custom orders...

I love working on custom orders. Making my Lens Pets, even with the many different designs I have, it can get a little tedious when I'm making the same thing over and over and over. Then someone will come at me with an idea of their own and I love turning it into a reality! I just finished this super cool large Lens Pet that my customer (who happens to be a photographer) wanted to match her business logo. 

I love the color combo and those little heart eyes!! SO CUTE! :)

If you have a Lens Pet you'd like to see that I haven't made before, either a color combo I haven't used, a new pet or an alteration to a pet already in my collection, let me know! I'm always looking for fresh ideas!

Today's gratitude: I am so thankful that my mother taught me how to cook a few of my favorite meals when I moved out on my own at 18. Dinner is in the oven right now and it smells SOOO good! I'm not crazy about cooking (wish I had someone to do it for me most nights), but I do love to eat! ;)

ARRR, Matey!

Love the special requests for sock monsters that I've been receiving lately. My most recent order was for a pirate-dog to match the pirate theme in a little boys bedroom. :) In addition to the pirate-y accessories I tried out a new ear style and I think I really like it. 

the hat didn't quite turn out exactly as I'd hoped but I still like it, and more importantly... the buyer loved it! I can't wait to hear what her little boy thinks! :)

In the past few days I've gotten 2 more custom orders for NEW sock monsters that I haven't made before! Looking forward to getting to work on them!

DRAGON!

I've been working on this sock monster for almost a month... sketching out how I thought I would piece him together, over and over. In the end I scrapped everything I'd sketched and got down to business yesterday with a new design. In order to keep his tail as one piece with his body (instead of cutting it separately and sewing it on) I decided he should be in a 'laying down' type position . That let me take advantage of the full length of the extra long sock I'd purchased for him. I spent about 13-14 hours on him and at the end (before I added the horns) I was slightly disappointed to see that, while cute enough, I thought he looked more like an anteater with wings than a dragon! lol BUT I stitched up some felt horns, stuffed them, added them to his head and VOILA! We have a dragon! Funny how something so small can make all the difference! :)

He is my biggest sock monster to date, almost TWO FEET long from nose to tail!! Definitely the most complicated and time intensive as well. But totally worth it. My friend/customer LOVES it and her adorable grandson will hopefully love it as well! :) I'd love to be able to make more of these at a later date... after I get caught up on the MANY Lens Pets™ I need to finish up right now. Speaking of... I'm off to sew some more.  I have 3 sock monsters to get done in the next couple days so I will be busy, busy, busy! :)

helpful hint for other night owls out there...

the post office lobby is totally creepy at 1:30 am!! lol

Right now I'm dropping orders at the post office 6 days a week. I sew late into the night (many nights I'm up until 4 or 5 in the morning) and all the following day then I run up to the PO right before they close at 5:30 (and at 3 on Saturdays). But tonight (meaning Friday night though technically it's Saturday morning now) I finished four more orders and rather than wait until tomorrow afternoon I wanted to get them out the door asap. I figured this way they head out to their destinations in the morning rather than waiting until the afternoon. So maybe they'll make it to their new homes a day sooner? Who knows! Anyways, Carter was still up watching Napoleon Dynamite (my kids are total night owls on the weekend, just like their mama) so he and I made a quick run up to the post office. Even if it was kinda creepy, how awesome is that little self serve machine thingee?!!? It weighs the packages and prints the labels, charges your credit card and spits out a receipt. Super cool! I may start shipping on Sundays now that I know how easy and convenient that machine is!

Late last night I made this little guy for a customer who asked for something red, yellow and blue without specifying any animal in particular (which by the way is my FAVORITE kind of request because then I get to try out some of the other design ideas I have cluttering up my mind right now)...

I messaged her to make sure she likes it before I ship it out but I'm still waiting to hear back. Secretly I'm hoping she HATES it so I can keep it for myself! lol I LOVE those polka dot tentacles! ;)

WHIRLWIND!

It's been a whirlwind few days! After Erin Cobb shared my Lens Pets™ on her "Ten on Tuesday" list I received almost 50 orders in three days... then things slowed down for two days and I settled in to sew, sew, sew and get caught up. Until yesterday (June 7) when 'MandeeFranee' apparently turned into an airborne virus or something!! It was popping up all over the place. A couple people mentioned seeing my link on ilovephotography.com and twopeasinabucket.com, and when I did a search on Facebook I found it shared on numerous photographer's fan pages (all of whom I plan to thank here very soon)... there were even a couple tweets! In 24 hours I received over 120 orders through my Etsy shop! In fact, I've been SUPER busy sewing those orders and only wanted to take a quick second to update here letting everyone know I'm not abandoning my blog, but I may not be around much for the next few weeks. I am planning to periodically check in on FB since I can type up a quick status update while I eat a bowl of oatmeal... but I don't expect to have much time for typing up long drawn out posts.

I am overwhelmed by all of the kind words and I absolutely LOVE seeing the excitement over my Lens Pets™ and sock monsters. But BOY! I did NOT expect things to take off quite this quickly!! From 3 sales... to almost 200, IN SIX DAYS!!! I'm thinking that probably doesn't happen often. So I'm flattered and thrilled... and working my fingers to the bone to get all of these orders out ASAP!!

THANK YOU! To everyone that shared my store link and to everyone that ordered!

and because a post just isn't the same without a photo, I leave you with my most recent sock monster... the smaller part of a matching set made for a little girl and her doll. :)

Memorial Day with the family...

Both of my parents, my sister and her 5 kids all came to visit for the long weekend. They all live in Ohio and normally we try to see each other at least once a month, but money has been tight since I lost my job so we haven't seen them since Easter. It was a fun weekend for everyone. I didn't get any sewing done but as always, the kids had a great time playing together... ghost in the graveyard after dark, frisbee, card games, video games, the park, camping out in tents in the front yard, a parade and all sorts of other made up games. Hopefully it won't be such a long time before we see everyone again. I thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures from the weekend here.

my oldest son Cameron (who is a goofball teenager, hence the face) and his friend Gabe at the playground

my niece, Kaileigh, with the frisbee on her head

my youngest niece Kamryn playing hopscotch on the playground

my youngest son Carter hanging from the monkey bars

my nephew, Kurtis, playing in the front yard

my middle son Connor finds his own way across the monkey bars

my oldest niece, Kiera, learning how to skateboard

another niece, Kierstenn, scaling the climbing wall with ease. ;)

in addition to a fun weekend I was surprised with not one, but TWO mentions on websites in the last few days. SO flattered and excited. :) First, this past Saturday, One Pretty Thing chose me as one of their Flickr Friends Roundup picks for my sock monsters. My friend Martha posted on Facebook to let me know. :) THEN, just a few hours ago, a friend of a friend posted on my FB that she had shared my Lens Pets™ with photographer Erin Cobb and Erin liked them so much she posted a link to my Etsy shop on her 'Ten on Tuesday' list today. I had 8 sales in 30 minutes! I'll be sewing like a mad woman tonight making all those Lens Pets™... and I couldn't be more excited! :)

Between the Michaels contest and my recent Etsy success I am totally floating on cloud nine these days!

Lens Pets™ now available in my Etsy shop...

I just posted my first three listings for Lens Pets™ in my Etsy shop... I was planning to make a bunch of individual Lens Pets™ to put up, but in the mean time I figured I could put up a few 'custom' listings (where the purchaser gets to choose which Lens Pet™ they want) to get things started! :) I only have a couple orders left to finish before I can start making sock monsters for my shop as well. I'm super excited to officially get this thing off the ground and running!!

I had a customer ask for two Lens Pets™ that I hadn't made before, a spider and a PIRATE of all things... so I gave it a shot and I really liked the results! I'm definitely looking forward to having more customers making special requests. Even though I've made over 30 different designs so far (and I have ideas for a few more), I love the challenge of designing something new!