Refreshing Trip

Well now that I had 9 days in AZ to clear my mind and maybe get the crafting bug to hit, I am still not in the crafting mood.....I wonder if it happens to other crafters! I have rearranged my craft room so that all the fabric, wool and other material things are on one side of the room and all the paper, paint, stickers, and dye cut machine are on the other side. I do feel more organized with everything but just can't seem to get into creating something. I did go to the library the other day for story hour with my grandkids and did come across some inspirational craft magazines that I could check out. I haven't been to the library in awhile so I forgot you could check out magazines! Now manybe I won't be so tempted to buy them when I can check them out for free. I even had my 7 year old granddaughter Katelyn draw some things for me to inspire me to get off my butt and create. I have been teaching her how to embroider and she is making herself a pillow with a squirrel on it. I told her to enter it into the county fair this year. She thought that was a great idea. I think the key right now with snow on the way, cold outside and winter just dragging on is to just sit down and start.......I will keep you posted. Rene

New IPad Sleeves

So since the guys are watching the Super Bowl, I decided to list a few new items that I have come up with. These are IPad sleeves that are made with chunky yarn to protect it. I just discovered this chunky yarn as I have always used baby yarn or regular yarn. I would like to make some other things with this kind as it works up really quick. I hope you enjoy this new creation.

Rene

Better late than never!

Well, what can I say....I guess I'm not very good at keeping a blog! I know it's been a long time since I posted anything and boy things have been busy. I just reviewed my last few entries and realized that I am going to AZ again in a week. This time I am flying and going for rest and relaxation, I am not sure how much relaxing I will get with my parents, who are in their 70's and ALWAYS on the go, go, go down there. They make me tired just listening to what they do during their winter get-aways. My crafting has been slow this year, but I did manage to get in a nice big craft show with my daughter, we even had a new granddaughter January 1, 2012. (our 7th) She was even named Emily RENE......and with still doing daycare for alot of them during the week I am always busy. I am hoping that I can get back into managing the blog and my two sites again this year, so hopefully you can all encourage me. Until next time.....Rene

A NEW ITEM FOR THE KIDS

SOMETHING NEW FOR "THE PINTSIZE COVE"

We have a new "I Spy" for the kids! We have one with the alphabet letters and a heart. Your kids can find the letters with the help of the laminated alphabet sheet attached to the bag, also with alphabet letter fabric. This fun creation is good for traveling in the car, grocery store, airplane rides and anywhere else you need a little distraction for the kids. I hope you like this new bag, check out our other alphabet fabric patterns too.

Rene & Shannon

I'M BACK WITH NEW ITEMS

Ok, so I have been to Arizona and back already, so much for the pool down there. They had the coldest weather in 40 years when I was there and everyone wanted to know when I was going home so that it would warm up. It got to 70 the day I left! I did do some thinking about my shop and how I could improve it. So I have come up with "EVERY THING WILL BE $20 OR UNDER", which will make it nice for that little gift you may want to give someone. I have coordinating items now such as checkbook covers, wrist keyfob holders, and wallets. Some of the other items should be coming soon as I am trying to get some sewing done in between daycare and housework. Between yesterday and today we have had about 10" of snow again and next week should be the same....winter doesn't want to end here in MN. So for now, take a look at some of my new items and I hope you enjoy them. I will post more new things as I get them done. Check out my new banner and avatar and let me know what you think of the new design.

Rene

Long Stretch

Well it's been a long stretch of time since I last posted anything. The large craft show that Shannon and I were in took alot out of me. We did really well and have had to re-group to get the inventory up again on the site. I have finally learned how to list things on my own and figured I better start learning or Shannon will not do it anymore for me. I can only play dumb for so long. The daycare kids are not letting me do much during the day and so I have been trying to get things done on weekends and evenings. I will be taking a short vacation and driving to AZ in a week and so I will be trying to make the brain be more creative. The 3-day drive down there and the time by the pool should regenerate the creative thinking and get me on the right track again. So look for some new things in the coming weeks to see if the vacation helped.

"Sewing mends the soul" Author Unknown

Rene

Cyber Monday Sale!!

Just wanted to let you all know that we are having a sale in both shops starting right now until tomorrow night for Cyber Monday. We are offering 15% off everything in our shops!! Use the coupon code: CYBERMONDAY2010 at the checkout to receive 15% off of each item you purchase!! Sale ends tomorrow night so hurry!!

www.thecrafterscove.etsy.com - great gifts for teachers and coworkers!!

www.thepintsizecove.etsy.com - great stocking stuffers!!

Have a wonderful evening and happy shopping!!!

~Shannon & Rene

Giveaway!!!

Very excited to announce that our two shops, The Crafter's Cove & The Pint Size Cove, are being featured today until tomorrow night at 11:59pm! Make sure you go there and check it out because we are giving away a free tote bag!! Go to the link to find out all of the details and be sure to follow her blog too!!!

http://alittlelilac.blogspot.com/

Here is the bag you could win!!

What....it's October!?!

Time just seems to be flying by. I can't believe Halloween is just around the corner and I hate to say that snow is just behind that. Not sure that I'm ready to see white again just yet. Fall isn't nearly long enough! I will say thought that Christmas music does wonders for our sewing. We had it playing in mom's sewing room the other day and we actually got some things done.

My life is finally starting to fall back into place. My sewing room has become my friend once again. It was definetly my enemy for the first month or so after my son was born but we have recently found each other again. My son is getting used to the noise of the sewing machine and I actually think that it puts him to sleep.....some days. Others I think he knows I really am in the mood to sew and I swear, the second my foot hits the presser foot, he cries! That is where my daughter comes in. She is in love with her little brother. If he cries she is right there to sing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and give him his pacifier. She looks forward to playing in the sewing room now and if I let her watch a movie it's even easier to convince her to go down there so mommy can sew :)

Mom's life is getting a bit easier during the day as well. Her two big girls are now in half day kindergarten four days a week so when they are gone and the two little ones are napping she can sneak into her her sewing room and work to!! We have been tag teaming some of our things where I will start the project and she will, for example, hand sew all of them shut. That is something she can do while sitting down and watching the kids without having to go into the other room. Lucky for me because that is one thing I hate doing so we make a good team!!

This craft show is really starting to sneak up on us!! We have just over a month to get our rears in gear and have all of our projects done. Luckily, we have started revamping our shops and some of the things we decided to not sell on there anymore will go to the craft show. We are trying to focus our shops on similar items and giving them more of a theme than having a few "mutt" shops as I like to call them. It's a slow process of narrowing down our product but in the end I think it will be great.

Hope you are all enjoying this beautiful fall season and we will chat again soon.

~Shannon

New Arrivals

So I know it's been a while since we wrote on our blog, we have been busy doing crafts for a show in November, making wool pumpkins for the website, and Shannon finally delivering her new baby boy! Today Joey is already two weeks old and she has no desire to craft at the moment which leaves me to create for the time being. I will be trying to get a number of things done as she gets a schedule down with the baby. His big sister is adjusting as well so everyone has been a little out of sorts lately. We will try and post the pumpkins in the next week or so onto the website for purchase. I am camera stupid and don't know how to put pictures on yet. My camera doesn't even have a memory stick....It's a dinosaur!!! Will have to invest in a new one soon. My husband has the good camera! It's amazing how time flies and fall will be just around the corner. We have had numerous tornado warnings in the last week and have facebooked from the basement shelter.....we are a little tired of it and the heat has been unbearable and heat and menopause just don't mix so I haven't even taken the daycare kids outside. Next week it will be cooler and more sane in my household if they can go out and play during the day. I try and craft when they sleep and now the two 5 year olds will be going to kindergarten in September. It will be nice for them. And I can still craft with the smaller kids. We didn't get as many projects done this summer as we were hoping, but maybe once Shannon's schedule with the baby gets settled and I get kids off to school we will have better luck.....We need a few SNOW days to be cooped up!!!!!! We craft well on those kind of days. I did turn the air colder in the house and played Christmas music to get into the mood of winter crafts and it did work for awhile but everyone thought I was crazy....I guess I am but that's another blog....have a great weekend and we'll talk soon.

Rene and Shannon

Lovely Minnesota Weather.....

So Mom and I thought we would spend a nice Saturday night crafting at her house since we have been creating a lot of new things and we wanted to get some of the new things on to our stores and we had a slight change of plans......Tornado Warning! We are now sitting under the stairs with my dad, my daughter, my niece & nephew and our 3 dogs. Not quite the way we wanted to spend our evening but it's almost over so hopefully we can come out soon.

We will update with another blog with our new items soon if we aren't in the land of Oz visiting Dorothy :)

Shannon & Rene

Christmas in July

Even though the temps outside are in the 80's & 90's we are setting our minds for the 20's & 30's. Our sewing room looks like the holidays exploded in here but we must prepare early for the holiday season. To help with inspiration there has even been a note or two of Christmas music played. We are at the moment working on Halloween Fabric Coaster sets and have already sold one to my sister without even finishing them!! We have several sets available in our shop but we are playing with mixed sets for the holidays which are turning out super cute!!

Another new item that we have available now in our shop is crocheted double layered potholders in a set of two. One solid and a coordinating multi-colored one. The coaster sets and potholder sets are a perfect gift for a housewarming party, hostess gift and don't forget your coworkers and teachers!!

Here are just a few samples of what is available now in our shop and be sure to check back as we have many new prints and colors coming soon!!

Thoughts of Fall and Christmas

Well I don't like to think of snow when it is 90 degrees out and neither does my daughter, but I have been getting crafts together for Christmas presents! My thought is to do winter crafts in the summer and summer crafts in the winter so you can stay ahead of yourself.....sometimes it works and sometimes not! I always seem to be rushed. We are waiting the arrival of my daughters baby in about 5 weeks and I am still learning how to deal with the two sites we have....I am technically challenged! But I am on Facebook now so I am getting there. The ideas are flowing for new projects, but time is a factor and there is never enough of it. I have been doing alot of crocheting because it is a no think craft. Some of my other things are taking longer than I want, but hopefully I will be motivated. The weather has been wonderful and the daycare kids have spent alot of time in the pool and outside. I always have my sketchbook handy for ideas as I sit with my feet in the pool. My sewing machine has been wondering where I have been. Although I did fix a few snugglies and one doll for the kids. They seem to be interested in sewing, but I don't know if I am ready to teach 3 five year olds how to do it. I did buy my 5 year old granddaughter a sewing machine so I may have to teach her how to use it. I am serger challenged right now so I haven't touched that for awhile. I know Shannon is trying to get her projects done for thepintsizecove site before jr. arrives. She will not have any time to craft once he gets here. Bring on the caffine so I can keep the juices flowing. Check our sites for new items for your co-workers, neighbors, friends and who ever else you buy for during the holidays....even a maillady would enjoy a nice mug, coaster set and a envelope of hot chocolate in the mailbox for Christmas! Mine do! For now we will keep plugging away and have a wonderful weekend.

Rene and Shannon

Introducing the launch of our second store!!

We have been quite busy lately. Mom and I decided to open up a second Etsy store and have one for our adult items and open a new one for our child and baby items. We have been working hard to get the second one up and running and it has been open for just over a month. The hard work has paid off as we finally got our first sale!! Mom has been wearing the creative hat lately and is coming up with some adorable children's crocheted hats!! Be sure to check them out!

Here is the link to our second shop:

http://www.thepintsizecove.etsy.com

We are still working on transferring our children's items over to the other shop but make sure you check in with both sites for new items!!!

We have also been working on making our items for the fall craft show in November. Still a ways out but it is a pretty busy show and gets lots of traffic through there so we want to make sure we have plenty of inventory.

In other news, Mom is just finishing up a quilt for a charity project which is wonderful. Two more blocks and it will be ready to put together. We will post a picture when it is finished, it's beautiful. We are also counting the weeks down to the new member of the family joining us soon. My son is due in 7 weeks so we are trying to get as much done as possible until that time comes.

We will check in again soon. Please make sure you check out the new shop and don't forget about The Crafter's Cove shop too :)

~Shannon

4 new listings today!!

New today: A Rene original!!

4 different seasons of decorative pillows newly listed today on our site. They are all hand sewn on the front with cotton fabric, wool, buttons and embroidery floss. The perfect addition to your home decor!

The warm weather is starting to have a good effect on us and our creative minds. We are currently working on sweet talking my dad into buying us this travel trailer to put out in the yard to use as our crafting get-away!! We would gut most of the stuff out of it and add in shelves and storage for all of our fabric, craft projects and much more. We have already talked about taking the bed out of the back bedroom and making that the cutting/ironing room. We think it sounds fantastic so once we can convince him that it is we may be able to get it :) We'll keep you posted on that.

Another new thing we are working on adding to our site is a Gift With Purchase. We have a lot of scrap fabric that needs to be used up but isn't quite big enough to make a lot. Mom had a great idea for what to use it for and once they are available as a free gift we will let you know!!

The days around here are pretty crazy with daycare and now playing outside but lots of fun. My daughter enjoys coming over to my mom's house to play with the other 5 kids as she gets tired of just playing with me all the time.

We'll update soon on new things to our site and our plans to move to a "new location."

~Shannon

New Coordinating Set

These are our two new listings for today. They are a coordinating set listed individually made from wool, doily pieces and old buttons. They are both hand sewn on the front. We have had several other new listings in the past week so be sure to go to our website and check them out!!!

~Shannon & Rene

Finally in the sewing room...

This is our new listing for today. It is an earth tone floral lap quilt. My mom and I are finally back working in the sewing room. She is currently working on a hand sewn flower pillow that is beautiful. It will be listed in a few days when she is finished.

Our next goal is to straighten up our sewing rooms and take photos of them to show you all where we work to create our things. It may be a while but we will get them up as soon as we have the time to clean them up :)

Hope your weather is as nice as ours....mid 50's!! We will update you again soon with some new things coming to our shop.

~Shannon

Inspiration!

Well the weather is finally nice today...60's today. It is inspiring me to make spring and summer items for the garden. I have plans on some windchimes and garden feeders. The garage is cleaned out so now I can use the work bench to CREATE! Silverware, frying pan lids and wood are some of the items I hope to use. These things have worked well in my garden to jazz it up. So I need to get to work. I had a nice collage going the other day but when I cleaned the sewing room it all came off the table and scattered....now back to designing it again and gluing as I go instead of leaving it lay on the table, so hopefully we will have a few things to post in the next week. The ideas are coming more and more with the nice weather. I'll let you know how it goes.

Rene

What a difference a month makes!

So exactly a month ago today I posted a blog about how snowy it was here, I believe it was Valentine's Day, and also posted a snowy picture with it of my yard. Well today, a month later, we have absolutely no snow in our yard and it got to 65 degrees and was beautiful!!! My husband and I went out in the yard and played t-ball with our daughter and made chalk drawings in the driveway. I hope this is a sign of warm weather to come! If it is nice like this again tomorrow we plan to vacuum and dust out both of our vehicles since the lovely winter has brought lots of sand and dirt into them.

Went over to mom's house today and brought her back her sandbox for the kids and she was outside getting that up and running with the other grandkids. I know she is looking forward to bringing them outside to play tomorrow when they come over for daycare. We are both loving this nice change in weather. I think today was also the first day that it hasn't rained in about a week.

Sending you all nice warm weather too where ever you may be!!!

~Shannon

Another sunny day, another new listing

Another beautiful day here in MN. It got just above 40 degrees and it felt wonderful!! My daughter and I walked out to get the mail and we ran into the neighbor kids we haven't seen all winter. She was very excited so I let her play outside for over a half an hour drawing chalk in the driveway. It did us both good to get some fresh air! I spent the whole morning cleaning the house. I figured since I crafted yesterday I should clean today so when I got into the mood I ran with it. I think I did a little too much though cause my back hurts :P

Today our new listing is a brown flowered composition journal. It has a dark brown stripped paper on the inside and a brown ribbon accent on the front and back binding. These journals are perfect for keeping your thoughts, writing notes or even giving them to your children to draw and write in as their own special book. My niece and nephew each have one of these and love them!!

Busy weekend ahead that starts tomorrow.....Not sure if I'll get a new listing on or not, maybe mom will be on and try one on her own :) You can do it mom!!!

Bye for now....

~Shannon