my Nemesis!!

nem·e·sis

 

noun

noun: nemesis; plural noun: nemeses

1. 1.

   the inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall

 

 

Have you ever had a project that you felt was out to get you? Well I have!!!

 

How did you combat the "underwhelming" feelings that you had toward it? Did you give up and walk away? Or did you keep coming back and finally complete it, and have that satisfaction that you did it?  For me, I keep coming back to a certain project, but never really fully completing it!

 

This is what's known as a wristlet bag. 

 

Super cute, right? They are perfect for someone to carry their stuff in and fits right on your wrist (hence the name wristlet)!  But............for some reason, these are trying to be the death of me! 

 

Sometimes you just need a little motivation to get something completed and mine is knowing that they will finally be done and in the shop! :)

 

Here is a sneak peek of all the other colors in the wristlet line, soon to be in the Wishes and Dreams shop.

 

 

 

till next time.........Penny :)

 

 



 

Got Paper?

I have a love for paper. Let's be real, I love anything I can craft with but I do love paper! However, I'm never really sure what to do with it. Going to the craft store you can find these beautiful packs of paper that all correspond together. The vibrant colors or embossed paper (sigh), the possibilities are endless! This being said, I have a ton of paper that sometimes goes unnoticed.  In the last year, I found this great idea that came from a friend of mine. You take decorative cardstock paper, cut it into strips and put it on twine.  I love playing with the ends and either using scissors to create an inverted triangle or even using one of those decorative trim punches.

In realizing that my paper stack was seriously becoming large, I decided to pass the fun onto all of you. Each paper banner is made with thick cardstock in many decorative varieties such as girl or boy theme, halloween or fall and I even made one for your barbecue!  It's something so simple but can add some fun flair to your decor.  

Here's some fun examples of the halloween, fall, and Christmas banners.  Each of these were strung on brown twine and are approximately 3 feet long. 

The top row can be used for your kitchen or a little boys room.  I love the top right, it's made with multi-colored chevron and airplane paper.  The middle is perfect for your kitchen, party or even your living room.  This one is the longest at 5 feet long.  The last 2 will be perfect for your little girls room!  All of these are strung on different colored bakers twine.

This is one of the Shorties.  The Shorties are about 2 ft long and feature many of the versions of paper as the larger banners.

I was busy this week making over 30 paper banners!  They were super fun to make and range in price from $3 to $6.50, depending on length.  I hope yall enjoy them as much as I do!

~Shellie

The Great Jenkins Craft Week

CRAFT WEEK!!!

The invitation, courtesy of my sister-in-law Heidi, using the app abeautifulmess!

 

Recently the women in my extended family did a craft week, and it was so much fun!!  Several things go into planning such a big event and so we started planning about 4 months in advance.
In pulling off such a large undertaking, there are several areas that have to be discussed and agreed upon in order to pull it off, and I thought it would be fun to list it all, so you can benefit from our trials and successes!

1. Teacher vs. Student - its important to first establish if you will be having an expert come in to teach a craft/skill or if someone in your group of attendees will be the teacher.
• We decided that each one of us (there were 4 ladies) would be a teacher for one day and a student for the other days.
2. What will be taught? - next would be to decide what you want to learn about or in our case what we wanted to teach. Here is an example of how we broke it out.
• Day 1 - Screen Printing
• Day 2 - Card Making
• Day 3 - Gingerbread (Christmas in July) Project
• Day 4 - Metal Stamping
• Each one of us decided that we wanted to do something that we have never done before on the day we were teaching, so this also required us to learn the skill prior to our class (that was fun!!)
3. Gather your supplies - in our case, each one of us took responsibility for the day that we were teaching, including all supplies that went into the craft.  If that doesn't work for you, you could provide a "class list" for each day, of items that each person would need to bring with them.  But be forewarned, if you choose to have people bring items, you run the risk of either having your attendance low because its a hassle, or the wrong item is brought to class.  Either way you do it, just make sure you get the buy in from the group so that all goes well. If money is an issue, you could also get your list of costs of supplies and then collect a craft fee from everyone.
4. Plan the dates - its important for a good turnout for your craft week to make sure that the dates and times work for everyone! And trust me, this was the one and only challenging thing that we came across when planning ours! In our case, because we have some out of towners and ladies with children, we planned our dates first, so that travel and childcare and such could be considered.
• We ended up making our event an entire week, starting with Monday and ending on Friday, but we took Wednesday off.
5. Location, location, location - this is an important one! If you are a crafter, you know that crafting requires space, so when planning your craft week, figuring out where you will host it and set it up is crucial! For us, we decided that if it was our day to teach, then we would also have it at our house, except for the out of towners of course, but we worked that out by letting the out-of-towner use our house to teach when necessary.
6. Snacks and Drinks - very important!! Crafting takes energy and snacks are always welcome, and all that talking and laughing makes a girl quite parched! Its important to establish the who, what and when on the snacks and drinks.  For us, whoever was hosting was also providing drinks and snacks and that worked out great! But you could also have people bring them!
7. Be Flexible - with every good plan, there is always something that happens that throws a wrench in things, and you need to relax and be flexible and remember that this is for fun and to learn new skills. 
8. Get Busy and have FUN!! - get to learning and crafting!!

And finally, here are some pictures from our craft week..........

 

 Day 1 - Heidi taught screen printing

 

 

 

 

 

 Day 2 - Lindsay taught us Card Making using scrapbooking materials

 

Day 3 - Mom taught us to design/decorate wall art Gingerbread houses



Day 4 - I taught Metal Stamping and Epoxy

 

 

 

Bottom line................GO FOR IT! Planning and doing a craft week was work, I'm not going to lie, but we shared the responsibilities and shared in the fun!!!

 

 

 

till next time.............Penny :)



made it monday

The Garaging Mavens booth in Wishes and Dreams is having an end-of-summer blowout sale where everything is an incredible 25% off! (That's a lot for handmade goods, especially ones that are already fair priced.) All that to say, we aren't putting as many new items in the shop this week, but we still have a few new goodies to share with you. These will be added to the booth next week, but are available for online purchase today!

These little coin purses are absolutely perfect for back-to-school! A great place to tuck lunch money, or extra quarters for pencils. You can bet that my daughter is going to have one of these tucked into her backpack. Tons of colors and patterns to choose from!

tiny heart coin purse {$5}

look at this sweet stitching detail! It's the little things that make it special.

Finally another set of a favorite material pairing in the shop. Love these classic burp cloths, they make a perfect baby gift.

bold and modern burp cloth set {$12}

Here is another new addition to the booth. Cute little cork boards sets with three matching fabric covered tacks. The perfect size for lockers or that odd little space on your wall you've been looking to fill. Keep an eye out for more color combos, or request your own. This set doesn't have magnets, but future sets will have magnets hidden behind the felt layer.

2 7in. fabric covered cork boards with 3 matching fabric covered button tacks. {$12}

It's all about the finishing details. Small ribbon loop makes these ready to hang where ever you please!

And just because I can't resist, here is a little sneak peek of the upcoming holiday season. Lots of fun fall and holiday themed items will be headed to the booth starting September 1st.

holiday hoops, coming soon!

And as always, remember we LOVE to do custom work! If you see something you like, but want a different color, please feel free to email us at thegaragingmavens@gmail.com or message us on facebook via our page.

It's Pom Pom Time!

So for some reason I have a TON of yarn! Call me a craft hoarder or crazy but nonetheless I still have a ton of yarn.  I think it stems from the idea "it's on sale, so buy ALL of it!"  Anywho, just in case you missed it the first time, I have a lot of yarn.  So what should one do with all of this yarn?  Most would crochet or knit with it but that's WAY too simple(said with as much sarcasm as you can muster).  Plus, my crocheting level is still at a 1 and therefore should never be seen by anyone but me.  In pondering all of this, I decided to make some pom pom balls!  It's completely the perfect craft to take with you on the go!  These garlands have taken me about 2 months to finish.  This is due in large part because I hate not having something to do when I go somewhere, knowing that I will be sitting there for a long time and have nothing to do.  So I would leave this project to the side knowing that I would need it for those very instances.  AND the other reason is due to my arthritic hands.  Being 28 and having arthritis can be rather irritating (thanks grandma for passing that on!), but I just take long breaks in between using scissors for long periods of time.

Here's a sneak peek!  Aren't they so cute!  It reminds me of Truffula Trees from the Lorax!  How can they not make you smile!

I just love how they turned out!  I made them approximately 9 feet long so you can really get some use out of them! Using striped bakers twine was the perfect element to tie the different colors together.  Creating is so much fun, especially when you get to see the finished product.  More pics will be added on our Made it Monday post.  Keep your eye out!
~Shellie

CUTE little things!

I love cute little things that you can put other things into, and so the moment I made one of these little heart coin purses, I knew I was hooked!

 

 

 

 





 

This is just a little sample, but a whole bunch of them are heading to the store next week! Perfect for little girls or ladies like me who just love cute little things!

 

 

till next time...........Penny

made it monday

This week it's all about the hoops! We love using embroidery hoops to make art. They are such a versatile medium, and make an instant frame that can be embellished in a multitude of ways! This time we've got a little something for everyone, in a range of shapes and sizes!


Giant 18x26" inspirational hoop. Mustard frame with navy and coral letters. $47




Petite 5x7" spunky word art. Bright multicolored fabric wrapped frame with hot pink chevron and shiny letters! $15



Large 12" hoop. Embellished with a butter yellow rosette and large hot pink rick rac. Comes with two mini clothespins to hang art or a photo of your choice! $30



Medium 10" hoop.Sweet butter yellow rosette and lace detailing and scrabble tile family embellishment. $20



The beauty is in the details! Each hoop is finished nicely with a coordinating ribbon to ensure your art doesn't fall apart!

Man, I am just in love with these hoops! Don't forget to stop by our booth inside Wishes and Dreams on Park Row and Bowen in Arlington if you're local. If you aren't, don't fret! We will ship almost anything, and only for the actual cost of shipping and supplies. Follow us on facebook to see more of what we have up for sale.

Back to School is Almost Here!

Can you believe the beginning of school is right around the corner?!  Luckily, we don't start back until the end of August but we know some of you will be gearing up for that first day of school in a couple of weeks.  My oldest will beginning kindergarten this year!  While I can't believe that she is old enough to go to school, I am super excited for her to start her new adventure.  I know she will love it and enjoy almost every minute of it.  Being that it's our first official year of school, we headed to the store this week to buy all of her school supplies.  It was really fun helping her pick out all of her notebooks and fun looking pencils.  Of course, there are a few things we still have left to buy but we have a few more weeks to fit that in.

How are you and your family doing with all of the back to school madness?  Do you have everything done and shopped for?  School clothes all ready?  Or what about that back to school gift for their teacher?  While we can't go shopping for your kiddos, we can help ease the burden of last minute gifts for their teachers.  They work so hard year round for our kids that a little gift goes along way.  We have all kinds of things in the shop for your teachers.  Handmade zipper bags or even custom made pencil bags are a hit!

 Some teachers have sinks in their classrooms so why not a few hanging towels?

Or a super cute apron for your favorite art teacher!

We even have fun baby items for those expecting teacher mommies to be!

Whatever the occasion may be for your new/favorite teacher, always be sure to get them something useful that they can use over and over and over again (and be sure to buy it from us....hahah....j/k...but seriously....we do ship).

Thank you all for supporting our little shop.  We love watching it grow and we love more than anything, being able to fill a need for others.
~Shellie

P.S. And as always, be sure to follow us on Instagram @thegaragingmavens or Facbook.com/thegaragingmavens for the most up to date selection and pricing!  We love to do custom orders as well so send us a message!