Been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!

It has been a whirl wind couple of weeks around here!

We participated in the PGWAHM Tradeshow and had a wonderful time connecting with old and new customers alike!

We were fortunate enough to get a double booth and I really liked our set up and the ease and room that customers could enjoy!

The other benefit of a show such as this is learning about other WAHM businesses in the region. I enjoyed seeing the ladies I have met in previous years, meeting new ones and sharing new ideas and formulating plans for future networking.

That same weekend was so incredibly busy! My daughter was in her school production of Dear Edwina.

It was an ensemble cast of 60+ 6 to 12 year olds about a hilarious advice giving Judy Bloom type of character.

For months now, we have been listening to the CD, to Izzy's skill grow and going to practices up to six days a week. What an AMAZING result it was! I was floored at how professional this production turned out to be!

Much credit must go to our principal, Mrs Hart who managed, directed and taught this bunch of kids such amazing things that will carry with them throughout their lives.

The same weekend was also my little girl's birthday. She had been begging for a "pet of her very own" for months. It had wavered between a rabbit and guinea pig. The last month or so, she seemed to have given up completely switching to a violin as her desired gift. Deep down though, I knew in her heart she wanted to love a pet of her own.

While in the city my mom who came to help for the show and I checked out the pet shop. Low and behold we found this little creature.....An 8 week old little guinea pig.
We got all we needed to start her new home, as well as what was needed to survive the weekend without breaking into the "gifts".

This sweet little girl was taken to a hotel where we checked in and settled her best we could then ran off to set up for the trade show.

She spent the day at the show with us prior to travelling back to our hometown and was hidden at home until the next day for the birthday.

My daughter was overjoyed, so much so that she burst into tears of overwhelmed joy after holding "Twinkle" for a couple of minutes.

This is my baby. The day before she turned 7. Suddenly I see hints of what she will look like as a 16 year old. Oh my, where has the time gone?

Just as these past two weeks seem to have escaped me, so has the past years.

I am so proud of my Izzy girl. Happy Birthday sweetie. May the entire year bring you as much joy and growth as these past weeks have! <3

2500 Giveaway and Auction Event!

We made it! After what seemed to be a period of being stagnant, we have reached 2500 fans!!

I am celebrating by having an auction and giveaway event. I am very pleased that so far. The sponsors are not the "typical" set, there are some real gems in this group! There is still room for new participants (just contact me) and this event will be open for two weeks, closing on March 18th.

Please be sure to check it out and share share SHARE!! :)

On other fronts:

I am sick....like every.hair.on.my.head.HURTS sick .....almost man sick :( I am not at all a fan of this! I have no time to be plastered in my chair, taking some medication concoction, moaning and hacking with a stack of cloth wipes to take care of a nose in the nicest way possible...NO TIME!

What I SHOULD be doing is prepping for the PG WAHM Tradeshow! It is exactly one week away now! I have an order to complete for delivery there as well I had dreams of having THE MOST AMAZING inventory for it but between my back and being sick I am lagging behind my goals. I must say though, that what I am taking is pretty impressive all the same, just not quite OVER THE TOP if you know what I mean :)

It will come together though..I know it will..I just have to get better!

With the show in mind, please be aware that I will be turning the storefronts (both our main site and Hyenacart) off on Thursday. Friday is a travel/setup day, Saturday the show and Sunday another travel/unpack day. I hope to turn selected items back on beginning Monday.

Timeline:

Seems you either love or hate it. I am "liking" it LOL. I got new graphics (again) and took the plunge this morning. I do like some of the new features such as messaging and the fat that you can "pin" an item to the top so you do not have to continuously share an item. I do wish they would add back the "most recent" feature to run right below the pinned items..that would be AWESOME! What do you love or hate about it?

Blog posts:

I know I have to continue work of my fabricaholics series. I promise to do so after the tradeshow. I am getting to that overwhelmed stage and need to dial back a few things until I get past this next week.

Kids:

Our teachers are taking strike action this week so everybody is home. I am going to reserve my comments on the the entire situation (both sides). There are many teachers I love as individuals (some read this) and all I can say is that my feelings do not change for those individuals and I will leave it at that. Do teachers strike in your area? Are they considered an essential service?

Now I am off to nap a little...again......

Can a girl have too much fabric???

Hello. My name is Michelle and I am an addict. A fabric addict.

I spent all day yesterday attempting to make room for my most recent acquisitions. The fact that I had huge boxes of fabric falling over from their precarious perches dumping the contents all over MIGHT have had something to do with the motivation to undertake such a project. Or, it MIGHT have been my poor hubby grunting as he hauled 200 yds of cut diaper "guts" up into the house then down the two flights of stairs to the studio only to scream up "Just WHERE am I to put THIS!?!"

Yes, I have fabric....and admittedly LOTS of it. I buy in fits and spurs for the most part. Recently, there was much that needed to be stocked up on and some deals came my way that were just too good to pass up and then there were the adorable new releases, oh and let's not forget some Vera Bradley that was TDF, and the fact that one of my suppliers only mills some of the fabrics I use in "winter months" so I need to stock up enough to carry me to fall in those. Oh and my favorite fabric reps will soon be paying me visits and well, who wants to turn away a fabric rep right? Yes, if ye shall look for a reason...there is sure to be one to suit the occasion if it means more fluffy fabric headed one's way!

I think I found a home for close to 350 yds of new fabric. I am sure that I moved AT LEAST 500 yds to do so. It meant moving sections around from one set of shelves to a cabinet, from a cabinet to the old office up a floor, to put new stuff in the shelf...you get the idea...rob Peter to pay Paul type of thing :) Not all are nice small pieces either..some are heavy awkward 50 yd rolls of fluffy goodness!

Having just bopped around the lower two floors of the house taking pictures of "the stash" I have come to realize while downloading that I neglected many key parts of said stash...like the dresser stuffed full of print PUL or the totes of whatever is in them, and did not take pics of the girly nor gender neutral flannels. Bottom line, this is going to be a two (or three) part epic post to get it all done!

Let's begin the tour in the studio shall we? This is looking back towards the stairs that I just came down. This

is my "main storage". We built these adjustable shelves when we re did our basement post flood a few years back. At the time, I thought it would serve ALL my needs...silly me! I could easily fill 4 of these these days .

As you can see the ironing board serves multi functions..right now it is the sorting facility for wipes that need to be serged. I can grab them right from there as I sit a the desk and serge away.

Under the ironing board is 4 rolls of PUL, about 70 cones of thread and my daughter's sewing kit. She is beginning and learning. We try to have a "sewing lesson" once a week. She made a pillowcase a few weeks back and come to think of it, it should be washed while she has a sleep over at Grandma's tonight...she never gives the thing up!

Within those yellow totes are a

bunch of diapers that are stacked and ready to sew, some wet bags ready to serge and in the other one, random smaller cuts of various fabrics. Atop the tote is some LWI dyed bamboo

french terry that I did up a few weeks ago.

The lower shelves contain a bolt of the most gorgeous lime Cotton velour, and then a rainbow of PUL in the left and middle sections.

Blogger is frustrating me at the moment so I am going to go and sew for a bit and will return this evening to continue showing you the stash.

Hey, since you are here, bop down to the post below for a GIVEAWAY...just go PIN a BB Butts image and you can win a $20 GC. Enter as many times as you would like (separate comments so random.org can count them all).

Pinterest Challenge!

Oh I am on a roll! I have posted to the blog weekly...it is a record for me!! :)

Tonight while trasping around on the net I came up with a new goal and challenge that involves both you and I.

My goal is to get all of my in stock onto the main website at BB Butts Diapers. I have made progress by learning some formatting html and getting all of the new baby blankets listed. That means photos, editing, resizing for optimization...something for me that needs a good block of time and a clear head. For this reason I often put it off and that is the very reason the site lacks most of the time.

I am also going to stock my Hyena Cart again too! Brand new items will head there first then transfer over tot he main site.

I am offering a challenge with a prize to you to spurn me on. The challenge is for you to "pin" at least one item from the web site or Hyena Cart that you admire. Once you do this, comment here on this post and let me know what item you pinned and I am going to enter you in to a draw for a $20 GC.

The challenge will give me the motivation to continue to add new items and hopefully as I do you will come back and pin more items and for each pin you will receive an entry. I will post on Facebook each time I have added a new group so you are aware and can pop over here to add entries.

I will work on a product group at a time..for example all of the wipes wet bags or all of the boxers. As I work through each group I am redoing ALL of the image graphics so it takes some time.

So go and "pin it" and if you need an invitation to Pinterest, send me a message on the Facebook contact form and I will get you one.

Happy pinning!

New graphics have arrived!! I have been waiting for this exciting change to happen! I was able to work with a designer who ran with what we already had for branding and brightened things up and added images of our items.
She delivered exactly what I had hoped for and even did her own digging to find images of my stuff that she thought would work to add to the mix I had given her.

If you are wanting to freshen up your page, I would recommend heading to Hoot n' Tag on Facebook and getting a graphics package!!

Our new customers will also now land on our Welcome page. I LOVE it as it shows that BB Butts Diapers has grown to so much beyond diapers! Have a look at the images and please leave some feedback. Is this look aesthetically pleasing to the customer eye?

2400 Winner!!

Random.org has spoken and the winner is ...

#18 CJR ! The song was Karma Chameleon! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw You have 48 hours to contact me via the contact tab on the Facebook page to claim your prize of a wipes wet bag.

I remember listening to this as I was learning to drive!!! great tune! I have REALLY enjoyed listening to these songs. Lots of memories have flooded back. Take a few minutes to l isten to some of these here on the blog or on the wall.

Be sure to enter the quickie giveaway for the Valentine's Mug Rug which is on the wall right now! It will be drawn Sunday after I have had sufficient coffee to greet the day with a smile!

~Michelle

2400!!

Yay! we have 2400 AMAZING WONDERFUL fans of our page!!

I am going to do the give away different this time. For every 50 entries I am going to give away an item..think wet bag, liner, doubler....so if we have 300 entries there will be 6 prizes... got it? Time to have some fun!!

Also different this time, we are going to utilize BOTH Facebook and the Blog. To enter you need to:

1. Find out what the top song was the week you were born.
2. Next grab a Youtube video of it and post it on the CONTEST THREAD on Facebook.

3. Finally you will enter the give away on the blog here in the comments to this post with the name of your song.

You will have to do all three steps to be valid.

The fun part is that there will be a play list of sorts right there on our BB Butts Diapers wall that spans a few decades! Enjoy all the songs!

This giveaway will be open for ONE WEEK and be drawn on Jan 14th.