The Sewing Mom

I am so honored and touched to have received this award. This award is given for sharing beauty, love and joy. It means so much to me that not only one, but two fellow bloggers found it in their hearts to bestow this award on my blog. The first is Maitri of Magic & Moments at Dragonfly Cottage. Her kind words about my site and my creativity were so sweet. I am happy to try at least to bring a little sunshine into the blogosphere. Second to send this wonderful award my way was Lady Rose of the Diet Pulpit had such nice words about my sewing creations. I’m so glad to know others enjoy seeing what I make as much as I enjoy sharing photos of my work.

I need to choose 5 other bloggers to share this award with and this will be difficult. I’ve come to admire so many bloggers, my list of favorites is too long to mention. I am forced to only choose 5 and I will try to choose those who have not all ready received this award. The 5 I choose are in random order and I thank all of them for inspiring me.
Kim - Simply Crafting shows us what beautiful, hand crafted jewelry can look like. She has been working so very hard recently to prepare enough jewelry for an upcoming show/sale. I wish her all the best and success.

Lynn -When the Dust Settles shows us how an at home business can work right along side of family life. Of course, having a mudslide now and then helps too! Lynn makes some really cute ceramic piggy banks with super cute paint styles. My favorite is the watermelon piggy! She also makes other personalized ceramic items so be sure to check out her blog and shop.

Ellen - All In A Day While Ellen has been extremely busy with work lately and hasn’t had much spare time to show her creative side, we’re all hoping that will change very soon. She has a real talent for knitting and sewing and has given me the inspiration to open my own Etsy shop.

Charlotte - Charlotte’s Tips shows day to day living tips, whether it’s how to deal with rude people in the grocery store or cooking and cleaning tips, this is a great blog. I’d love to go have a cup of coffee with this blogger.

Heidi - Health Nut Wannabee Mom is inspiring me to live a healthier life. She has super simple advice to lead a healthier life everyday. I like knowing I don’t have to go out and buy expensive exercise equipment or exotic foods to eat in order to live healthy. I can use things I all ready have and eat foods I all ready enjoy.

I want to thank all of these ladies for being such inspirations to me. I hope others find them just as inspiring.

Tags: blogging, blogging award

A few months ago, I became a member of SocialSpark.com as another way to monetize my site. Of course, SocialSpark is more than a way to earn money, it’s a social community where I’ve made a number of friends, found bloggers with similar crafting interests and been introduced to new advertisers.

SocialSpark has had some very interesting opportunities, some of which I’ve posted on this blog. This is my personal blog and I want all of my posts, even those that I’m paid for, to reflect my interests. I’d love to see more crafting companies like Joann’s or Michael’s sponsor blogs like mine. Trust me, I spend enough at their stores, I sponsor them! Other companies I’d love to have sponsor me would include Viking sewing machines. I’ve spoken about them often on this blog and the sewing/embroidery machine I drool over on a regular basis is made by them.

Of course, I do other things besides sewing and would enjoy being sponsored by food product companies and, in particular, I can’t live without my Green Mountain Coffee. I’ve been a coffee club member with them for about 7 years and would feel honored to have them sponsor this blog.

Besides eating, I maintain our home and use cleaning products, do laundry, pool maintenance, and yard work. Let’s see, I believe Lysol is my most frequently used cleaning product, Tide and Downey are my laundry products of choice and we use a ton of Sears lawn products to keep our yard and shrubs under control as well as patio furnishings. Any and all of these companies would be welcomed as sponsors on this blog. Leslie’s Pool Supplies is a large supplier of all of our pool chemicals and equipment, they would also be welcomed here.

I could go on and on listing companies that I feel would be a great fit for sponsorships on this blog. I can’t forget about my family and shopping for them. We do a lot of business at Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s, all of which would be awesome sponsors.

So, if any of these companies are reading this blog, pay attention. Please consider advertising through SocialSpark.com, whether you go with a written post to create buzz or a review of a product, or a day to day sponsorship, I would be thrilled to have you sponsor my blog!

Tags: Green Mountain Coffee, Home Depot, Joanns, Lowes, Michaels, Sears, SocialSpark, Target, Viking

I am having all sorts of technical problems this weekend. First, my laptop lost its wireless connection last night. It took several reboots and two system restores to get it back. I was extremely frustated and I have no idea what caused it.

Second, I can’t get Entrecard’s site to work. I can see my stats, but that’s about it. I can’t see the widget on anybody’s site, including my own. I can’t see any widgets on the EC site. Because I can’t see any widgets, I can’t drop cards.

I have tried it on my laptop which uses Firefox and I’ve tried it on my desktop which uses IE. I’ve deleted the widget code from my blog and reinstalled it, but still won’t work.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I tried to look through the EC forum to see if I’m the only one experiencing this, but the site is loading so slowly for me, I gave up. Is anyone else having difficulty or is it just me? I can tell that cards are being dropped on my site, so I am thinking it’s just me! Ugh!

update

Being unable to sleep because of my EC addiction and knowing I’d missed an entire day of dropping cards. I got up at 2 am to work on the problem some more. I turned on my laptop, started up Firefox, brought up the EC website and everything was back to normal. I have no idea what the issue was or why or how it went away, but I’m glad it did and I hope it stays fixed!

Thanks to all who stopped by with words of encouragement!

Tags: entrecard

I have been attempting to push myself to tackle this project for almost a week. I continue to find reasons and excuses as to why I don’t have time to do it, but I really need to get it done. You see, my current project is a tote bag. Now, I love to sew, I love to create and I love seeing and sharing the finished product. So, what’s my problem? Well, this particular tote is wanting to be quilted. I am not a quilter. I don’t enjoy quilting, probably because I’m not so good at it. Therein lies the problem.

You see, I’m a perfectionist when it comes to the projects I sew. I try very hard to do things right the first time around, but I certainly and not afraid to rip out a seam if I don’t like the way it turned out (probably why I own 3 different seam rippers). My machine, although it is quite capable of quilting, doesn’t seem to cooperate very well when sewing through thick layers that include batting. I’ve attempted several different machine adjustments and have yet to get it right.

I’ve spent the last few days reading through various sewing manuals that came with my machine, trying to figure out the best settings for this particular project. I’ve attached the machines “walking” foot and now have to figure out how the heck I attach the guide. The guide allows me to not have to mark the fabric with all of those quilting lines. If I can get the gide attached, I only have to mark the first line and then the guide helps me with all of the rest.

So, my tackle for today is to stop making excuses. Stop being afraid of the task at hand. Get in there and Just Do It!

Tags: machine quilting, tackle it Tuesday, walking foot

I have discovered another home crafter via blogging. This particular crafter creates candles. These aren’t just any old candle, these candles are made by hand soy candles and have some of the most divine scents and fragrances. She recently combined two of her scents, apple jack & peel with luscious cheesecake. That sounds fabulous to me! She also sells one of my favorite fragrances, cinnamon vanilla. That’s a fragrance I love to burn in my kitchen, it reminds me of snicker doodle cookies.

In celebration of the opening of her candle storefront, Rae is hosting a candle giveaway. To enter this contest, visit What Lies Within the Mirror and leave her a comment, purchase a candle and or write a post about her giveaway on your own blog. These candles would make great gifts too, stock up now!

Tags: candles, contest, giveaway

It’s my favorite day of the week. I’m torn today between heading down south for a quilt show (that would cost gas money and an entrance fee) or staying home and making a new tote bag. I’d really like to just stay out in our pool and have margaritas delivered pool side, but since I don’t have a cabana boy to provide that service, I’m not sure what I’m going to do today!

One thing I do know is that it’s time for my favorite meme, Four Foods on Friday. If you would like to participate, head over to Fun, Crafts and Recipes to leave Valmg a comment under this weeks questions.

Without further ado, here are this weeks questions and my answers.

1. What is one food that is grown, produced or made near where you live. It’s funny that this is a question this week. As we were driving to my daughter’s softball practice last night, I commented how it seems so odd to see fields of planted corn here in North Texas, especially after living in Illinois, one of this country’s primary corn growing states.

2. What is one food from another location that you haven’t had anything like anywhere else. Many years ago, I traveled with my family to Switzerland and I’ve always remembered the wonderful pastries from the local bakeries. Many of them were filled with the most delicious Bavarian cream I’ve ever had.

3. What is your favorite food from somewhere else? One of my absolute favorites is the clam chowder from a restaurant in Seattle. It is absolutely the best I’ve had anywhere, very rich and creamy.

4. Share a family, ethnic or international recipe. The one thing that I think of whenever my mom comes to visit is her beef stew. I’ve tried to duplicate it, but it doesn’t come out the same. Mine is quite good, we had it last night in fact, but my mom’s is true comfort food and I enjoy it so much more when she makes it. Now, I could share the recipe with you, but it’s top secret and then I’d have to kill you!

Tags: Four Foods on Friday, meme

I am quickly coming up on the one year anniversary of this blog. In that time, this is only the second theme that I have used, I really fell in love with it because, while it’s not necessarily sewing related, it is my favorite flower, tulips.

Choosing your blog’s theme is sort of like buying a car, it says a lot about your personality or, in the case of a blog, it can tell a reader a lot about what your blog is about. Bright and cheery, business serious, dark and foreboding? They all let a reader know what to expect and can tell something about you, the author of the blog.

Every now and then I like to take a look at what new wordpress templates are available for my blog. There are so many free themes available for Wordpress blogs, it’s fun to look around sometimes. I haven’t a new theme for this site yet, but I did find an awfully cute theme, Tick, Tock, Tack that I will keep in mind for next Spring.

If you’re looking for a new free theme, be sure to check out www.topwpthemes.com. One of these days, I’m going to find that perfect sewing theme and that’s when I’ll make a change, probably not before then.

Tags: wordpress templates, www.topwpthemes.com

I am very interested in internet marketing as a means for me to sell my handmade products. Having this blog and being able to post pictures of what I make in addition to the “for sale” widgets I use has opened up a whole new world to me and my small sewing operation that I would never have had otherwise. Through my site I’ve been able to sell to people around the world, including the United Kingdom and Malaysia.

Whenever someone contacts me with an interest in buying something I’ve made, I’m very interested to find out how they found my site. I’m interested in finding out what search engine marketing services can do for me and my small business. GDMI in particular, would help me understand the search engine marketability of my website. Are there terms and keywords I need to be using, is my layout working (there are all types of opinions on this). They would then be able to help me increase the visibility of my site for the search engines. I’d like to know what keywords shoppers are typing in when looking for a fabric bag. I could then make sure I’m using those in order to have them find my site.

In addition to getting my site into the top rankings of search engines (or at least, higher than it is now), GDMI would help me decide what type of advertising could work for me. After implementing their suggestions, GDMI then monitors my site to see if what I’m doing is effective or not.

Selling my products via my website is much more efficient and less costly than having to go and work craft shows. It’s important that I work on my internet marketing strategies.

What do you to to make sure your site is marketed in a positive way?

Tags: search engine marketing services

I hit up the fabric store and hobby store today.  The fabric store was having a huge sale and I was able to thread and interfacing all at 1/2 price.  I also had coupons that I was able to use on zippers and trim, so I am stocked up and ready.

My plan, as soon as I get off of this computer is to cut out and sew together 3 zippered bags.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to make a new tote bag that will be large enough to use for just about anything, including going to the gym, grocery shopping or the beach.

I have to drop EC cards too.  I just checked and I’ve had about 260 dropped on me today and it’s not even dinner time!  I’ve got some serious catch up to do!

Tags: sewing supplies

I am quite honored to have received the Arte y Pico Award from Carol who’s Down Syndrome blog is dedicated to her daughter Shannon. She blogs about what it’s like to be the mom of a Down Syndrome.The Arte y Pico Award was created to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their creative energy and talent whether it’s writing or artwork in all types of media (including sewing). When you receive this award it is considered a “special honor”. Once you have received this award, you are to pass it on to at least 5 others.
Please read more info on this wonderful award , visit: Arte y Pico.

I am honored that Carol has chosen me as a recipient of this award and enjoys the fabric purses I post about. Thank you Carol!

I am also going to choose 5 bloggers to pass this award on to and this is no easy choice because I am inspired by so many for so many different reasons.

First, I choose Winding Threads one of my favorite quilters and fellow fabric bag maker. She just got a brand new sewing machine too that I’m sure any sewer would like to have. Be sure to check it out.
Next I have to choose Kater-Bug Cakes. Robyn has created some of the most beautiful and some of the most fun cakes for special occasions I’ve ever seen. Her cakes are truly inspiring and a must see by an aspiring baker.
I also want to award an inspiring knitter at Cass Knits who is also responsible for the Online Craft Club, inspiring for any crafty blogger.
For photography, I pass this award on to Robin at Robin’s Woods who posts some of the most beautiful photographs that she takes in the Pacific Northwest.
And finally, I award this to someone who inspires me not only as a mom, but as a fellow blogger, Elizabeth at Table For Five inspires me with her knowledge of blogging and the fact that she’ll go out of her way to help others.

I want to say that it was not easy to narrow down my choices because I have so many crafty friends who create beautiful things and so many fellow bloggers who have stepped up to help those of us who don’t know so much. If I’ve not passed this award on to you, I apologize, I could only pick 5 and it was the hardest thing I’ve done. Know that in my heart, you are all deserving of this award!

Tags: blogging, blogging award