hometown Christmas parade & float.

EB has come a loooonggg way from where it all started from last October. From embellishing items in the wee hours of morning sitting at the in-laws dining room table to now owning a storefront on Main Street. It just doesn't seem real looking back. 

Last week we sealed the deal on a new set of glass windows & doors to give our storefront the exposure it needed!

(after)

 (months ago)

It looks SO good and we have had a ton of compliments!

Meanwhile, we were hard at work creating a unique float for our first Christmas parade!

Last year, we participated as an arts & craft booth vendor. Yet now that we are right directly across the street from the vendor booths, we decided there was no sense in hauling all our products inside of a teeny booth. So instead, we brought everyone into our store!

We asked four of our most frequent teen shoppers to help us pass out candy, flyers, and custom scratch-off tickets that we created for all of the ladies!

Our theme was "The Embellish Workshop".

Although we didn't score 1st place..we received a lot of compliments & "y'all should've gotten first!!"

2nd place wasn't a bad token!

 

We even went a step further and polka dotted our driver's truck! 

I mean, come on! 

Who else does that?!

It was so much fun!

And although you probably can't tell from the pictures.. we made "real" snow & covered the entire float with it. It was even cold & light weight. Seriously felt & looked like real snow.

We bought it from this site.

Coolest thing ever!

I can see the light.

For two full months now we have been non-stop fulfilling Etsy orders gallore.

I'm proud to say, I'm down to just THREE orders to ship out!

The small light at the end of what seemed like such a dark, dark tunnel is now brighter than ever!

Last Monday was our Etsy shop cut-off date for delivery on all Christmas items. 

We literally had to shut down the site so that we could dedicate all of our time into fulfilling these orders.

There were steadily e-mails from potential customers flowing in like crazy asking about products & shipment dates. Taking time out to respond to them was taking away from production time. So, we had to close it up!

Here's what our storefront looked like most of the time..

I think the post office ladies hate seeing me walk thru those glass doors now-a-days.

They're like, "ohh, Heyy Caitlin. What ya got today?"  with the biggest smile on their face.

And really, deep down.. I'm sure they're probably thinking "ohmygosh... not.her.again. she has 30 million packages to ship out every.single.day! She holds up my line for 15 minutes at the MINIMUM. Can't she use UPS or FedEx instead??" 

But instead, they smile & are just as friendly and helpful as anyone could be!

I owe them big time :)

It's been a crazy, busy holiday season thus far! 

We LOVE each and every one of our customers & are SO thankful for their business and support.

We hope they are thrilled with each of their products as we were when we made them!

-xoxoxo

what I've been up to.

Starting tonight and lasting until Sunday afternoon, we are here! The Great Ogeechee Seafood Festival in Richmond Hill, GA!

If you're wondering why I've been MIA for the past two weeks, this is why.

Between preparing and decorating to studying for the NCLEX (which I took yesterday- finally!!), this has been my life for the past two weeks. Updates coming soon :)

If you're around town, stop by and see us!

you don't want to miss this.

if there are any top three blogs that I read daily, it would be these:

-The Shine Project

-Casey Wiegand

-Little Miss Momma

These three ladies are FILLED full of inspiration. From blogging about family, their children, their projects, their aspirations and their life goals all the way to their downfalls, and struggles.

People, these women are REAL.

They make me want to be a better person.

They must be in kahoots with each other because each one of them are hosting AWESOME giveaways on their blogs...RIGHT NOW.

Over at

Ashley

 is hosting a giveaway from Little Miss Momma!

One lucky ready will receive a beautiful SHINE pillow!

And in case you didn't know, with each shine pillow sold $5 of the proceeds go to The Shine Project Scholarship Fund.

And since we are on the subject of Little Miss Momma,

who is ALSO named Ashley- just FYI,

let me introduce the Barn Owl Primitive giveaway going on over at her place!

Have you seen these signs around etsy?

I posted one on my FB wall just the other day.

It was this one to be exact.

{it's never too early to start dropping Christmas hints, now is it?}

These signs pictured above are all 'standard' size.

The giveaway is for a JUMBO sign of your choice OR you can work with the creator of these beauties and design one of your own!

It measures 2' x 4'.

WOW.

Take a look..

Valued at $250-$350!

Last but not least, my super cute friend Casey over at The Wiegand's is hosting a giveaway from Soleil Selene.

Enter here for your chance to win all three of these lovelies:

one rosette necklace

one triple rosette necklace

one double rosette headband

Now, as if this isn't enough, Soleil Selene is hosting a Blogiversary Giveaway Event from now until September 16th!

I don't know about you, but I find myself in dire need of ALL of the above mentioned giveaways.

I've actually already entered myself into each of them.

And because each of the ladies are giving away, I figured I might as well join in on the fun!

Next week, I'm going to host a giveaway from my Etsy shop!

Take a look around and leave a comment below letting me know of an item you would like to see in the giveaway!

In the meantime, I'm offering a 15% off discount code to all of my readers!

Just enter 'embellish' in the discount code box!

Cheers!

xoxo

DIY: chicken wire frame

Fall is full of festivals, craft events, and parades.

Which means, busy time for Embellish Boutique.

So to get a head start, I began researching craft booth ideas on my dearly beloved, Pinterest.

Since we sale a variety of handcrafted jewelry, I was interested in finding a unique piece to display our items.

Then, I find these.

{found here}

And of course, I think "I can SO do that!"
If I'm not mistaken, I probably think this to myself after every awesome DIY project I come across.
Pinterest is inspiring me WAY to much here lately. In fact, it's soo inspiring that I find myself spending countless hours glued to the computer. When I finally close the laptop and put it away.. I feel ironically, creative?
And I haven't done a thing.
It sounds silly, but it's so true.

Anyhoo, back to my project.

So, I crawled out of bed around 11:30 night two nights ago and found an old frame and propped it up by the backdoor.

I knew if I wouldn't go find it right then and there, I probably would forget by morning.

There it was laying by the door when I went to leave that morning.

I carried it on the back porch & put a quick layer of flat white spray paint on it so that it would be ready to go by the time I got home.

Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures.
But, here's the turn out.
Not too terribly shabby for a first go, eh?

Supplies needed:

unused frame, 8 x 10

chicken wire - approximately 12x12

wire snippers

staple gun

spray paint of choice

1) Spray paint the frame your color of choice & allow ample drying time.

2) Place frame over chicken wire & snip outline.

3) Flip frame over, place chicken wire on top, & staple along the border.

4) Snip the excess chicken wire.

Viola!

Simple as pie!

To add a twist, you can even spray paint the chicken wire a fancy color too!

Use these for jewelry displays, inspiration boards, to hang childrens artwork, or a fun weekly menu/recipe board.

Next craft show is in October. Until then, it's found a new home on my nightstand.

Definitely going to make more for my craft room & storefront.

I'm loving these colors!

{found here}

{found here}

{found here}



Linking up with Ashley over at The Shine Project today!

******

OHH, and if you aren't friends with Casey Weigand at 'The Weigand's'.. you MUST go check her out.

I'm hosting a $50 store credit giveaway along with THIRTEEN, yes - that's 13! - others!!

It's a hunk of a giveaway!

xoxoxo.

advertisement & blog giveaway!

Advertisement plays a major role in the retail business.

Unaware of the amount of advertisement blogs had available, I stumbled upon a few sites that inspired me to move forward in showcasing my business online.

I joined etsy & added a majority of our products months ago.

Before long, I began to broaden our products and handmake more & more of our items.

Being from a small town, your clientele is only so big.

In order to make my business a successful career, I needed to move forward taking some big steps.

We currently own a website domain: TheEmbellishBoutique.com, where I've worked endless hours on taking pictures, resizing images, adding attributes, descriptions, prices, inventory amounts & customization options. It's more work than you think. It's actually pretty hard to keep up with an etsy shop, a blog, an e-commerce website, a facebook page, and a physical storefront on a weekly basis. But, don't get me wrong. I love every second of it. I like to see the expressions on our customers faces when we hand over their personalized item. It's priceless. They love them! And we love creating them.

Two weeks ago, I contacted a few ladies that I follow on Blogger.

They have successful blogs, in which numerous people flow in and out daily.

Advertisement links are posted on the right side & giveaways are hosted frequently.

Normally, when I used to see a blog that was hosting a 'giveaway', I would immediately skip right over it. Then after seeing some of the cute stuff being 'gave away', I opted to enter into a few of them. I even won a super cute monogrammed acrylic drink dispenser!

Now that I own a business, I completely understand the advertisement perspective of these generous shop owners. It's a must. In order to show people your products, to get your name out there, one must advertise. How else are people going to know about you and your fabulous products?

These three or four ladies have agreed to let us sponser their blog by placing our 'button' on their page & by hosting a giveaway (for a small fee, of course). This way, they have more traffic increased to their blogs, while I get new advertisement & traffic into my shop during the process. It's a two for two.

I'm excited to see the results.

As of today so far, our etsy shop had 92 visitors.

In the last 7 days, we've had 688 hits & 2 orders.

In the last 30, we had 2,229 visitors & 13 orders.

This blog has had 34,784 hits thus far.

As of today, I have 120 followers.

I'm not out to get increased traffic to my personal blog or to just gain followers by any means.

This blogger world does have great opportunity for me to advertise my business, however.

I will use this blog to post my weekly ramblings, findings, thoughts, and special memories, just like before. Nothing is changing here. These are just stats for me to look back on one day & remember where I first began.

Tomorrow is the first day.

Hannah over at Young & Crafty is hosting my very first giveaway.

Make sure to visit her & enter to win!

Here's to the first day of making my business a successful one!

projects.

Back in the day, I should've been diagnosed with A.D.D.

I can not keep my mind focused on one thing for any specfic amount of time.

It goes to show with my list of projects I have scattered about the house.



Take this for example.

Project #1:

This is a hutch that goes to a desk we bought from the Auction to use at the local Christmas parades in our booth last year. Now that we have a storefront, we use the desk portion, but not the hutch.

Whenever we finally decide to paint and finish up the remainder of the house, this will go in my craft room.

Lowes had a gallon of bright yellow paint for $10 when I dropped in last week.

I had to buy it.

Thursday night I painted one coat.

Today, it is still sitting on my back porch...with one coat...newspaper flying around underneath...unfinished.

Project #2

My grandpa gave me this old window a few months back. I used it as a peice of rustic decor at our wedding and now plan to use it in our bedroom.

I want to refinish it, nail up a shelf, & prop this baby up on it above our headboard.

Project #3

After I get my window up & situated, I want to add this little wooden "Y" wrapped with twine in one of the bottom corners.

This project = DONE

Project #4

I posted a tutorial link here & here a few weeks ago regarding the YoYo Florettes.

Well, I found this cut & stitch fabric at a local craft store and in my spare time I've been hand stitching these lovelies!

86 total.

I've got 84 to go.

Available on my etsy site, here.

Project #5

Resin Applied Floral Jewelry

For the past two weeks, this has been my steady project.

I am attempting to create numerous earrings, necklaces, and ring sets to showcase in my store.

These are my new obsession.

Beautiful vintage-inspired style & perfect addition to any outfit.

Available in my etsy site, here.

Can you tell my brain is scattered?

[ha]

I'm easily inspired & quick to hop on board the next crafting adventure before my previous creation is complete.

These are just a handful of my spontaneous crafts lying around our home at this time.

Crazy, crazy girl.

{dress: social statesboro, burlap broach: A3Sisters, necklace: embellish boutique, ring: embellish boutique}