Valentine's Day 2013 Collection

Just as I promised yesterday; my Valentine's Day Collection! There is still about a week left to order in time for Valentine's Day delivery, so go ahead and check it out!

Starting with my gorgeous new heart headband. This one is my absolute favorite! It can be attached to a thinner elastic, I just love the way it looks with a thicker band! I currently have one of these RTS, but I haven't finished the elastic yet, so it can be any size!

Please excuse my daughter's face in this photo. This was the day before a snow storm, she was mad because the cement was cold. Can you blame her?

I love this girly striped set! Sadly, I don't have any photos of it on a cutie patootie, hopefully I will soon! (All photos below this point taken by TuLeaf Photography in New York, check her out!)

Next up is my chocolate kiss hat, this is my current favorite! How cute would this look on a newborn with a light pink blanket in the background? Gorg!

And my most popular item of the Valentine's collection has been saved for last. This cute beanie is perfect for the little guy in your life!

 

You can check out the Etsy link for each item above, or shoot me an e-mail at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com to get your order started!

Happy Friday!

New Boy Design!

How many times do you see items geared towards girls? Headbands, lace, frills and dresses? I'm pretty guilty of that myself! My girl has tons of headbands {I get mine from Birdie Baby Boutique, where do you get yours?}, crochet boots, cute outfits, etc., while my guy is... well, lacking in that area. Don't get me wrong, he wears nice clothes, but he isn't always as head to toe decked out as she is. I don't always make sure his hat, shoes and gloves match his outfit, I just make sure that he actually has them on. I've been working on some new boy designs lately to combat it, so that all of the new mommas of boys don't feel left out!

I am love love loving this set! The colors can be changed out for any colors you'd like as always. You can purchase the set as the beanie and diaper cover or the pixie hat and diaper cover over in my Etsy shop. You can add a wood button to either hat for an additional cost.

Happy Monday!

 

Custom Order!

Before Christmas, I had a custom order for a gray, light pink and white striped hat for a baby girl. The customer actually spotted my Etsy listing for a flower hat, which contained the same colors, and loved it!

{my baby girl}

Such a pretty hat, right? Here is my customer's hat.

I love, love, love it. Nothing like reminiscing of newborn baby days to give you baby fever, eh? Now if only the customer would post a photo of her sweet baby in the hat on my Facebook page...

Happy Sunday!

Creative Hat Giveaway Winner!

Happy New Year! Can you believe it is already 2013?! This year just flew by for me; I gave birth to my second child, I quit my full time job to stay home and I jump started my crochet business! I am so excited to see what 2013 has in store for me!

With the new year I had a new giveaway! Instead of my typical "worth $20" or "worth $25" giveaway, I decided to have one where you could design your own earflap hat and I could choose my favorite.

Drumroll please!

 

The giveaway winner is Lisa Leslein!

While all of you gave wonderful and creative ideas, I love the idea of designing a Hello Kitty hat! I know that it will turn out incredible, and I will be sure to share pictures as soon as it is finished!

Lisa, please e-mail me at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com by midnight tonight to claim your prize! Thank you to all who entered, and be sure to keep referring friends to my page, as I will be having my next giveaway at 200 likes {just 34 likes away!}, and then my following giveaway will be a referral giveaway!

Happy Tuesday!

 



Featured Photographer: Geno Photography

I really love the wonderful photographers that I get to work with, and to show them my appreciation I'd like to give each one a featured post, so expect a week of every month's posts to be dedicated to pictures of squishy newborn goodness, glowing bellies, thriving toddlers and beautiful families. I am not perked in any way to write these posts, I just like to be able to showcase each one more than just "sharing" their photos on Facebook.

Geno Photography

 

See my first post on Geno Photography here. I absolutely love working with Carrie Geno, the owner and photographer at Geno Photography. She isn't just a photographer to me, because she has also been taking my children's photos since my oldest was 6 months old (he is now almost 3!). She is an absolutely flawless prop photographer, highlighting details I could only dream of. Here are some recent photos she has taken for me.

 

 

{These two girls are daughters, are they not just absolutely beautiful?!}

 

A lot of people forget that I crochet items for every age and size {for no extra charge}, so I sent some items to her and requested a couple of photos so that I could showcase older children too. I absolutely love how these turned out! The snowy background- perfect! And I love that she was able to match her daughter's coats to the headband and hat too, it really makes each item pop!

You can purchase the earwarmer headband here, and earflap hat with flower here; just specify which sizes you need. You can also send me an e-mail at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com to get started on your custom order.

 

She also photographed some newborn stuff for me, it turned out so cute!

 

 

Don't you just love newborn goodness? Even better, these were a set of twins! Yup, really. Go check out more info on Geno Photography at her website here, her blog here, her Facebook page here, and be sure to check out more work here!

 

You can purchase the bear hat here, baby boots here, or toddler boots here. You can specify size and color for each item.

 

Happy Monday!

 









Recap of the Holiday Expo!

As most of you know, I was a vendor at the Holiday Expo this past weekend {I only posted it on Facebook a zillion times, right?}. It was fun to see all of the vendors out there and make a few new friends! Here are a few photos of my set-up.

{I love these two hats with the wood button. They are size 0-3 months and are still for sale! Shoot me an e-mail at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com: $15 each, shipped, or buy both for $27 shipped.}

 

 Yup, I stole my almost 3 year old's {Almost three?! When did this happen?!} chalkboard. That's a normal thing for an owner of a business to do, right? Don't answer that.

 

I learned a lot about crochet, and what attracts someone to an item.

For instance-

1. The really unique and creative items catch people's eyes {e.g. the reindeer hat, gingerbread hat, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, etc.}, but just long enough to point it out to their bestie and then walk away.

2. While people around the US seem to really favor my Mickey and Minnie Mouse hats {they are my top sellers as well as my top views}, people in Iowa really don't care for them. I didn't have a lot of people who were interested in them.

3. May 2012 must have been a top month for the hospitals around here, because everyone was asking for a size 6 month!

4. The items that I love, are not always the items that my customers love. While I favored the light pink hat with the brown heart stitched to it, others favored the black beanie with the huge lavender poinsettia buttoned to it.

5. I really prefer custom work. I have a hard time trying to sell someone something that they don't LOVE. I feel awful, and my soul tugs at me and whispers to me the whole time, "Leave her alone, she doesn't like the Minnie hats, she wants something different." This is why I specialize in custom. Do NOT feel bad if you give me tons of instructions or ask a million questions. On the other end, don't get annoyed if you spend the first twenty e-mails back and forth with me asking you questions and clarifying. I want to make sure that your item is perfect. Handmade, custom work can be expensive, which is why I do my best to keep my prices low and my customer service high. 

I'm happy that I went to the Expo, but I was even happier when I came home, checked my Etsy and had a custom order waiting for me. Custom is where my heart is.

Happy Tuesday!

Boot Cuffs!

{Sidenote: I always thought I would be that writer that would come up with awesome titles to get people to read my article; I was wrong.}

I am loving the boot craze that is going around right now! I have seen tons of people wearing boot cuffs to go at the top of their boots, and it looks very fall-chic-cozy-cute.

I am loving the black and tan speckles in this yarn, so I accented it with black buttons. Gorgeous!

I am working on a few other pairs for the HUGE Holiday Expo at Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa this Saturday, December 8th, 2012! There will be pancakes with Santa, a bounce house, face painting, a scavenger hunt, over 50 vendors and SO MUCH MORE! If you are local, then I must see your pretty face there! Go check out details here.

You can purchase my boot cuffs from my Etsy shop here. Don't forget, if you order more than one pair at a time then I give a 10% discount! E-mail me at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com to get that set up.

Happy Thursday!

Big News!

I am officially a work-at-home mom.

Yup, today is my last day of full-time work outside of the house. It was a difficult decision to make, and we mulled over it for quite some time, but it's the best decision for our family at this time. What will this mean for you, my customers, though?

1. On time blog posts- It will take a bit to get into the swing of things, but I'm hoping to get blog posts written either the night before, or to get up about an hour before my kids do, and get them done right away in the morning.

2. Faster creations- I will have more than just a couple hours in the evening to work on orders. I won't have to work on orders while feeling guilty for not spending time with my children, I will finally have time for both.

3. More local craft fairs and farmer's markets- I never really had time to work on a bulk amount of items, I had enough time to finish custom orders, but that was about it. So, you'll be seeing my face around the crafty world much more now if you live in Iowa!

4. Longer delivery times- I know, this probably makes no sense to you. Since I won't be driving into town every day for work, I won't be able to ship orders every day. Ship day will be every Saturday. If you are looking to order on a Friday and want to know how long you will have to wait before it ships- e-mail me. Depending on the size of the order, I may be able to crochet it up in one night and have it ready to ship by the following day.

In short, this is a wonderful decision for both my family and my business. I am incredibly excited to move forward {with all of you in tow of course!} and see what the future holds for my crochet creations!

Happy Friday!

 {Also, sorry about the lack of a follow-up post to my closet storage on Wednesday, you'll be seeing part two right here bright and early on Monday morning. I'll be writing from the comfort of my couch. See you then!}

Small Business Saturday!

Now that you have had your fun with all of the big box stores, don't forget to shop local today! This is what I currently have ready to ship (will ship Monday, 11/26/12 if ordered by Sunday, 11/25/12). Remember, shipping is always included in the listed price.

Coffee Mug Cozies: $10

To-Go Coffee Cup Cozies: $8

Earwarmer Headbands: $15

0-3 Month Hats: $15

Newborn Elf Hats: $25

If you don't see something here that you would like, shoot me an e-mail at casscrochetcreations@yahoo.com and we will get your custom order going. My custom orders have a turn-around of roughly 1- 3 business days, but I will be trying to work out custom orders quickly to get them shipped with the ready to ship items on Monday. Check out my Etsy shop for more custom order ideas including; infinity scarves, boot cuffs, neckwarmers, and my standard earflap hats.

Happy Small Business Saturday!

Custom Order!

I showed you my new earwarmer headbands yesterday, but now I get to show you the custom order that started the earwarmer headbands! This customer goes to the University of Northern Iowa, which is her favorite school! While her roommates go to UNI with her (well, I assume they do, but if they don't then they sure travel a long way from the UNI campus all the way out to the Iowa and Iowa State campuses!), their preferences are the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. I thought it was such a fun idea to get to create headbands for each school all for the same order!

University of Northern Iowa

University of Iowa

Iowa State University

 

She loved the idea of having flowers on them (and so do I!), so I kept the colors going with the cute tiny buttons in the middle of the flowers! I love that they all match, can't you just imagine how cute they will look walking around with two of them getting beat up for wearing the wrong colors to UNI campus?! These are supposed to be Christmas gifts for the Iowa and Iowa State girls, but I hope that she'll post photos of them all modeling them together for me after Christmas, on my Facebook page!

I also added the earwarmer headbands to my Etsy shop, so you can check them out here! Remember, if you are looking to buy more than one then contact me first and I will either set you up a custom listing on Etsy or send you an invoice to your PayPal, I want to make sure that you get the 10% discount!

 

 

Happy Tuesday!