Why I love rural living...

My husband always laughs at me because, when it comes to where I live, I'm either hardcore city or completely rural. I either want to be living in a condo in the middle of the hubbub or I want a few acres by myself in the middle of nowhere. Suburbia? Not for me.

Because Orlando isn't really a huge city with an awesome metropolitan scene (sorry) we decided to live outside of Orlando in one of the soon-t0-be-extinct rural areas. We have over an acre and we love the quiet, the scenery, the lack of conflict (no Homeowner's Association, yay!)... and I'm constantly reminded why I love living out here.

Today I got that reminder in the form of a young doe. I was organizing my fabrics into more boxes (gosh, have I outgrown three already?!), looked out my office window and saw a deer grazing in our yard just feet from my window! Sweet! I ran to get my camera and this picture emerged. Sadly, a passing car scared her away... but what a great pick-me-up. I love wildlife, with the lone exception being the Cottonmouth snake we found in our pond one day, and I must say it's great to live out in the middle of nowhere!

Anyway, seriously... go check out our new website! I made it myself!

New website is... DONE!

Woo Hoo! Here is the link, go check it out! Check out our products, check out our design!

Let us know what you think!

http://www.madebymomscreations.com

Yay!

Jen

New Website....

So, a little bit of background about me... In college I was an engineering major for close to three years... I took all those fun classes that taught me computer programming and all that fun stuff. I used to build websites for my friends, play with Photoshop and alter pictures, work with html, java and javascript, but that was neigh on 8 years ago. I haven't written a website in almost a decade.

Why am I tell you this?

Because I'm finally getting around to building our OWN website! We're still going to be on Etsy and WinkElf, but now we're going to have a completely independent store that will have its own PayPal shopping cart and everything!

Yay! :)

Anyway, it's not done yet but I have the bones of the structure up. Please check it out and give me feedback on what you like and don't like -- honest, ok? Are certain things hard to read? Is the format ok? Do the frames break down?

Thanks guys, love you all!

Jen

PS: The website address is: http://www.madebymomscreations.com

Just checking in...

We, in Jen's household, have been so busy lately that we haven't really been taking time for ourselves. This weekend we said "To heck with the lawn" and decided to go to the park and go bowling. What fun! It got everyone out of the house for some good family bonding, watching trains go by, chasing squirrels up trees and watching our two-year-old try to bowl with a six-pound ball. Let's just say the poor guys who worked at the bowling alley knew us, pretty much, by name. That's the little guy to the left, climbing a tree and subsequently falling out of it. If he doesn't have one broken bone by the age of five I'll be shocked.


My son, being the grown-up little toddler he is, decided he didn't want mommy having all the fun and taking all the photos... so he stole my camera and started taking pictures. Judging by this picture, he'll probably be about as skilled as I am with a camera. We did manage to get away to see The Dark Knight a few days ago and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do. Then again, I collected Batman comic books for most of my life so I might be a bit more predisposed to liking that movie than many others.

So what have we, at Made by Moms, been up to? Essentially getting ready for the HUGE Southern Women's Show, held from October 9th - 12th at the Orange County Convention Center. We've been beefing up our hand-drawn designs to start making more appliqued onesies, we're buying fabric to make quilts, large and small, AND we're branching out in what we're offering as far as crocheted items go. Now, in addition to our blankets, we're offering christening gowns and these adorable little capes! We've updated our Etsy store with a TON of new items (check them out, they ROCK), and more will be coming this evening or tomorrow, and I wanted to pop in to our blog to post a few pictures of what's coming up!

In our bright and bold department, we have a new style of crocheted blanket and the beautiful cape (though I can't, for the life of me, find anything nice to hang it on. We're also entering the political arena (though we aren't choosing sides!) with our Republican and Democrat bibs. We'll be offering our hand-drawn versions of the Republican elephant and Democrat donkey on onesies soon! Our holiday selection is starting to beef up with Halloween bibs and onesies, and Christmas will be right behind with burp cloths, bibs, onesies, blankets, and decorations (oh my)! I'm not joking when I say we've been working fingers to grindstone to bring our newest and BEST products to the market.

We've also been working on things like a press kit and we're trying to get some good publicity and PR going for a smashing fall season. We want this Christmas to be one to remember! I have to run and pick up my son from his grandma's house, but I wanted to thank everyone for reading my blog and taking the time to care about us at Made By Moms! Have a fantastic day,

Jen :)

Playing in the park and taking pictures....

I just wanted to pop in and tell all my loyal readers (all 1 of you) that I'll be popping up with some fun and exciting new items on our blog and Etsy later today.

Definitely check back this evening :)

Jen

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Whew! We have been so busy lately, I'm surprised I even remembered we had a blog. Anyway, Heidi's pregnancy is going great -- we're finding out what she's having next Friday -- and the July 4th celebration at Avalon Park was fantastic. It was great meeting all you wonderful people and it really gave us a great venue to get our name out.

So... What have we been working on lately?

Well, as many of you know we're a part of the Florida Etsy Street Team and we've teamed up with a few of the other artisans in the group to create Halloween-themed craft packs. We're creating 100 Halloween bibs that will be distributed into the art packs and the packs will be sold for $10 - $15 -- let me tell you that is a *steal.* There will be eight items in the pack, all worth around $3 - $4 each. We wanted to include a quick picture of the two bibs we're working on -- they're not quite done yet (still need the snap closure) but it's a good enough picture to show you how cute they're turning out. The backing is a really nice terrycloth -- perfect!

We've also started selling on a site called Winkelf, which is essentially a different version of Etsy. We just got set up on it this evening (morning? it is 2 am after all) and we're looking forward to selling on another site. We're truly hoping to branch out more in the coming months and open up our own website as well.

The last piece of information I wanted to tell you is that we've scored a huge craft event -- the Southern Women's Show in Orlando! Woo Hoo! It will be held October 9th - 12th at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando -- I think we can get an unlimited number of reduced-price tickets... so if you want to come see us at the show, we'll try to hook you up. Much, much more information is going to follow about the show so keep your eyes peeled.

Other than that we've just been working on a few custom tshirt quilt orders and trying to come up with some awesome holiday designs to delight our fanbase.

Take care and have a great day!

Jen

Come join us July 4th!

Hello everyone -- I just wanted to pop on here and extend an invitation to all of our Blog readers to come and join us July 4th at Avalon Park. Their annual July 4th celebration will have tons of food, craft vendors and fun for the kids -- so don't forget to bring the family and a blanket to watch the fireworks. The celebration starts at 5 pm and ends after the last firework -- around 9 or 9:30. We'll be there, setting up, starting at noon so don't hesitate to come a little early to chat.

This will probably be our last craft fair for a little while, at least until the murderous heat subsides. Not many people seem interested in purchasing baby blankets when it's 95 outside ;). Our products will still be available through Etsy and custom order, so don't hesitate to contact us.

As a bonus for our loyal blog readers, we're offering 5% off your order... just mention the blog discount and you'll get your discount!

Take care and we hope to see you there :)

Jen