Creative Rush

A Vintage Hankie scarf, wrapped and ready for the envelope.
A Vintage Hankie scarf, wrapped and ready for the envelope.

Sometimes I come up with an idea and it just works for a lot of people.  My Heart of Scraps potholders, My Vintage Hankie Scarves and now the Pink Sneaker Potholders. It’s always wonderful when this happens, and each time it sends me into a whirlwind.  First, I get excited about the idea and my energy level rises.  Then I make one of whatever it happens to be and post it on my blog.  And I wait.  I’m already excited, but I never know how it will be received.  I keep checking my email and facebook  and my comments to see what kind of response I’ll get.   Yesterday, Sandra was the first to leave a comment on my blog wanting one of my Pink Sneaker potholders.  I hadn’t even made any yet, but idea of it was enough for her.   By 3pm the ten potholders I made were all sold and I had orders for more.  By now, I’m jumping out of my skin, in a good way.  I’m excited and really busy.  There’s the back and forth with emails, setting up payments, and finishing up the work and shipping.

When It’s something brand new, like the Vintage Hankie Scarves, I have to figure out a way to package and mail them.  This is always fun to figure out.  And like learning how to draw a pink sneaker, the more I do it, the better it gets and the more fun I have. (I don’t have so much volume that it becomes akin to doing Laundry).  I finally got the scarves down.  I wrap a piece of cardboard in tissue paper (Just last week I figured out the best way to wrap the tissue paper around the cardboard.  Believe it or not, there are many different ways to do it and I tried a lot of them) then wrap the scarf around the cardboard then wrap the whole thing in two different colors of tissue paper and tie it with a pretty piece of yarn or string with my business card.  Then it’s ready to be slipped into a padded envelope and off to the post office where Wendy or Martha make sure it gets delivered to the right address.

This afternoon, after a morning of coming down from yesterday’s rush, I’m cleaning up the loose ends, getting my orders straightened out, and planning the next week of finishing up what I started this week (My Butterfly Quilt, a batch of Minnie Potholders and the Pink Sneaker Potholders) and filling potholder orders.  It’s feels like being in retail for the holiday season, except it only lasts a week or so.  It’s exciting when it happens and a relief when things settle down again.  Until the next time…..

3 thoughts on “Creative Rush

  1. So interesting that you, too, have a wait time. That happens in my teaching, too. I toss out an idea, a concept, a theory, and then wait for it to percolate among my kiddos. And then, boom! someone picks up a strand of thinking, and we’re off. You are busy creating in your studio, we are busy creating in the classroom…and then we’re back to quiet time. Reflecting on what we’ve learned, tying up the loose ends…..and I am thinking about how to start the process all over again! You certainly have been busy!

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