New Fall Items

Looks like I have some catching up to do!  Whew, time sure flies- it does not seem like it was nearly a month and a half since I last posted!

Well, I continued my fall product development with this:

Isn't this cute??  It's a wreath made from a picture frame, embellished with faux fall foliage.  I got this frame at a garage sale for all of 50 cents, and painted it with paint I got at Lowe's from the clearance section.  I added a burlap bow on the bottom.  And in the center- a chalkboard that I made myself.  I bought a plaque at Michaels and painted the edges with acrylic paint, and the front with chalboard paint in a dark brown. So yes, it's a chalkboard!  I hung it from the frame with twine, keeping with the rustic look.  I really like how it came out.  I put it in my booth at Top Drawer, and I hope I sell it!

The other exciting thing that happened last month is that I had this great custom order from a customer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  I had never shipped to that part of the world before, so was not sure what to expect.  The customer, Raeed, was a really nice guy who was purchasing a custom graduation exploding box for a very close female friend who was graduating from college.  I communicated a lot with Raeed on the design of the box, and because of the high number of personal words and phrases he wanted to use, I proposed the idea of creating a word collage for part of the box.  He loved the idea, and I got to experiment!  I really like how it turned out.

He gave me enough material for me to create two word collage panels on his box.  They are the larger ones on the outer layers.

Kind of hard to see those text panels, so here the are up close:

I mixed in some graphics, and I think it makes it fun.  Raeed seemed really happy with the final product.  I was very happy that he was happy!

I am currently working on some new holiday stuff, both for the Etsy shop and my booth at Top Drawer.  In addition, the Salem Etsy Team is planning our annual holiday sale, so am coordinating that again.  This time, I have some help- yay!  We have brought on some new people to help with marketing, vendor coordination, and other tasks, so that I am not doing everything myself!  The volunteers we have brought on are doing a fantastic job so far, and I think this will be our best  holiday sale yet!  This year, I will not be selling my own products.  Instead, I am giving my booth over to my daughter Meredith, aged 14, who is looking to raise money for her choir trip to Seattle in May, for which she has to earn half of the cost.  They are doing some fundraisers at school, but this is a great additional opportunity for her to earn some money.  She has been hard at work making glitter ornaments, gift tags, holiday decor items, and more!  It will be kind of different for me this time to have a role only as a sale organizer and not a seller, though I will be there to support Meredith on the day of the sale.  But as she is making most of the items for sale, and will be manning the booth, all proceeds will go toward her choir trip, so I want to let her head it all up.  I know she will do a great job!  We have some great new items that we will be debuting at the sale...stay tuned here for previews!