It's Been A While!

Hey everyone! Thought it was about time that I checked in with everyone again! It's been quite a while since my last blog post! Not only have I had sort of a blogger's block but we have had some busy weekends and happenings going on lately! Not to mention I have been working my little butt off starting to add some knitted items to my shop!

That's right! Mama Made Gifts is branching out in another direction to add more items to my shop! My mom had purchased me a knitting loom quite a while ago and I had started knitting a scarf on it, but knitting being more of a fall or winter hobby to me I had put it away and not thought about it for a while. Well as we all know, the cooler weather is fast approaching and one morning while I was sitting in the living room enjoying the crisp air filtering through our windows and sipping on an amazing cup of coffee I decided to get that loom out and finish the scarf that I had started earlier in the summer months! After I finished that, I decided to check out some other patterns that could be completed on the knitting looms and was quite surprised that you can create nearly anything!!

This led to me creating my 1st hat for my daughter!! I was bold and took on a pattern with earflaps and drawstrings it went really well! I was even feeling confident enough to add some ornamentation by adding a pom-pom on top and an I-cord bow! I absolutely adore how it turned out and our daughter has gotten quite a few compliments on it!

My success in this hat was enough encouragement to create a small ear flap hat with bear ears listed here in my shop
https://www.etsy.com/listing/110380313/hand-knitted-newborn-to-3-month-soft
also available in this listing for toddlers and in brighter colors
https://www.etsy.com/listing/111109064/hand-knitted-infant-toddler-bear-hat
My cousin is expecting in December and has choose not to find out the gender so I wanted to make a hat for her little one that would be fitting for a little boy or girl!

After that hat I went on to making myself a scarf cowl, I haven't yet decided if I actually like it yet, which is why I haven't listed one on etsy yet. I think it may need some perfecting before I list it.
After that it was gloves, I have created fingerless gloves with a covered thumb or fingerless gloves without a covered thumb, as well as infant mittens!

So as you can tell I am on a knitting kick!! I will be adding a listing for the infant mittens as well as the fingerless uncovered thumb gloves! Of course I still have all my graphic listings, just thought I would add more to my shop to have a variety of items!

I really enjoy knitting, A LOT to the point that it is actually really kind of relaxing for me! Plus as I stated before the cooler weather is coming quickly and who doesn't want to be prepared with a nice warm fuzzy hat, scarf, gloves or more!!

All my hats can be made in a range of sizes! From newborn to adult!

Check back later today for my Handmade Circle Spooktacular Halloween Sale Blog Post about ideas for hosting a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween Party!!

-Mama

Ugh! Sick...Sick...Sick!!

Hey everyone!! Thank goodness that I am not having to make a speech to you guys or actually use my voice because quite honestly I don't have much of one!! This past weekend, my little family had a GREAT labor day weekend up at my parent's place on the lake but unfortunately we've all ended up with a cold!!! And OH MY GOSH apparently it has been a while since I had a cold because this one is certainly kicking my BUTT! Anyway enough with my complaining, and on to my post!!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful labor day weekend! It was so good to have a long weekend with the fam but labor day to me always means the end of summer. I am such a summer person... let me rephrase that... I absolutely LOVE fall too, I just dread what comes after the fall!! I hate winter! I dislike being cold more than anything and I hate driving in snow, I am a big baby and turn into somewhat of a grandma when I have to drive in winter conditions!

I am still working on regaining control over my shop and adding more of the digital file listings to it but so far I have had 3 orders that were printable/digital orders and I have to say that I love doing those!! I have absolutely NO problem doing orders that I have to print and ship but it is so so so nice to be able to spend a bit of time personalizing or making a custom order and not having to worry about printing it and shipping it, plus I love that the customer gets their order almost immediately!!

I just "shipped" a print it yourself order for baby shower games and diaper raffle tickets that were a custom order she wanted to have made to match her already purchased invitations here is what I came up with and I'm pretty proud of them!!

I also made the first of more to come Halloween Party invitations! I am going to be part of the Handmade Circle Halloween Spooktacular sale coming up so I am trying to add some fall and holiday items!!

I absolutely love it myself!! I am going to create more Halloween critters and more products so stay tuned!! Also check back in for more details on the upcoming sale!!

Well if I intend on beating this darn cold that I have acquired I better get some rest! I am going to work on updating my shop some more I think and will check back in soon!! Oh and did I mention tomorrow is already Wednesday!!! Happy mid-week to all!!!

-Mama

Cha cha cha changes!!...

Hey everyone I know it has been quite a little while since I posted last time been a little busy with other things as well as just plain not really being in a blogging mood! But hopefully some changes I am planning on making to my shop will help get my motivation back!
Anyway... After seeing the title of this post and me mentioning shop changes you may by now be wondering what kind of changes is she talking about... Well I will answer you!
Mama made gifts will be turning into more of a digital file print it yourself type of shop. I enjoy making printed products it has just gotten too costly what with the price of ink and other materials so I have decided in order to keep my shop open I am going to try my hand at offering mainly digital files! Now does this mean I won't take print orders and ship them still?... Absolutely not! I am still more than happy to take printed order requests they will just be slightly higher in price as opposed to the digital file orders. I will also be changing my turn around time on such printed orders being that I am not always able to get items printed and shipped in under 2 days!
So my plan for today as I can between playing with our peanut and trying to do some housework is to try to get my shop updated and everything back in order and under control!
In other non shop related news we had a great time on vacation the race was a blast and it was a great time with family! So hard to leave our peanut for that time though! Now we are looking forward to a fun family labor day weekend at the lake! Oh did I mention that it's HOT!! Holy cow!!! We had some almost fall like weather the past few weeks which was nice and now mother nature has snapped back the other way and is hot!! Phew! I worked up a sweat just walking to the mailbox!!
Well I am off to try to regain order of my shop! Check Facebook for more news and updates and I will be sure to post again soon!!
- Mama

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