To Market, To Market, To Market I Go....

Today I finished up my Snappy Chappy© Bow Ties with the remnants from the Faith Dress. I have loaded them to my shop on Felt.

As I love this fabric I decided to create myself a market apron from it and I love it! 

I have sewn 4 pockets approx 6 inches wide and a small pocket approx 1 inch wide for my pen. I followed a tutorial published on The Crafty Croall. I modified it slightly to suit me and turned over the top as I liked the peek of floral showing. 

I did “forget” the straps to start with and ended up unpicking the stitching to add them in but other than that I would say it was a quick and easy project. I definitely recommend to other market goers.

I like mine so much I have been wearing it all afternoon and found the pockets to be very useful with 2 kids on the go and not enough hands to cart everything about. At least wearing the apron I know where the phone is when it rings and don’t spend 8 of the 9 rings hunting for it only to breathlessly answer it as the caller hangs up.

Vistaprint Pimped My Ride

So Vistaprint really is a girl's best friend - well it is when it comes to pimping my ride.

I ordered some more business cards the other day and got tempted by the "free" car door magnet offer.  I ended up ordering the large ones which weren't free but boy oh boy do I love them.

They are so crisp and clear and I really can read them a mile away. Instructions say to clean the area underneath the magnet every 2 or 3 days but I am wondering if this is really necessary?  And if so, do I obsessively follow the instructions or just put the magnets on when I head to a market and leave them off the rest of the time?

I am loath to leave them off as they make use of valuable real estate - that being the sides of my car. Anyone else have car door magnets?  What do you do?

The Faith Dress

I found a cool new shop on Etsy called Brynnberlee Designs.  Sarah of Brynnberlee Designs creates and sells gorgeous girls dress patterns.  Sarah's patterns are available from size 18 months to 5T.

I emailed her to be added to her database as a pattern tester and on Friday was emailed to test the all new Faith Dress pattern. So I excitedly spent my Saturday afternoon, in between performing Mum duties, testing it out. I am really chuffed with the end result and can't wait till Holly is big enough to wear it.

I made the dress in size 18 months. As you can see I used my only available model but I think the pictures are pretty good:-)

Sarah has a Facebook page you can "like" here.

Spotlighting My Trademark Adjustable "Snapped Waistband"©

I often find the simplest ideas are the best.  When I was designing my product offering I was thinking, if it was me buying, what would I want? I thought, if I was paying for quality then I would expect to get decent wear out if it beyond the nanoseconds it seems kids get out of most of their stuff.

At the time of my bright idea, I had recently purchased a snap press and was, as my mother put it "snap happy".  I pondered the idea of snaps placed at intervals along an elastic waistband and trialed the idea on my kids.  First on my daughter's skirts and next on my son's trousers. I can say the idea is genius on skirts and pretty clever on trousers.

All my skirts are fitted with adjustable snapped waistbands allowing approximately 3 years of growth.  My trousers the same allowing approximately 18 months to 2 years of growth (mostly dependent on height).

As a bonus my trouser designs actually look pretty smart when the legs become too short as they make my son look, in my opinion, tré trendy with his short longs/long shorts.

© PetitBebe 2011

Please, please vote for me - Fabric Online Gallery Comp

I have entered the following items. Choose your favourite item and vote!

Click here to vote: http://fabriconline.co.nz/Gallery

Arabesque skirt

B/W Damask Nappy Clutch

Brown/Blue Damask Nappy Clutch

Thanks to Anna from Tots Shots Family Portraits Photography

Today I received a beautiful picture of a wee babe wearing one of my boutique romance bibs.

You can contact Anna at Tots Shots Family Portraits here.

Vintage Harvest

This week has been a busy one preparing for the Crafternoon Tea market on Saturday 18 June.  I have sewn up some lovely Vintage Harvest Mini Layer-Cake skirts with matching bloomers and have a market special on these for $40 including the bloomers.

I also made up some Snappy Chappy© Bow Ties with the remnants which look gorgeous.

These bow ties are designed to be accessorised with the Snappy Chappy©.

Wordle

Check out www.wordle.net/create. It is a really cool tool to generate some great word art. Here is my fav - describes me well I think:-) Just try not to get addicted to the Randomize button - I think I spent a good hour or more playing with this tool.  Managed to curb my addiction by accidentally closing down my browser. 

Crafternoon Tea Market this Saturday

I will be holding a stall at the Crafternoon-Tea market (400 New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland) this Saturday. Please come along and support me:-) I hope to see you there. P.S. I am sponsoring the newsletter sign up giveaway with this super scrummy B&W Damask Nappy Clutch.

Handmadeology is brilliant!!!

If you haven't already discovered Handmadeology I urge you to check it out.  They have a free 5 day e-course on social media which I have just completed and I am so pleased with the information provided I have purchased the optional Social Media bundle and am crazily inputting data and discovering lots of cool stats about my blog, FB, Twitter and other social media sites that I am using and what it all means for me in terms of turning my exposure into sales. I am loving it!

They have loads of information on loads of topics including how to get the best out of your photos, how to get the best out of selling on Etsy and a mountain of other tips.

Please stop by my FB page and say hi and my Felt shop where you can see all my current items for sale.

And please tweet, twit, and toot to help me get my profile out there:-) You are all awesome and I appreciate your help.

A new skirt for Holly

Today I felt a little creative and thought I would make my daughter, Holly, a skirt for when she is older.  I didn't have a pattern just an idea and ended up with a pretty skirt that will fit her when she is (a lot) older. I am guessing around 10 years old.  Let's hope she still wants to wear it at that age! The fabric is Amy Butler Love Arabesque Ivory which I bought on sale from Fabric Online and the belt is navy whale cord from Spotlight.

Front

Back

My new skill - belt loops.

The waist band has my trade mark adjustable snapped elastic. But my new skill I have acquired is belt loops. Lots of room for improvement so will keep practicing. 

Newborn Baby Boy Gift Idea

Today, in between rounds of soothing my teething daughter, I developed an idea I have seen elsewhere.

http://shwinandshwin.blogspot.com/2011/05/little-man-bow-tie-onsie.html

I thought that I could add a snap to the bow tie and the onesie and end up with an outfit that could be changed to suit any occasion.  And since bow ties are really not a girly thing, I thought I would call my idea the "Snappy Chappy©".  So I made up a couple of trial runs of the bow ties with snaps and here is the result.

Long sleeved onesie for winter.

 Available in blue or white

A posie of bow ties:-)

My first giveaway

Thank you to all my 'likers' who helped get me to 100 on my Facebook page - www.facebook.com/petitbebe

I have decided that my next goal is to get 500 'likers' and when I reach that goal I will celebrate by giving away a $50 credit to one lucky 'liker' to be spent on anything in my collection.

Please help me get there and refer, refer, refer:-)

Checkered Reversible Bandana Bibs

These awesome reversible bandana bibs have two co-ordinating fabrics on either side on the bib. Lined with absorbent polar-fleece these bibs are both stylish and functional. Your little darling will be the best dressed in town wearing one of these.

Measuring approx 35cm x 35cm x 41cm these bibs are a practical size. Adjustable twin snap closure allows flexibility in neck sizing.