For Charity!

I woke up this morning with a fabulous idea... I'm going to donate a portion of all book proceeds to charity! 

Not only is it a good thing to do humanitarily speaking, but hopefully it will generate more interest and give my home business the little bump it needs.

So I did a little research this morning to find a non profit to focus on, and after a while I narrowed it down to...

"Nestled alongside the shores of beautiful Sebago Lake, Camp Sunshine provides respite, support, joy and hope to children with life-threatening illnesses and their immediate families through various stages of a child’s illness. The year-round program is free of charge to all families, and includes 24-hour onsite medical and psychosocial support. Bereavement groups are also offered for families who have lost a child to an illness."

Now 20% ($5) of all future book sales will be donated to Camp Sunshine, so they can continue to provide their programs free of charge!

An Update

So I figured it was about time for an update, even though not a whole lot has changed.
I have completed another book:

I smoothed out the kinks that I had in the last book, So all of the pages are where they should be.

I have also started my work with LiveOps. While I'm sewing I am logged onto the call center, and when a call comes in I put the sewing on hold for a few minutes and take the call. The pay averages 25 cents/minute of talk time, but every quarter helps!

I have been waking up at 3:30 with my husband (he works 1st shift) so I can get more work in, but it is pretty much killing me! Luckily, he just accepted a new job and will start next month, working second shift, Which works out beautifully because I will be able sleep in and take calls in the evening, when there is high call volume!

And thats all I have for you right now.

What's in a Name?

While I love the name Attempted Domesticity for my blog, I am regretting the name continuity in my Etsy shop. It's the word attempted that isn't sitting well with me. The more I think about it the more I think that it can't possibly instill confidence in a potential buyer. A seller shouldn't be attempting, they should be succeeding!


It is for this reason that I have decided to open a new shop entitled Seemly Stitchery.
 

I will be switching the contents of my old shop and posting some new items as well. Check it out!

I Finished a Book!

The lineup. (Sans one)

Having survived a few setbacks and learned from a few mistakes, I have finally finished a book!

Voila!

The elephant that Erin had chosen wasn't my favorite, but now that its done, I love it!

Question: 

Do you think it would look better with a line stitched near the binding? 

Sort of like this...

I love Gimp!

Das closeup.

 

Uber detail. Just in case you really wanted to see the weave of the fabric.

Dots. Bumpy, bumpy dots!

For some reason I think old lady.

 

 

A Halloween Disco!

 

The next picture shows the two things that went wrong with this book and it all revolves around the lavander silk. 

I. HATE. SILK.

ugh

The first problem was that the silk was so slippery that when I sewed it it shifted and bunched.

The second problem was that the silk was so slippery that when I put the book together it shifted and ended up lower than the rest of the pages.

Gr. I will have to find a way to fix this with the next book.

On to the next page.

shaggy fur=fun!

I love the combination of yellow and blue, don't you?

Aaand the back.

With the above mentioned little blips aside, I'm pretty happy with it. What do you think?

Eyecandy and a Rant

I finally finished cutting all of the fabric I bought for the books. 

16 pages of "cheetah fur" and all of the scraps

So I decided I would work on the fiber content tags. I had enough fabric for 3 sheets, or 30 of each tag. Sadly, the printer jammed the first two times. The third time I taped not only the leading edge but all of the edges. Success!

The writing got all messed up on the first two but the last one is beautiful!

I figured 10 tags was enough for now so I wasn't too upset about the other 20 that didn't work out.

The ink has to sit overnight before I rinse and cut the tags, so I decided to start putting the books together and sewing. So I took one of each page...

Hmm... need more pastels, methinks.

...and realized I didn't have enough pages! So, not only do I have to buy and cut more fabric, but the tags I just made are useless because when I add more pages the fabric content ratios are going to change.

These are totally going to change, which is lame.

End.

I'm Back!

I'm back!

I'd like to apologize to my reader (if I have one) for not updating in a while. I was far too busy last week, and heres why:

Last Monday my former employer called me and asked me to substitute for the rest of the week. Having only been out of that place for a week I still had some very hurt pride, but I still agreed to work, because.... well, it is stupid to turn down money when you aren't making any.

So I went in and hated it even more than I did before I left. Having a week of freedom totally changed my perspective on things. On Thursday they offered me a 25 hour/week part time job, at which time I was very happy with myself for not laughing in their faces.

Now I'm back home where I belong and the outlook appears bright. Thanks to my blog post about my sensory books, I received a facebook message from an old high school friend (Somebody is reading!). She commissioned me to make a book for her son's first birthday!

I was so excited I was telling all of my friends, and you know what? I got another commission from a friend that wants one for her nephew!

So after I did a very silly victory dance I got to work. A bunch of my friends urged me not to give up on selling my books on etsy, and now that I know there is demand I am determined to make it work.

I started looking for a way to comply with the labeling laws... then late last night I had one of those fabulous eureka moments.

I can make these now!

DuhBe is an incredible blog that I happened to come across that details how to make labels at home. Now I can make just enough tags for the amount of fabric I bought and not worry about the fabric content changing and being stuck with a hundred tags I can't use.

Needless to say I shall be off to the fabric store this afternoon!

So Much for That.

Today I started getting into the businessy part of starting a business. I started reading up on licensing. Guess what I learned!

For starters, remember in my last post I talked about all the stuff I was going to sell on etsy?

The food items are a definite no-go. I need to be working out of an inspected and licensed kitchen. My kitchen is 200 years old and there is no way in hell I'd be able to get a license with it in its current state. Not to say that my kitchen isn't clean... its just old. There are cracks in the floor. That is one of the first things I read: no cracks in the floor. I actually stopped reading there.

I also had plans to make and sell baby sensory books. I had my good friend Laura take pictures of the book I made her daughter. They came out beautifully:

Then I read about fiber content laws. I have to have a tag with the percentage of each fiber content. With these books, the fiber content would change often, based on what I could find. So I would have to be making new tags all of the time. It just doesn't seem to be cost effective.

Another option would be to get a lot of all the fabrics I would need so that I could stick to one tag. I haven't looked into this option yet, but it will be a lot more money than I have to spend at the moment. Maybe once I start making money on other things.

It looks like my big money maker will be LiveOps. I'm still in the "Your electric paperwork is being processed" limbo. Once I do get started it will be where the majority of my income will be streaming from for a while. Of course you have to spend money to make money, right? In this case I need to get a compatible operating system (nothing works with linux, grr!),a separate phone line, a headset, and I'm thinking quick books to keep track of all of my income.

Sheesh! I'm anticipating resistance from the hubby here, as I have only made $30 so far and will be needing to spend a couple hundred to get started. And I didn't even include licensing fees!

An Answer and Some Progress.

Last night my husband asked me if I was going to start looking for a job today. He seems to already be feeling the loss of my income, even though I still have another check from my old job coming. It made me all the more determined to make something happen.

So this morning I got up and went straight to work. Yesterday I blogged about receiving an email about making some curtains. Today I responded.

Good Morning,
I would be happy to do some curtains/valances for you. Do you have a design and fabric chosen? How many would you be needing? Is $9/hr an acceptable rate for you? I'm not sure how long it will take me, as it all depends on the number of curtains/valances and the detail required by the design.

Hope to hear from you soon!
Samantha Merrill



After hitting the send button I became exhilarated and started to build up momentum. I reposted my craigslist ad. I signed a contract to be an independent agent with LiveOps. I became an Amazon Associate and added Google Adsense to my blog.

Now I need to find a way to generate traffic to said blog. Don't get me wrong, Facebook friends, I love you, but I need more.

I also need to find a way to sell bread, granola bars and dog treats.

Next I think I'm going to sew up some samples, perhaps one of a sensory book like the one I made for baby Violet, and create an Etsy store.

Looking back at this post it looks like I have ideas and attempts scattered everywhere. Lets see where they go.

You're Asking the Wrong Question.

Last night, as I was preparing my garden cucumbers for their transformation into delicious bread-and-butter pickles, my husband rushed in to my disheveled kitchen to tell me that I had an e-mail response to my craigslist post.

My heart skipped a beat. A job!

I dropped the measuring cup into the pickling salt and rushed to my laptop.

What I read next made me question whether my decision to work from home was a sound idea or some silly dream that would ultimately leave us broke and homeless. It threw me into an unforseen pit of self-doubt.

"Hi: do you do curtains and/or valances? What is your hourly rate?"

Uhhhh. The question is not do I do curtains/valances.... It's can I do curtains/valances. I don't even know because I've never tried before. What do I tell her? "I can certainly try!" Is honesty the best policy here or should I fake it till I make it? The option of telling her that I do not do curtains or valances came to mind... but that would be tantamount to throwing away my first business opportunity, and who knows when I will get another!

 Also: What is my hourly rate? Well, I googled the national hourly rate of a seamstress and found it to be between $9.31 and $14.87. I decided that, this being my first job and me being more obviously unaccomplished by the minute, I would start at $9.00.

I haven't written her back yet. I still don't know how to respond. I am slowly crawling out of the dreaded pit of self-doubt.

What I need is a mentor. I need to learn the seamstressing trade much more thoroughly. Anyone know a seamstress who would be willing to take me under her wing?

Being Pushed In

I lost my job today. The funny thing is, I have been dying to quit and start my own business for a while now. I have been biding my time, making arrangements and generally procrastinating for months now. And suddenly... I no longer have the luxury of sticking my toes in the water. I've been pushed in.

 So now, of course I am...excited and terrified.

I decided to start this blog to chronicle my attempt at starting a business from my home. What business you ask? Domesticity! (Saw that coming, didn't you?) It's really the only thing I'm good at. I love to cook and sew. The plan is to start a series of small businesses. Seamstressing. Maybe selling somethings on Etsy. Baking and selling my foodstuffs at the farm up the road. I'm really not positive how this will all work out at this point.

 My last day of work is Friday... Lets see what happens next.