9,000

Posted by on March 22, 2012

First of all, we reached (and exceeded) 9,000 fans on Facebook this week! I do not know where the fans keep coming from, but I appreciate each and every one of them! We have never done paid advertising (yet!) and we don’t really believe in fan-drive contests. I guess it’s good old word of mouth, my blog, search engines, etc! Anyway, I love to see that number grow and we’re amazed every day that this is our JOB!! Now… here are a couple of cute Monag brand sleeveless dresses I did yesterday. Monag is a great source for blanks! It’s better if you can order wholesale, which means you have to order in bulk to get the best price. Here is the AC Mermaid. 

 The Flower Flip Flops:

I did quite a bit of work yesterday so that I could take a break over Spring Break and also get my machine serviced! I get asked quite a bit if I take orders. I have also been getting lots of calls and emails lately wanting me to do customer work. I have to say that I do a tiny bit right now. I would LOVE to do more, and I certainly enjoy it. The truth is with 3 kids I have ZERO time these days for much more than keeping up with email, laundry, cooking, errands, my household and 3 kiddies. It’s the season of my life right now which I’m sure you can all relate to!

I think I mentioned in my last post that we had our stairs painted last week as well as our OFFICE/SEWING ROOM (FINALLY!!!)! Here are our stairs “before”. Nothing really wrong with them, but I didn’t like *ALL* of the oak (trim, spindles, handrail, stairs…). The poor painters came to our house 3 mornings in a row at 7:00 AM to paint these stairs. The first time they painted them a stark white, which was TOO white. The 2nd time they painted them to match our trim, but didn’t cover all of the white too well. The 3rd time they did enough coats so that the stairs now match our trim. Before:

 Here is “after”. Again, nothing over the top or mind blowing, but definitely BETTER! I wanted to get rid of as much of the oak as I could, so we painted the spindles and handrails and all! It looks a TON better! I think once I put something in the space beneath the stairs (and do our dining room which is to the left and pretty much EMPTY), it’ll look much better and I won’t obsess so much about the stairs.

We also had our office painted, again. We had it painted white when we moved in. If you have read my blog in the past 6 months you know the white drove me crazy.  

You can’t tell too much in this photo, but this is the “after”. It’s a nice Benjamin Moore color called Elephant Tusk. The contrast with the white-ish trim is MUCH BETTER!! Again, not Pinterest worthy or anything extravagant but a huge improvement!

Here is my fabric and my valances are being made this week (and/or next). Mainly the floral with the checked in the pleats and maybe some trim. I think they’ll look great and tie in the green and black! I might also recover the chairs in the checked fabric – to be determined!

 Lastly, I have to give a shout-out to my homeys! I spent Thurs-Sunday with these girls down in Mexico Beach, FL. We had the.best.time! It was roughly a 4 hour drive both ways given our stops for lunch, bathroom breaks, etc. We never turned the radio on and didn’t turn a TV on the entire trip! I met all of these girls in college and whenever we get together, we have the most fun! Last year we all went to Charleston and we’re already planning our trip for next year! A few of us are pledge sisters (1993 Phi Mu Troy University). I love these girls and cherish our friendships. We have a way with being *real* with each other and no one cares where you live, where your kids go to school or whether or not your dress came from Target (and not Banana Republic)! Anyway, I miss them and so enjoyed our weekend together. The weather at the beach was incredible too!!

 

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Family, Misc | Tagged: Tagged With:

Here I am!

Posted by on March 12, 2012

Once again it’s been a WHILE… since I last posted. I think of my blog often, but usually don’t have time to sit down and type up a post or don’t feel I have anything to share or get sidetracked on Pinterest or Facebook. Today I finally have a few things to share! First of all, I’m a Pinterest addict. I can’t go a day without perusing the new Pins on my wall, and get upset (not really) when no one has pinned anything new. If you aren’t on Pinterest, get on it. It’s a close 2nd to Facebook as far as sucking you in and next thing you know an hour has gone by and you’ve done nothing productive. I have, however, been inspired by Pinterest and here is my recent DIY project involving spray paint (fyi you can spray paint anything according to Pinterest. Spray paint it, cover it in burlap and attach it to a pallet).

These are old planters that we had at our old house (the house we moved from last July). Planters are expensive, along with everything else involved in moving in to a new house. I was inspired by Pinterest to throw $10 in to these planters with a couple of cans of spray paint.

BEFORE:

I got a couple of cans of this Rust-oleum textured spray paint from Home Depot. I may have even gotten a 3rd can to finish the job. Can’t remember. Anyway, I scrubbed the planters with a brush and water to get the flakes of terra cotta (sounds right?) off and all the dirt and dust. I let them dry and then spray painted away. They were originally a dark red and ended up more orange and faded as the years went by. They matched the brick of our old house, but that’s beside the point.

Here they are at our new casa, and I think for my $10 investment they will work for a while!

They are now a textured bronze-ish brown color and coordinate well with our house. Anyway, that is my DIY project for the first quarter of 2012. I think my pansies look pretty nice too. The angel planter was a wedding gift we got almost 11 years ago!

This, my friends, is POLLEN on our front porch. It’s really disgusting.

I’ve been working over the past week and here are some of the shirts I’ve done. The SHARK is an AC design and the crab is an EB design. My customer told me what to do with all the fabrics/colors and I think they all turned out great! I LOVE SIMPLE!! These are tees and rompers from Monag and are super soft. I don’t stock Monag btw, my customer brought these to me. They are for big and baby brother.

These will go with matching blue gingham shorts. I love the shark with contrasting thread.

p.s. we now have a mini embroidery shark (aka all thread), which is great for polo type shirts for boys.

These are all Applique Cafe designs ~ String of Fish, Pirate Ship and Sailboat.

p.s. Kelly’s Kids is using a similar fish design this season. Maybe mine inspired them, since mine came first?? I like to think so. I love red and turquoise together.

 

This is a great summer shirt! I like these color shirts too because they won’t show as much dirt as white (if you are my kids).

More AC designs ~ Raggy Anchor, Sailboat Patch and the Lizard.

Again, I love the lizard with a contrasting thread color! It’s also no secret that I am obsessed a little with orange.

In Sewing Room news, we are CLEARING OUT so that the room can be PAINTED!!!!!!!!!!!! Painters arrive at 7 AM in the morning to paint this room and also our stairs. I’ll post pics of that too. Valances aren’t being made yet, but I hope to get the fabric ready asap.

 Jeff is literally moving stuff out of here as I type, so I had better go! If you don’t know already, we are having a great Spring Sale on applique designs! I just sampled 4 new ones today, so they will be listed asap! It’s a great time to stock up on designs for Easter, Spring and Summer, and that is my sales pitch for the day! www.appliquecafe.com

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Misc | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

Everything Applique Conference (and Sewing Room)

Posted by on February 21, 2012

The neatest thing has happened! Right now there are 8 embroidery/applique website owners who have come together to put on a first ever APPLIQUE CONFERENCE! Yes, we are all competitors. We’ve put that aside and are working together to make this happen. This Everything Applique Conference (EAC) is the brain child of Kathy at Applique Corner. She has graciously enlisted us to come along side her and make it work! Did I mention this was going to take place on Saturday, April 28th? Yes, like 2 months away! Luckily it’s taking place in Birmingham, AL which is just up the road for me. While it started small, it has grown quickly and the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) is being secured for this event. The 8 of us are messaging day and night, brainstorming, coming up with vendors, door prizes, etc. There will be a website up SOON to register, and more info will come as far as vendors who will be there and classes/breakout sessions that will take place. Stay tuned, and check out and *like* the Facebook Page in the meantime! Click on the link or logo to go there.

Believe it or not, I am making progress in the ole’ sewing room. We have decided to PAINT it (after months of deliberation) and lose the white (which is what we painted it when we moved in last July). I am going with Benjamin Moore Elephant Tusk, which is also the color of my son’s room upstairs. It’s a pretty neutral color and I think it’ll look mucho better than the white. So… this weekend I got out our can of Elephant Tusk and painted several areas to be sure this is what I wanted. I painted in one of the Expedit cubbie spaces to see how it would look. It was then that I realized that my Expedit is (creamy) white as opposed to a High Gloss White, which evidently is now being offered by Ikea. As of last week they did not show it in the 25 Expedit, but did in the smaller ones (16, etc).

 However….. this is the picture they show of the 25 cubbie. Doesn’t it look bright white?? I may just have to make another trip to Ikea, or try to call them and gain clarity on this matter. Not even sure if bright white would look any better? We shall paint first and see! 

Here I had to see what my thread stands would look like on the ET paint. I can always paint them as well (the stands).

 And… seeing how my makeshift valance would look w/ this color. I met w/ my sewing lady a couple of weeks ago and she is going to make me 2 cute valances for the 2 windows. I just need to find a trim fabric for the pleats (green, orange, blue??). For now it’s thumb-tacked over the window.

Can’t leave out the bulletin board.

 I think this color will look much better and break up the white! Someone did email me this morning and mentioned rearranging the furniture. I might see if that is even possible when we unload the room to paint and then have to reload. The dilemma is that there is a TV mounted in the corner for Jeff’s pleasure so I’m not sure how we could rearrange with that. And, the way things are, I have my machine and (Craftsman Tool Chest) work surface all within reach. We’ll see though! I’m not ruling anything out! Hopefully the paint thing will happen in the next few weeks. I believe he’s a couple of weeks out, and is also going to do some painting on our stairs (which is another post in itself).

Please check out the EAC Facebook Page! New info will be coming SOON and as I said, the website to register should be ready any day!

Filed Under: Misc | Tagged: Tagged With: , ,
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