17 December 2013

Cushion for Christmas

I am testing out a way to make money, do you think I can sell cushion covers like this on Etsy?
Some quilted patchwork with a little embroidery?
My husband is getting tired of me making things just because I want to, he wants me to start making money, hehehe, I just like playing, he wants me to work.  On a side note my son said the cutest thing yesterday, he asked "Mom, do you LUV to sew?" , "Yes, I do", "Then why don't you do it all of the time?"  Awwweee... what a sweetie, I wish I could, but the hubby would definitely not allow that.

Each embroidered mitten symbolizes 1 of us with our favorite colors, my husband has the red one, me I am green, my son -yellow and black and my daughter - pink with a heart. 

The fabric is from a charm pack of Scrumptious, it was easy making them into pinwheels using this tutorial.
It's really simple:
Take 2 pieces right sides facing each other, preferable 1 light and 1 dark square.
Sew all the way around 1/4"
Stack 2 on top of each other and cut corner to corner at a 45 degree angle.
Easy Peasy.
And they end up looking something like this.
I wanted to put binding on, but the fabric I wanted to use ended up clashing with the Scrumptious, plus I really didn't have enough and would have had to add another strip of something, so I just used the cute mitten fabric to make a present wrapped envelope closure back.
I will take better pictures during the daylight time tomorrow.

Linking up to A Cushion for Christmas at Ms Midge's

6 comments:

MsMidge said...

Fabulous! Thanks so much for linking up!

SIMPLESEW said...

How Fun.. when you said you were making a pillow.. wow..you were fast.. mine is washing now.

DeborahGun said...

it is really pretty Mara. I reckon you could sell these, and also some of the amazing bags you make :-)

sew.darn.quilt said...

This is very cute. You could always make a few samples and offer custom colour choices, giving a time frame for completion and delivery. The one thing you can be certain, you won't know if you don't try! Good Luck!

patchouli moon studio said...

Mara I wish I could tell you that you could and would sell loads of things, but I have found that it is so darn hard to sell anything. I have tried to sell things over the years at craft shows, on Etsy and I am giving it another attempt now on Zibbet. Etsy didn't work for me and I hated paying the listing fees every few months. I would rather pay when the item sells and not a few cents for each item every few months. It's a pain to pay a 20 cent listing fee. That's why I went with Zibbet because they don't charge listing fees for a basic membership and it's only PayPal who takes their fees but only when you sell something. Nothing so far is with happening with Zibbet, but I only just tried it and only have one thing right now for sale. The other thing is pricing is so hard to figure because you have money in materials and electricity, wear and tear on your machine, iron, etc. plus the fees you have to pay to PayPal or Etsy, and the shipping fees are hard to figure too. I don't know if people want stuff for a really low price or if they will pay the price if it just happens to be something they really really want. It's like finding a needle in a haystack to even have people out there find you, your blog, your store. While you might gain more followers on you blog, most of them already sew, so you would be preaching to the choir as they say. Turning your hobby into a business means you have to really work, work ,work at the selling part and promoting yourself constantly and then it's hard to have time left for sewing, let alone your family and friends too. I don't want to run a full time business myself, but I love to create and so I will try to sell things and I know it could take years just to make a first sale.

Doesn't your hubby have any hobbies? If he does have a hobby, does he make money at his hobby? If I had to sell the things that I make to earn a living I would probably be homeless because it's not easy. Also all the time and money that goes into making something you create you can never even make a minimum wage at what you do unless you become a famous quilter and can charge the big bucks. If you need to earn money because you really need the money then you'd be better off finding a job that pays you a salary and sew on your days off for your pleasure.

I was looking at a blog I follow and her Etsy shop the other day because she makes beautiful things and her prices seem so low too. I wondered if she sold many items. I noticed she started her Etsy shop about 6 years ago and sold a total of 36 sales. So that's only about 6 sales a year or one sale every 2 months. She's not getting rich doing that, but it's most likely a hobby to keep her creating and earning a bit so she can buy some more supplies.

Not trying to be negative, but just give you some things to think about. With millions of people trying to sell what they make on Etsy and the like, it's tough to even find what you want to purchase if you are a buyer and not a seller. When there are hundreds of thousands of pages of quilts or bags or pillows after scrolling through a few pages looking you get tired and overwhelmed by it all. Even putting in specific keywords to narrow down your search there still are way too many to look at as a purchaser.

I wish you good luck Mara and do hope you do well with whatever you decide to do.

AmandaK@whatthebobbin said...

Super cute pillow! I'm sure somebody would buy them. I have no experience/expertise to share on the subject.