New year's resolution

Gosh - it has been 6 months since I blogged last and I am feeling a mite guilty as I just had to go through a rigmarole to remember and reset my password... not good.



My new year resolution is to blog more regularly in 2012. I will try and do some tutorials and fun stuff and generally get a bit of creative fun on!

Well now that this blog has been resurrected, I think it is time to go and finish off some orders:)

Winner, winner, winner!

Thanks to all of you lovely ladies for taking part in the giveaway! I really appreciate your support. We had an anonymous comment with no email address at number 3 so that means that the lucky winner is...Natalie!!!   I have sent you an email, so please let me know what you would from the range asap as my lovely husband has sold my sewing table and the boxes are piling up as we speak for our relocation to Leschenault in the South West! Luckily we still have a dining room table so I can still sew and create on that.

To everyone else, please keep up to date with what we are doing with Izzy B as I have some wonderful ideas for creations once I have access to more fabrics and delights. Thanks to the wonderful people of Hedland for getting started on this creative journey. It has been a blast so far, and I just love making things!

Celebration giveaway!!!

Well as promised, I am going to do a giveaway to celebrate hitting 300 likers on Facebook. I had thought that it would take a bit longer and I would be settled into my new home by the time I hit that number so I have had to think on my feet. But I am not going to complain, this is wonderful news!!

So, drum roll.... I have decided to leave the choice of the final choice for the giveaway up to the winner!!! The prize is up to a value of $35 plus free postage.  The winner can choose from the current range of Izzy B Designs stock or request a custom item from available fabrics up to this value. This includes the Penny Skirt/appliqued tee sets, Caroline Dress, headbands and hairclips.The rules of the giveaway are as follows...

1. You must be a follower of Facebook to enter this competition. If you aren't already, just head to https://www.facebook.com/pages/Izzy-B-Designs/131104803589617 and hit the LIKE button.
2. Head back to the blog to confirm that you have LIKED our page, leave your email address so I can advise the successful person via email under this post. You don't need an account or be a follower of my blog to comment on my blog - you can comment with the Anonymous option in the drop down selection.
3. The competition is open until 8pm WA time Sunday June 26th.
4. The competition is open to international and Australian residents.
5. The winner will be selected using random.org and will be notified via email. If I have no response from the winner within 48hrs, I will have to redraw so that the prize doesn't go into cyberspace, never to be heard of again!

(Fine Print - By entering this competition the entrant acknowledges that Facebook is not connected in any way with this promotion and that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
Any information provided in order to enter this competition is provided to the owners and administrators of Izzy B Designs and not to Facebook)

The Big Move

Well our family is down to our last few weeks in our wonderful town of Hedland and I am wondering if I have bitten off more than I can chew! Of course I have - that is just the way the cookie crumbles! But that is what makes life fun and exciting! We are preparing for a monumental move - to put it into context, the distance would be equivalent to that of moving from England to Spain, and that is pretty massive. Phil and I both arrived independently here of each other with not much to our name. We leave with a family and a household of "stuff" that we have managed to accumulate.  As the packing goes on, I am clinging onto my sewing and craft stuff till the last minute. Luckily I am able to keep this out as I have a legitimate claim - I am having my last market stall for a while at the wonderful West End Markets. I can't wait. I had such a wonderful time I decided to go for it and sew like crazy for one more. These are run by FORM who also run the Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery. They have been great for me personally. We had a wonderful course last time to help us with pricing and it has really helped me along the way (see my previous blog entry). 

Well I would love to go on, but I have been told to go to bed early as I had a late one last night sewing and pricing up for a wholesale order.  Things are ticking along nicely and I am grateful for each and every achievement.

just realised I had been remiss and not posted any of the WONDERFUL photos from the photoshoot we had last month.  Nicole Yardley from Nicole Yardley Photography took some amazing shots and they have helped to get my brand out to a larger audience because of the WOW factor her photography has given my products. Thanks so much Nicole - you ROCK!!! She will be launching her site soon - watch out for it. www.nicoleyardley.com 





 

Pricing and other thoughts

I have been reading some interesting articles in people's blogs lately about people under pricing their products lately and I have decided to put my two cents worth in.

I have struggled with the whole pricing concept. Each time I finish an item I have inner turmoil as to whether people will buy it or not, is it good enough, what should I charge etc. That is stupid because I have extremely high standards, I finish my products well, I don't sell anything that I wouldn't be happy receiving it. If they don't like it, it will come down to personal taste rather than quality.  Secondly, I believe that I have been guilty of underselling my items in the past, and even now from time to time.  However after attending a really useful workshop at our local Art Gallery in pricing stock for Markets, I have revised my pricing structure. They gave us an extremely useful formula, and I am sticking to it as much as possible. They pointed out that underpricing your stock can have a negative effect on your products.

I look on Facebook, Etsy and Madeit.com.au and notice that so many businesses seriously underprice their stock. They must barely be covering their costs, and definitely not making any profit whatsoever. Sure, making handmade stuff isn't about making huge profits, but you do want to make a little bit of money. Why would people pay what I am asking for? Well at the end of the day, I guess you have to believe in what you make. Now, finally I am starting to. You need to cover your costs - yes, you do it for the love, but DONT lose money. Your costs are never going to be as cheap as in mass produced shops so don't even try to worry about what they are charging. Yes, you need to be reasonable, but your time as a WAHM (which most of the people who are doing this type of stuff) is your most precious commodity and that should be factored somewhere into your pricing. You find yourself staying up till the late hours making your stuff but you still need to get up to the kids in the night and early mornings. They don't care what time you worked till!

At the end of the day, handmade clothing is special, unique. Even it's little flaws make it unique. That's what you pay for. You are supporting someone's dream to make something handmade, and you and your family are wearing wearable art be it clothing, hair accessories or something similar. It harks back to a time in the past where everyone's clothing was handmade and mass produced clothing was unheard of, and for me personally, that is something I love!

The Race Season

Wow! What a crazy week last week was getting ready for Family Day at the Hedland Races for B Tween Tides.  A few late nights, but some beautiful creations later and I was really pleased with the outcome.

I am longing to start sewing again though as my first batch of beautiful fabrics from the States arrived. I am even more excited as the girls and I are heading off for a photo shoot with talented local photographer Nicole Yardley and will get some shots of the girls in some clothing and hair accessories. I am still not 100% whether I am going to sell on Madeit.com.au the items photographed or still to facebook, but I am really wanting to get a madeit shop set up as I believe it will open up a different group of people and there are a few safety nets to selling on that as opposed to FB.

My photo of the week has to be Isabella modelling my fav fascinator I made. I named it Alice in Wonderland. I was thrilled with how it turned out. A little bit of gorgeous vintage. I

I wanted to also say that I am a huge supporter of handmade clothing and had to promote the great logo that Crafty Mumma's have set up and display it proudly here on my blog.

 

Neglected!

Gosh, I just realised how slack I have been at posting on my blog - a month! How embarressing!!!

Well April was a busy month what with househounting, a market stall and life in general. But all good. We discovered a lovely new home which will be ours by July and we now have to prepare to move from pretty much one end of WA to the other end. I will be extremely sad to leave this wonderful town that has been so good to us. And not only that, we will be leaving from the most perfect time of year here to winter!!

Good news though, we had a successful giveaway, a better market and I have been stocking B Tween Tides for about a month now and my hair accessories are finding new homes which always is a blast. I have been making gorgeous custom dresses too which has been exciting.

I am really excited about the photoshoot I will be doing next week and hopefully we can capture some of the kids fascinators that I will be working on now my supplies have arrived!

Well best go finish cooking dinner! I will post a photo of my favourite headband of the moment! It is a mini Stella featuring high quality dupioni silk, vintage lace and a rhinestone button. Bliss:)

Acknowledgements

    
    
    
         

    

I just wanted to thank and acknowledge some of the wonderful talent on the internet that has helped me get started. The first is the wonderful Frogs, Legs and Ponytails. Fantastic patterns and designs perfect for little girls. The second is the wonderful Joy from http://www.distinctdesign.blogspot.com/ or otherwise known as Snazziedrawers. The internet has opened up a world of beautiful designs, patters and fabrics to me and I just wished to acknowledge some of these fantastic ladies!

Facebook competition!

Yay! Today has been such a lovely day, and has been topped off by hitting my 150 likes on facebook:) So to celebrate this, I have decided to do a giveaway. Facebook rules are a little tricky so I have now changed the rules on how to enter the comp! Check out my FB page under the discussions tab, but people no longer have to enter on the blog... apparently it was causing some confusion and that isn't what this is about...

To enter you need to post a comment below the new post about the competition. You need to include your email address so I can notify the winner by email.  Entry is open until Monday 4th April 7pm WA standard time. I will then head over to random.org and select an entry number at random and post the winner by email and also advise on my FB page.  Please feel free to share the link with your friends. As long as they have liked my page and followed the competition rules, they too can be in the running!

Our giveaway is this gorgeous little mini fascinator. It can be attached to a newborn, toddler, teen or adult sized lace headband or satin wrapped plastic headband. The winner will be able to choose the headband type and size.

These are cute "Emily Rose" rolled flowers finished off with beautiful birdcage veiling overlay and 3 small beads off centre on the centre rose. I love this soft aqua blue. It is beautiful cotton fabric using Heather Bailey (Bijoux) for the outer flowers and Patty Young for Michael Miller (Dandelion) from the Flora and Fauna range for the centre flower. Beautiful!

Now go forth and enter!!!

A sense of achievement

There is always a great feeling that, yes - "I actually did that!" when you meet your deadline. Well, for me there is. I had a mad day yesterday when I found out that I needed to get some headbands ready for a fashion parade the next day. I didn't think I could do it, and yes I did stay up to a ridiculous hour this morning which wasn't my wisest move, but I am sooo pleased that I managed to get them done. Fantastic!

B Tween Tides is a new fashion boutique for tots to teens opening up in our town, and I am thrilled that they will be stocking some of my creations! So I spent last night creating and finishing Ava, Audrey, Isabella and Bella Blossom headbands in as many different colours that I could in a short time. The end result was that I managed to create 12 headbands and get them delivered by this morning! Here is a look at some of the creations.

This is a mini Stella headband. I was just wanting to do a simple version to match a similar styled shirt in store.

 A small felt Audrey

A medium organza Audrey

Another medium organza Audrey

I think this might be my favourite - a small Ava featuring a rhinestone centre

An experiment with an Isabella which I am really pleased with the end result - very shabby chic.

A large Bella Blossom flower

A cute, super curly Bella Blossom

Another variation on the Isabella theme

The end result, packaged, coded and ready for delivery. 

An Emily Rose rolled flower on stretch elastic.

It just shows you what you can achieve when you set your mind to it. I guess we have reserves we just didn't realise we had when there is a need!

Well, I am off to have some well deserved sleep. I am also looking forward to a night out with my girlfriends in the weekend which should be fantastic too so it isn't all work and no play!!!

Deadlines... and sneaky peeks!

Like my friend Amanda said, there is nothing like a deadline to get you moving! I have 2 at the moment. I am frantically preparing stock to go into a new shop opening up in our local shopping centre, and also trying to sewing and create headbands for my market stall at the West End Markets coming up on April 16th. Oh, and we are also going for a short weekend trip to Bunbury to look at houses in the middle of all of this! Luckily I have managed to get a good headstart on my sewing, and so far, I am pretty pleased with the results. I have sewn 3 pillowcase dresses, and have 8 skirts sewn awaiting elastic on the go. I would like to get another 3 dresses at least sewn and more skirts, but will have to be realistic about what I can do as I really need to do some more headbands.

Speaking of headbands, I have come up with a cute little headband that I love to be the giveaway when I hit my 150 likers mark on Facebook. I have attached a preview for any fans that have popped over for a sneaky peek!  So here goes...

 My cute little fascinator that is going to be the giveaway. This is awaiting headband size. It can go on a white lace headband sized from newborn to adult! Love it:)

My new pillowcase dress, sized 1. I am loving these fabrics from Hawthorne Threads:)

The size 2 - if only it was a 3, Isabella would be wearing this now...

And lastly, the size 3 featuring the beautiful Sandi Henderson fabric, Pop Daisy I think it is called. She creates the most bold and fantastic designs.

And lastly, my cute Juliette La Fleur. This photo doesn't quite do it justice as this is a gorgeous shabby chic flower, but would make a great brooch or headband.

Right, I am off to make some Audrey headbands now. Have a great night!

Getting there!

I have had a very productive few days - and in between managing to nearly kill my overlocker (oops!) I have nearly finished 7 skirts and 3 dresses. They are now awaiting the final touches (which means I am waiting for Isabella to go to bed so I can do this!!!). I have also had a very exciting meeting today and am thrilled that I am going to be stocking my headbands and clips in the new toddler to teen clothing shop that is opening up in our local shopping centre! This will expose my product to a new audience, and who knows, this may mean that I don't need to open a madeit shop for a while.  So, once these skirts and dresses are completed I am back on the headband and clip wagon. I have some lovely new ideas and am very very excited.

I will post some sneaky peeks of the new outfits real soon:)

Blah, blah!

What a week - well I say that every week, but this week has been quite memorable, but not for the right reasons. My husband is away at the moment, I have been crook and little pre schooler have a canny sense for knowing when you don't feel right and playing up. Luckily my parents did an intervention and had my pre schooler come stay and I am feeling so much better. So last night after catching up on well earned sleep I decided to finish off the 4 skirts I had on the go. Good idea, but when I was overlocking I didn't notice a pin had slipped in unnoticed and managed to muck up the overlocker. I had to try and rethread and that didn't go so well. My lovely step son calmly tried to assist by attempting to follow the diagram, hold the torch so I could see into the nooks and crannies but to no avail. Breathe!  So I decided to work on the skirts that don't require the overlocker and finished off the bulk of that on 2 skirts. I am going to contact the lady I bought the overlocker from and hopefully she can help otherwise I will be urgently sending it away for repair. But there are loads of other things I can be getting on with but I was getting into the swing. I had 2 dresses ready for sewing, so hopefully I can get it sorted in the next few days.

Oh well, off to collect my daughter and take her to dance class. Fingers crossed we all play nice for the rest of the week!

Ciao x

What a week!

Poor little Emily has had bronchiitis, a nasty hacking cough and is dosed up on all sorts of medications that I would normally avoid, but the poor thing hasn't been able to shake the cough.  Luckily apart from the odd drawing on herself incident, Isabella hasn't been too bad. Although she did manage to chew on a book tonight and give herself a blue mouth - something she hadn't done since she was a baby!

I have managed to do a bit of creative this week, put some items up for sale that are new on my FB page and get my application ready for the West End Markets that are coming up in April.  Myself and my friend who makes reversible bucket hats are going to be sharing a stall (everything going to plan) and we are super excited about this.  All I need to do now is crack on with the sewing next week, have a few samples of all my headbands, and I should be fine!


Oh, and on Sunday last week, in between a thunder storm, my husband went on his charter flight around the Port Hedland area and had a ball.  I have got a few shots to share of the fantastic area we live in, as well as some of my new bits and pieces.

So next week is going to be a little crazy around here as my husband will be away for business, but luckily I have a bit of help from our eldest so that should ease the pain a little !

So here are a few shots of Port Hedland as we don't usually see it... green and wet:)

A beautiful shot of Pretty Pool in Port Hedland. We have had so much rain lately that there is more water than normal around here!

A great shot of the harbour at sunset.

So this looks green to you? Well normally this is just red dirt! We have had so much rain this wet season that everything is green and lush and we aren't used to it so we take photos of what everyone else takes for granted!!!

One of my new creations that I have been working on that I am loving. Can you tell that I love this colour?

Yes, I do love this colour! All this needs is a rhinestone button in the centre and needs to be attached to either a headband or clip. I have someone in mind for this one so it stays as is at the moment!

Have a great weekend!

First draft past the post!

I have been thinking/trying to do this pattern by Snazziedrawers for AGES, but have always been a bit scared off by the bias ribbon required. However, when I was cutting out bias for my Isabella flowers I cut an extra one and decided to finally make the Juliette La Fleur. First draft and I like the look of it - need to tweek how I do the rose centre as I made this one toooo big, but Izzy loves it and it looks super cute on. I love the shabby chic look of it and with a bit of practice, this one is going to be a great one to add to the collection!  Take a look...

Fantastic tutorial I have just found!

I have been looking for a blog tutorial to show me how to make ribbon flowers - I knew I would find one!  Check this one out. Very cool:) http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-ribbon-flowers.html

Life is like a box of...

Wow, what a crazy week! We have had a surprise visit from my husband's wonderful family for his 40th, a cyclone, there has been a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, we have all been sick with nasty colds and now my youngest has a nasty case of... well it isn't very nice and involves lots of dirty nappies!!!

However in amidst this madness, I have managed to make a few new flowers, receive some of my skinny elastic that I have been eagerly awaiting from the States and hey presto, some new Bella Blossoms have been born! I am currently working on a Juliette flower using a Snazziedrawers design. It has been a bit fiddly. Also I have a box of rolled flowers, and Isabella flowers awaiting their final designs. I am just working through the final designs in my minds eye!! Hoping to try a few out over the next few evenings.

So, I said life is like a box of... well I have been storing all my recent flowers in an old tin box that used to be a biscuit box as it is nice and big. It looks like a delicious box of ...Roses. Yummy! Some of these flowers would make gorgeous headbands for adults. If anyone saw the recent MKR, I noticed that a lot of the headbands the ladies were wearing are very similar to my creations. Perfect for anyone attending the Hedland Rotary Ball (notice the blatant salesperson pitch!)

In the meantime Isabella is getting first drafts of the flowers and her headband collection is getting larger and she is loving it and wears a new headband with each outfit! I am even "borrowing" some of her headbands as they are cute and suitable for Mum to wear too!!!  I am hoping that we are all better next week so I can get on with sewing but my lovely husband is off on a business trip so it may be a little crazy around here again (just for a change!).

Frantic, fabulous and Freaky February...

Wow, what a crazy few weeks we have had in February already! I live in remote NW Western Australia. It is normally HOT and DRY! For the last month though, we have had constant rain and all of a sudden, everything is green. And very WET! Good news if you are a plant, the land and it's a beautiful sight to behold.  However my parents have been trying to install a transportable house on their property and have had no end of troubles as it was firstly put in too low so every time it has rained, they have had to pump out water to avoid flooding.

Today I have felt very cosy at home listening to rain pour down, and been relishing a bit of peace as my eldest daughter went to daycare and spent some time with my baby girl and creating.

February also has meant birthdays - and very important birthday's in the Davidson family. Firstly my beautiful daughter Emily has turned 1, my FIL has his birthday (I won't disclose his age;)) and my wonderful husband turns 40 next week. We have also had lots of birthday parties to attend for friend's and it has been filled with me frantically trying to create handmade creations for little girls. I think I should have just bought dolls as the kids will probably appreciate them more, but their Mum's will hopefully appreciate the work gone into creating their daughter's unique pressies.

So just to demostrate some of the work that has gone into this month, here are a few photos.

Sisterly love! My gorgeous daughters and muses getting ready to go out to lunch. Both girls are wearing some hair accessories made by moi! These gorgeous dresses are actually from Target. My Mum always tracks down gorgeous dresses in fun and funky fabrics which look great on the girls.

Ms Emily's 1st birthday cake. A bit different from Isabella's sugar free banana cake. I made a butter cake using a cake tin hired from our local Toy Library which made it soooo much easier than having to cut out the shape.

A cute new design borrowed from the lovely Joy at Snazziedrawers Designs. This is the Isabella flower and of course I had to make some of these for my own Ms Isabella. This particular one was made for a friend of Isabella's for her 3rd birthday.

And a dress for Isabella's beautiful friend Ms W. It is a variation on the first dress I made my daughter but I prefer this design as it is shorter at the top which means it is a little less uncomfortable for the girls wearing it. I am still not sure about producing more than for family or friends but they are such cute dresses.

I have also been working on frilly knickers for my lovely SIL's new photographic business Little Goose Photography, but had a few disasters so that may have to wait.

Today has been a busy day of making Bella Blossom flowers, cutting out bias for Isabella flowers and finishing off a fantastic rolled flower ready to embellish! 

Fun headband for the weekend

I love how blogs give great tutorials and if it hadn't been for people's blogs, I don't think I would have got back into sewing and creating - and definitely wouldn't have made half the cools stuff I have. So I believe in sharing. I have just found this cool and cute fun headband which would take no time at all to make. I have a few designs to make other ones, but this one looks more simpler than most of the other ones.  Check it out!


http://myloosethreads.blogspot.com/2009/01/skinny-headband-tutorial.html

I guess there is a theme happening here...

Not sure what it is about fabric but it is a beautiful thing. Maybe it is the colour, the feel of 100% cotton or maybe it is the excitement of what you can create with it. I still get a little nervous when I have beautiful designer fabric in my hands that maybe I should use some of my more reasonably priced "spotlight" fabric, but of course when you actually sew with the better stuff, you understand why you pay more for it.  Anyway, there are birthdays coming up, markets coming up so I hauled out my increasing stash and prewashed and dried the fabric in preparation for a cutting out session in front of My Kitchen Rules and Parenthood this evening. The plan is to do a bunch of cutting out tonight then make the most of my child free afternoon tomorrow and sew as much as I can. Dresses and frilly knickers are the go I think, but then it will be onto skirts and headbands. My first Twilight Market is coming up on April 16th so this gives me a decent leadtime to get together some beautiful kids clothes and accessories. 

Here is a piccie of my first bunch of fabric to start with. This pile features Heather Bailey, Michael Miller and Patty Young for Michael Miller.  I am hoping to get another bundle ordered online at etsy tonight as I discovered another pile that looks beautiful with some more bold colours. I think little girls can get away with wearing bold colours and I love the way dresses now push the boundaries with bold patterns and colours teamed together.  You can peruse for hours on websites and get great ideas of how to match colours and patterns together - beautiful stuff! 

Well the baby is sleeping so time for me to cook dinner before I pick up Ms Isabella from daycare. I love the sound of silence!

As promised...

Here is the final product on Ms Isabella. I think it is a cute design, but may need a few tweaks to withstand my daughter and general toddler playing, but it isn't far off.

Guilty pleasures

I have to admit it here (while my husband is not looking) that I have an addiction - it is to FABRIC! I love the stuff. It wasn't till last year that I discovered beautiful fabrics could be purchased (gasp) online and it didn't matter that I lived miles away from a fabric shop!!! Since then, my stash has slowly increased and I sometimes think that I use the ruse that I am buying fabric for my little handmade business as an excuse... I also have discovered that sometimes you can buy MIY kits with beautiful fabrics that are already cut out (aahhh) at a fantastic price. I haven't purchased one of these packs for ages, however I discovered in my stash the other day a kit I had purchased one over a year ago for my eldest daughter and had just not got around to sewing it. I have just finished the dress and LOVE IT! Mainly because it has gorgeous Joel Dewberry and Sandi Henderson fabric that I wouldn't have thought to team together - but man they look great together. That's another thing that I love - discovering online how people have managed to team beautiful fabrics together to make something look even more special and unique. I have to wait sometimes up to 3 weeks for my fabric to arrive from the States but you know what, I think it is worth it when you see what you can come up with! Here is a piccie of the dress I have just finished for Ms Iz. I am thrilled with the finished product and am thinking seriously of adding a similar style to my collection.

Lovely new fabric coming!

I have braved my phobia of buying fabric online after my previous experience was a little less than enjoyable e.g. it went missing in the post! But if I want to do some more sewing I need more fabric, and that is that. So after seeing a recommendation from someone elses's blog I am checking out www.hawthornethreads.com this time.  I am also trying out some new patterns to add to my lines. It looks like the new lines are going to be pillowslip dresses and frilly bum knickers. I am also only going to be a few hairclips and focussing on more fancy headbands as I love doing these so I hope people love them too! Anyway, fingers crossed that this package makes its way safely to South Hedland and doesn't disappear in the post. To be fair, the other package may just turn up in the post one day too. Fingers crossed...

Getting started

Well I have finally worked out how to start my blog which is pretty cool for a techno-phobe like me! So what's the plan with this? Well now that Facebook have made restrictions on what you can and can't do regarding giveaways and competitions, I will be able to do links to my blog so people can actually do competitions and the like on here. Also, it will be a chance for me to post some of my other creative things that I do here. Blogs have been fantastic for me to get ideas from so hopefully I can do the same for other people too!

Well I am off to enjoy what I can of Australia Day despite our yellow alert for Cyclone Bianca. The rain is bucketing down!