My Kangaroo jumped off to a good start!

Busy, busy, busy! My Kangaroo had its "Grand Opening" Sale on April 15th and by the weekend had made 6 sales. The transportation crayons were very popular. Sadly no one was wanted to spring .20 for the Pay It Forward Bingo games, but I'll keep them listed. I'm working on the next PIF, a scavenger hunt.

There are only a handful of items listed in the shop. These were things I could make relatively quickly and post. I have so many projects to start as soon as we are done with school/work. The girls and I are R-E-A-D-Y. We don't talk about it too much at home though because poor dad still has to go to work. Take a peek at how we started.

By the way Sew Crewel is stillopen, but mot actively listing.

MyKangaroo

Well Ava and I have been hard at work brainstorming ideas and creating items for our new shop. So far there are bean bags, card games and bingo boards. She was very excited to have a big sale so we are holding a Grand Opening Sale on April 15th. I have a listing for our baby bean bags up, and now I have to photograph our other items. It has been so much fun working on this project together. Here is a photo of what is listed so far.

Spring is in the air

Not surprising, but I am heading in a new direction, children's toys. It started when I created new Spring items for my shop. I thought I'd make some cute magnets, pins, tacks... Although these have been fun to make there has not been much interest for them in my shop. I really enjoyed trying new things and began brainstorming ideas.

I think it was around 2:00 a.m. when the random thought of crayons came to mind. My girls use them daily and I thought it would be a fun project to make recycled crayons. My intention was to have a crayon drive at work (a school) and then recycle these to give to children in the hospital. First I had to see if I could make them. After a little trial and error I was successfully making tiny flower, number, and car shaped crayons. The part I didn't like was the mess. Although these were fun to make the thought of bulk producing them had me rethinking my plans. Ironically my nephew had was admitted to the hospital for a stomach virus. I pulled out a set of bright colored vehicle crayons and a pad of paper to send to the hopsital. I am a cronicly late give giver so it made me feel good to have something on hand for a get well. Even if I never make crayons again it was worth it.

Today I pulled out the sewing machine again and some scraps of fabric. The result = bean bags. My girls have had so much fun today throwing them around. I just love the simplicity of handmade toys. I got a little creative and added ears and wiskers to a fleece bean bag. Too cutes. There are so many posiblilities that I decided to open a new etsy shop, MyKangaroo.etsy.com. I would like for a portion of the proceeds to go to March of Dimes. That is where the kangaroo part comes in (it's a NICU thing). Our oldest was born premature and I have always wanted a way to give back.

(pictures to come)