Hosting a House Sale

A couple of months back after my break-up I had a double fold problem, I had way too much stuff and way too little money. The logical solution was to sell my stuff and try to make some cash. Easier said than done sometimes! A friend of mine said they had organised their own house party clothes sale to much success and I decided to give it a shot. I had lots of really good vintage clothes in varios sizes and styles from when I used to do clothes upcycling. I knew it would be a fair bit of work but what else did I have to lose, the rent had to be paid.

At the time I had an empty second bedroom downstairs beside my living room, so this was a perfect location for the shopping room. I borrowed some clothes rails, a changing room screen, and a full scale mirror to help with this transformation. I also used a large bookcase to display the shoes and bags in a boutique style manner. Just the day before I decided to put out some of my craft stuff in the living room in case anyone took a fancy to my own handmade pieces. I used some of my market shelving and suitcases to make the display look more appealing. I also had some bunting left over from my birthday to add a festive atmosphere to the evening. My friend Dee even painted a large paper dress to hang on the front door to with some cute balloons to make the house stand out on my street. 

In the lead up to the sale I photographed all 200 and odd outfits on a mannequin and uploaded them to Facebook with all the prices and sizes. This way I drummed up lots of excitement about the evening and also made about €150 in pre-sales. This took tonnes of work between taking pictures, coordinating outfits, and also writing the descriptions, but it was really worth it. I also invested in beer and wine for the evening, trust me, people shop more when they are a little tipsy and they have some tasty food to nibble on. It cost me about €70 to provide this, but it was worth the extra outlay. If you are thinking of doing something similar I would recommend that you undertake this with a friend, both so you can divide the labour but also so you have a greater variety of clothes on offer, most people would not have the type of collection that I had.

All in all it was a successful evening, I didn't sell everything but I got rid of a lot of unwanted clothes that went to better and happier homes. It was a really fun night, and it's something, space permitting, that I would do again. If it was something you wanted to do yourself, maybe look into using your local bar or community centre and a group of you do it together.

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Show Your Mom Some Love

My cards have been selling pretty well lately at my stall, so I've been beavering away in the studio trying to get new stock made. My most recent batch was this vintage style set of Mother's Day cards. In case you didn't know it's on the 10th March, so you still have a bit of time yet before you have to go out and buy the Mammy a potted plant.

I think the bottom one is my favourite as it reminds me of all the hours I spent with my mum as a kid sewing. She started me on dresses for my Barbies with her scrap material, we moved onto things like bags, puppets and costumes as I got older. I was home a few months ago while I had a big sewing project to finish, it was really lovely to spend the day with her pinning and sewing, it brought back lots of fond memories. I'll definitely be sending her one with this image on it, I know she'll love it.

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Vintage Style Handmade Civil Partnership Cards

A while back I made some Civil Partnership cards, but to be really honest I wasn't happy with them, they weren't my normal style at all. Last week I went back to the drawing board and had a think about how I was going to do them. It would be near impossible to get appropriate embellishments so I knew I needed to make them myself. I've been making my own images for my cards for about a year now, and I've been using lots of vintage illustrations and photography. They match really well with the papers and distressed ink I use. After much Googling and Pinteresting I found vintage images of gay couples. I was hard to find the ones with the right tone, that were romantic but not too trashy for a wedding card. I must say I'm really delighted with them, I know it's really hard to get civil partnership cards, let alone unusual handmade ones. I've made about ten of them, as yet I haven't sold any so I'm starting to think I might be better off listing some online. A farmers market is not exactly the kind of place that people go looking for a gay wedding card!

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Featured Artist: Olann

This is the second part in my featured artist series for the shop Limerick Craft & Design. Olann's hats are made by the lovely Irene, I met her through her sister Diane who is a photographer and own the studio Angles. I completely fell in love with these hats when I saw them online, and last week when she delivered them I couldn't believe that they could look better in real life, but they do. I need a wedding to go to so I can buy one!

Here is some of here blurb:
Wherever possible they hand stitch all the hats and avoid the use of glues or any other chemicals to ensure that the hats have both environmental and fashion integrity.

All Olann’s hats and accessories are inspired by the 1920’s to 1950’s – when hats were the height of chic.  In keeping with this era, they try to create stylish and sophisticated pieces which have a timeless quality; believing that hat wearing will once again become a statement of understated style.

Most of otheir hats and accessories are individual, one-off pieces which have a vintage character with a contemporary twist.  The uniqueness of each creation comes not only from the sculptural shapes but also from the embellishments which are carefully selected vintage brooches and buttons, ribbons and feathers.

Relevant Links

Etsy // Facebook
siopaolann@gmail.com

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What I'm wearing: A Vintage Dress

I've been rather sick with a horrid stomach bug for about a week, so cabin fever led me to do things like tidy the house, scrub my bathroom, dye my hair and paint my nails...it's amazing what boredom will lead a person to!

I've had this dress for over a year and I've never worn it, part of me loved it, but the other half thought it was a bizarre hybrid of something my mother wore in the 80's and a Star Trek(natives from a peaceful and earthy planet)dress. But I tried it on again recently and realised that the side that loved it won out and and that I would wear it soon. So this is it's first airing!

Dress: In a bag of vintage dresses that I got for free from a friend of a friend...for free!

Belt: Came free with this blue top I got in A-Wear, it's awful with the top, but nice with this dress.

Boots: A charity shop €10

Wow that's an incredibly cheap outfit!

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Overhaul in My Supples Shop

I've been very bold over the past 6 months or so and I let my supplies shop die a death. I've decided to restructure my shop and my pricing, I have too many buttons to be selling them in such small quantities, so over the next month I'll be phasing out my small bags of buttons.

Yesterday I added large bags of buttons to my shop, these are from a suitcase of mixed vintage buttons that I have. I'm going to photograph the sets individually, meaning that what people see, they get. This is more time consuming but it really annoys me when buying sample vintage buttons, but what you get in the post in something else entirely. The bags, depending on the size of the buttons are 140-180 buttons, and they are €7. I thought about what kind of imagery would appeal to a button fiend like me, and I went for a vintage fabric background while still keeping my white canvas.

Also I listed some African block print fabric in my supplies shop. I want to expand this range in the near future to about 8 different prints, and if it proves popular I'll invest some more money to vary the choices of prints. So if you are interested in seeing more prints in my shop please leave a comment here. I'll be selling them by the meter for €10 and fat quarters for €3.50...and down the line bundles of fat quarters too. I love the vibrancy and design of the fabric, they would make amazing skirts and dresses, the hard part will be not to use the fabric while I wait for it to sell!

New Exciting News!

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to Dublin on a secret mission, and I think it's safe now to reveal the lastest Nice Day Designs developments. I was talking to Dee from Lucy's Lounge about two months back and she said she was interested in stocking my clothes. For any of you who don't know where this gem of a shop is, it's a wonderful treasure trove of vintage in the basement of SeSi in the heart of Temple Bar in Dublin. So I went up two weeks ago to work out the finer point of this and I am currently working on 10 pieces for the shop. I'm so excited, SeSi is a shop I have loved and adored since my early teenage years, and to be selling in Temple Bar it a great new opportunity for me. I think the people who shop there will be far more open to my more outlandish designs, and it's a great chance to let the wilder side of my designs flow.
Do pop over to Dee's blog, she has great pictures of her customers and a wonderful video of her beautiful store.

Ennis Order

I't been a pretty busy few weeks, but I finished the Ennis order(not the mamoth Kilkenny order, that's still on the boil), here are a couple of pictures of a dress and a coat that I did. Hopefully I'll have time to take more photos tomorrow before I pack them away for delivery. I also finished the mother of the bride dress I was making. I was one of the most difficult pieces I've ever worked on but I'm delighted with it and I think the customer is going to be really pleased. It's great to meet a client first because then I have some idea of how far I can go with something. In this case the lady is beautifully eccentric, so I knew I could go really mad with it. It's quite Helena Bonham-Carter and I love it.

Ps: Are all you lovely Irish folk enjoying the disgustingly muggy weather at the moment? I thought I was going to die of the heat today in work.