The SuperTaylors!

Costumes Completed and Worn by the Whole Taylor Clan!

I have been pretty laid up lately with what I will call "pregnancy back." A lot of couch time, a lot of hot baths, a lot of diaper changes and meals served on the floor instead of lifting the kid into the highchair. I do it to myself, I know I should be slowing down, but I am very active in my Mommy group. It has come down to one hour of fun equaling two days of being laid up on the couch.

Worth it? Look at this picture of us at Boo at the Zoo and you tell me! I had Daddy do all the heavy lifting, (he even lifted my purse into and out of the stroller) I just pushed (leaned on) the stroller and followed them around. So worth it. Lincoln had so much fun and it was easy to keep track of him!

This was the final result of my backbreaking measly few hours ( oh probably around 8-10)making our Super Taylor Costumes. We decided that we were "Super Baby", "Super Beard", and "Super Pregnant."

My time has been spent mostly relaxing, but I have my bursts: the Super Costumes, about 5 Mommy events a week, (yeah, that is coming to a swift halt!) and I just this weekend for the first time, closed my etsy shop and sent all my stuff to the Albino Skunk Bluegrass Festival to be sold at the merch booth. I did pretty ok, considering the sales were slow all around due to the freezing weather. It is an outside all weekend camping event. I was also relieved that sales were on the slow side since I really let down my promise of Skunks, I was hoping to make around 40, and I only put out ten. (See previous posts about the great Polyfil Search of 2009, Skunks for Skyla, as well as many posts outlining my late pregnancy laziness) As of my last cell convo with my salesbooth helper, I sold about five skunks, nine robots, three stars, and a few postcards. I can certainly live with that, and since I didn't provide that many skunks, I am going ahead and donating 30% across the top from all sales to my fencing friend Skyla.

So, crafting has been slow but steady. I made a sale on etsy this week right before I sent off my stuff for the weekend, and after finishing the costumes, I got around to making beanbags for our Mommy group Halloween party. Those turned out very cute, I just finished them right before this post.

Allright, enough of this upright position, I am going back to my couch! Have a very Happy Halloween!

HalloCrafty!

Lazy bones is back! I have let go of my daily blog habit. I now blissfully relapse! I have been crazy busy lately, running all over town, hosting playgroups, planning parties, and spending my online hours doing Mommy group stuffs, it's practically a FT job. Plus, my pregnancy has officially slowed my butt way down. 3 more weeks...

My crafting has suffered. Immensly. I have an all new list of projects, all with pressing deadlines, which is exactly when my super procrastination kicks in!

Speaking of Super... Finally with hubby home all day yesterday, I peeled that cover off my sewing machine and went to town! I spent at least 8 hrs yesterday and made all three of our Halloween costumes. Yes, I opened that well organized craft box of materials labeled "Project Superhero" and made Taylor history. Well, I think it went well anyway. All I did was make three Superhero capes and three Superhero belts. I had to, since today was wear your costumes day.

I plan on embellishing further, since we have two more dress up events. I'd like to make some arm cuffs and maybe add some lightening bolts on the front of the chest or back of the cape. All in the gold, of course. But I really cannot complain with the minimum I finished, I mean just take a look at this baby in tights!

Now with the sewing machine dusted off, I must finish making beanbags for the Mommy group Halloween Party by Tuesday, and another assembly line of skunks by next weekend for the Skunkfest. Whew! Nothing like serious procrastinating to get some fire under your butt! Feels just like college.

I'll be back tomorrow with another post, I was tagged and need to get that ball rolling. Thanks to MAB for bringing me back to my blog!

Skunks are getting some action!

First, some real life storytime. I took my beloved 15 month old to the fire station today and he got a big red fireman's hat. It's pretty stinking cute, of course I didn't bring the camera. It has been busy charging up for my etsy life tasks!

I took action! Pictures galore! I did eight more product shoots today, mostly skunks. I spent much time on etsy community asking advice in the "critique my shop" forums. I took some advice on my new photos and rolled from there.

I also tried a new tactic, I sent out convos to all my team members on the Bama team, I just joined, and I have already gotten some friendly replies. It never hurts to network and support eachother!

Well, here are some photos, I am working on keeping it short, if you think I am wordy on a blog, you should hang out with me sometime! I usually get along with shy quiet people who don't like to talk much themselves. :)

Next up: Skunks for Skyla update

Back in Action, Slacker Be Gone!

I have come up with alot of excuses lately as to why I haven't been giving my crafting the attention it needs. The In Laws visitied. My Mommy Group has been really active and I have been appointed an office. I'm in two book clubs. Facebook. Lincoln has started a new Mommy and Me class. I am pregnant. (That last sentence just replaced a very long rant about the miracle of the third trimester) And obviously, Project Runway has started again!

Wow. that's alot of excuses.

I did however finish my first assembly line of skunks, and it did not end up taking as long as I thought. 2 hrs. per skunk, and that is for the first batch, so there was a lot of time spent in trial and error and ripping seams to resew inside-out-and-upside-down ears. Now that I have completed the first 11, (barring the last three which I need to buy Poly-fil for) the next assembly line should go more quickly per skunk. I was getting really fast on the last few.

Since I was so off track and haven't picked up my polyfil yet, I decided to do a sewing machine refresher and design myself a maternity top. It's taking shape, and I am making the pattern myself, so it is an adventure. More on that in future blogs.

My new and fresh get-started-again plan is to make myself some deadlines!

• Buy polyfil
• Finish taking and adding pictures of etsy inventory
• Start skunk assembly line #2: 20 skunks!
• Daily blog

I need to get these done before my impending due date, which will probably put me off the radar a little, but I will try to continue blogging, because this is what makes me stick to my plan!!!

Oh yeah, and bloggers needing motivation, go see Julie and Julia. She was blogtastic.

New Shirt on etsy for the super nerdy baby!

first up, for those who have been following the Skunks for Skyla saga, here is a link to her new blog. GO SKYLA! It was also her bithday yesterday, so a very happy 14 to her!

http://skylasjourney.blogspot.com/

Now back to me! :) I FINALLY got my camera cord in the mail, so armed with the power of a fully charged camera, I set out to redo my etsy photos to make my storefront the mostest! That consisted of doing alot of research on the Storque articles (I did just get the Storque email about this very topic, it would be a waste not to read it!) and then I really wanted to get pics of a tshirt I made so I could post it as a new item. (See photo)

We went on a family walk to get some quality shots, and as soon as I got my star model in the beautiful sunny grassy area, he walked straight up to a giant mound of red ants that swarmed him in less than a second and we ripped off his clothes and shoes. My one year old was miraculously unscathed, but somehow me and Daddy were both bitten about five times each.

I got a few shots, and look forward to another day to work on my other merch, the stars and robots desperately need some TLC, and I have some new Skunks to pic and post as well . I am a really, really crappy photographer, but I take lots of shots, so I get something!

Well, Mommy is soooo sleepy, and I pray that my little man does not awake at 3am again this morning! Good night, and dream of Skunks and robots. I certainly will.

Down to Busy-ness! (Also, Don't Sew Tired!)

Allrighty then, for some inspiration I posted a thread on the etsy forums asking for people to share there blogs and look at mine, so I could get some pointers and see how this Crafter/Blogger lifestyle goes. WOW! I got some overwhelming results! I now have an insanely full dashboard to say the least. I will try to refrain from LIVING online(it's so easy) so I will check in with just a few a day. Glad to know I have some peeps.

Yesterday I did get the ball rolling and go to town on some skunk assemblage, clocked in and all. I only got in a few hrs, but that really beats my usual 45 minute stints when baby gets up from naps. I hope my momentum doesn't go completely in the toilet when #2 comes along in November! I'll just try to get alot done before then. Well, I did great with sewing the stripes on the back, I use a really heavy zig zag stitch, and it sounds like a jackhammer! Luckily I have some really nice sound-blocking headphones on my ipod, and that made ALL the difference! Why didn't I think of that before? I really got cruising along listening to what I thought was the Avett Bros, but really different...What is this? Are they singing about my hometown? Yes! Turns out it was a Ryan Adams I had thought I lost, I had never listened to it, and it was mislabeled. He is from my hometown, we actually went to highschool together, but I didn't know him. It was uncanny how he brought to life the Jacksonville experience. (NC not Florida) had to grow up there to relate! So that was a really weird mind trip on the headphones, and I zipped through all 11 skunk stripes in no time. Here's where my lack of sleep kicked in...

I go to attach the ears and sew the body together. It wasn't making sense, I couldn't do the logic and I had done it easily on my proto-skunk. I knew I wasn't doing it the same way but thought I had outsmarted the system. And turn outside out, NOPE! the ears were sewn to the inside! (You have no idea how hard it is to rip out matching thread from canvas! BLINDING!) So I rip it out, reverse, resew, and "Viola!" they are outside now, but upside down! I decided that this would be Lincoln's skunk. (My one year old) And I quit immediately, vowing never to sew on no sleep again. It took longer to "fix" the ears than to sew on all the stripes!

The rest of my Craft time was online doing Storque article research on etsy. (Invaluable!) and making new blog friends. I am well rested now and I look forward to getting down to busy-ness during nap 2.

Side note, husband had a good idea, I think I will make some vampire/franken robots for Halloween. Maybe even some stars and skunks. Why not? I only have 40 more skunks to make after I finish this batch, then 100 postcards. I can do it...I can do it...

Less action, tired Mommy! Organizing is the Priority

Well, yesterday was the first day I didn't put my nose to the grindstone and "clock in" some hours on the skunk line. I am very tired, as my one year old got up from 1-4 am the other night, and I am catching up with that now. I did however, go to the post office to mail out my etsy sale, and go grocery shopping. I had to go to the post office twice, because my fool proof system failed me, I usually gather my goodies in a paper bag with a post it stuck and paper clipped to the outside with the address. This has worked great, but I sealed my Priority Mail box and had no Post it, just a clip in the bottom of my bag. Woopsie. I am tempted to grab a lot of PM boxes so I can do the packaging at home, but for some reason have not done that yet. Every order is a different size, and I am afraid of stockpiling.

Speaking of clutter, I think it's time to redo my craft situation. I gave myself the excuse to not work on skunks during nap 1 today because I could not get to them. My husband "helped" me move some stuff to vaccuum and boxed in my sewing corner behind heavy boxes. I could move them myself, but just oh so pregnant. The laptop was back there too, but I finally crawled under the dining room table to snatch it. I am going to clock in as soon as I am done with this blog. The whole point of starting this blog was to have a forum to hold myself accountable and really get some work done. I hope to also inspire anyone else to get to it, and hopefully learn a few things from my mistakes and triumphs!

So as far as work goes, I did actually get alot done on etsy yesterday, I posted an item and facebooked it, did some chatboarding, joined a local etsy group, mailed off my sale, and rearranged my craft supplies. Oh, I also decided to lower my skunk prices to 15 at the Skunk Fest to bring in more purchases after email discussing with all parties involved. Five will go to my friend Skyla. ( I need to make a sign, Skunks for Skyla! )They are still going to be 17 on etsy, I always have lower prices in person. I need to figure out the best way to tell people on etsy that 5 from each skunk will help support a world class athlete. I think I need to make some lists to clear my head, I feel a little muddled in thought and list making is my way to streamline my priorities. Blah Blah Blog, Blondie rocks in the background (Heart of Glass, from live concert)Ooooh oooh, Aaaahuh!

Allright then, me and my sleep deprived pregnant brain are going to check out and go clear some skunk making space while nap 2 is still underway....Wish me luck!