Garden special

My Garden is filled with flowers and vegetables after two sunny days.

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.  My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.  The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.  ~Abram L. Urban

 

It is so nice to see them growing...

Gul bag

Hope you all had great weekend.  Mine was busy busy working on custom orders.  It was fun, I love custom make, its all about customer's idea and their choice of color in my pattern.  Thanks to the customer who trust me for my work.  This is my best selling bag, I named it Gul bag means "flower"

 

I think the flower look lovely and add a very special touch to any bag. 

 

Finger puppets

 Yep, animal finger puppets one of the best sellers in the craft show.  When I told my son I was going to make one for him. He was excited and didn't leave me till I made them.  It is a beautiful gift for kids and allow them to use their imaginations to play & cultivate creativity.  My niece came home and I made one set for her as well. She loved it.

It is an easy project, can be made with felt and also add some fabric scraps/beads to decorate.  I'm thinking to make some characters for story telling.  My son will love it. 

Have a nice weekend.

Craft exhibition/show tips

Hope you had wonderful weekend!

On Saturday, there was power shut down for maintenance, hence no sewing for the entire day.  I was documenting my craft show experience and then I thought I would like to share some tips and tricks.

Last week, I participated in By Hand from the heart show.  It was an awesome experience and worth all the hard work put in . This was my first craft show so I did some home work and it was successful.

Planning

Do list: My day always start with a Do-list without it i feel lost.   First step, I did the Do list for the entire show preparation, things required for the show like number of products to make, catalogue for custom make,price tag, order form, vinyl/cloth banners,stand/shelve to display, table cloth ,stationery to carry etc.  As usual the list was very long and I'm not a super women to do all the work myself. So second step is to delegate

Delegate: So I delegated some jobs to my near and dear like designing banner/business card/flyer, get them printed, buying the shelve for display, tag all the products, preparing catalog etc. That was great help from my well wishers.  I was able to fully focus on my products.

Remember to check the checklist as and when you finish the task  

Presentation
Do you want your customer to feel good when they reach your table.  Then let us be presentable. This doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money on display.

Name sign: When I go to craft show I would prefer to known who you are. And it is really important to have name sign or banner. I display 6x3 feet vinyl banner at the door.  Then I prepared a 6 x 2 feet cloth banner for my stall .   I also wore T shirt with my business name painted on it.  

Mock trail: Keep it simple and arrange your stuff neatly. I did a mock trial table set up at home. So it was easy for me to be organized, prepared and display the products.  Remember to take photo of the set up.  This will be very useful when you actually set everything up on the day.

Display your stuff: Because this was my first craft; I didn't want to invest too much.  I got stand from thrift store for display, painted them and used wooden cloth pins to  hanged all my bag.  You also have theme set up for your display, which I'm planning in my future shows.

Hello: A simple hello and a smile makes lot of difference.  Try to connect with people, there are customers who would like to know more about your product.  People did asking me about my fabric collection, pattern catalogue, and recycle project. They were also interested for custom make.  I had order form ready with pattern codes which was very useful to take orders. This enabled me to interact with customers  

Promoting

Advertise: Do the advertising to get the word reach people through Facebook. twitter, blog ,forum, other networking website or press.   In fact I emailed my friends and family, circulated the flyers and by word of mouth. If organizer have website for show, make sure you  promote your item.  You will be surprised to see how much everyone will be interested to support you.

Business card: You always want you customer to come back to you for more business.  Carry your business card and give to other vendors, customers - easy way of networking.  Give out as many cards as you can, I  did put one card for each sale.   We never know people may come back after some weeks or months later.

Price tag: We always hear "How much is this?" .  Tagging and pricing your product is important thing to do.  Tagging allows the customer to have a glance or browse through the cost of the product rather than afraid to ask for the price.

Finally have some fun bring your friends to help you and accompany you throughout the show.  I'm thankful to my husband for supporting and helping throughout the show. We had great time.

Surgery with smile

Life gets so busy sometimes that health issues can fall to the bottom of the priority list until you have several friends & families who yell at you to get it done.  So finally yesterday my husband had a minor surgery.   A couple of months ago he developed a bump under his eyelid and it is just not going away.  Doctor said it is very common and need a minor surgery.  I was little shaken, Oh surgery on eyelid!!.  If you are reading my blog for long, you know my husband - one cool person on earth.

Honestly as you can see he's smiling after surgery and in two days he will be back to regular work.  

Now, you may be wondering why do I have a picture of my husband when he is in pain.  Well, my sweet camera is always in my bag (my great friend) , and you can see my husband posing with smile.

Organiser Wallet

Earlier I spoke about wallet for men.   Did I speak about women's wallet???

Here is one I made for my mama as a birthday gift.  She is an adorable & organized lady.  I learned to be organized from her.  I love the word "Organized" -  give a designated space for everything & easily accessible. I find my life is easy going when things are organized.

I choose nice medium cotton fabric for her wallet; embellished with felt fabric flower, sliver ribbon  and button.

 I love that fact there is lot of slots to keep things.  You know ladies....
 We have stuffs from everywhere.

This is the 5cards slot and underneath there is two divisions for bill/receipt. Usually I don't through the bill till i pay the credit card and prefer to put them behind the cards.

 Easy opening with snap button to keep things secured.

 Back of the wallet there is a zipper compartment to keep coins and open compartment for paper or note.

Inside the wallet has three open slots for notes, papers, ID etc and there is a zipper compartment as well.

Enough space to keep my things.  What do you think???

First Craft show

I’m speechless about my first craft show experience.  The show was a great success.  I am so amazed at all the lovely people who supported me and who stopped by my stall.

First off, I have to thank By hand from the heart for giving me an opportunity to participate in this show.  I felt incredibly honored to be included with so many other amazing artisans/ designers/ NGO / entrepreneurs. Their creativity was truly inspiring and loved every moment interacting with them. I couldn't ask for anything more in terms of sheer amount of positive comments about the show and its success.

I'm not the best salesperson when I compare myself with my husband or my sister. I really enjoy as an online business person because it is easy to hide behind my computer screen. But surprisingly this craft show broke the ice and I enjoyed connecting with people.   I spoke about my products, how I design them from scratch and how I recycle fabric.  My recycle project drew special attention.  Everyone was really kind and appreciating.

The icing on the cake was a special visitor.  Janaki Sabesh (popular actress) stopped by my stall, she picked up a lovely cute zipper purse.  This pretty much made my day.

A sneak peek at people behind the success of the  show.

My lovely brother Gopakumar who designed the banner,flyer and business card. Everyone in the show complimented his designing skill.

My gorgeous friend Sripriya who helped me throughout the show -  inventory list, tagging,arranging the stall, packing lunch for show (believe me she is a very sweet lady & loyal friend)



My wonderful husband painted the logo and name on T shirt.  He also did the banner work. I love the combo of black and green which filled my stall. 

Last but not the least my family looked after my son and supported me in every possible way.


A Big thanks to all my friends and family.

Exhibition Show

If you are in Chennai this weekend, please stop by and say hello...
I would love to see more faces and friendly smile...

 

Fabric made me do this....

Hope you had wonderful weekend. Its was sunny and bright here, I watched some good movies and did some interesting sewing. Do you want to see what I was cutting and sewing.

Lovely recycle projects...

I totally love to do recycling, which allows me to think out of the box. I didnt want to say goodbye to these clothes, they are amazing fabric.  I bought from Pound shop when we were living in London..  I repurposed them into lovely bags.  Isn’t wonderful ? 


 

Cute messeger bag with small purse

Bow bag

Aadharsh bag

Don't forget to visit the exhibition... More to see.

Dhir Bag:

Monsoon blooms

August is over and September begins.  We had wonderful weather lately, so I'm soaking up the nice weather.   I can't help but just to share; my garden with beautiful august blooms.  Oh my gosh the colors are completely intoxicating.  I still have many more to bloom, as they are just now getting started.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead!