Progress

Studies show people that spend more than 6 hours a day at a desk are 65% more likely to be overweight. Great. And here I sit eating scones on top of the eggs and bacon and grits I had before I left the house. Great. Here I sit with my behind in agony from a little half hour walk I took on Monday. Oh boy, not boding well for my fitness. I must change my habits, I will change my habits...tomorrow.

In happier news, the wash test worked wonderfully with the ink I heat set properly - imagine that! So night before last I got up the nerve to put my angel wing design on one of the official shirts. I chose a short sleeve smoke blue one and it looks FANTASTIC! I'm so super duper excited. I was going to put the text on the front last night but had the brains to pull out a 0-3 month size and see if the text fit it...surprise! It doesn't. So I made up a new screen with smaller text. Hopefully it will be dry by tonight and I can print the front.

Next step is make a couple of other screens for two other designs and test them out. I'm also progressing fabulously with the new pants design I'm learning. Short rows had me intimidated, but thanks to a great tutorial on ravelry.com I am no longer afraid. They are super simple. I think it will be the same with the crotch gusset. I'm almost to where I start that. So I'm making leaps and bounds in the craft world. Have to iron out details, and am hoping to stock my store by the first or second week of March!

In the parenting department I might be lacking - my son told me last night that I would not be invited to his birthday party at Chucky Cheese's. I told him to have fun without me 'cause who would make the cake. This morning I also told him to tell another kid at school to get bent. Maybe not the best motherly advice? Well, the kid was telling him he had to bring toys for him and some other older boy and to me that just seems a bit bossy and I won't have any bossy older boys taking advantage of my little perfect boy. Then I started thinking how that bossy boy is poor and probably doesn't have any toys and that maybe we should bring toys for ALL the kids. Then I started to think how this toy obsession is ridiculous and that boy is better off without these lame modern day toys because maybe he will learn the fun that can be had with a stick and his own imagination, and then I started thinking about where in the world did my kid come up with the idea of a CHUCKY CHEESE'S birthday party?

Store status

So I think I'm going to link my blog to my etsy store now so anybody stumbling onto my empty storefront can come here and get an idea of where I'm at in terms of product development. Currently.....I'm getting there. For my earthbound shirt, which will be somewhat of my signature piece, I have accomplished the following:

- purchased shirts. from a Hawaii based company called the Kokobean Shop (http://www.thekokobeanshop.com/) They have been wonderful, the shirts are beautiful. I have 12 of the natural color organic long sleeve lap Ts, and 12 of the smoke blue organic short sleeve lap Ts. I am so happy with them, and almost afraid to decorate them. Absolutely pleased with their product.

- purchased ink. matsui enviroline ink in black. got great response when I contacted them for documentation of their CPSIA compliance. I tested them out on my screens on Wednesday and am very happy with the results. Tonight I will do a wash test.
- made screen stencils. Tested these with the ink on Wednesday and they turned out well..I used all caps on the "earthbound" and think I might be true to my original and stick with all lower case - will hopefully get to test that this weekend after the previously mentioned wash test. So that means tonight I need to make a lowercase screen (I'll have to explain this process at some point - very neat, but takes a while to explain...maybe I'll just post a link to an already existing online tutorial....)
- ordered labels. organic cotton ones from this etsy seller: http://www.greenbeansnstrings.etsy.com/ I love her, I've written in a panic a few times with changes and she hasn't blinked an eyelash. They should be in the mail.
- finalized a stamp design. this will be used for my business card, which I cam going to cut out of food packaging card stock weight boxes - I'm really excited about this upcycling project - saves the boxes from the landfill and saves me some $!

For my other projects:

- ordered yarn. this idea was born just the night before last as I was finishing some pants I started way too long ago for Boone (my baby). These pants are simple to knit and super cute on. I visited http://www.knitpicks.com/ and found some beautiful cotton/modal and organic cotton yarn that will make some to-die-for baby britches. I ordered it up and hopefully can get those started next week - I have some pattern making to do and lots of ideas! I didnt order any wool, so I'm feeling like I'm letting all my cloth diaper mamas down, but it'll happen soon. I'm on a limited budget for now and the cotton colors just got me all a-flutter, so they got ordered first. Slap on an AIO, cloth diapering mamas, and you'll be good to go!

So that is the current state of http://www.earthboundbaby.etsy.com/. I have lots of to dos, but lets focus on the accomplishments for now, shall we? In fact I should be calling the tax board right now, and deciding on if I'm going to stick with just "earthbound" shirts to start, or work in some of my other ideas, and seeing if I have the right needles, and working on getting some organic thread, and......