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Applique Cafe

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Design idea...

Raggy peace sign with "On Earth" underneath! I used red corduroy instead of flannel this time and left the red cord showing on the bottom 2 pieces. Monogram Wizard Plus "Fletch" font used. Great for Christmas, but you could use non Christmas colors and wear it anytime!
This is on an adult long sleeve white tee. Bella brand - can be found at www.jiffyshirts.com.

THE RAGGY PEACE SIGN CAN BE PURCHASED AT www.appliquecafe.com!
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I added to yesterday's post that we have 3 new designs to add in the next day or so (when we can get them converted to ART). We will most likely extend the $5 off $20 sale a few days so anyone who is interested in any of the new designs can take advantage of the sale! Off to sample the 3rd new design now (the Rudolph & Present are the other 2 new designs).

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A couple of new designs coming soon...

Please note: it may be a couple of days before I can add these to the website, and I have one more Christmas design to add too! We will extend the sale if need be a few days so anyone who wants these can take advantage of the $5 off!

I just "tested" a couple of new Applique Cafe designs. This Rudolph, shown without the bow, and then WITH my famous red bow! I keep it on my table at all times! I think this Rudolph is 6 steps?

And a present - shown with more Christmas colors but you could do any colors - birthday too. Simple 5 step design.
And I did this megaphone patch yesterday and thought it was cute w/ the "war eagle" curved underneath!
I've gotten SEVERAL e-mails from people wanting referrals! I've lost track of who I've added to my blog list! Things are crazy as usual and I'm trying to get as much done each day as I can! Thanks for those of you who are being so patient!!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Info Info Info

We've just put a Halloween sale up on the Applique Cafe website (www.appliquecafe.com) ~ $5.00 off $20.00 purchase through Sunday, Nov. 1 (no voucher code needed). This sale is for our machine embroidery applique designs only!
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I've also added a note up top regarding how busy I am! Jeff & I just had a "sit down" (where I had to turn off my computer screen and actually listen!!) and we've agreed on what I can do per week/per day. Based on all of the clothes that are overflowing my bins/shelves and everything on our social calendar, I'm pretty much done til after Thanksgiving! On that note... over the weekend I got several e-mails from people asking for referrals, so what I decided to do was add them to my blog list (and Baby and Me on my website list). Check these people out!! They are looking for extra work! Most of them have some of the same designs, fonts and fabric that I do!! I've also removed my personal friend's blogs from my blog list and will create a different blog list for those this week!
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E-mail me with any questions! Thanks!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

October 21st

Here is "MY" bucket of stuff! It's full of shirts and such that I've bought for my kids. They are patiently awaiting their turn! Sadly, Garrison has about 7 more in his closet I'm supposed to do! Some of it is also awaiting a monogram removal. We're going to the beach this weekend so I may take them and "pick" at them on the way to and fro. Other than that I hope to spend 2 days not thinking of embroidery! (or kids - no kids beach trip!!)
Here is my shelf. It's lookin pretty good? Some of this wasn't included in my pre-Oct 19 stuff, but some was/is. The bottom bin is stuff I'm holding and don't have instructions for yet. Middle row is Christmas (3 things) and a couple of things for my sister in law. The top shelf is 3 Christmas, 2 Thanksgiving and other stuff. Not too bad, but I would love to get some of this done by tomorrow. I emphasize the word "some".
And..... here is all the stuff that is accumulating from my Oct 19 cutoff which is all supposed to be "in line" for this past Monday! As you can see, I didn't get caught up completely by Monday. I stayed up til 2:30 Friday night, and again on Monday night (actually 2:15). I did pretty well but am still a few days behind on starting all the stuff below.
I finally stitched the Embroidery Boutique raggy angel! LOVE IT! I think I have officially sewn all the EB raggy designs and love them all! I also did the angel with blond hair and blue eyes for chapel's sister!
A lot of people who read my blog are fellow embroidery moms. I LOVE LOVE LOVE sharing info, advice and resources! I'm sure we would all agree that there should be an embroidery support group out there somewhere! While I love embroidery, it is also super time consuming and tedious work. I am so thankful and feel so blessed to have found this "hobby" after quitting work a couple of years ago. At the same time, I struggle daily with being overwhelmed with the above photos of gobs and gobs of other people's clothes stacked up all over my dining room awaiting my attention! (I have used the word awaiting 3 times already in this post?) I want more than anything to sew for everyone who calls or e-mails me, but just can't! With 3 kids 6 and under, soccer games, bible studies, class parties, laundry, keeping my house in order-HA, oh and Jeff, church activities, errands... can I keep going?... the stress of it all has gotten out of hand! I'm working on finding some people who I can refer people to. I've starting NOT accepting some work from people from out of town that I don't know. I will also be instituting the deadlines and cut-offs like I did the past few weeks. This is a crazy busy time of year too so at some point I will have to cut off all orders so I can get everything done by Christmas! I want to be able to ENJOY doing this for my friends and family and the people I've been doing stuff for over the past couple of years. From now on I'll try to post a message up top about how busy I am, taking orders, not taking orders, etc. and will hopefully survive til Christmas! I know things will then slow down for a while til Spring!
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This morning I dropped all the kids off and then flew to Hancocks to get more Heat N Bond Lite (LOVE this stuff - now dislike Wonder Under) and I got a few fabrics - the white w/ red dots on the angel, and also a blue fabric w/ white dots JUST LIKE the green w/ white dots that I used on the snowman patch. I then flew across town to my dental appt, then flew back to Hobby Lobby which is right next door to Hancocks and got B a red bandana for Rodeo Day Friday. I ran out the door of HL trying to get to Jim N Nicks to meet a friend for lunch. I ran to my car, opened the door completely, then realized IT WAS NOT MY CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tan Yukon XL, not a tan Suburban. I froze!! What do you do? Was anyone watching as I then shut the door and found my way to MY car? Why did they leave their door unlocked? Should I have gone back in the store, asked to page the person to tell them? I left and went to lunch. Hopefully all is well with the tan Yukon!

Monday, October 19, 2009

New Designs, and is it October 19th?

Here are a few new designs coming soon to Applique Cafe! Hopefully they will be on the website sometime tomorrow. I struggled with the snowman because with a white body and maybe a hat and scarf, it's hard to be too creative! Since our patch designs seem to do pretty well, it made perfect sense to do this on a patch! That way, too, you can stick it on a white t-shirt and it works! I love it on this fabric too because it almost looks like SNOW! I got this fabric at Hancocks! And while this design looks complicated, it's really not - 13 steps!
And a cute sheep! The head & tail are a different fabric option - I used white but outlined it in the same blue! Of course the chenille works perfectly.
This was a special request from a friend who does shirts for a cool little shop! I use a layer of flannel for these designs and I happened to have some red flannel, so I used that and red thread. There are a couple of ways to make these work ~ you can simply scrape the fabric with a pair of scissors and it will roughen it up, OR, you can cut little slits in the fabric (outward in, being careful not to clip any of the tackdown stitch) and then scrape with scissors. A lint brush and some thread trimming also come in handy when you're done!
And our Ornament #3 shown with Garton font "M". This one works for the boys, although I showed it with a bow too down below. I literally keep this red bow tied and on my table and stick it on all these designs just for idea purposes! I think you can add a bow to just about anything! I think all of the ornaments would be great on dish or hand towels too!

Today is the 19th... and I did not catch up!! I even stayed up until 2:30 AM Friday night doing embroidery! :( It is now 10:00 and about an hour ago on my way home from a girl's dinner, I got myself a Starbucks Cafe Mocha (my newest addiction), so I'm going to work late tonight! I'm thinking nurses hours might really work for me! It's the only time (after bedtime) that I can get anything done! No phone calls, no kids, few e-mails and believe it or not, not a lot going on on Facebook after midnight! HA! And no laundry or dishes either! We'll see! Friday night I hooked up some headphones to my computer and listened to music while I worked! I got A LOT done! We'll see...

Friday, October 16, 2009

Friday Stuff

Here is another AC design to be listed soon! Now that we have instant download and are providing ART format, it takes a lot longer to get anything on the website! I'm now realizing why Embroidery Boutique "releases" several designs at the same time versus one here and there as we have been doing! I have 2 more to sample so we may have 5 to list at the same time! Anyway... another ornament and of course I added the initial and bow. This would be GREAT on dish towels too!
I have this Rabbit Skins mint green longall romper size 18M in my "stash" if anyone is interested! These are great and comfy for toddlers! E-mail me if you are interested! Lots of options for this - applique, Christmas (pink or red) or really ANYTHING! Great for boy or girl too. ($24 w/ applique)
I've sold all of my Stephen Joseph backpacks except for this one! E-mail me if you are interested! $25 for this (plus shipping if I mail) and that includes a name or initials monogrammed on the flap! These are great backpacks! I think in the store they are about $28 plain with no personalization!
And Mallory wore her pumpkin outfit today! She looked SO CUTE! This was before breakfast so I just barely got this picture of her being still pointing to the pumpkin!! I have a bunch of Walmart leggings & swing tops for her - if I ever get around to putting an applique on them they will be so cute and comfy and perfect for SCHOOL! I might have to do a turkey to match these cute orange striped pants! If you saw my previous post you know that these are actually PJ bottoms from Walmart - $6 for the pajama pants & shirt! G wore his dinosaur shirt today too, so my kids were walking advertisements for me today!
We will hopefully get the new designs listed soon - tonight or tomorrow, so check the website and I'll post it here too!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

2 new designs!

Here are 2 new designs - a purse (shown with initials) is first! I love all the cute purses so we had to do one! I will hopefully have this listed sometime tomorrow? Now we're converting everything to ART and it is more time consuming to get everything perfect for instant download, so it's not as easy to list an item as it was a week ago (on Applique Cafe at least)!
Secondly, I had a special request to do the elephant in a very small size for hair bows! He measures 1.58" x 1.43" and as you can see he/she lost his tail! I'm not sure how it works, but I listed this one on Etsy already (a crafty site in itself) and we'll see how it sells ($2.00 for this design)!? I think it is cute for small t-shirts, small onesies and maybe layette gowns, bibs, etc. I like miniature! I WOULD recommend Wonder Under or some type of fusible product for these appliques. Really, I recommend it for ALL appliques, but especially the smaller ones because it REALLY cuts down on loose thread and makes your applique very neat and clean! The smaller you get, the smaller the density on the satin stitch, so the smaller room for error in trimming your fabric! The fusibles also "fuse" the fabric/applique to your shirt when you iron it when you're finished, so it really makes your finished applique look neat and well done! I use Wonder Under and have recently started using Heat n Bond Lite and actually prefer it over Wonder Under! When you peel the paper off you can see the shiny layer of fusible stuff.
I will hopefully also list the mini elephant on AC tomorrow too. Again, gotta get it converted to ART and all that jazz!
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Jeff counted 45 items I'm still supposed to be doing by Monday. I think some of what he counted was post-Monday and I will probably go through it all again tomorrow. That's like 11 items a day, which is virtually impossible with 3 children. Today I got 5 shirts done and 2 samples and it's 10:50 and I'm exhausted!! We'll see...

Back to work...

I just turned my machine on for the first time since last Wednesday or Thursday! I hosted Bunko at my house Thursday night, and Friday morning we left bright and early to go CAMPING at FDR State Park near Callaway Gardens in GA. We took Browder and this was our tent...
It was SO MUCH FUN! We stayed Fri-Sunday and spent all day Sat at Callaway riding bikes and all that. Great times and great memories! Sunday when I got home Browder & I took a rest, re-grouped and then headed to my parents house where the other 2 kids were. I stayed there til yesterday afternoon visiting my family for the first time in MONTHS! As far as embroidery I did make my usual trip to their Sewing Center and got a few fabrics - mostly restocking my ginghams and cords (brown, khaki, royal blue and a couple of greens). Anyway we got home yesterday afternoon, unpacked and rested, and then decided to load up the family to go to the FAIR! B & G LOVED IT!! G got to ride most of the rides and we ate the usual - corndogs & funnel cakes! This morning I ran errands, had Starbucks and met a few friends for lunch, and it's now 3:30 and I have JUST started working on my first shirt in the last week! I need to pull another late night to get anything done! Browder just finished a breathing treatment (had one last night too). He's got a little cough which seems to be accompanied by a little wheezing, so luckily we have the breathing machine now at home!
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I'm still on HOLD til Monday, but cracked up when I got home today and saw THIS (below) on my front porch! I think all of it is from people who told me they were dropping off for me to work on after Monday. It's quite usual for me to come home and find a bag hanging on the door, but I USUALLY don't come home to 5! HA! Anyway I thought it was hilarious so I had to snap a picture!

I have gobs of camping pictures, fishing pictures from my parents house and Fair pictures from last night, but don't have time to go through them and post right now! Off to try to get some work done!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

I Wuv Dis Bird!!

I just did this EB Tweet Bird on a tiny little 12 m. Dharma Trading lettuce edge shirt and it is SO CUTE!! The tweet bird comes in 4x4, 5x7 and also a SMALL 4x4 size, so it was the perfect design for this little shirt! I was matching a pair of pink and a pair of green legging type pants. I put this bird on an Apples & Oranges t-shirt for Mallory this summer to match some bloomers and she has worn it once a week!

Happy Fall!

I happened to wander through Old Navy today, and found these cute GIRLY turtlenecks with the lettuce edged cuff & bottom! They come in white, black, red and light pink. I remember my friend Amie saying last year that she had a hard time finding girly turtlenecks such as these in the stores, so I immediately called her from Old Navy and told her about my find! I also called my sister in law, bought 2 for Mallory and had to share this info on the blog! 2 for $14 or $8.50 for 1. They have the same "swing" top type construction at the top as the Walmart tees this season, but with the lettuce trim! I also highly recommend the Old Navy l/s tees for boys - they are a little more $ than Walmart but they are SOOOO thick and soft!
I'm hosting bunko at my house tomorrow night, so I also bought some new stuff for my Southern Living At Home Market Bucket (which I looooovvveeeee) for my front door. I'm not a fan of fake flowers, but you can find some pretty stuff out there and I found all of this at Michael's. After Michael's I rode by the soon-to-be Joann's, and it was lookin pretty rough inside the open doors. Not sure how far they are from opening? I've also been hearing on the radio that a brand new HobbyLobby opened up in Prattville, so I'll be making a road trip soon!
We successfully installed instant download on our Applique Cafe website. As far as I know it is all running smoothly?! I haven't gotten any nasty e-mails as of yet from anyone demanding their designs that they didn't get? I've also sent the last of our designs to my lady who is converting them all to ART format, so once we get those back and replace those files on the website, all of our designs will be sold in ART format! We hope to get some new designs up next week! I'm off to work... I'm slowly chipping away at my pile! I have shirts I NEED to get done today and then next week will finish up everything else I need to get done before the 19th (when I start new work). I'm still evaluating my plan for the upcoming couple of months before Christmas so that I don't wind up with more work than I can handle! This will mean saying "NO" to some people, and I'm working on meeting with a lady in town who also enjoys applique and I hope to sit down with her next week. I don't know if we could work together logistically, but I'm hoping I can at least refer some work to her so that everyone is happy! I'll keep you posted...
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p.s. Someone gave me a tip today I want to share - get Dawn Power Dissolver to clean your hoops IF you use spray adhesive! I got some today at Walmart to try out!


Monday, October 5, 2009

Making progress

Yesterday and today alone I have appliqued/monogrammed about 14 things. I stayed up until 11:50 last night but I've gotten a lot done (and the kids are down for nap so I hope to get lots more done)! My sinuses are not normal but are definitely better, so I'm feeling alive and motivated again! I might make a dent in all this work yet! Here is the new design I added yesterday to Applique Cafe. The sale has ended and we're setting up the instant download e-mail application tonight! If all goes well my life will become a little more easier!
For every 50 things I do for other people I get to squeeze in 1 for my own kids! HA. Who doesn't love Walmart? I put the EB Raggy Pumpkin on this $3 Garanimals tee this morning. The orange & white striped leggings are actually from a $6 pajamas set (also from Walmart) and this makes a cute outfit for little Mallory for school! Hopefully they won't look like pajama pants!! They look like all the other leggings they are selling now so I got them. I also got her the lt pink top like this swing top and pink leggings and a hot pink set as well. Add an applique and you've got a decent outfit for preschool!
For embroidery people, you may have noticed price changes on the Applique Cafe website. In going to instant download we decided it was best to level out the prices so that most all appliques are $4.00. There are a couple we kept at $6 (the ones with more than 1 design included). We should have started out that way but trial and error and we decided to change them all as we get ready for ID! Back to work...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Clearing up?

OK I just read last night's post to see if it made any sense! I feel like I've been in a cold/allergy medicine fog for about a week now. Friday I bought Tylenol Cold nighttime and it worked GREAT after I was up half the night Thursday night. I slept like a champ this weekend! Today I figured the Tylenol Cold daytime would do the trick so I got a bottle on our way to church. I'm not so sure if those meds shouldn't be controlled substances? I felt pretty loopy all morning and after lunch came home and took a good nap! I do feel better though, so maybe they did the trick! Jeff is at Publix with B and is bringing me a late afternoon Starbucks. The little ones are still napping so I'm trying to crank out some shirts! I may pull a late night tonight just so I can put a dent in all this work!
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We're VERY close to instant download e-mail on Applique Cafe! The ghost is already set up so the people who buy it, get an e-mail with the download immediately. This is a little confusing but we hope to get the rest set up either tonight or tomorrow night! It's going to take Jeff sitting down for about 2 hours getting all the files uploaded. We want to do it with the least amount of confusion possible so keep us in your prayers!!
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I still have 1 design to put on the site but we haven't added the one thing we think it needs. Maybe later this evening! Off to work!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

70 and counting

Yesterday I tried counting the items I have in my neat little 'organized bins' to monogram or applique. Let's just say I got to 70 and quit... October 13th became very unrealistic as a catch up date so today I bumped it out to the 19th. I have bunko at my house this week (and my cleaning lady has a pinched nerve and is out for a month) and I will be out of town for several days too (camping trip and visiting my parents)! I'm wondering if I can get caught up by the 19th?? I will try my best to do so! I've also been having war with my sinuses for over a week now which does not help matters one bit. I've done Sudafed (nighttime and daytime), Allegra-D, bought myself a Neti Pot, was up from 2-4 one night this week (then slept on the couch). No fun!! So.... if you have any questions please e-mail me! I still have pumpkin shirts to do as well! I hate to turn people away, but am having to do so. I can't keep up this pace or I might be in the looney bin by Christmas!!
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Regarding Applique Cafe, we've installed the instant download software and are in the process of setting up/organizing/uploading all the zip files for the designs. We may have our computer science degrees after we finish! We're also in the process of converting all of our designs in to ART format! We have some designs already available in .ART and .ART50 and I sent 9 designs today to be converted (and will send the rest over the next few days) When we go to instant download ALL designs will be in ART format as well. Exciting, but also very time consuming! I also tested a cute new design today but we have 1 thing to add and will probably list it tomorrow.
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If you have any questions, e-mail me! If you have shirts you want me to work on after the 19th, e-mail me! I will try my best to get caught up over the next 2 weeks on all that I have. I'm also working on an organized system so that I don't find myself with 70+ items waiting for me too! Thanks!
 
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