Comfort Blankets…

As usual, I’d like to give you a little background on this item… My auntie got in touch with and explained to me that a lady that she worked with had recently had a baby, and wondered whether it would be possible for me to create a small (in her words, ‘two DVD cases sized’) comfort blanket with her name on. I immediately agreed as I have made comfort blankets previously, and adored making it.

However, she had forgotten the name of the baby, and needed to contact the new mum to double check on it’s spelling. In the meantime I wanted to practise styles and getting the name stitched in correctly. Then came the idea to simply make a trial comfort blanket, and give it as a gift to a friend of mine who had recently had a baby called Freddie. Hence, the lovely comfort blanket at the very top was created, and I absolutely adore it.

For all other items including the comfort blanket above, or to share it with others you know may be interested, please click here to see it in my Etsy Shop.

I will also be publishing another post in the coming week to show the second comfort blanket being made for my Auntie in a pink colour also!

Baby Bobble Hats! (Part One)

IMPORTANT  DISCLOSURE: This pattern DOES  NOT belong to me, any pictures that have a caption also DO  NOT belong to me and I  DO  NOT  OWN  THEM. For the original owner and the pattern please click here.

I’m really excited to finally be able to share this with you all, my latest project and order! As soon as I received a message on my Facebook page, I was slightly apprehensive as bobble hats, and indeed hats all together is something that I’ve never done before.

As I’m sure you know by now I love to have a story behind all of my orders, and I got just that with this order. The lady who contacted me had not long had a baby boy, and was looking for some hats to be made, Freddie was born prematurely and she really struggled when he was born to find wool items for him. Luckily, her Grandma was able to knit her a few for Freddie, as with everything however he had started to grow out of them and didn’t have any to wear, her Grandma was struggling with her arthritis and so she set out looking for somebody who could make her some. At this point she found me and put the request to me.

I was upfront with the lady and told her that it wasn’t something I had done before, so I’d like to practise before I committed to being able to sell her the product. She initially had wanted cute outfits making such as the turtle ones that lay on the baby’s backs more for photo shoots than  anything else, and at this point I explained to her that they aren’t something I’m that interested in investing my time in, as I feel they can be very temporary and not much use practically. She therefore chose to stay with the hats, and I spent the next few free hours I had pouring over all kinds of patterns. A lot of my struggle lay within trying to search through the website or contact the creator of the patterns to ensure I would have permission to sell items that I had made from the pattern providing that I clearly stated my use of it and provided a link to their site. Eventually I managed to find one, and after what felt like a million and one practise attempts to ensure it was just as I’d like it, and the right size, I got back in touch with my customer.

We discussed colours, and styles, and eventually got to a point where we thought this hat was the best design and style:

Please note that this image does not belong to me, and is not mine. For the original owner and pattern please see here

I also let her know that I could also personalise the hats and that it would be included in the price, and she expressed her desire to have this on one of the hats.

I adored the colour combinations she chose and we also discussed specific sized to ensure that they would fit or if Freddie could grow into them. The age brackets for the sizes as stated in the pattern above was also helpful, and would mean that Freddie’s hats should grow along with him right up to him being 3 months old.

This time in terms of delivery I chose Royal Mail, and a part of me really wish I hadn’t have. It cost me a substantial amount more to use them than if I had stuck with the original Hermes service I have used, however in this instance the saying ‘it’s swings and roundabouts’ is ideal in that I wanted to get the item posted as soon as possible, and due to my busy schedule the nearest place for me only had the Royal Mail service available. A positive that I can take from my use of Royal Mail however is that it arrived well and quickly for my customer, and that is my primary focus.

As with my last post, I will be adding a second part to this post as soon as I have received official feedback via my Facebook and/or Etsy shop.

Please note these hats are available in a variety of sizes right up to men’s and women’s sizes, so if you are interested in having a look at my items or this one in particular, for yourself or for somebody you know who may be interested please click here 🙂

My First Sale! (Part Two)

I am absolutely delighted to share with you the feedback I had from my first Etsy order-the blanket from my previous post, which you can view here.

For anybody who is just starting up with selling items, then I can tell you firsthand the feedback doesn’t always come when you want it. Fortunatlely for me, the feedback did eventually come, and when it arrived I ultimately ended up being grounded and realising that people are extrmeley busy and have their own lives to live. And believe me when I say that it is entriely worth the wait! There are two aspects of feedback, the first is that for every review there is on your shop or listing, more people can see your items, more people have a better idea of what it’s like to receive an item of yours. The second deviates from the business aspect of feedback and focuses more on you as an individual and what your hgandmade crafts mean to you, and seeing firsthand how much people appreciate and love what you have made for them.

However, I would like to make you as my readers aware that it wasn’t entirely plain sailing. My customer did let me know privately and also showed my pictures of how the package was received, and I took a few things from this. The package was ripped around two of the edges, however the blanket and extra message was luckily in no way damaged. I don’t think this is necessarily a fault of the postal service I chose, I am fairly certain it was down to my packaging. The biggest tip I can give from experiencing this is to be aware that you should package and tape up your parcel in the frame of mind that you’re somebody who has no care at all for this parcel, because essentially that is who it will end up in the hands of. I made the mistake of wrapping my blanket with the same amount of care and delicasy as I did making it, and that is wrong. Despite being upset that my first order wasn’t as spot on as I’d have liked it to have been, it was very valuable for me, I needed to have learnt that lesson, so that every future order, is packaged correctly.

But I am so so glad I’ve had the opportunity to provide somebody with such a beautiful, personal gift, and that I’ve been able to share this process with you all. If you are interested in taking a look around my shop, or would like to share the link with others who may be interested, please click here.

 

Just a Quick Notice

I have rekindled my activity on my Etsy shop and would like to invite you all to take a look at the sale items that are currently up: https://www.etsy.com/shop/YoungCreatives?ref=hdr_shop_menu. The sole reason for them being cheaper is simply because I don’t have the room to keep them for much longer unfortunately.

There will be pictures just beneath this last comment showing which are for sale, the majority are patchworks and are quilted, however there is one crochet blanket to date.