I am very excited to announce that my shop is up and running!  The little diggers have been in bits and pieces all week, but I finally sat down with all the parts today.  And as my daughter built tower after tower after tower with her blocks, I sewed button joint after button joint right next to her.  Setting up an etsy shop was a little intimidating at first, not because of the site itself–it’s fantastic–but because I had to sit down and describe myself and what I make.  And make people want to buy it.  I have no idea how to do this, so I went with boring ol’ descriptions of the first three then when I got to the pink digger I laid it on thick.  I was only going to make three to start with anyway, but then I saw this little bit of hot! pink! vintage! linen in my scrap bag I cut into it without thinking twice.  Because how fantastic would it be if a cute indie rock boy out there gave his cute indie rock girlfriend my pink digger for valentine’s day.   I guess that’s an odd daydream to have, but I think that’s what mothers of small children do: daydream.  Most of what we say could be recorded and just played back over and over again all day, “Stop. stop. sit down. sit down. don’t play with your food. don’t rub your toast on your head. don’t put playdough in your brother’s ears.” I always wondered why I had to say, “MOM!” so many times before she heard me.  Now I don’t hear my daughter until the third or fourth mom.  So (to get out of this tangent) I’ve been day dreaming about this little shop all week and now here it is!  yay.

holiday birthdays always get the shaft. I don’t have one, but have sisters and friends that do and I’ve heard many lectures on the topic (all riviting). The lesson always is never ever say, “this present counts for christmas and your birthday!” So go back to your christmas list, make a new column for birthdays and do these poor, suffering people a favor and make them a birthday present (you get extra points for wrapping it with actual birthday paper).

I made this train bag for a little boy, whose birthday is before thanksgiving (so it doesn’t quite count as a holiday birthday). I used this very clever tutorial and did some freezer paper stencils on the inside.  The stencils were not planned and really should have been, but oh well it’s not bad.  He didn’t seem to mind, but he is only 2.