Finally I've ventured out from the traditional square and rectangle pillows once again! The new ornaments will be coming out in the next few days. This is the first of the batch. A funky owl to delight your home. These work not only for Christmas ornaments, but the top of gifts or wine bottle decorations. Back to sewing. Hooray!

Back on Etsy and LOVING it

It's been awhile since I've listed on Etsy. I finished my MFA in Creative Writing and I'm sending out stories for publication. In the mean time I'm still making pillows, but I decided to change the name of my shop to The First Paragraph in order to fuel my writing now that I don't have deadlines. Each pillow I send out I will send a first paragraph with. However, I'm still making Zillow Pillows, so not much has changed. I'm doing movie quote pillows now, the one pictured is from my favorite movie this year: Moonrise Kingdom. Do not miss this movie. It's on DVD now, so get to it. Please visit my shop when you can and send me messages. I love to talk to people and every interaction fuels my writing. Thanks for the help.

Mid-Week Check-offs:

Applied to two shows: Salem Art Festival and Crafty Wonderland (in Portland, Oregon)
Still need to apply: OSU Mom's Art Fair and Corvallis Fall Festival
Pillows completed this week: four
New design line: zero
Posts on FB: one
Posts on Twitter: more than ten (includes RT of other shops)

Still need to bring more pillows down to Mod Pod in downtown Corvallis - the coolest shop in our city! If you live in Corvallis or the surrounding area, check out the Mod Pod on second street for funky, retro, super cute home decor.

What can you check off this week? How many shows do you do a year? Do you like pizza?

Have a wonderful day!

Gnome don't you know me?

Click the button below to join in on the November gnome festivities! Angie over at Gnome Angels is all set and ready for the holiday fun! Check out her blog here: http://www.gnomeangel.com/

Popular Pillow Designs at the Corvallis Fall Festival

The Corvallis Fall Festival was quite an amazing experience! Each year over 30,000 people walk through the 170 booths-buying gifts for themselves, gifts for others. My favorite thing about the festival was talking to people and hearing their excitement about particular pillows. Owls and Peace Signs were the top sellers. The owls were not much of a surprise, but each time a peace sign walked away with a smiling patron, I was overjoyed.

One girl who was probably thirteen or fourteen came to my booth in the last hour on the last day and said she really loved the square peace sign pillow, but she didn't have any money. Then she showed me some beautiful jewelry and said her dad had a booth where he sold them. She offered to watch my booth because I'd said it had been so busy I'd barely been able to walk around to see all the other booths. Then she looked around a bit more and asked if I'd be willing to do a trade for jewelry. She told me she needed to check with her father, Robert Keene (owner of Robert Keene Jewelry from Washington), and she'd be back. When she returned she said he said it would be okay. I gave her the pillow and she left with a big smile. I later visited him booth and chose a gorgeous blue necklace. Funny enough, he also made fabulous peace sign earrings.