September Etsy Update

It's been a super busy month or so behind the scenes at Riches and Roses. First up, I've been preparing for Etsy Australia's #makeforgood campaign. I've got two products listed in the campaign this year and will be donating 20% of sales of these to Plan Australia's "Because I Am a Girl" program. You can find out more about this in another post here on my blog.

I have also been sorting through my products in preparation for the pre-Christmas rush and updating fabrics for some products.

I'm currently busy cutting out and putting together a new batch of these little beauties, which will come out with three new cover designs in the coming weeks, stay tuned!

I've just finished some new cases for the Hungry Caterpillar sets in a new design - see the photos in the listing for details. The new case pictures the food on this page of the book.

I've also been updating the fabrics for all of my doll accessories. There are some really sweet prints on offer at the moment.

My two new car mats have been added to the shop and they are really cute. My son especially loves his version of the racing car mat and filling up his racing cars with petrol as they do their rounds of the track. You can see more on the racing car play mat here.

Another product that I've updated is the baby doll carrier. This new one matches in with the other baby doll products in my etsy store.

My newest product, just in time for warmer weather here in Australia is this cute little reversible kids sun hat available in four sizes to fit baby up to pre-school age.

Over the past few months, my best seller has been my cute little balloon covers which are available in two different designs. I've also updated these designs recently to include the bright owl prints and whale prints pictured below.

Busy busy busy, but never finished - stay tuned for a couple more new products that I'm working on!

Works in progress: Quiet books, toddler sun hat

The quiet books are coming along slowly. Miss almost three has had a few stays in hospital over the last few weeks after having her tonsils and adenoids removed and Mr 10 months has dropped back to two naps per day now so it also seems those quiet little snippets of time during the day when I could work on sewing have passed as there's always one child awake.

These are the bead counters that will go into the counting book. My daughter loves the bead counter page in her quiet book. It's so simple but looks so effective.

Also for the counting book is this shoe page, where little ones can practice tying a bow. My daughter is still at the stage where all she wants to do is try to put her foot into the open shoe, but I'm sure she'll catch on soon.

I love this dog page, which will go into the alphabet book. It's another simple idea that looks really effective. 

Three complete pages out of twenty four... there's still a long way to go! 

Although it's sun hat weather all year round here in Brisbane, after cleaning out my kids' clothes cupboards recently and noticing how much they've both grown in these last few months, I realised that Miss almost 3 needed a new hat.

I bought some of the yellow beach hut fabric last year and used it up in no time making baby hats, pants and shorts. Recently it was all on sale again and I bought some more, as well as the cute hot air balloons design above. My daughter loved it and chose it for her new summer hat. I used this Oliver + S free pattern http://oliverands.com/free-patterns/reversible-bucket-hat/. I found that it's a bit on the small side, so I'd go a size up next time. We'll try it out at the park tomorrow :)

Works in progress: newborn baby hats, baby in a pouch, dinosaur softie, quiet books

As always, I've got a bunch of projects on the go at the moment. I've been busy adding to my stock of newborn baby hats as these have been selling really well as the warmer weather starts to arrive on the east coast of Australia. I added this dinosaur design to my hat range this week - cute no?

I'm also working on this baby in a pouch. I found the idea here: http://www.colouredbuttons.com/2010/02/inout-or-how-monstery-triplets-can.html and thought it was just too cute. Since her little brother came along at the end of 2012, Miss almost 3 loves wrapping her babies and I thought this would be a cute and portable little surprise for her when she goes into hospital for surgery in a couple of weeks.

The dinosaur softie is still not finished for Mr 9 months. I'm still at the feet and have been struggling to sew these tiny little circles to the base so that it can stand up. I'd been very tempted to just sew straight across the feet to close them until my mother (to whom I owe all of my sewing ability) suggested running a gathering stitch around the circles and pulling them in to fit.

I've now put together all the designs for all four quiet book versions that I'm planning to make. I'm waiting for some supplies to arrive so got a bit carried away and planned them all out. I'm waiting for a few things to arrive, but the biggie is the Heat n Bond iron on transfer paper - it's central to the whole process as it's what I use to attach the layers of felt onto each page. I still always sew around each piece just to be sure that it won't budge (can't be too careful with kids' stuff), but it really helps finish things off nicely.

Lesley :)