Happy Thanksgiving a bit early!

I know I have been MIA for quite a while. I apologize for this. I know my blogging goes by the wayside for the Holidays and I assure you it gets better in January! More ramblings to come soon!

However with things being hectic for everyone with the Holidays coming up I wanted to take a moment and let you all know I am thankful for you.
I am thankful that you support handmade. Thankful that you follow my blog and my shop!
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will check back in when I can to let you all know I am alive and kicking and trying to keep my little shop stocked up with goodies!

Eat well, Spend time with loved ones and have a wonderful week!
Hugs and stitches,

Kelli and Kyle

Horrible Christmas Sweater

Now I know everyone has different tastes in sweaters and I do not want to offend anyone by posting this...
However... this would be my own personal hell to be dressed in a HUGE sweater with shoulder pads, ice skating bears in a red, black and gold mixture. I am a redhead, so this will be like the heavens clashing together the world may even stop for a second or two when I don this masterpiece.

We are having a horrible sweater team photo at work. 12 people in our team will be wearing the most horrible sweater they can find. This is mine. Its two sizes too big to boot!
I wanted to share with all of you out there. Do you have photos of you in an ugly sweater? Id love to see them!

Craftopolis, Have you heard of it?

This post is mostly for the Etsy Sellers out there! Have you heard of Craftopolis?
www.craftopolis.com

I realized that I had been checking it several times a day and then thought to myself, maybe others dont know about this!?
Well, I am here to tell you this is an insanely powerful tool.
I specifically use it to check views, hearts and the sales in a month. You can import your stats from Etsy directly. You can also access your google analytics to see how much traffic in page loads your site draws.
There is a lot of information on this site that I do not personally utilize like batch editing of your shipping and I occasionally check out the tag report. Which is a tool that lets you know what people are searching for and what page your goodies are found.

All very smart to keep track of your business and traffic!
Just thought I'd share that little tip! Happy Shopping!

Craft Show Display - New Design

Last year at Atomic Holiday Bazaar in Sarasota, FL was the first time I had to ever make an indoor booth display.

I thought I had done a super job with the kitschy Cardboard Fireplace, the clothesline with stockings and the 3' red tinsel tree.

Until I saw the photos later.

It looked like Red Marionette puked all over the tables.

You can see photos HERE

I have since revamped it. Cleaned it up. Decided that with so much color there needs to be a better way to display everything.

I had heard of people using closet doors to hang jewelry at shows (see photo below)

So I figured why not get some of those, cut them in half so I have a little zig zag screen on the tabletop of four panels and use that to display wreaths.

So Mr. Red Marionette is in process of painting the doors white and we are measuring to determine how many wreaths we can display at the show.

You can see the door in this photo has slots so it is lightweight, lets light through and also has various attachment points for the various sized wreaths to hang. That will be on one table top.

Credit for this door photo is UnStrungSisters

Secondly we decided that with my little red tree it ends up getting lost in all of the colors. We decided to purchase a white 7.5' tree that is kind of a blank canvas so to speak. It is pre lit with white lights but we also purchased a bunch of multi lights to draw attention to the tree. The evening half of Atomic the lights are dimmed so it will be a beautiful beacon! It will be able to showcase the little critters much better!

Lastly the newest addition to the little Red Marionette display family is my gently used eBay purchase of a blow mold Santa that lights up. We had one big Santa head growing up so this brings back memories of my childhood at Christmas.

Blow mold Santa will be standing next to the Cardboard fireplace.

Another few little additions will be a dripping snow cap for the Cardboard fireplace mantle that I will make out of felt to give it a little more of a decorated look. The Red Marionette Choo Choo Logo will be on top of that snowy cap. And then products will be grouped and placed strategically so there isnt SO much to look at. We will have white display boxes to make little nests of goodies so it is not so overwhelming on the eyeballs.

I hope this year it will look well thought out and cleanly (cleanly? Is that a word?) displayed. Wish us luck!

Good Golly!

Holy Cow! its been so long since I have posted! I apologize!
We have had a lot going on with Halloween, and now November kicking off the Red Marionette Holiday season (For Real! Not the early September/October Shoppers!) So there is a lot going on!

I would like to thank those of you who have supported Red Marionette (and me and my family) this year! We doubled our sales number and more than tripled our dollar amount for October of 2010 from 2009's numbers! So THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!

This blog post will get you all caught up from the last couple of weeks!

















I wanted to show you all what I have put together and listed HERE! Sets of goodies for you! The sets have the tree skirt, two stockings and three additional ornaments already selected for you! No debating on what will go well together, its all planned out all you have to do is apply to your home! :)

Side Note: It has been brought to my attention that I can barely write a couple of sentences without using exclamation points. I have decided it is because I am excited about that I am talking about. I digress...

Mr. Red Marionette (Kyle) has been doing a lot more stocking sewing and I am pleased to say they are coming along nicely. We will have more stockings stocked up this week, never fear! And of course some new designs with Light blues and Browns and creamy whites with browns and some fierce new tassel and fringe trims. Im not just sticking to the pom poms anymore! Look out world!

Also we are still working on the release of the Red Marionette Mobiles in January. I have a couple of designs slated for the making. Including but not limited to a Monster Mayhem Mobile and Zoo Day as well as Woodland Friends. They will also have matching wall art. I will have custom colors available (but not custom critters, yet!) I cannot express in words how excited I am about these. I mean stupid excited. My husband would call it "geeking out". I bet you all can imagine.

This is super fresh news - I mean, so fresh its still kinda growing on the tree.... but next year we will begin taking select wholesale accounts. We have had several inquiries (Which I LOVE!) and with being employed full time and Red Marionette being a second full time job it will be baby steps at first. If you are interested in being added to the list to be contacted when we finish our line cards and information, please email me at kelli@redmarionette.com

And now, for a little probing. I want to hear from you guys out there!
I would love to hear what you made for your halloween costumes this year!
What are your plans for making handmade gifts this year?
I want to know if you have taken wholesale accounts before in your business?
What is your favorite Thanksgiving Recipe?

Im in a nosy mood so feel free to share share share!
Hugs and stitches!