Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Eek: Fancy Bowties for Your Favorite Pet!!

Okay, I promise PROMISE I'll have more posts lined up a bit more regularly soon, but things have been really crazy and I just can't find the time. Please take these RIDICULOUSLY cute photos of the in-house model as penance for my neglect.

I had a request about a month ago for a pet bowtie in a more neutral everyday-wear pattern.  This person also (wisely) requested that the bowtie be the color lavender. While I was at the fabric store I also stumbled across some adorably cute blue seersucker in the remnant bin (and everyone loves a good bargain on fabric) so I snatched it up!!

I've sold a few more of these now but had yet to actually take a picture of them in action for my Etsy shop and Facebook Shop page.  I'm donating a bowtie to a local-ish animal rescue organization called S.N.O.R.T. (small nose only rescue team - so for dogs just like my in-house model). They're holding an online charity auction in a few weeks and I wanted to be able to help them raise a little money.

So I popped over to my SIL's house to sweet talk the in-house model, Bailey, into taking some photos for me. I must say, he was in top form today and I was able to bang out three different bowtie looks in about 10 minutes. This pup knows how to work the camera and get things done!!  (Which was nice, because I had some other stuff on my list of things to do today, AND  it even left us time to play in the snow, because Bailey LOVES to play in the snow.)

Now for your viewing (and squeeing) pleasure...

First up is the Lavender Bowtie: I ended up using this cute photo for my ad for the bowtie that I'm giving to the charity auction!!
You can find the lavender bowtie here. 

Now, a Blue Seersucker Bowtie with a bit of side-eye from Bailey!!!

You can find the Blue Seersucker Bowtie here. 

And lastly, my sister mentioned that one of her friends was possibly interested in a bowtie for her dog to wear to her wedding and I'd just found some navy satin in the remnant bin (to fix my sister's shirt so it's, like, full circle here). I thought the satin would make an AWESOME and extremely fancy bowtie.  Bailey brought his A-game and really upped the charm for this photo:

 You can find the Navy Satin Fancy Bowtie here. 



Have a great week!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Holiday Coat Makeover

Sorry for the lack of posting the last few weeks. We moved 2 weeks after getting back from holidays in California and things have been a bit bananas ever since then.

I thought I'd share a quick post to show a coat makeover I did for my sister over the holidays. My sister had stockpiled a bunch of sewing & mending projects for when I arrived and she kept me busy!! I'd found this coat on Old Navy on super-mega-discount sometime in early December and being a good older sister I sent the info over to my sister Nikki.  I just so happens to be in her favorite color, and that girl is always in the market for new coats, so I knew she'd be an easy sell. (Plus, I'm pretty sure I found it when it'd been marked down to $27, free shipping, and 4% cash back from Ebates - for a WOOL COAT. I told you it was a good deal!!) The only thing I wasn't thrilled about were the coat's GOLD buttons. Seeing them in person they were actually much better looking, but still, after the DIY coat makeover post we knew we could find something much more fun!  We dragged my husband into a few Joann's Fabric stores all over Santa Monica before we found buttons we liked. Then we had to call around to another store near my mom's house (where we were staying) so that we could find a few more to make sure we replaced ALL the gold buttons on the coat and not just the buttons on the front.  There were two buttons on the back, and of course the first store only had 6 buttons.

Here is a photo of the coat.  You'll notice that the coat's original buttons are on the right side of the photo, and the oval shaped buttons we chose (they looked like wood) are on the left side.  Nikki also wanted the thread on the buttons to pop a bit, so she picked a bright lighter blue colored thread! It added a really nice subtle touch to the coat.



Here you can see the thread a bit better (but it's still blurry - cell phone picture):



Here's the finished coat: 



Ta-da!!  See, it's so easy, and it really changes the look of a coat from it's original look and then you can easily change it up from season to season!!

I'm hoping to get my craft room set up sometime this coming week and when I get some free time I'm going to work on a few new hair piece ideas to add to the shop.  Stay tuned!!