Today is the day that escrow closes

Still not sure if I should capitalize escrow or not. Any real estate/grammar smarties out there?
Anyway!
Escrow! She closes! Today! If all goes according to plan, we will have the house Sunday sometime. (The little old lady is flying out to Texas!) And there is *joy of joys* a dumpster there till Tuesday. Why am I so overjoyed about that? For those of you who haven't seen the photos on Flickr already, let me illustrate thusly:

WHAMMO! There's a kitchen in there, somewhere.


KA-POW! Living room! (I wish I could say it was less cluttered before they started packing...)



SHAZAM! Entry hall.

Of course, there are gems hidden in these piles like crazy. Such as:

this marvelous photo. And let's not forget:

this horrifying, LIFE SIZE German Shepard head candle. With glowing yellow eyes. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that one.
The plan is that ALL of this stuff will be removed by her. But seeing how I have not even scratched the tip of the iceberg here, I have a feeling there will be some very fun finds in the near future. (Honestly, I rather hope there are!)

Embroidered Pug Pillow

Let's begin this blog post by stating that this project was born out of procrastination. I almost never make things for myself or the house. But that is starting to change. Semi-Final walkthrough of the house is today (yay!), and all I can think about is making that house home. So when I saw this wonderful free pattern that Jenny Hart posted, I knew I had to make it.
To start, I realized, hey wait! I have two pugs. I want these pillows to be more personal. And I can draw a little. So I drew my own pattern. (Following someone else's patterns always feels like cheating to me. I'm a spaz that way.) Of course, I've never drawn for an embroidery pattern, so this was mostly winging it.

Then came the stitching. I did this mostly while watching Gilmore Girls (again), with a little old News Radio thrown in for good measure. (I remember that show being funnier. Oh well.) Stitching up Buster took about 5 hours. You may have seen this blurry late night image already:

Once the stitching was done, I cut a piece of faux fur to size and stitched up the pillow. Then I stuffed it with polyfill. (Have I mentioned I live waaaay out in the country and didn't want to spend two hours running to the nearest fabric store so I was determined to do this with only the supplies on hand? No? Well, okay then.)
This brings us to the finished project photos! Hooray!

Most awesome pillow on world's ugliest couch? Check!

The faux fur backside.

Buster, your name will be up in lights! Er, embroidery floss!

He-Who-Does-Not-Photograph-Easily with his very own pillow.

Up next: Topanga's pillow!

Embroidered Pug Pillow

Let's begin this blog post by stating that this project was born out of procrastination. I almost never make things for myself or the house. But that is starting to change. Semi-Final walkthrough of the house is today (yay!), and all I can think about is making that house home. So when I saw this wonderful free pattern that Jenny Hart posted, I knew I had to make it.
To start, I realized, hey wait! I have two pugs. I want these pillows to be more personal. And I can draw a little. So I drew my own pattern. (Following someone else's patterns always feels like cheating to me. I'm a spaz that way.) Of course, I've never drawn for an embroidery pattern, so this was mostly winging it.

Then came the stitching. I did this mostly while watching Gilmore Girls (again), with a little old News Radio thrown in for good measure. (I remember that show being funnier. Oh well.) Stitching up Buster took about 5 hours. You may have seen this blurry late night image already:

Once the stitching was done, I cut a piece of faux fur to size and stitched up the pillow. Then I stuffed it with polyfill. (Have I mentioned I live waaaay out in the country and didn't want to spend two hours running to the nearest fabric store so I was determined to do this with only the supplies on hand? No? Well, okay then.)
This brings us to the finished project photos! Hooray!

Most awesome pillow on world's ugliest couch? Check!

The faux fur backside.

Buster, your name will be up in lights! Er, embroidery floss!

He-Who-Does-Not-Photograph-Easily with his very own pillow.

Up next: Topanga's pillow!

How can I possibly follow up after that last post?

Especially when my current thoughts are just random house worries. We're waiting to hear about the house. Escrow is supposed to close this Friday.
So! Here's what we're going to do. I am going to post this picture of a friend's English Bulldog puppy:
You will say something like: "Wow" or perhaps "Awww".
And we'll just keep moving along. And hopefully I will be back with a post actually worth reading very soon.

The Etsy Goal Spreadsheet

I want to share with you one of the best things I've ever done for my Etsy shop. Of course, this works equally well for Artfire, 1000 Markets, and anywhere else you sell online.
A little background:
I'm not a terribly organized person. And my follow through isn't always that great, either. (Hey, I'm an artist! This means I get a free pass, right?) I wasn't very clear on my goals for my shop. I just knew that I wanted to be doing better. (i.e. selling more!)
Well, this is what I did. (with a little help from my husband, who is way better at the excel stuff than I am) I made a spreadsheet to track my Etsy sales. Sounds kind of like pointless organizing, right? Oh, but it isn't.
I've been using it for several months now. I have clarity on how much I've been selling now, week by week. I can see on what days people have been buying stuff. I have gratitude that I have been selling regularly. It's also made me conscious of how things are going for the shop.
All this from just a simple little spreadsheet.
But just tracking isn't enough. You have to know where you're going. So I set an audacious goal. Audacious, but hopefully achievable. What this did for me was enable me to really know how well I was doing from week to week, how close I was (or wasn't) to reaching my goals. And then I could adjust accordingly.

Here's a link to a downloadable version:
Spreadsheet me!
It's free, of course. (Heck, it's just a simple little spreadsheet!) But if you really want some good karma, share it with an Etsy/Artfire friend. (And if you'd like Chickenpants karma, tell them where you found it!)

Here's how you use it.
First, add your sales goal (where you'd like to be, sales wise at the end of the year) in the cell below the GOAL cell. (I've put 50 in randomly, but feel free to change it to whatever you want.)
The first column has weekly dates in it. Along the top are the days of the week. Enter how many sales you've had on any given day. They'll automatically subtract from the Left to Go cell. That's it!

Has this directly increased my sales? Probably not. But I'm now clear on what I'm doing and how well I'm doing it. I can't recommend enough starting up a spreadsheet of your own if you haven't already.
Best wishes for your Etsy success!
~Claire

Notes:
*To download, click on the link above. When the page loads, click on File, then select Export from the list. Select .xls to open in Excel. It'll ask you to save to your computer. Do that. Ta da!*

*I only dated this spreadsheet through the end of the year because I am lazy. But once you have it you can tweak it however you'd like!

The Etsy Goal Spreadsheet

I want to share with you one of the best things I've ever done for my Etsy shop. Of course, this works equally well for Artfire, 1000 Markets, and anywhere else you sell online.
A little background:
I'm not a terribly organized person. And my follow through isn't always that great, either. (Hey, I'm an artist! This means I get a free pass, right?) I wasn't very clear on my goals for my shop. I just knew that I wanted to be doing better. (i.e. selling more!)
Well, this is what I did. (with a little help from my husband, who is way better at the excel stuff than I am) I made a spreadsheet to track my Etsy sales. Sounds kind of like pointless organizing, right? Oh, but it isn't.
I've been using it for several months now. I have clarity on how much I've been selling now, week by week. I can see on what days people have been buying stuff. I have gratitude that I have been selling regularly. It's also made me conscious of how things are going for the shop.
All this from just a simple little spreadsheet.
But just tracking isn't enough. You have to know where you're going. So I set an audacious goal. Audacious, but hopefully achievable. What this did for me was enable me to really know how well I was doing from week to week, how close I was (or wasn't) to reaching my goals. And then I could adjust accordingly.

Here's a link to a downloadable version:
Spreadsheet me!
It's free, of course. (Heck, it's just a simple little spreadsheet!) But if you really want some good karma, share it with an Etsy/Artfire friend. (And if you'd like Chickenpants karma, tell them where you found it!)

Here's how you use it.
First, add your sales goal (where you'd like to be, sales wise at the end of the year) in the cell below the GOAL cell. (I've put 50 in randomly, but feel free to change it to whatever you want.)
The first column has weekly dates in it. Along the top are the days of the week. Enter how many sales you've had on any given day. They'll automatically subtract from the Left to Go cell. That's it!

Has this directly increased my sales? Probably not. But I'm now clear on what I'm doing and how well I'm doing it. I can't recommend enough starting up a spreadsheet of your own if you haven't already.
Best wishes for your Etsy success!
~Claire

Notes:
*To download, click on the link above. When the page loads, click on File, then select Export from the list. Select .xls to open in Excel. It'll ask you to save to your computer. Do that. Ta da!*

*I only dated this spreadsheet through the end of the year because I am lazy. But once you have it you can tweak it however you'd like!

What I did today

This chaotic mass you see before you:

is what I worked on today. (Yes, I badly need to organize my studio. And house, actually.) What you are looking at is a big bunch of plushies destined for the new Craftland shop in Rhode Island. That's right: SHOP. As in year round crafty awesomeness. I couldn't be more excited about this!
Here's a little sneak peek of what I sent:

(and don't worry! not all those chickenpants are off to craftland...)
And this is what I wanted to do today:

Cut into these new delicious fabrics from Superbuzzy! I picked them up at Renegade last weekend, and it's been quite the struggle to get other higher priority work done first. *sigh* Soon, though. Also note the favorite coffee mug with bears on it. Oh, how I wish that it was filled with regular, instead of soul squishing decaf.
Off to go upload photos of the Craftland bound Chickenpants to Flickr.

So, we're buying a house.

Facts about this transaction:

• Escrow closes on the 31st. Unless something goes horribly wrong.


• I am nervous that this is going to fall apart, hence I think blogging about it is probably a bad idea. No more details till escrow closes! Wait, do you capitalize escrow? ESCROW!


• Yeah, this is the first house we've ever bought.


• The house is currently owned by a little old lady. With a hoarding problem. The house is packed floor to ceiling, garage to living room to weird storage room under the house. You have no idea how much I wish I had taken photos of the chaos.


• It is quite the fixer upper.


• A woodpecker has a personal vendetta against the siding of the house.


• Photos will be forthcoming as soon as it's not rude to take them. Pointing and laughing will follow.


• Did I mention how I am nervous that this somehow won't work out? And that if it doesn't, it will totally be because I told people about it before the close of escrow? Is there a rule about that? Nervous.
  

Never mind that last post. I'm back, chicklets.

Ha ha! Remember how a few months ago I made a big dramatic post about how I wasn't going to update this blog anymore?
Yes. Well. I've been thinking about things, and I've decided to pick up the pen (keyboard?) again. Primarily because of changing things such as buying a house, and the desire to post before and after photos along with lots and lots of complaining.
Am I winning you back yet?
Also, I'll talk about...um, Twitter marketing secrets.
It will be fun. I hope to see you around here!