Happy New Year!

Well I've been trying to update all my web sites, my blog, my flickr account, etsy, and facebook - it's taking forever but I'm getting it done. I'm not going to get enough sleep but I'm getting it done. I still don't know if I totally understand how to use a blog to promote myself, that is going to be one of my goals for 2009, figure out the blog. I've also started one for our papertwirlies team but I haven't done much but set it up slightly, must finish that soon too.

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, good luck with everything you want to do and be safe. As mentioned I've been updating my flickr account, and added some older items I created like the one seen here; Wedding Keepsake Box (lid is showing). It is so pretty, so simple and so different then my usual bright stuff - I really liked the way it turned out.

Merry Christmas

Well this week has been long and tiring, my daughter has had a dreadful cold so I've not been getting any sleep and barely any quilling done - I've fallen behind on stuff so I now have just a few days to play catch up. Due to this, I will make this short and sweet - I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! From now till the end of the year everything in my etsy shop (http://www.quillynilly.etsy.com) is 20% off - I'm looking forward to creating new and fresh quilled delights to fill up my shop in the new year so I need to make room by selling what's in there now. Take care.

Flurries

We had some flurries today, for some that may not sound exciting; but I'm now living in Tennessee and we rarely get snow so when it flurries it makes me happy. I'm originally from Connecticut so I know what it's like to get snow, and thankfully we rarely get that much here - and if we do it melts away in a day or two and it's like we never had any.

I also want to comment on a sealant I tried - tried and was not successful with. It's called Stiffen Stuff Super Quick Stiffening Spray, which I purchased online at www.whimsiquills.com - Pat is very nice and has been quite helpful with information on how to use it properly which I will share with everyone else. I've been making snowflakes and thought it would be nice to use the spray on them - well I sprayed one lightly (or so I thought) and the coils started opening up - ahhhhhhh! I had to go back using my tweezers and roll some of them back up. I emailed Pat from Whimsiquills this evening and this is what she wrote:

"I just spray very light coats of the stiffen stuff and let it dry between coats. I even use it on my snowflakes and a lot of them are done with open coils. Be sure to make the first coat very light and once it dries it will keep the open coils in place for the next spraying. You just don't want to soak the paper or the coils will open. (I usually rinse off the spray thingy with warm water after I use it so it doesn't clog.) You might want to try it on a couple of coils just for practice until you get the feel of using the right amount."

Good advice and I will definitely be practicing on some spare coils. Just wanted to share it for anyone interested in using it on their quilled pieces.

I also want to mention we finished our Paper Twirlies Scavenger Hunt and I think it was fun - I had 3 people find the prize photo in my shop - I'm not sure how many were found total, that would be interesting to find out though. 

Paper Twirlies Team Promotional Sale

Do you know what quilling is? If you do, we invite you to visit our stores and view all the amazing items we have for sale! If quilling is not familiar, come visit our stores and let us show you how much fun it is!

From November 29th - December 1, 2008; each of our stores will hide a Paper Twirlies Prize photo somewhere in their listings at least once. These listings will be posted in one or more stores simultaneously! When you find hte Prize photo, you win a FREE gift!

Participating shops have changed their avatars to show you what the prize photo will look like. We will all have a 20 cent promotional listing. When you find the Paper Twirlies Prize photo in a listing, buy the listing (but do not send money) and post both the shop name and the item listing # in which you found the Prize in this promotional thread. The seller will then send you a FREE gift!

PLEASE: Only one free item per person.

Thank you for looking and good luck!

The participating shops include:

http://oakenbarrelcraft.etsy.com/

http://quillynilly.etsy.com/

http://dnlcrafts.etsy.com/

http://wytaz.etsy.com/

http://tinkersshop.etsy.com/

http://iguanamakeit.etsy.com/

http://piratcha.etsy.com/

http://cocoscreations.etsy.com/

http://ensorcelledminds.etsy.com/

Red Nosed Reindeer

I've been busy quilling - mostly making reindeer, I had an order for 6 reindeer cards which I finished last night and they sure are cute, if I do say so myself. I have an order for 20 reindeer embellishments; although that number may be lower, she's checking her Christmas card list. My coworker would like 2 reindeer cards and I'd like to make extra to make into ornaments. For the embellishments I would normally put a light layer of glue on the back and place it on a piece of vellum but I'm going to try something different. I purchased a spray called Stiffen Stuff, it's for fabric but can be used on paper so I'm going to give it a try and see if it's quicker to do than my glue method - I'll post back once I try it, back to the reindeer.

It's not even Thanksgiving yet

Yesterday I picked up my son from after school care and as we were driving up our street, a few houses from ours we saw a house with Christmas lights on the bushes. I couldn't believe it, then today they had added lights around the front door and as I glanced over I saw through the curtains a Christmas tree all lit up - I honestly can't believe they already had their tree up. It's not even Thanksgiving and people are hanging lights and putting up tree's - there is even one radio station that has been playing Christmas tunes for the past two weeks, I'm not ready for this. I still have to buy a turkey....let alone think about a tree and hanging stockings.

In honor of Thanksgiving and as an item in a fall contest I have created table name cards. Set of 12, hand cut and folded; with floral and paisley coordinating paper on the backs. On the fronts of each card I have a thin chocolate brown ric rac and 3 fall colored fringed flowers - I think they turned out so nice. I went to a scrapbook crop this past Saturday and one of the women there kept trying to take them, she really liked them; that made me feel good. 

Halloween

I've been neglecting my blog, so sorry; I wish I were Wonder Woman but I'm not and I just can't get everything done that needs to be. Halloween this year was strange in our area, not many trick or treaters out and not many people with their lights on giving out candy and I even took my son to another neighborhood that boasts to have a happening time. Oh well, there's always next year.

This months contest theme for the Paper Twirlies etsy team of course was Halloween, I'm thrilled to say I won again but it was by default; there were no other entries. I know everyone is so busy, and I probably shouldn't have done one either but it turned out cute and it's sitting on my desk at work; at least till Monday. So the winner is Halloween Paper Clip Holder, with it's purple polka dot base and oh so cute bats, pumpkin and ghost. Hope you like it, I've made paper clip holder's in the past but they were all flowers so this was a little different but it turned out pretty nice. I'm going to also do some holiday/christmas one's since this one turned out so cute. 

Well I've got lots of quilling to do still, I'm going to put Life On Mars on the computer while I get creative and have fun. Don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight before going to bed, hope I remember.

tracey

What's up with Quilly Nilly this week

It's late and I promised myself I would go to bed by 10:30, which of course I haven't. I really like the show Mad Men on AMC, I watched it and missed a bit in the beginning; lucky for me they play an encore presentation after the first episode so I stayed up to watch what I missed. I then came in to the computer room to check on my email and my shop on etsy. I rearranged some images on my shop items to see if it helps, and I know I definitely need to re-shoot some of my products, so that's on my list. I have a couple new products for this week, a cute Happy Birthday card with quilled dinosaur; I'm trying to create and sell some boy items and this card is adorable, and some quilled Christmas light bulb embellishments, which I made 4 sets of - I couldn't stop, they turned out so cute. This week I have to work on a project for the Paper Twirlies Team, the theme of course is Halloween, still haven't figure out what I even want to do. I won last month with my Owl in Tree Tissue Cover; which I was very pleased with when I was finished with it.

Well it's 10:45 so I'm off to bed, not too bad; only 15 minutes later than planned. 

Little Birdies

In the past I created a lot of products with my little birdies, and people liked them; I may have gotten burned out on making them because I stopped for a little bit but recently I started making them again and I just think they're the prettiest little things. This is a card I made to sell in my shop here in town and it sold, I'm going to make some more for the shop here and for etsy so be on the lookout. 

Candy Corn Card GIVEAWAY

My first involvement in a blog giveaway, I'm so excited. Crafty Ladies is hosting a contest over on their blog, http://creativeladies.blogspot.com/; to win one of my halloween cards - candy corn. You can enter October 1st - 6th by dropping by and posting a comment on the contest thread with your favorite item from my shop, http://quillynilly.etsy.com/. The contest is open to everyone. So get to it, enter now and good luck!

I will also offer a 10% discount (custom orders included; on total purchase, before shipping) to anyone who leaves a comment during that time - let me know in notes to seller and I will send you a revised invoice.

New Earrings

Ok, so I haven't been on here in about a week, I'm a slacker; actually I'm busy - which is good, but I'm tired and need about 5 more hours in each day. Let's see what's going on - I sold two sets of Holiday Tags, and a set of 4 chocolate brown and pink polka dot envelope tags, an order for 8 cards and received two custom orders - all on Saturday. I had to make 10 reindeer, that was time consuming but they turned out so cute. I also volunteered to make 20 samples as promotional pieces for a craft fair swag bag promoting etsy - I believe it's in North Carolina the first week in November. Things are definately picking up.

My birthday is next Thursday, October 2nd and that night I'm going out with a few friends, we're not sure where but I don't care we'll figure it out - I only go out once or twice a year so this is a big deal for me plus I absolutely love birthdays! Well because of this I've been ordering accessories and my newest purchases are two sets of earrings from designsbyvanessa.etsy.com. Received them today and they're both so pretty, can't decide which to wear out that night. They each came in a gift box with a bow - perfect for gift giving and like most etsians she gave me a little extra treat - a pink (my favorite color, how did she know) little birdy tag. Cutest little thing, so go check out her shop you won't be dissapointed. 

Love this messenger bag

Today I spent hours on the etsy forum threads trying to promote my shop and came across some really talented sellers/products and one that caught my eye is http://magnolyadesigns.etsy.com. She was promoting a butterfly messenger bag and it's gorgeous, click on the title and it should bring you to her shop and the bag. Not only is it gorgeous, but the price is affordable too - $20, and $4 for shipping - I say that's just awesome, you'd pay the same if not more at Target (don't get me wrong I love target) but this is handmade and her fabric is just lovely. It's fall colors with beautiful butterflies, I have to have it. She's making me a custom one, I'm picky and would like the print on the outside of the strap; but she said she can make it in one day and ship it out - and she has a 2 year old; how does she do it?

Her story is also nice, she started her store to help raise money for the adoption of twins - that's really sweet, so go stop in her shop and check out her stuff. She has messenger bags, magnets, and the cutest kimono style baby booties, makes me wish my little one was that small again; well maybe not but they're adorable - and she has really nice fabric patterns. That's my favorite for today.

Spooky!

                                       

I'm in Halloween mode - I've been creating halloween cards and wanted to quill something different - I went to Hobby Lobby looking for scrapbook paper and came across some cool skulls paper, and decided I was going to make a skeleton. I went home, got on the internet looking up cartoon skeletons, it took me hours to finish but when it was done - all I can say is that I love it!

I call him Spooky Skeleton, I almost don't want to sell him he's so cool.

I love finding new products

Today I discovered something extremely cool, it's called "Sure Cuts A Lot" and it works with the Cricut die-cut system; which I own. Basically you buy this program, working with true type fonts (which can be found free on the internet) you create on your computer and cut on your Cricut - that is so awesome. With this "Sure Cuts A Lot" I no longer have to rely on cartridges for my text options - I can choose from hundreds of true type fonts; I cannot wait to give it a try. I think there may be a free trial to try, I'm going to see - and the best part is it works on Mac's, nothing ever works on a Mac so I'm so happy about this. 

I hope I can figure it out - along with having the option of choosing from 100's of fonts; it also lets you weld the letters together for 1 die-cut, instead of separate letters; how cool is that. Click on the title to go to the "Sure Cuts A Lot" page.

the beginning

I love to talk, ask anyone who is around me a lot - they'll tell you; I however don't know how good I'll be at this whole blog thing but I'm gonna give it a try. I have been quilling for about 4 years now and I absolutely love it. I was researching something on the internet (for the life of me I can't remember what) and somehow ended up on Martha Stewart's website, I do not like Martha but I saw these cute christmas package embellishments that were quilled paper and I was immediately hooked - went to the local Michael's during lunch, bought a book on quilling, some paper strips, a tool and taught myself that very same day. 

I wish I had more time in my day to quill, I have so many ideas and just not enough time to do them. A couple years ago I did a couple craft fairs to try and sell my products, and I did ok - at least made the booth fee which was great and I met a lot of people; it was fun. A year or so ago I received a call from a very nice woman who had seen my quilled delights at a craft fair and wanted to know if I would like to rent a booth in her shop and sell my stuff - I was very excited, it's been a little over a year and business has started to pick up for me; I'm selling stuff and have to hurry up and restock my booth. I also a couple months ago thought it would be cool to have a shop on etsy. Etsy is addictive - I'm on there all the time checking my items, looking at other handmade stuff and trying to participate in the forums - trying to get my shop out there, it's working - I'm getting more people looking at my shop and actually sold 2 cards this week - one of which was a custom order; my first official custom order - how exciting!

So that's what's going on in my world - I'm busy creating for my booth here, creating for etsy. I'm a member of Paper Twirlies on etsy and we have a September quilling challenge going on so I have to get creating for that too. In November we're having a holiday sale (I'll post more on that later) so I have to start quilling so I have enough product for that - this is all exciting but exhausting at the same time. I find myself writing everything down so I don't forget anything, I'm sure I still will but I'm trying.