And the winners are….

wordygirl

What a lovely, generous tradition you’ve established. My birthday is in April, too, and you inspire me to look for ways to share the celebration.

wetoatmealkisses

I so, so love your birthday month. I think it is one of my most favorite ideas ever and one I want to implement in my life. Happy, happy birthday and I hope you enjoy creating your lovely masterpieces. I can’t wait to be inspired by your fab ideas.

rossfamilyrecipes

I look forward to your birthday every year! Wish you were here! xo

franna larsen

What a GREAT idea!!! … such cute colors too!!

Bethany Abigail Weir Cromwell

The pictures are wonderful. I had to convince myself to get maternity photos taken this time, and I’m really glad I did. There is something so beautiful about the love we have for an unborn child.

I love the photo with you standing on the hill.

Jordee

Very cute. I love the chevron pattern.

Trudy

Happiness in fabric.

Fran

Your patchwork quilt top is so lovely, great use of solids.

deanna

your covered notebook style is what drew me here to begin with.. nice and trim and tailored looking. i love your style and that market bag is so chic!

julie

I am loving this bag!!! I think you should make it into a pattern. I would buy it!!
I also am loving the notebook and the pen. I am still using the notebook I won from you 2 birthdays ago.
either one of these could come and live at my house.

Tita

Thanks for sharing your talents

julie (mom)

I love this quilt. It is so bright and cheerful. You did a great job.

jennifer cole

I absolutely love all of the different colors on this quilt.

Bri

Love this bag from the minute you showed us the finished product  Such talent.

Linda Perkes

This is one of my favorites you have done. You are amazing!

Jessica Croker

super cute– you’re such an inspiration!

Sylvie

You have an eye for great fabrics! I love your projects!

******

Congratulations to all the winners! I have sent out emails, so check your inbox (and spam if you don’t see it) and get back to me.

Thanks to all of you for participating in this years give away. I really enjoyed the time I spent working on some of these projects this month. Your comments have been wonderful and I am looking forward already to next year.

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Fabric + Paper

I love love love these notecards. The sets I’m adding today were made prior to this month but I am so happy to be sharing them with you. There is just something about fabric and paper that makes me happy.

I hope you enjoy them as well.

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Button Magnets

While I’m finishing the final stages of the second quilt, I want to add these next two gifts.

Super strong magnets attached to fabric covered buttons. All are covered in Amy Butler fabric except one that is covered in Anna Maria Horner fabric. All packaged up in a little tin.

 

I just love these cute magnets. I have a set that I use myself and they are by far my favorite on the fridge. I hope you love them too.

 

 

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A change in scenery

It is with mixed feelings that I prepared for this trip. However, regardless of the so many reasons not to go, I knew in my mind that it was the right choice. So, with my husband and children left behind and some good friends ready to help as needed, I boarded a plane for a vacation from my regular life.

I’m at peace now with my decision and really enjoying the change in scenery and bonding again with my family that we have lived away from so very many years.

So for the next week or so, things around this place will look a bit different. I’m a little disappointed about my missing sewing time but I did bring a little project to work on if I let my self slow down enough.

We will see.

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Over the Shoulder Bag

I am very excited to add this bag to Gift of Giving.

I had ordered this beautiful Amy Butler fabric for my Birthday Give Away but I just couldn’t resist cutting into it.

Not really thinking I sewed up this bag to fit me and didn’t think about the fact that most women are not under 5’4″. So this limits who all can receive this bag but I still wanted to include it. I bet someone knows a petite women who would enjoy a gift. Right?

So, do you know someone who could use a gift. Say a woman who is under 5’4″? I would love to send this gift to her. Head over to Gift of Giving and comment on the post featuring this bag and I’ll send it out ASAP. Bag specifics and more pictures can be found there as well.(This bag has found a home. Thank You!)

Thanks for helping me share the gift of handmade,

April

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Gift of Giving Update: Pink Note Cards

I just love these. Maybe it’s because it’s February but I am really digging the pink on these. I don’t know if I would enjoy it so much on any other medium but these cards are just singing to me. They also just feel so good. The texture and weight of them is just wonderful. I’m going to have to start a collection to keep for myself.

These have been added to my Gift of Giving site. (I can’t seem to add a link but my side bar has one.)

So, do you have someone in your life who could use a gift? Maybe a friend, coworker, or family member? Is there a reason or do you just think these would brighten their day?

Hop over to the Gift of Giving Blog and leave a comment on the post for these and I will ship them ASAP.  {These note cards have found a home. Thank You!} 

Thanks for helping me share the gift of handmade.

April

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January Gift of Giving Update

I have just updated the Gift of Giving blog with some new gifts. Thanks to your support in my Etsy shop I was able to purchase some of the new Amy Butler line Soul Blossoms, I just love so many of her new prints.

I’ve added these three notebooks (two notebooks and a sketchbook) to the Gift of Giving blog. These notebooks have found homes. Thank You!

To read a little bit more about Gift of Giving go here or here.

So,

Is there someone in your life who needs a gift? Head on over to the blog and claim a gift. Rules are listed there.

Thanks for helping share the gift of handmade.

April

P.S. I’ve updated the shop with almost identical notebooks.

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Some Changes

I love the marking of a new year. For me the most significant marker is my birthday and I like to set my big goal and such at that time, but in January I like to take the time to think of adjustments I need to make in my life as well. This January I am mostly thinking about changes that can be contained within the name By Small Means: the blog, my Etsy shop, my Birthday Give Away and Gift of Giving.

The Blog –

This year I want to blog a bit more consistently. As I look back over the years of this blog there are huge gaps of time that are missing. I’m not thinking about blogging everyday or anything but I do want to have a presence here throughout each month.

I also want to be more organized behind the scenes. I use this blog as a window into my life and would like to have it organized in such a way that I can make each year into a book or some other tangible form. In order to do that I need to organize my pictures better. This requires cleaning up flickr and my wordpress gallery, uploading directly to the blog and also having a back up on flickr. It would also be nice to organize my photos on my computer as well. And maybe even have some printed off and put into photo albums or something. (I’ve given up on the idea of scrapbooking.)

Birthday Give Away –

This year and hopefully in years to come I want to include a gift to someone within my community, wherever I may happen to be. This year I’m thinking about making two quilts. One to give away to readers and one to give away to someone in need locally. I’ll discuss that more as April approaches.

Gift of Giving –

This is a relatively new aspect of By Small Means but I really want to see more of it. I have found so much happiness with it already. I’m hoping that time and means will allow an update of gifts once a month.

My Etsy Shop –

Here there will be a big change in my prices. In the past I have only been looking to move items in the shop, pricing them at or below cost. I really enjoy making the items listed but didn’t have a home or purpose for them and so the shop was a great way to find homes for them.  I never cared whether or not items sold and I often removed items to give as gifts.

I have decided to have the shop support both  the Birthday Give Away and Gift of Giving. In order for that to happen I need to price my items so I am actually able to bring in money to support these giving opportunities. I have given this some thought and here is what I have decided to do.

• Double the actual cost of making the item – This way I can replenish my supply enough to give away one items worth in the two giveaways and make another one to sell. I don’t think I am limiting myself to making and giving the same items that sell but I want to have enough money to replenish my supply to be able to replenish both the shop and support the giveaways
• Add in all PayPal and Etsy fees – I have always just eaten these myself and never considered them.
• Add in the price to ship the item within the United States – I will do this so that I can pay to ship a gift away. I know that if the gifts need to go outside of the United States it will cost more but this should cover most of them.

Add this all up and it equals a significant increase in prices.

Before coming to this conclusion I looked at Pink Chalk Studios post called The Business of Craft: Pricing Part 1 and realized that what I wanted to charge for my items came out to be similar to what she has broken down in the post. So, I feel ok about it. I do still worry that by increasing prices so much it might deter people from purchasing and then limiting my resources for giving but I will just have to see how it goes.

In addition to the changes with By Small Means I also want to be better at corresponding with friends and family. I am shamefully bad at putting off replying to e-mails. Sometimes I even never get around to it. This is something that needs to change. I have to opportunity to move around a lot and with each move I meet people who change my life. In order to keep that relationship I must make a bigger effort. (I know, I know, shame on me.)

I love this little area of my life and am excited about these changes. Thank you so much for your support in 2010 and years past. I’m looking forward to this new year.

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Gift of Giving – Button Magnets

Gift of Giving update

I have updated the Gift of Giving blog with these adorable button magnets. I just couldn’t resist pulling from the scraps from this stack. I think they look so cute together.  I’ve got the top and back done for the quilt they made but will have to talk about that another time.

Is there someone in your life you would like to give these to? Head over to site and claim them. They have found a home, Thank You

Thanks for helping me share the gift of handmade.

April

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Thanksgiving Week(s)

The kids had the whole week of Thanksgiving off from school and so I had a wonderful time with them home with me. Thanksgiving day we had a lovely dinner with friends. Dave and I celebrated 13 years of marriage this past weekend. 13 Years!!! He also took the first few days of this week off from work so I got to spend time with him without the whole gang.

These pics are from a day at the beach over the break. We live so very close to the beach (like a half mile away) but have not spent much time there at all. With the water being so warm, it is no fun to hang out here in the 100’s. You can never cool off. Then school started early August and we have seemed to be to busy for it. We’ll have to make sure not so much time passes again before our next visit.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

PS: I still have the holiday pot holders that need a home on my gift of giving blog. Do you have someone who would enjoy a set of these in their kitchen? Hop on over and claim them. They have a home. Thank You

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Gift of Giving

I am very excited to tell you about a little project I’ve been thinking about for a while.

Gift of Giving

Almost two years ago I had a little give away on my blog. You can read it here. In this give away I had a few items that I wanted to find homes for but didn’t want to give them out in my tiny community for fear of being discovered. So, I asked you “Do you have someone in your life who needs a gift? A gift for no reason at all, or maybe there is a reason.” The response I received really touched my heart. I was told a couple of sad stories and also a couple of warm ones. Each of these ladies who e-mailed me had a person in their life who they felt needed a gift and I was so very happy to have the opportunity to give a gift for someone else.

In an effort to have more of those warm fuzzy feelings in my own life and to hopefully provide a way for you to feel a portion of that as well…

I want to introduce to you

By Small Means…Gift of Giving.

It is a way for me to continue to enjoy to fruits of giving, even if it is in such a small way. My hope is to provide others with this same joy. Giving handmade is time consuming if you have the means to create yourself and buying handmade can be hard on the wallet in these trying times. I know that the giving of material things is a poor substitute for giving the gift of self; your time, your love and energy, but I also know how wonderful it is to add to those personal gifts something tangible, something that is useful and will be a reminder, as it is used, that they are loved and thought of.

So please feel free to stop by my new blog bysmallmeansgiftofgiving.worpress.com and choose a gift for someone in your life who needs it. There are some limits, like only choosing one item per year or that I am not doing special orders and the fact that my means of making handmade items for others to give are limited, but I will add them as I feel it is appropriate in my life. There are not guarantees about how often I will add items but, just a heads up, I will announce any additions to the Gift of Giving site, here on this blog.

Here are my first two gifts

On a different note. Thank you so much for your support of my etsy shop. It is the success there that has made me realize that I wanted to have more opportunities to give. I had originally thought that all the sales from my etsy shop would fund my birthday give away but I want to include this new project as well. So, all sales in my etsy shop will be used to support my annual Birthday Give Away and Gift of Giving. Thank you so much.

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