My new tiny wish fairies :)

On a warm summer night just listen by the light of the moon. You will hear the ever so quiet gathering of the WISH FAIRIES.

Fairies love to fly by day but the night brings a time to rest. They stop by the sleepy flowers after spending their day in the warm sun.

My three tiny wish fairies measure 1 1/2" tall. Their faces hand painted with dark eyes and an adorable heart shaped mouth. Their bodies are hand crafted using twists and turns of chenille stems. Their dresses are made from silk like flowers , and their hair styled with embroidery floss. Silvery wings give that little tiny fairy sparkle :).............................................

ALSO AVAILABLE are larger wish fairies holding amber wish lanterns, and on the side a hand painted floral decorated fairy drinking shell to attract fairies to your garden. Also included with the large fairy is a gold tone stand.

Please stop by my shop by the wishwithme shop for a visit :)

Awesome laundry secret for those who hate to iron

Yes, I call it awesome!
Here's a little something I do that to me was like common sense but to others it's like "Wow, that's s a great idea"!

So I've always had a thing about laundry. No I'm not one of those people who say "I love to do laundry and ironing, it calms me" OH, Pha-leese! Anyway I just like to get it done quickly and efficiently. I remember going to my sister's house and she would have baskets of clean laundry waiting to be put away. Kids calling, "Hey mom! where's my whatever shirt and such, and they would dig it out of the compressed wrinkled pile and she would have to quickly iron it and off they would go. OH NO, not in my house. I rarely iron and you would never know it.

One reason is because lucky for me my husband only likes freshly ironed crisp shirts. So he would take out his own shirt and iron it in the morning before work. My daughter throws her school uniform on the ironing board and he takes care of her. Me, I'm a t shirt and jeans type of girl. Except when I need dress clothes for whatever then I too can throw something on the magic ironing board and "Whaaa-Laaaaa" It magically ends up on a hanger all pretty :D.

Okay so no my husband is not my laundry secret. Well we are a family of four. My daughter nearing 16 my son 21, and my husband and I. There are an awful lot of Ts and Polos, shorts, pants and jeans. Here's what I do:

I separate clothes . Whites, Darks, gentle darks, gentle lights and the usual sox,underware, pajamas, towels, etc.( Don't wash towels with your regular clothes because it really does a job on them causing wear and fuzz balls) YUCK! It's amazing how long you can keep your clothes looking great just by washing them inside out in the gentle cycle. That I mainly do for my daughter and I.

So I basically wash all of the separated tops and bottoms first (EVERYTHING except pants INSIDE OUT)
When the wash cycle is finished I take out the wet clothes and shake them out a little as I transfer them to the dryer. (Shaking them out is just to help them move a little easier while drying, so there not so stuck together).

I set the dryer timer for 15 minutes. That's all the time you need. After the 15 minutes, I take out the shirts 1 at a time, put my arms in through the bottom of the shirt, give it a little bit of a stretch and flip it right side out and put it on a hanger. ( ALWAYS USE THE HANGERS WITH THE ROUNDED ENDS TO KEEP YOUR SHIRTS FROM SPROUTING WINGS) :O

The clothes on hangers collect on a nearby doorknob until I get everything out of the dryer. Next I hang them all on an entryway between by living and dining room. ( You can use any entry way or just hang them from your kitchen chairs). Sometimes I do the laundry in the morning and before I go to bed everything is dry and ready to be put away. Always hung, never folded in a draw.

When it comes to pants, after they come out of the wash cycle I just straighten them out a little , fold them as you would if you were to put them in a drawer, and throw them in the dryer. When I take the pants out I straighten them out a little, put them on a pants hanger ( the one with the 2 clips on it like you get when you buy pants on a hanger at the store) Just clip them and again hang them up to dry. Presto! Once they dry they look like they've been ironed :D After a while I finally got my sister to use this method and she does it all the time. It feels great to just hang the laundry in your closet at the end of the day instead of digging through laundry baskets :)

(Pictured is yesterdays laundry or should I say most of yesterdays laundry. My daughter likes to wear many MANY outfits, so her laundry continues on to the neighboring entryway.
The hanger pictured is the best kind of hanger to use when drying wet clothes on a hanger.)

A quick visit

As my arrived home he called me on his cell phone and told me to look out the front window. Sounded like I should grab my camera so I did and look what I found. A birdie splash party!
Right now it's about 85 in the shade so I'm sure their happy to have found my little oasis :)

My advice for Etsy friends :)

My shop started off with my Wish dog. ( Made from 2 garden gloves). It grew into having lots of different dogs and cats and even bunnies dressed from ballerinas to pirates.

Things were going pretty well for a while then the sales really slowed down. I did have offline sales from family and friends, but the economy really had an effect. I then had to switch gears. I had to come up with lower priced items that my customers could buy if they couldn't afford my more expensive items (which was usually $17.00-$22.00).

So I always wanted to try making little felt animals. I tried and came up with a pretty popular turtle playset. I was featured one day on the community type page and I was sewing quite a few turtles. They were priced at $7.00 and came with a little dish like home and drawstring bag. A bargain for only $7.00. Then I tried a guinea pig. No bigger than a kidney bean. Now those are tough on the eyes but that's what is keeping me going.

I did come up with some other tiny creations but I took most of them off of my shop because they were just too tedious to make. The two other big things are the finger-ling babies, which is a little baby in a little blankie drawstring bag and it has a little bottle attached to drawstring. And Ninjas in a bag, which is from one to three little ninjas in a drawstring bag. (both of these items are made from the upcycled cast off fingers of my glove dogs).

I hope someday I can get back into the glove animal business because that's really what I love putting together. I'm in the process of sketching out about 10 new dogs to post this fall.

So for now my shop's been tweeked because of the hard times. Not a day goes by without my trying to come up with the next big thing. So weather it be turtles or guinea pigs, finger-lings or ninjas, the best part of selling anything for me is the reaction of my customers when they actually hold one of them in their hand. I sold one of my tiny turtles to one of my customers who bought it for her son. His little sister then took the turtle, made a tiny crib for it and sleeps with it every night. NOW THAT IS PRICELESS. :)

So go crazy in the forums, get your items seen, and add some low priced items to your shop. Persistence will pay off in the end:) Things can only get better.......

Sign of the times :)

Here in the days of uncertainty. Trying to make due with what we have, and making due without. Everyone is turning to the simpler things. Stories I've herd from my parents of days long ago, when things were tough, are again coming alive in our everyday lives. Hours ago I spent the evening out in the backyard, with my family gathered around a bonfire. We went from music on my nieces i pod to the radio, to my daughter playing the latest songs she's learned on her guitar. We had too many smores and just plain marshmallows. We even threw some foil wrapped potatoes in the fire which were absolutely delicious an hour later. The hours flew by. Just talking and mostly laughing. An awesome time was had by all. It's amazing how many people I see with their own bonfires. Just spending time together in your own backyard. That's all that seems to matter.

This is a custom order I just finished for my customer in France.

Fur-bitz?

Spent the day in wishwithme product development and came up with Fur-bitz. What do you think? Do you think they will sell? What do you think of the name?