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!