Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Pretend Boutique

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I had on Saturday!  My sister-in-law, Robin and her two friends, Kelly and Christina, one fun filled night recently, decided that they needed to get over their artist fear and host a Holiday Boutique.  What a grand idea!  They schemed up their plan and thought, how bad could it be to host a boutique for a couple of hours on a Saturday?  Nothing too dangerous as going to a full fledged craft fair or anything.  So they decided, let's do it.  Last Monday is when I came into play.  Robin emailed me and asked if I wanted to join.  Of course I did.  If anything else, she said, it'll be fun just to hang out and eat and drink.  It so was!  

Everyone worked hard during the week and got our wears together.  I even pulled an all nighter on Friday to finish up some last  minute items.  Saturday morning, I woke up and got it all together, Robin came to pick me up and we headed over to Kelly's house in a darling little neighborhood of ours in Willow Glen.  Super Cute house, and Super Cute items she makes! You can find her here. When we walked into her house and saw how darling everything was displayed, we knew it was going to be a fun day!  We set up our stuff, made our little plates of goodies, poured ourselves some coffee or tea, and waited for that first customer to arrive.  We were giddy with nerves and excitement!  Who would be the first customer and what would they buy?  One of Robins beautiful framed photos?  Or perhaps it was going to be the Sugarplum Joy banner that Kelly made.  Or maybe, just maybe, I'd get an order for my quiet book. 

We talked, we filled our plates again, heated up some spinach dip, made some delicious rum spiced cider, and waited.  Hmm...we thought.  Perhaps no one can see our sign.  Well, we'll just go outside and fix ol' Santa here with a sign that welcomes the troves of people inside!  Yes, that will help! We moved Santa, although I didn't want him too close to the street in case the mob came and decided to swipe Santa, and placed our newly crafted signage right near him.  Yes, that will do it.  They will come now. 

After acting like crazy, slightly drunken, loons out front, we came inside and waited on pins and needles, again.  Oh my gosh!  It's working!  A truck is pulling up RIGHT in front of the house, right in front of Santa and the sign! Robin blurted out, "Act natural!"  Our "security" girl, Christina, jumped up to pretend like she was a customer already browsing.  Yes...the girl is out of the truck!  She's...she's...crossing the street to another house.  Didn't even give a second look our way.  Blocked ol' Santa and didn't care.  We fell over in laughter!  

Our beautifully set Holiday Boutique, didn't get one customer.  Not one.  I didn't care, I had so much fun hanging out with Robin and her friends.  We even came up with a better marketing plan for our Spring boutique.  While outside moving Santa around, Kelly made the comment that her neighbors were probably thinking, oh look at her pretending she has a shop. We died laughing but thought, what a great idea for our boutique name, The Pretend Boutique.  Intriguing right?  What could they be selling at the Pretend Boutique?  Makes you want to come find out.  Well, you missed out on this one, but you are more then welcome to come to our Spring event.  I'll keep you posted on the details.  (okay, so even now, I'm "pretending" that I'm talking to a lot readers right now...I'm really good at this!)   I can't wait to do it again!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Going a little nutty!

So this morning I quickly logged into my Etsy account, to humor myself that I had received more orders. 
I saw that I had a conversation waiting to be replied to. 
I thought, oh, my book must have made it to it's new owner. 
No, it wasn't that at all. 
It was an email from the Etsy group showing that I had been featured in a treasury find!  I was so excited!  I'm so new to Etsy I just really couldn't believe it!  I feel so honored to be choosen in this wonderful assortment of handmade goods! 
Here is the link:

Talk about another big boost to help me along.  I am truly an Etsy believer!

~nic

Friday, November 26, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know I'm a day late, but I wanted to wish everyone a
Happy Thanksgiving! 
I hope yours was as wonderful as mine was. 
Great food, great family and a great nights sleep! 

I love the holidays! 
I'm working on all my Christmas decorations and for the first time ever, really get to share them with a whole bunch of people! 
I can't wait!

Also wanted to give a HUGE shout out to a wonderful gal in WA, Lisa, who placed my first ever Etsy shop order!  I wasn't even open a full 24 hours, and she had placed an order for one of my quiet books!  I have since finished and shipped it out, I hope she is enjoying it! 
Thank you!! 
(I don't think she's a blog follower, but just in case.  : ) ) 

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Shh..I did it!

I'm officially open!

One Day Shop

I'm taking the ride...I hope it's a fun one!

~nic

Monday, November 8, 2010

Getting going...

So I did it, I think.
I'm pretty sure I opened up an Etsy shop tonight.
I haven't listed anything as my pictures are too big and it's getting late and I'm getting tired. But, I worked a little on my profile and set up my Paypal account.
I'm getting closer...

Also exciting news is my good friend Ashley gave me the CUTEST custom stamp. I think it was a little prompt to help with my Etsy shop. I LOVE it! She even bought it off Etsy. It's all swirly and says Created by Nicole Fowler. I've already stamped it on a painters canvas tarp to use as a tag for a couple of new style quiet books and it turned out so great. Nice and clear with no smudges. I can't get a close up picture of it because our camera can't seem to get it clear enough.
Maybe you'll just have to buy a piece from me and I'll use it! hehe! ; )

Monday, October 18, 2010

Our "New" Old Bed

I've been slowly working on our master bedroom, getting it to become "us".
My parents bought my husband and I our bed 5 years into our marriage.
We had this gymnasium of a water bed, complete with mirrored/etched headboard that wrapped it's way up the wall to attach to the lovely mirrored canopy.
Oh yes...can you say hideous 70's water bed?
You can!
Then you know why my loving parents bought us our bed.

Anyways, we've had it for 14 years now and it still works wonderfully.
I just wanted to tweak it a bit. It has a head board that basically has a mantel on top, so when you would sit up in bed and lean back trying to read a book, eventually your body would go numb because this little mantel would press against your neck in the most peculiar, uncomfortable way. I had run across an egg top foam mattress pad at Salvation Army for 3 bucks a while back. My hubby had two pieces of foam core from some old company signage, they were the perfect fit. I taped the two pieces of foam core together, folded the egg top foam into thirds and simply wrapped an old white curtain around the whole thing. I pinned the curtain in the back, ran some heavy duty velcro I have along the top and bottom and popped it into place. Yeah, no more numb legs!


This is the foot board, which is what the head board looked like. I'm also thinking of getting some bed risers, I love my new bed skirt, but it is a little long. I like the pooling affect, but it may be a bit much.

I also added the curtain canopy above the bed this weekend and the swing arm lamp.
I love how it all turned out.
Hubby is a big fan too!

I've got a few more "big" things to finish up, like my beautiful crystal chandelier, and hubby's dresser...which is turning out to be a bigger project than I thought. I know we'll conquer it! I'll keep you posted. : )

~nic


Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Working hard

Hi all!
I've been working hard on two quiet books. One for a little boy, and one for a little girl. It's been fun doing them at the same time. I've finished the boy one, which you can check out here. It has already been given to Peyton, and from what I hear, he loves it! I'm almost done with the little girl one and will post it as soon as I get it finished.

The other project that I finished up, is our bedroom tv unit. It has actually been done for a bit, but I lost my camera to computer cord, and haven't been able to download them..until now! Yeah!

This started out as your typical armoire, with an upper portion that was half shelving, and half small drawers, with doors to enclose it all. So lovely country 80's. Thanks mom and dad! I took out all the guts of the upper portion, filled and sanded. Then painted it all white, with a touch of black here and there. I also papered the upper portion and cut a hole in the back for the TV to be able to stick out. I also cut off the huge hunk of an upper decorative nothing thing. It was weighing the whole piece down and made it HUGE.
I love the way it turned out!
Take a look:






Of course I had to add some items to the top of the unit. The little hat box is filled with all of our high school and Navy letters. There are LOTS of them. The two vintage linens came from my grandmother, which I adore. The picture, well, don't look too closely at that. Those were taken when I was 18 for my hubby. I had gone to a bridal fair with my mom, and signed up for Bedroom style pictures to be taken. This is one of hubby's favorites. The tall candle stick came from a garage sale, for a whole 75 cents, with the Z Gallerie price tag still on it. The love sign was wood from the Salvation army store, painted white and added some cute ribbon to hang it from. The mirror, well, if you know me, I have mirrors. No really. As I'm sitting here typing, I can look up and see four mirrors in my house.
I love mirrors.
And I don't even wear makeup.
LOL!

~nic