Bathmats

3 down, only 1 more exam to go! I'm taking today off to chill a bit and then it's back to studying tomorrow *sigh* Though on the plus side, I managed to finish the second of the 3 bathmats I've been working on recently.

This idea was stolen from Montessori By Hand. I've got *so* many 4" patches left from making Patchy (the giant patchwork quilt, see my personal crat blog Geekzoidtastic over on Livejournal) that I thought it would be a good way to use some up!

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, even if some of the squares don't line up *cough* I emailed the lady from Montessori to ask if she would mind me using the pattern for my etsy store and she said she didn't mind at all, so I'm planning on making 5 more of these to sell on Second Fiddle! Obviously I'm going to have to practice sewing in a straight line before these are unleashed to the world.

Without more ado, here's the bathmat! It's going to be a house warming present for my friend Frances. It's honestly not as wonky in real life (though the squares are, the shame of not being able to sew in a straight line), my photography skills leave a lot to be desired...





I'm thinking of pricing these at £15, because they take about 3-4 hours to make so I thought that sounds about fair. I'm not too bothered by pricing things to cover my time as I'd be crafting anyway and I don't plan on making a living off etsy, I just want to make a bit of extra money to cover my craft addiction really. A lot of the things I'll be making to begin with will be from stash I already own, so I won't be buying in anything specific and therefore won't have costs to cover from that point of view.

I think if my etsy store takes off, then I might start being more methodical about calculating my costs and time, but to begin with I just want to price things at what I would view to be a fair price. I don't want to make things really cheap because I know from personal experience shopping on etsy that a cheap price will make me think 'badly made', rightly or wrongly. It gives the impression that the craftster doesn't value their skills, materials or time and so I'd rather pay more for something that's obviously been well made. I figure I would pay between £5-10 for a bathmat from a standard high street shop and so £15 for something unique and handmade isn't extortionately expensive.

Ooo, in other exciting news, I finally have a credit card! Egg accepted me so hopefully this time next week I'll have an official (but empty) etsy store!

NaturallyHip

Since work on the etsy store has somewhat stalled due to uni finals (first one on Monday *panic*), I've decided to use my etsy blog in the meantime to feature other etsy sellers. This'll be a mix of etsy sellers I've had positive experiences with or just people making awesome things I feel the need to share!

First up is NaturallyHip. I recently decided to change to reuseable sanitary towels for environmental reasons (though they are just SO much prettier than normal ones!) and this dear lady was brilliant. She answered all my annoying stupid questions and made me up a custom set of towels varying in size and materials. Sadly I can't start using them until I move house since I don't want to inflict my odd habits on my poor long suffering flatmate but I'm sure when I do they'll be awesome!



She's got a second website at freewebs, where you can choose different styles and patterns of fabric. I chose...

'wildflowers'...



...and 'wild'



All in all ladies, if you're thinking of going green and pretty with your sanitary items then be sure to check out NaturallyHip!

Envelopes!

I'm trying to make sure that everything about Second Fiddle is as professional as possible, right down to the packaging. Unfortunately my photography skills aren't that great, I'm working on it before I list anything on etsy but in the meantime, I wanted to share my envelopes with you!

The idea is that when someone purchases something from my shop, along with their item in the packet will be a little envelope containing a printed invoice, a business card and a little hand-written note thanking them for their business. I got the tutorial for the envelopes off Craftster, you can check it out here.

I also plan to use the vinyl cover idea as packaging, as well as recycled jiffy bags. I want everything to fit in with the idea that recycling doesn't have to mean ugly or tatty, that by recycling you can actually create something prettier than the original.

Here are my little envelopes, I especially like the Where's Wally ones and the one from old sailing books!

The beginnings of a logo...

Check out the first draft of my logo! It's based on the late, great Jools who sadly had to be put to sleep just before christmas last year.

I'm going to go for the top left dog face, with the first title in the list of 3, with the name placed under the dog's head like in the top right picture. Confused?! I am too...



Sadly HSBC are being pains in the proverbial about my credit card, even though they've issued me one in the past and it just expired. Apparently my credit limit isn't high enough for them to issue me a new one and without a credit card I can't set up an etsy store. My mum has offered to let me use hers but it's just such a hassle, I can't believe HSBC are being so hard to deal with! Never mind, we will overcome...hopefully!