Just a little Christmas in July...

So I never really got around to posting all the stuff I made for my shop last year.  I had a super busy and successful Holiday selling season in 2017.  Now that I'm starting to prep for Christmas 2018, I thought I might share a little bit of what I made last year and what my plans are for this year. 

Last year was most definitely the year of the Stockings for me, with Fabric Photo Books coming up as close second.  I'm hoping to have another successful stocking year this year, but it's really hard for me to predict what will take off and what won't!

Last year I made:
45 stockings (19 of which were custom made to match a customer's specific size/fabric request).  Most of these were ordered with blank cuffs, for customers to personalize themselves.  However, I did cross-stitch 4 stockings and appliqued a set of 12.  Whew!

I figured out that the trick to selling stockings last year was to offer them with blank cuffs for customers to add the cross-stitching themselves.  It turns out there aren't a lot of sellers online offering something like that!  I the past, I tried to sell my stockings WITH the custom cross-stitching, but as soon as I took that part out (and slashed the price to account for it), they sold like hot cakes.  Nobody wants to spend an extra $25 on something they could do themselves for a couple bucks.  ;P 

I spent a few months in the summer searching out sales on Christmas fabric and turning those into stockings so that they were mostly all ready to go by October.  Of course, these drew in quite a few custom orders, which were fun.  This year I've been collecting more Christmas fabrics and I probably have enough for... more stockings than I care to admit at the moment.  Lets just say that it's in the triple digits.  ;)  I want my customers to have options, and I'm pretty confident that I have a wide array of choices this year...

I also made:
8 fabric photo books (it felt like a lot more because these are so individualized and they were all ordered within a couple weeks of each other), plus a couple quiet books/rummy mats. 

I even made a bunch of bibs in preparation for the Holiday rush, but they didn't really sell.  I think I'm done making bibs for Etsy, but I might make a few more for a very small local trade show I want to do in September...

Now I'm off to see if I can make a dent in my newly(ish) acquired stack of Christmas fabrics!  Eeee!  I LOVE Christmas fabric!!!