We encourage all of you who are in the sewing, crafting and art businesses to proudly proclaim that your items are INDEED made in America.  There are many folks who have made a decision to buy American made items if at all possible, so be sure to spread the word about your items.  If you have an on-line presence, be sure to make known in your website that you sell “made in America” products!

Happy New Year to all of our sewing/crafting friends.  We hope this will be a really great year for you!!!

Last night, Wednesday 11/30, she had a very informative segment on “Made In America” — and how there is a very big PUSH now on folks buying American made items for Christmas gifts.  She made a comment that if EVERY family would just buy $64 worth of “Made In America” products for Christmas gifts, that alone would help put thousands of people back to work.  They showed a variety of “made in America” businesses – from hot sauce, to toys and games, to clothing items – indicating that if MORE Americans would buy American made products, how much benefit there would be to our economy!

Do YOU have signs that you can hang on your craft fair/bazaar booth that proudly state that your items are MADE IN AMERICA?  Put some signs in your customer waiting area indicating that you’re all about the “made in America” push!

All of our items that we sell, from coupon clutches, to Plus Size childrens patterns, to Full Figure men/women’s books and patterns,  to Sewing Machine Repair books are ALL made right HERE in America!!  Check your Christmas gift list to see if any of these “Made in America” products would be a great idea for you.

Let your customers know that what you offer are also “Made in America” products —then remember the final words on the segment by Diane Sawyer — “Are YOU in?”    We certainly are and we are doing our best to spend, not just $64, but all we can on made in America products for under our Christmas tree this year!!

** Make a list of every person you’ll be giving a gift to — friends, relatives, teachers, children’s friends, office mates, etc.

** Try to think about something each person enjoys — a special hobby, their favorite sports team, color schemes in friends’ homes — and write that next to each name.

** Decide which people on the list you can “make” something for and those that will require you to “buy” something.  For those on the “buy” list, you can be on the look-out for sales that will certainly be starting very soon.  If a camera is at the top of somebody’s want list — you can be scouring the sale papers for the best deal — getting the best deal for the person and probably saving you a bundle at the same time.

** For those you can “make” something for — would it be a sewing project, a knitted item, kitchen aprons?  There are many tutorials all over the internet, as well as patterns available for just about anything you’d want to make.  Check out Patterns2Go for dozens of items you can make.  Many times there are certain craft/sewing books that those on your list would be very happy to receive.  You might check out the SewMachineRepair website for books for those on your list that do a lot of sewing or crafting.  Do you have family/friends that are major couponers?  I’m sure the gift they’d love above all things is the “designer tote” coupon clutch for carrying/organizing their coupon stash.

** I like to personalize each gift according to the receivers’ own tastes — this takes a little bit of thinking in order to get the perfect gift, but the time you spend in getting the list organized is well worth the time, and in the end actually SAVES you time during the shopping or “making” process.

** By making your holiday gift list EARLY, there’s much less chance that you’ll forget anyone!  Have you ever started wrapping gifts a couple days before Christmas and somebody’s name flashed through your head — one of the MAIN ones you wanted to get a gift for and because you’d gotten in a “last minute hurry” forgot to get them a gift?  To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I’d survive without my list!!

Do you have any other hints or tips you’d like to pass along?  We always like to share the tips our readers have.

Photo Credit: Reading Eagle, Lauren A. Little

Fabric store owners see increase in sewing as hobby – Some say when economy is bad, more people take it up!

Robert Richin, owner of Fabric Mart, has been in the business for more than 34 years, and said that when he started out, women sewed to save money. But today, his customers sew as a hobby. Fabric Mart, which has a retail store, does most of its Read the article

In the past we have used all three of the major shipping services, then we decided to do some comparisons — now OUR comparisons may not work with what you ship, but perhaps just get you thinking and checking — as you know, every dollar saved in this department is an extra dollar in YOUR pocket!

Many many moons ago we shipped larger packages with UPS —- UNTIL one day a product got broken during the shipping process and they had to pay the claim.  They said we hadn’t properly packaged the item (even though we’d shipped hundreds of the same item – knew HOW to pack it for shipping) and the very next package I took to them to ship they opened it in front of the crowded lobby to check it for proper packaging.  I was told that I was now in their system so that every package I shipped would have to be opened for inspection.  Needless to say, after being publicly embarrassed that day I have NOT stepped foot into a UPS office.

We have used Fed Ex and a year or so ago we tried to get better rates for shipping because of the quantity of packages we ship.  Because of the Sewing Machine Repair book sales and Coupon clutch sales we can easily have several dozen packages every couple of days.  They agreed to give us a 3 month “trial” period with a 5% discount on their shipping rates so they could monitor how many packages we were shipping on a daily basis.  Well, that WOULD have been a pretty good deal until we noticed that if a package was being shipped within a 100 mile radius, they hit us with “next day” shipping rates, and even with the more distant ones we got hit with “home delivery”, “gas surcharge” and some other surcharge that their representative couldn’t explain what it was for but it added an additional 50-75 cents per package.   PLUS, we had to provide our own packaging materials – boxes, envelopes, etc. 

And the winner for us………. the U.S. Postal Service!!!  We have a variety of sizes of FLAT RATE boxes — no matter where we ship in the U.S., Hawaii or APO addresses, the cost is the same.  We also have their flat rate envelopes for small items and the larger priority tyvek envelopes for other items.  No longer do we have the added expense of buying boxes and envelopes – they are provided by the Postal Service.   The flat rate fees and even priority envelope fees are less than what Fed Ex charges were.

If you do a lot of shipping, it might just be worth your time to weigh the costs/benefits of the various shipping services and see what difference it might make for you.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing a major sewing project like making cheerleader outfits, sewing up a bunch of new items for the next craft fair or just simply trying to get all the fall school sewing done, it’s very easy to get yourself 100% into a sewing mode and hope the dishes will wash themselves (ok put them in the dishwasher), laundry gets folded somehow just so you can stay on track with the time frame you’ve alloted yourself to get the sewing done.  This is the way I’ve been the last several months, and a week or so ago a friend told me I REALLY need to just stop long enough to smell the roses!  Well, she was absolutely right!

I have now been sidetracked from my sewing rut to do a few other things — and I want to tell you that we have some GREAT things coming up!  I’ve started working on a super cool (and EASY) sewing project tutorial that we’ll be featuring probably the first of next week.   We’re planning some great fall giveaways that we know you’ll love.  I LOVE fall and this season really gets me motivated so I’m ready to roll!!

We have several fall craft festivals coming up in October/November so I’m trying a few new project ideas and I’ll be sharing them with you as well.

What craft fairs / festivals are going to be in YOUR part of the world?  We’d like to hear how you’re doing — how is the crowd (larger or smaller than last year) and how about the dollars leaving customers’ pockets to buy from the vendors at the shows?  Good luck to all of you attending these shows and keep your fingers crossed for us as well.

At the end of last year when Denise saw the “end of year” postage paid figure, she about hit the ceiling.  She insisted that we could get a better deal from fed Ex because of the volume we were mailing.  She made me get out of my rut and get with Fed Ex to see what we could do.  I have a Fed Ex account that I rarely use, so decided I’d give them a call and see what kind of a deal they’d do for us.  Well, the deal is this — they would take my “last years” shipping total, then see how many packages we ship through them during the following 3 months, and if the volume is considerably higher, they’d give us a 5% discount.  Here’s the breakdown of a few of our shipping fees with Fed Ex (and needless to say, when I got to the point of clicking “ship”, I backed out and started over with a U.S. Postal Service label):

A package going to Tennessee (from Florida) via FedEx — ground and home delivery

$7.27 base fee

$3.00 DAS extended Residential fee (I have no clue what that means)

$2.45 Residential fee

$  .91 Fuel surcharge

$13.63 final charge

A package going to Washington State (5 business days) – ground and home delivery

$9.10 base fee

$2.45 Residential fee

$  .81 Fuel surcharge

$12.36 final cost

The priority mail flat rate box says 2-3 day delivery – anywhere in the country for the same $10.50 and they also have a delivery confirmation (tracking number) in case that’s needed.  We do charge our customers $10.00 for shipping the coupon clutch, then just “eat” the remaining amount — but the point here is that you need to check out all the alternatives and see what is the best deal for you and for your customers.  I’m sorry, Denise, but I’m back in my “U.S. Postal Service rut”, and looks like that’s where we’re going to stay.

As an example of “passing along what you know” to others that might need the same information (such as those childs’ painting aprons you specialize in!) — I’d learned the Oriental method of pattern making while my husband was stationed in Taiwan in the early ’70′s.  Because the class were all taught in Taiwanese, and an American attending had to have an intrepreter, I was the first and only American woman to attend.  It was a novelty for all the “local” Taiwanese girls for me being there, but I was there to LEARN!  Later I started writing my own books (and eBooks) about pattern making (you can see some of them at PatternsThatFitYou.com).  However the REAL point I want to make is that I learned how to “specialize” my pattern making abilities when I had a plus size (obese) granddaughter and there was literally nothing in the stores that would fit her.

I used my pattern making ability to use HER measurements and made patterns and garments for her.  Then we realized that because of the problems she (and by now a friend had also come to me for help with her obese grandson), were having I decided what was really needed were some garment PATTERNS that would fit these children.  This is where our Plus Size Children (PSC) patterns idea was born.  We gathered actual measurements for plus size and obese children for over a year (requested them from our readers all over the country), THEN set down to put those measurements into a data base so we could make actual patterns that would fit these children.  What we NOW have available is a variety of blouses, skirts, pants/shorts, jumpers patterns that have been made according to actual plus size children’s measurements.   For example, our patterns at PlusSizeChildren.com use the following measurements:

Size 8 — chest 34″, waist 30″, hip 36″

Size 10 — chest 36″, waist 32″, hip 38″

Size 12 — chest 38″, waist 34″, hip 40″

The size ranges of the patterns at PlusSizeChildren are 4-5-6, 8-10-12 and 14-16, so they cover all ages of plus size/obese children.

Compare those “plus size children’s measurements” up against YOUR plus size/obese child and then compare the “regular” pattern measurements (Simplicity, Butterick, etc) – you’ll see that our year-long effort in accumulating actual data on plus size/obese children’s measurements were put to good use in making actual patterns that are appropriate for the age range of the children.

The whole point of this story is that YOU can do the same thing with YOUR knowledge and what you specialize in!  I dare say that every one of us knows SOMETHING that others wish they knew and would be glad to PAY you for that information! I’m back to the great childs’ painting aprons now — please write it up, put it on your website or blog and I’ll be happy to buy that information from you!

The other iphone app I use regularly is the iSewingRoom app.  Once again I was a little slow in getting my brain in gear, but once I set out to do something, I can’t quit until it’s done!  I now have my fabric stash, patterns and projects in my iSewingRoom app on my phone.  So what’s the big deal about that?  Well, now when I’m in a fabric store and see some new fabric or something on sale I can check out my patterns and fabric from my stash to see if I can use the new / sale fabric, or if it is something that might complete a project I’m working on or have in mind.  If you sew as much as I do, you’ll quickly realize that by having your fabric stash pictured in your iphone, along with your patterns, you will no longer have to “guess” as to whether fabric you see at a store or even at a yard sale would be something you could use.  You can immediately compare what you already have with what you’re looking at in the store and make a qualified decision as to whether you can use the fabric or not.  I’ve found out that just because a fabric is on sale doesn’t mean it’s a “bargain” for me because it may be something I’ll never in this world be able to use, therefore making that purchase rather costly in the long run.

The convenience of having these iphone apps in my phone and ready for use have really been a life saver for me, and I’d recommend them to any sewer, crafter, quilter  – I believe you’ll love them as much as I do!

HOLD ON a minute!!  Aren’t you passing up the best products available that perhaps pay you 100% — YOUR OWN PRODUCTS?  What if your newly designed widget started selling like hotcakes and a customer wrote in and told you she found a new use for that widget.  Don’t you think you should be talking about that widget and the many uses for it?  How much commission would you get from each sale of that widget — you’d get ALL the money, not just a few pennies!

For example, we have people write in saying “I bought your ‘Make Your own Shorts/Slacks Class’ and for the very first time I’ve been able to make a pair of slacks that fit perfectly”.  Doesn’t that sound like something worthy of mentioning in a comment page or on the website?  Or, what about the one that emailed us saying she’d bought our “Sewing Machine Repair For The Home Sewer” a month ago, and since receiving it she’d been able to follow the directions and fix 3 of her sewing machines that had gone “on the blink”.  WOW!  What wonderful emails and kind things to say about OUR products!

I would never say NOT to promote other items through commission programs because that is a very good way to make some extra money on the side.  What I AM saying is not to underestimate your own products, so be sure you’re promoting all of your goodies in addition to those commission products.