Special Order Computer Bag

These photos are of a neat project I worked on last week. A customer wanted one of my tote bags but just a little taller and longer straps so the bag could be worn over the shoulder to carry her lap top and other things. I finished it and sent it to her and just heard back from her. Fortunately, she loved it!! It's nice to be able to do that for someone.

Pouch Bag with Clasp

i finally designed a style that's been in the back of my mind for a long time. it's a pouch bag with a clasp type of closure. the closure is easy to use and is something i've wanted to do for a long time and i happy i finally made the time to get it done. the closures are from 'ohio traveling bag co.' and i'm really happy with their quality. i'm using them on my small and large style pouch bags. i now feel like i've got a good variety of closure types.

New Beginnings

last week we published our wholesale site, 'Basswood Fiber and Leather'. to celebrate IT and spring we've been taking off on driving trips whenever we can (mostly on sundays) bird watching and looking at the countryside west, south and southeast of us. yesterday we went down to the 'Big Woods' state park in Nerstrand. man, did time fly. we saw about 10 different types of wildflowers and a Red Headed Woodpecker among lots of other fun birds. Debra took this picture in the late afternoon outside of Welch near the cannon river. talk about beautiful!!

Finally a Sale!

business started to pick up the last 2 weeks so that's been nice. a lady came in and bought lots of our items including one of Debra's pincushions and my scarlet pouch bag. i was able to cut the shoulder strap to size for her while she waited and i really like being able to provide that kind of customer service. i'm including the bag here.

Slow Times

man...talk about slow. this is it!! it's amazing how things can change sales wise. this month has been incredibily bad. thank goodness for our internet shops. we've sold a few items through those sites and that has helped keep us focused. the big news is that we were accepted by wholesalecrafts to sell our products wholesale through their site on the internet, so that's good. we are in the process of setting it up and hope to have it running by the end of next week. a new name for that shop, too. basswood fiber and leather. nice...something has got to start working...!!

New Coin Purses

it's always fun coming up with something new to make. i've been working on coin purses and finally have the size right!! the case will also hold some business cards and/or credit cards as well as folding money and coins. fun to make and i can do all kinds of different colors!!

New Cell Phone Cases

well...after a better january and february than last year, march looks like it will be a dead month businesswise. we've had some nice internet sales but really slow business at our shop here in wayzata. so we've been working on items that are on the low end of the price scale. i decided to start making cell phone cases with a flap. they are coming out around 2 1/2" x 4" x 1" and i'm going to do a variety of colors. here's a cranberry one.

Lifetime Bag

this week was fun because i got a special order. the way it worked was this...i sold a 'Java Brown' bag to a women who sent it to her sister for a present. the sister had marked the bag as a 'favorite' on Etsy. it turned out what she really wanted was the Java Brown bag but as a larger size. fortunately she contacted me and we worked out an exchange. she sent the Java Brown bag back to us and i made one according to her specifications. i like doing things like that and was happy with how it turned out...i hope she is as well.

New Tote Bags

it's been a fun month. with selling all of my tote bags this year i get to make some more. so this is what i've been working on last week and this week. busy, busy, busy...

Buy Handmade

well...it's amazing how things work out. we had another big weekend sales wise last saturday and for the 2nd time this year beat our best day of 2008. and most of the sales were handmade items. very exciting. i have sold 3 tote bags in the last 2 weeks and a total of 4 in the last month. so i am busy making more! here are a couple of shots of what is no longer in our shop...

Ivory Washi Locket

this beautiful locket we paired with my emerald green pouch bag with flap as a 'play it forward' promotion at 1000Markets. we thought they looked great together

Big Sales

running a physical shop as well as selling 'online' is really interesting. last week our physical shop had 6 total customers, but 2 really nice sales so we finished january 2009 over double what we did in january 2008. very cool considering the state of the economy and all. we both feel that our internet sales have really pushed us over the top (so to speak). it's so much fun to have both outlets. we are now running a sale in our shop at least through valentine's day to see if we can generate some foot traffic. yesterday we had as many people in the shop in one day as we had all last week so that was nice. so with that in mind imagine our pleasant surprise this morning when we got to our shop and found that we had sold 1 pillow, 4 pincushions and a set of coasters to 2 different customers!! very exciting and very cool. so we keep plugging along and i have to say every day is different and everyday is definately worth looking forward to. i put up the pillow just because it's so pretty and guess what? it's new home is in Israel. Sweet...

2 Tone Whip Stitch Purse

i just loved how this bag came out. it started with making my partner's purse for her christmas present. things didn't work out quite right with that bag and i felt she deserved the best so i had to redo part of it. i was left with the flap. it was so pretty that i decided to make it work somehow in a purse. this is the end result. i decided to do a 2 tone bag as an experiment. i definately plan to do some more.

Java Brown Shoulder Bag

this week started off great when we got an etsy sale for my Java Brown Shoulder Bag. sweet...it was one of the first bags i'd made last summer and i really liked it. the women is giving it to her sister who had 'hearted' it on etsy. very nice and a great way to start the week. in fact, with walk in business so slow, our internet sales and networking activities are helping to keep us going.

Teapot Handle

part of the fun of doing leather work is getting 'special' requests. last saturday one of our best customers came in with a teapot that had had a wooden handle on it that had broken. she was wondering if i could put a leather handle on it. immediately i figured that the style that i use for my tote bags would work with just a simple modification. i said "sure" and finished it yesterday. it came out exactly like i'd imagined which doesn't always happen. we liked how it looked against the color of the teapot which was earthenware. she also bought one of my tote bags...the dark mahogany one, which was pretty cool.

Russet Whip Stitch Purse

i finished this bag today and really like how the color came out. let's see if other people like it as well...

Eyeglass Case

last saturday our little shop had our best business day in over a year. (better than any day in 2008 if you can believe it...it's true). what was great on saturday was that we didn't have a ton of people, but the weather warmed up after our cold snap and, as one customer said, "i just felt like shopping." and, again, our handmade items continue to be a hit. i sold my cranberry tote bag and Debra sold more of her washcloths. it was fun all around. on monday of this week we had another etsy order...this time for an eyeglass case which i had to make to get the color she wanted. the color - burgundy- was actually one i had made up, so it was interesting trying to duplicate it, which i think i did successfully. it is a base of range tan with cranberry added over it. i'm including my old photo here just for fun. i liked the color so much that i'm working on a new purse with the design i used for Debra's christmas gift. so far so good as far as the color goes. it's just a riot working with all the colors available now!!

man, has this ever been a busy time for us. we got our shop's inventory done and that felt great. we've been spending a lot of time recently openning new internet shops which has been fun. as a consequence i haven't had anytime to do any leather work. but i was looking at some of my items today and took a picture of a basket of small and medium cell phone cases. there's even a couple of eye glass cases there too. i thought it looked kind of pretty. by the way, the temperature has stayed below 0 degrees for the 3rd straight day in a row. it hasn't been this cold this long since 1996. we are nice and warm in our shop though.

First Sale of the New Year

it's always exciting when we sell something on line...especially in these tough economic times. so it was fun today get a sale from our Etsy site. the sale was one of my favorite bags-a dark purple pouch bag with a braided shoulder strap. (Braiding takes a while, but always gives a bag a nice look, i think). so, hopefully, this is the start of a good year for us!!