New Headband Holder

I know that I haven't posted the survey results for the headband holders yet, but I wanted to share one that I made today. I wasn't really planning on starting these already, but I had received two requests through Facebook for one. Then I found out that there is an upcoming craft fair in town that I am trying to sign up for (waiting for the woman in charge to email me back). So I decided to make some of these earlier than planned in anticipation for the craft fair (on February 18th).

I prepared all of my materials the last night:

I had high aspirations of finishing two of these today.

And impatiently waited until naptime today to "whip" one up.

Here is the first one that I have made up (excluding my "mock-up" that was shared in the survey):

The blue fabric is for the next one.

This darn thing took me about TWO hours to finish! And that's not including the time that it took me to measure and cut the fabric and the batting the night before.

I'm not really sure if I like how this one turned out. The pom fringe doesn't really look how I had pictured it would, and I think it might be a little overkill once headbands and hair clips are added. There is a dark purple in the fabric, which coordinates with the ribbon and fringe, but it's a little difficult to see in this photo. There are two hair clip ribbons on this one (the consensus from the survey was to have two), and the padded lid removes for extra storage inside, for hairbrushes, combs, hair ties, etc.:

Tabs inside prevent it from falling inside the container.

I am still debating whether or not I want to try to track down some bases for these, as shown in the mock-up, using one of my votive bases:

What do you think, don't worry about a base, or definitely include one? Ditch the pom fringe, or keep it?

A Farewell to Bethany

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the loss of "Bethany", a beloved member of the Betty Bow Blue family.

You will be missed.

With one final snip of the scissors, Bethany was no more. She had a good run while it lasted, and was a favorite of many. Throughout her lifetime, Bethany was able to produce a pair of hair clips, two flower headbands, a flower pin, two pom pins, FOUR necklaces, and most recently, two pom rings. She was a bestseller.

If you are one of the unfortunate few who do not own a piece of Bethany, now's the time to act! One pom pin, and one pom ring (see photo below), are still available for purchase. Move quickly before she is gone completely!

For now, let's take a moment of silence to remember the best of Bethany:

And for the record, yes, I am fully aware that I am a dork. :-)

Earring Survey Results

30 people responded to the earring survey, (and one silly goose who inadvertently skipped it).

Photo/Project Credit: Happy Together

1. Who do you think that earrings like these would be more appropriately targeted toward (Select all that apply)

• Women- 30%- (9)
• Teens- 50%- (15)
• Young girls- 50% (15)
• Other (6): "i would think high school, college, young adults would wear there, very cute!"; "tweens"; "Seniors, too."; "Young women-early 20's"; "Depending on the fabric color it could be for young girls too."; "While I think they would be most appropriate looking on younger girls, they also might not hold up on them."

2. If you were to wear these, or buy them for someone else, would you prefer solid, prints, pearls, beads, cool, warm, or neutrals? (FYI, I had to use this format for the question because I was only allowed to have 10 questions per survey and this one was part of the bracelet survey).

• Answers for this question were all over the place, but the general consensus was that anything would go. Winner of the best feedback response was: "both solid and prints would work for me. again, if it is something like this that is a little out of the box for earrings-i think the women that would wear these would like fun colors and prints rather than neutrals. Pearls are beautiful, but if you had a sparkly tiny button that would be gorgeous too! Love sparkles."

3. The average min/max price range that people said that they would pay for these is $7.50-$10.30. $5 was the lowest price suggested and $15 the highest. Three people claimed that they would not buy them at all.

My MPW suggested the following: wholesale price- $6.54; "safe" price- $11.54; retail price: $13.08, which seems to have underestimated a bit? Originally, I was thinking of pricing these for a craft fair at $4.00 a pair! Seems as though I was underestimating what people would pay, too!

I would like to reply to a couple of feedback comments/concerns that I received regarding these earrings. Actually, I think it's only one comment. One responder who said that they would not buy these, explained, "The fabric looks [like] it will fray, and they look a little gaudy." To which my response is, to each his own. I would personally never wear these either, as I prefer my earrings to dangle a bit, but I know that there are some women out there who would.

The main reason that I was considering making these earrings when I came across them was because there were so many women at my last craft fair who were excited about my pom hair clips, thinking that they were actually earrings. They were disappointed to find out that they were in fact hair clips. I couldn't help thinking first, that the poms were much too large to be mistaken for earrings, (they are 1.5"-2" in diameter!) and secondly, how gaudy that would look, but again, to each his own. But then I started thinking, well what about a smaller version of the pom....

As far as fraying goes, I think that the natural fraying of the earrings in the photo from Happy Together, actually added to the charm of them, except maybe that long bit hanging out on the left side of the photo:

Photo/Project Credit: Happy Together

 However, I believe in selling a product that is going to hold up and not fall apart on my customer, so I was planning to seal the edges of the fabric before constructing the earrings. Which I did, with the second pair that I made:

I actually wasn't very crazy about how these turned out, nor was I satisfied with the whole process in general. Hand-sewing the tiny fabric pieces together was a pain in my tushy, and I am too much of a perfectionist to have them appear sporadically arranged and messy as they did in the original tutorial, (as seen in the blue earring on the far right):

Photo/Project Credit: Happy Together

So, all things considered, I concluded that I will not be making these earrings. I didn't really enjoy doing it, nor did I like the end result enough to want to make more. If I'm going to spend valuable time on an item, then I want to be able to be proud of it, regardless of whether or not I would wear it myself.

Thank you again to everyone for the wonderful feedback! Expect to see the ring and headband holder survey results within the next week, and if you haven't checked out the results for the bracelets yet, check them out here.

Future items to make?

I have been tossing around the idea of including rings, earrings, and bracelets to my inventory. One of the reasons is because they will use up my pieces of scrap fabrics that are too small for the regular poms and flowers, but also because I want to add a bigger variety of items to the ones that I already make. These three items also seem to be ones that most women wear more of.

The rings that I would like to make would be smaller versions of the poms, (think 1" or less), attached to a metal adjustable ring base. I don't have a photo of what they would look like, so you will have to use your imagination to picture it. I have received some positive feedback from some women I spoke with this weekend. One specifially told me that she would DEFINITELY buy a ring if I made those (I am holding her to it!). These would probably be the easiest of the three to make.

The earrings that I would like to make would look similar to these post earrings made by Jessica over at Happy Together:

These look easy enough to make, but the fabric circles used for this are only the size of a dime, so they may prove tricky for my clumsy fingers. But I think they are really cute, great for women or girls, and would be an excellent way to use up the tiny fabric scraps I have collected.

The last project idea is to make fabric button bracelets. I fell in love with the one that is featured in the tutorial over at The Mother Huddle:

Unfortunately, this would be the most expensive of the pieces to make. The bracelet bases average about $3.00 apiece, and the button kits are also about $3.00, which only includes 10 buttons and the bracelet requires 9. So unless I could ensure that these bracelets would be a popular item and a great seller, then it probably would not even be doable (read: affordable) for me right now. Perhaps if I was working several days a week.... But I do really like them, so they are staying on the top of the possibilities list.

Opinions? Would you buy any of these items? Do you think one would be a better seller than the others? Which should I attempt first? (Leave a comment or participate in my new polls on the right margin).

New Headband Design

In my mad dash to build up a stock for my bomb of a craft fair this past weekend, I came up with this new design for a headband and whipped up four of them:

They are made using fabric, felt, ribbon, and embroidery thread. This design takes a little more time than my others because the fabric is hand-stitched together. It didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned it to (do they ever?), but the headbands did receive some good "reviews" at the craft fair. Many women and girls commented on how cute they were, and how they haven't seen headbands like these before. Would you believe that one woman, after looking at these headbands, turned to the other one next to her and said, "These are so cute. I need to figure out how to make these myself. So and so would love this." Right in front of me. Seriously?!

Unfortunately, I had no sales with these items and I'm questioning whether I have them priced too high. I priced them at $12, mainly because they require different supplies than the others, and more time. What do you think? Is the pricing off?

New Fabrics!

Another perk to having my mom come to visit this past weekend (other than picking up my items for a craft fair), was that she brought along her bin a fabric scraps for me to pick through. I now have a larger selection of fabric to choose from, including colors that I didn't have before, like orange. Of course the one downside is that because I am using scrap fabrics, sources are limited for each print, leading to a limit in the amount of items that I can make with each. Thankfully, features of the fabric itself will help me to decide which items to make. For example, some fabrics are printed on only one side, while the back is almost white. This fabric would work best as flowers, where seeing the backside isn't important. Fabrics that are dyed all the way through, will work great for poms! The holiday fabrics that I have will most likely be used for flowers rather than poms. The texture and "stiffness" or certain fabrics will also determine what they are made into. All new fabrics will be listed soon.

Those few people, who had the chance to get a sneak preview of my blog and galleries while still in the early stages, will notice something different. I have assigned each print fabric a female's name. This has made it easier for me to keep an inventory of the items that I have out at craft fairs, and to keep track of which accessory is using which fabric. Now I can avoid having to list three different "yellow floral" fabrics, or describe something as "blue background with pink and purple flowers". One name is much simpler. Each accessory using a specific fabric will also be labeled using that name, or names.

Before anyone asks me where or how I came up with the names that I chose, it's quite simple. The majority of the names I selected are the names of women I know, or those of their daughters. So if you are an acquaintance, friend, or family member of mine, and you come across an item using your name, or that of your daughter's, and are wondering if it's just a coincidence, it's probably not. I totally stole your name. J Consider it a compliment.