha...ha.  I know some people have successfully done that but with my science background I am way too much about procedures and precise measurements to be able to do this.  I ended up signing up for an online craftsy class with a half off coupon from Jo-Ann Fabrics.  I really wanted to go to an in person class but with two small children and a husband who works  a different schedule each week that was pretty much impossible.  I had never taken an online course before and I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out, but I learned loads and was off and sewing in no time.  I would highly recommend Sewing Studio with Diana Rupp.  She's a great instructor and has personally answered several of my questions and emails.  I could rewind and take notes and watch over and over.  Plus, she showed a little jumper dress that while we didn't sew in the class, it inspired me to start sewing for my kids, which then led to my Etsy shop.  

I've already written what seems like a novel so I won't take up anymore of your time today.  My next post will be about the transition from sewing hobbyist to small handmade shop owner.