Busy, busy week

I've been on vacation all week.  Let me rephrase that.....I've been on vacation from my Nanny job all week.
I have in fact been working like a dog, probably about 14 hour days designing, preparing and making new items to sell on Etsy, the upcoming Craft Fair and my 2 Women's Exchange Shops. 
IT IS EXHAUSTING!!!

I just finished this.....my first Halloween Trick or Treat Bag

It's going up to The Depot in Midland Park, N.J. tomorrow along with an abundance of other goodies (of which I have not photographed....YET).

This was just a quick post to say "HELLO" and "I HAVEN'T QUIT THE BLOG"....I don't get to write as often as I would like.  Hopefully I will be able to catch up next week.

Have a lovely long Labor Day and Bank Holiday weekend.

Another Craft Fair

I don't think I mentioned that I signed up for another craft fair did I?

Well mark your calenders Northern N.J.  I'll be at the

Millburn / Short Hills Craft Fair
Sunday, September 22nd from 11am to 5pm, rain or shine!

My mind is whizzing with ideas and there is never enough time to create all the ideas I have....maybe if I had a team of crafts people like Martha Stewart!!!!

Anyway here's a sneak peak at just a few items....there's plenty more goodies, these were just on hand to take a pic.

Lavender sachet and gift tag

I'll have a selection of fun fabric cards including this guy

Lavender sachets

British Gift Tags

A large selection of the wooden gift tags

There will be hair elastics a plenty!

Going to make some Halloween Trick or Treat bags with these fabrics.

Halloween paper chain kits

Make your own Happy Halloween sign kit

I'll also have Thanksgiving and Hanukkah items too.  Not sure about Christmas items.....might be too early?????  Maybe I'll take a few.

Sorry the pics aren't as good as they could be, I had to take most of them inside under my lamp.  We are in the middle of a massive thunder and lightening storm with a fair amount of rain, not exactly perfect photo taking conditions.

100 Sales on Etsy

WOOOOO HOOOO!!!!

I finally reached 100 sales on Etsy!  I would say it's taken about 9 months....it's like a pregnancy ha ha ha

I hope the next 100 go faster than the 1st 100.

To celebrate I'm offering a 15% discount on EVERYTHING in the shop just enter the coupon code 100SALESWOOHOO at checkout!

Click HERE to go to Textile Trolley on Etsy.

Here are just a few of the items I have....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come check out 

TEXTILE TROLLEY ON ETSY

Funny things children say

Earlier on this year Ms. I (she's 7) and I were traveling home from Tae Kwon Do just having a general chit chat about life when I spotted two Jewish gentlemen walking down the road.  Interested to know if Ms. I (who is herself Jewish) knew why they were dressed in long black clothing with ringlets in their hair and a hat on their head on such a hot day I asked her...

Do you know who those men are?

She looked at them and said no.

I asked her if she knew why they were dressed the way they were on such a hot day, she studied them very carefully and said...

"I think they're detectives"

I could barely contain myself from bursting out in fits of laughter but didn't want to upset her because she seemed so serious about her reply.  To this day I still can't really figure out why she said that other than some detectives wear long rain coats and hats ....think about it Dick Tracy, Inspector Gadget, Columbo,

It's always interesting how the young mind works isn't it?  And that story makes me chuckle every time I think about it.

Rainy Day Activity - Making Pretzels from scratch

 Pretzels from scratch....

Every made pretzels from scratch?  I did it once before for a wicked Halloween party my last boss threw....they came out great....I shaped the dough into long witches fingers, painted an almond red with food colouring then added dried rosemary for the knuckles (wish I had a pic to show you).

But I have never made the big typical pretzels....it's actually very easy especially with a Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook.

We used Alton Brown's recipe from the food network Pretzel Recipe


First you let the water, sugar, salt and dried yeast sit in a bowl for 5 mins. 
Not too hard right?

Then you add the melted butter and flour and turn on the machine to mix it. 
Nothing too taxing yet right?

After 5 mins of beating it will look like this.  Magic!

Put it to rise in a warm place, I put mine in the oven on the lowest setting I think it was 80 degrees F until it doubled in size.  We were so excited about getting to play with it I forgot to take a pic, but I'm sure you can use your imagination.


It took us a while to get used to making the pretzel shapes, I found it easier just to make a long rope and twist it.  And I'm thinking at this point I should have added cheese to the dough!!!!  YUMO!

Another process I forgot to take a pic of (in my defense I was cooking dinner at the same time) was the dunking them in boiling water and baking soda for 30 seconds procedure....quite fun really but you need a watch or timer with seconds on because 30 seconds passes very fast!

A little egg and water wash and then bake them in the over for 15 mins.


Aren't they beautiful?  Lovely golden brown.  They were quite bready.....I think if I had left them in a few shades darker they would have been better.

Slow down and smell the roses, then encourage the praying mantis off your boot and get back to work.

So, life is busy.  My life always seems to be busy which I try and appreciate as much as I can.  People that know me well always tell me I need to take time for me, time to relax so I've been trying to do that a little bit more lately, even if it is just to sit and watch a little T.V or to sit and eat some lunch instead of flying around the house with a sandwich in my hand.

Yesterday I received a sign from nature that I should be doing more of this sitting still stuff.

This weekend we began to stain the deck which is quite a long slow process as it turns out!  You can't stain in the morning because it's too dewy, you can't stain in direct sunlight so this leaves us from 6.30pm to 8.30pm (as long as there is no rain forecast in the next 24 hours)....I'm not sure we are even half way through.

Before we stained

After we stained.....better right?

Last night I came out to the deck to find a sign from Mother Nature on my boot.....

No that's not a blade of vibrant grass

Sorry about the blinding flash underneath this spectacular Praying Mantis.

An appearance from the mantis is a message to be still, go within, meditate, get quiet and reach a place of calm. It may also be a sign for you to be more mindful of the choices you are making and confirm that these choices are the right ones for you!

So we put down our paint brushes and went out for Sushi, followed by a dessert of chocolate covered praying mantis LOL just kidding.

I'm not sure I'm the slowing down type, and when you're starting a business or taking care of children there's not much time for slowing down but I'm trying to take time to be still and think better of my choices.  As for meditation that might have to wait!  Baby steps!

Organic items that are not really organic

I have to get something off my chest!  Maybe someone has the answer for me here because I just can't seem to figure it out!

I'm talking about organic clothing/bedding/baby items.  I offer both regular cotton items in the shop and 100% organic items also.  I don't understand companies that offer a product let's say a baby blanket with 2 layers where the top layer is organic fabric and the bottom layer is a cotton/polyester blend!  Can someone explain what the point is?  Shouldn't it be organic or not?  If you want organic products for your baby and the company is advertising an item as organic shouldn't ALL of it BE organic?  I don't think you should be able to label something organic if it's not100% organic.

I come across a lot of this on Etsy (you really have to read the small print) and I presume that people offering items that are made half of organic fabric and advertising it as organic are purely doing it to save some money.  We all know that organic items whether they are vegetables, eggs or fabric are more expensive.  And I'm presuming people that are buying these items really don't give a darn about whether they have an organic item or not.

I was looking through the latest Pottery Barn Kids catalog and they are even selling a collection, the Safari Collection that have bibs and burp cloths that when you look online have the word 'organic' underneath the picture.  When you click on the link to open up the details the top description declares they are 'pure organic' but read on further and it turns out that the top layer is organic and the backing is a cotton/poly terry knit (as we all know polyester is a man made fiber therefore not organic).  Their swaddle blankets however in the same collection are 100% organic as they only use 1 layer.

Now I'm not trying to slam Pottery Barn Kids, I love Pottery Barn Kids, I think they have great design and their quality of their goods are high but is it really that hard to produce an organic bib that is really organic front and back?  I'm sure if I can offer it at an affordable price then they surely can too.

Thanks for letting me rant....this blog thing isn't bad for getting things off your chest....I do feel a little better!
Have a GREAT weekend.