More HMC in July promotion!

Happy Wednesday to everyone!! We made it through the day and we can nearly see the weekend!! Phew!! First of all I would just like to share how excited I am about the recent sales that I've had!! :) I've had several sales in a row *knock on wood* I am absolutely LOVING the sales fairy visiting my shop!! Also I had my first over seas sale!! That's pretty exciting too!! My sale that I got from Australia was a custom order for a baby shower game and she asked for a pirate theme, I had thought about creating pirate themed items and just hadn't done it yet so this order pushed me to do it and I'm glad that I did!! I have a great new image option for future orders!!

This is the final product! A personalized pirate themed baby shower game!!

The pirate ship!

 Okay on to the HMC Christmas in July sale promotion! I said in my post yesterday that in my upcoming posts I will be picking 5 shops each post to feature so here we go for today!

AstraBella SinSations

Augie and Lola Baby Boutique

Isewmuchtime

MakinitMama

Paper Pastiche

There you have it!! My choices of 5 shops to promote today and of course as always please visit my shop as well at

www.etsy.com/shops/mamamadegifts

I am off to update and try to organize my shop! Until tomorrow!! And don't forget, tomorrow is Thank-You THURSDAY at Mama Made Gifts!! Place an order tomorrow and get a gift certificate for 5 dollars off of your next purchase!

-Mama

Oh my goodness it's been a while!

Let me start off first by saying OH MY GOODNESS has it ever been a while since I have gotten on here and posted!! I will try my best to do better about posting updates more often! This past month got hectic in a BIG old hurry!! It started off at the end of last month, my husband and I had our actual wedding last fall, but we wanted a summer wedding reception bonfire get together so the last weekend in June we had that.  The weeks before the reception were NUTS! My mom and I made all the decorations and every other little aspect of the reception so needless to say it was a little crazy and I certainly didn't really have time to be posting on here or tending to my etsy shop really at all!  From there we went directly into 4th of July and recovering from the reception!! Shortly after that we had some family drama that resulted in me not really feeling like getting online to do much of anything. Now finally things seem to be settling down enough that I have been able to get some orders done and will be shipping them off and now I really need to tend to getting my etsy shop back in order updating this site more often and getting back into the swing of things!

Now I would like to mention a GREAT sale event that I am involved in along with so many other great etsy shops! Handmade Circle's Christmas In July sales event!! With this sales event you can save anywhere from 10-35% off just by using the universal coupon code HMCJULY, the discounts vary from shop to shop!! Over the next few posts I will be featuring 5 of the shops involved in the sale to help promote everyone!! 

Round 1 of Handmade Circle Christmas In July Sales Event Shops!

A Cottage Hearth

Beautiful Swag Store

Creations By Janet

Go Green with Red

Little Momma Boutique

There are my shop promotions for the day! We are half way through the week and I know personally I CAN'T wait for the weekend!! It has been so very very warm here, I guess it's supposed to cool down tomorrow and Thursday and then be hot again so I'm hoping for the chance to go for a family trip to the beach again!! We went last weekend and our little peanut absolutely LOVED the water and daddy helping her build sand castles! It was an absolute blast!

Well I think I will head off to try to update and organize Mama Made's facebook page as well as my shop! I will post again tomorrow with more shops from the sales event!! Until then!

-Mama!

 

Time for Updates Tuesday!

Hey everyone! I hope everyone survived Monday and is having a GREAT start to their week! Tuesdays at Mama Made Gifts are now "Time for Updates Tuesdays" that means you get updated on what happened in my world over the weekend, updates on new products, specials, and other information about stuff going on with the shop!

First of all this past weekend was HOT HOT HOT!!! Oh my goodness, our air conditioner in our house is old and by old I mean approximately 24 years old (PHEW ancient I know lol) makes me feel like a dinosaur but that probably is pretty old for an A.C. unit, anyway what that means is it doesn't hold the charge that it needs to actually cool for long anymore, leaving our house feeling like an OVEN this past weekend! Luckily we managed to survive with the use of 5 fans and a little help from our peanut's pool! Hubby had to work Saturday so that left this weekend feeling not only HOT but extremely short!! Still, it was a good weekend, we got to spend some time with friends Friday and spent the rest of it relaxing trying to stay cool and beat the heat! This weekend is not only father's day, but it's hubby's birthday so it will be a fun busy weekend! 

NEW PRODUCT UPDATE

I received a message on etsy recently asking me if I could make a bumble bee theme baby shower game. Of course I said I could, and I am glad she suggested this idea because I absolutely adore how the bee turned out and love how the game sheet looks as well! Sadly I haven't heard back from her yet as to if she likes it and wants to order or not, but I guess at least it resulted in me having a new critter and new product for the shop!

 Here it is! Like I said I am pretty much in love with how it turned out and it can obviously work for either a boy or girl just by switching the blue lettering and boxes with pink! I plan on working on thank-you cards and invitations with the bee theme! My creativity seems to be coming back to me for a while, hopefully it stays!!

The fact that the woman that asked me to do this hasn't responded brings me to my next topic of today's blog post. I am a very trusting person I guess when it comes to my work and sending out proofs of products and such, which unfortunately has brought the fact I could be getting "ripped off" so to speak to my attention. People may very well like my products and not want to pay for them, so now I will be implementing the use of WATERMARKS. It will take me a while to get all of the photos watermarked, but in the near future when you look at my shop all products will have watermarks on them of course when a customer purchases an item the watermark will be removed, but I have come to the realization that I have to protect my work!

Don't forget about THANK-YOU THURSDAY this week! Place an order on Thursday and receive a $ 5.00 gift certificate in your package with your order.

Also in honor of Father's Day this weekend use the coupon code DAD12 for 15% off your total order!

Well I'm off to work on making some more new products and get to putting watermarks on my products and update the shop! I will be checking back in soon!!

-Mama

NEW POST! Nearly a month later, I'm posting!

To all of my followers, sorry that I haven't posted in a while but May was a BUSY BUSY month and June is shaping up to be just as busy!

Anyway, May like I said was incredibly busy! First we had Mother's day weekend, I got treated to going to the zoo with hubby and daughter and on Mother's day we had both moms down for a grill out! My first mother's day was GREAT! Good food, and good times spent with GREAT family!

The weekend after that was our daughter's 1st birthday! I absolutely can't believe that a year has flown by already but anyway as you can imagine I was crazy busy preparing for that! Cupcakes, sandwich trays, sides, decorations, cleaning busy busy busy preparation time for this mommy!

Then we moved on to Memorial Day weekend, which was filled with friends, family and fun up at my parents lake! I even got to lay out and get some color while we were up there and hubby got to do some fishing!

So needless to say, May was packed full of activities and not much time to be online blogging  or updating my shop or anything! Not that I'm complaining at ALL I had a blast every weekend of last month and it's nice to get a break from working on orders!

While I was enjoying my break from orders however and taking a small etsy break, I got several orders including one HUGE one!! I will tell you now it is a great feeling to get orders and have people want your products but this last order has been kicking my butt! I just got it done and in the mail! PHEW!! 50 invitations, 50 diaper raffles, and 30 thank-you cards and it was a completely custom animal and design love how it turned out but I was glad to see it go into the mail! So very worth it though and I hope the customer loves it!! And now thanks to her order, I have a new critter to add to the gang!

Meet the Pink Leopard!

Isn't she cute!? I adore how she turned out and love how she looks on the invites and thank-yous!

Anyway, as I said June is going to be a pretty BUSY month as well so if you don't hear from me please don't think I am just not into keeping up with my customers or anything! It is my hubby's birthday weekend after this as well as father's day and our wedding reception is at the end of the month!

Please check out my shop on etsy 

www.etsy.com/shop/mamamadegifts

I will be updating and adding products back to it!

Thanks so much for checking in!!

Family trip to a mopar car show recently!

Hope that everyone has a GREAT weekend!!

-Mama

Blog Neglect!! Sorry!

 

I realize that I haven't posted on the website in quite some time!! Mainly because I have just been kind of taking a step back from my shop for a few weeks enjoying time with my family and duties as a full time stay at home mommy and wife!! The other reason I will admit is because I wasn't really getting many views on my etsy shop, no more sales, couldn't sell any items on ebay and I was just feeling so very discouraged and was considering removing my shop and just calling it quits on selling my products all together. I know that sounds pretty childish of me, but I was incredibly frustrated!! Anyway for whatever reason *don't know why but I hope it continues* my shop has been getting more views and I have had 6 sales within that past 2 days! It's AMAZING and gives you a great feeling to know that your hard work is actually paying off!!

Yep the sales fairy visited Mama Made Gifts!! Hopefully I don't jinx myself! I would love for it to continue like this, it's perfect just enough work and income to keep me busy and bring in a little bit of extra money but it doesn't interfere with mommy duties and spending time with my family!

As well as having sales in my etsy shop, I have taken some of my items to a children's consignment shop around where my parents live! That's pretty exciting hopefully they will grab attention and sell! It seems like it would be the perfect environment for my products so hopefully I'm right!

And this June I am going to a baby fair! I don't know if I had mentioned that in a previous post or not, but like selling items in a children's consignment shop I feel like the baby fair will be more my target market than the average craft show goer! Hopefully that turns out well!!

Well anyway, just wanted to pop in and post seeing how I hadn't in quite some time, let ya'll know that I'm still around haha and now I have new ambition and I am actually excited about my etsy shop and creating products again! Lets hope that the good luck in sales and such continues!!

Talk to everyone again soon and thanks for reading!!

-Kari

www.etsy.com/shop/mamamadegifts 

Oh good grief!.......

OH GOOD GRIEF!!! I haven't posted on here since last Monday!! Goodness, I'm falling behind a bit on my blogging! I had been pretty busy this past week trying to get things ready for the craft show that I was in on Sunday. Even though I worked on getting stuff ready all week, it still seemed as if the majority of the work came down to Saturday all day and into a good chunk of the night! Why is that?!? You work so hard at not having a million things to do last minute yet you're still running around like a chicken with your head cut off come the day before! I didn't go to bed until sometime after 3 in the morning and had to be up by a little after 6 so that didn't leave much time for sleeping!! Holy crap was I ever tired after we got back yesterday and apparently I was still catching up today!

Anyway, the craft show... ugh where to start... the traffic as far as customers goes was quite a bit better than the first show that we went to, it seemed like there was normally a pretty steady flow most of the time but it still resulted in absolutely NO sales!! People walk by look at the stuff, pick it up, say how cute it is or that it's such a good idea and put it down and walk away or worse yet ask questions say they will be back and disappear never to be seen again. Now I know that sounds whiney of me, like I'm complaining but it is really quite frustrating when you stay up late into the night (my own fault I know) the night before get up at the butt crack of dawn and sit on your kaboose all day and have noooooo sales. Another learning experience you say... I suppose yes, a good way to at least get your company's name around... yes quite a few people did come by and take a card, BUT frustrating, tiring, and it makes a person begin to wonder if what they're selling is even marketable. While sitting with my mom at the show all day, we have come to the conclusion that my products certainly appeal to a very specific crowd and just don't go over that well with your average craft show going group! 60 something year old ladies don't need baby shower items or children's party invitations. Which has led me to 2 thoughts. First there is a baby fair at a highschool in June that I am now going to be attending, hopefully that will be the PERFECT target market for me and sales will go better! *cross our fingers* Secondly, Mama Made Gifts is expanding the product line. I am going to start to make things that include adult event invitations, wedding items, adult party invitation, bachelorette party items, things like that, maybe it will add to my market and gain me some more sales. The little kid and baby items will ALWAYS be first to me and will continue to be what I have the most of being that my little princess is the whole inspiration behind my shop and doing this, but if I add some other items hopefully it will gain new viewers and SHOPPERS!!

 This is me at the craft show looking all busy! LOL For those of you that have seen a picture of me before I had a bit longer than shoulder length hair so... notice the new "do" :) I decided it was time for a change of looks!! I am hopefully getting it highlighted sometime soon too this mama deserves to look good!

Well, craft show is over *PHEW* next up is my daughter's birthday and then on to our summer wedding reception! Hubby and I got married last fall but wanted our reception in the summer so here it is sneaking up on us!! So now I will get to work on some new items, promoting myself on etsy (which I am still trying to get used to, I don't like the whole self plugging thing) Keep checking back for new items, and be sure to check the etsy shop!

www.etsy.com/shops/mamamadegifts

 

Productive Day and it's a Monday... WHAT!?!

That's right!! Today is Monday *ugh* yet I actually had a very productive day!! My little peanut and I had to drive up to a staples store to get some more sticker paper for my 2nd order that I have gotten! Mama Made Gifts had its 2nd sale this weekend and she ordered two items! You can only imagine how excited I was! Now lets just hope that the sales continue!! After getting the sticker paper it was off to Wal-mart to buy some other needed items, we nearly froze to death in this awesome April weather we are having here (not!) I am not okay with the cloudy, blustery, cool weather that we're having! Anyway that's enough complaining... I got the order done and it will be on it's way to the customer first thing tomorrow morning! I hope she likes them!

Now I need to concentrate on the upcoming craft show this weekend, some how it has once again crept up on me and I don't have half of what I need to have done finished yet. Oh well, it will all fall in to place, I just hope not to be scrambling the night before like I was for the first craft show we went to!

Mama Made Gifts has a great promotion going on right now that everyone should know about, it's Thank-You Thursdays!! On Thank-You Thursdays, if you order something you will get a $5.00 gift certificate in your order shipment to use on a future order or to give as a gift! 

Well this post is going to be short because I am feeling slightly lazy now that we have all of our running around for the day done, and I have acquired a headache that will NOT go away for whatever reason! UGH 

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and that the start to the week is going well for you! I will post again soon!!