Model MONDAY!

As if I need to say anything more!
This picture speaks a thousand words.
I. AM. IN. LOVE!

The Greatest Show On Earth

Last night we went out to the Circus!
I was worried Ava might be a little young for it, but I also knew there was a good chance she would love it since she is OBSESSED with all things related to animals. Especially elephants!
I also don't want to spend too much money on the "bigger things" in life such as theme parks, plays, etc. because I know she is at the age where she won't remember it and I'd rather just save our money and do it all out when she hits age 5ish.
However, we took her to Sea World back in May and she still talks about it!
Anyway, I thought about skipping the Circus this year and going the next, but I found a great deal thanks to my buddy Dawn over on her website!
Daddy got home from his first day back at school with his staff, and as soon as he walked in the door, we flew out with little time to spare!
Daddy and Ava at the Convention Center.


I always made jokes about those suckers that spent WAY too much money on Souvenirs. Well, looks like I've joined the ranks. Ava picked out this tiger globe spinny thing.

And you just know she had to sleep with it last night!

Heading up to our seats. Love that the Texas heat caused me to sweat my makeup off.


Ava was so enthralled with everything she saw. I love her serious little stare!


And the cheers!

If those two faces don't look alike in this picture, I don't know what does!

This is the best family picture we got. Oh Ava!


The circus theme was all about magic tricks, and I kept annoying Aaron asking him "how did they do that?!?!" Ha ha! I know he felt like he brought two kids to the circus!
Here are my favorite pictures from the show, in order of appearance...










As much as I miss Ava being a tiny baby, I have to say that it is tons of fun to get to re-live childhood again through her eyes, and do all these fun outings as a family.

Circus Week!

It's quite comical that this week the circus comes to town.
I guess it decided to hit up my house before it made it's final stop in the neighboring city!
It's been the craziest past few days ever.
I won't bore you with details, but let's just say that I have called multiple electricians to come out and fix the outlets in Ava's room as they all went out Friday night.
As soon as I would get something lined up, they would start working again. And then when I would cancel the appointment, they would go out again. And then the entire street lost electricity for 2 hours Monday. That was FUN!
I also had a bad encounter with WOOT.com where I ordered a defective flip video and I'm still dealing with that nightmare of getting an exchange.
Then I thought one of my distributors lost my LONG OVERDUE package of items customers have been waiting on for me to get monogrammed and shipped out.
And Ava has been refusing diapers AND peeing in the potty.
Her preference? Why the floor of course!
Then the DVD player in my car went out two days ago. Oh! And today I was making a mad dash for the post office before they picked up the mail and guess what? My key wouldn't turn in the ignition.
I had about 3 other crazy things happen. But now I can't recall.
And I just said I wouldn't bore you with the details. Oopsie!

So, yeah, it's been a circus!
And if you can't beat em, well, join em!
I put on my clown hat and decided to take my child out in the 107 degree heat to see an actual circus parade!
We went with my friend Jenn and her cutie, Boston.


I told Aaron he could sit this one out if he would buy tickets to the actual circus for this coming Thursday night. He GLADLY accepted the offer to get out of it! HA HA! Everyone wins in that situation, right?

Ava and Boston could hardly contain themselves, looking for those Elephants.




And there they came. Holding trunks and tails and all!

It was pretty neat. Minus the heat.

They were eating tables of food. Like whole apples and watermelon and heads of lettuce and whole loaves of bread.
Circus elephants are NOT mistreated from what I saw. I mean that was a feast!!


We watched them graze for a minute, make their exit, and then we headed to the nearest indoor facility to grab a quick bite to eat and cool off! I was soaken wet. We went to Qdoba and as soon as we got to the counter, Ava laid down on the floor to put her cheeks on the cold tile. JUST LIKE A DOG!!

BLESS HER HEART. BLESS MY HEART.
I didn't snap the picture quick enough for you to see it. I sometimes just don't know what to think of that kid!
Thanks Boston and Jenn for coming to the circus parade with us! Although it was hot, it was still a good time!

We will be hitting up the circus Thursday night and I am so excited! Look for more pictures to come.

Coming to a Facebook page near you...SALES BLOCK!

Well, with our Facebook fan page up and running, we decided to use it to introduce our newest way to bring you great deals...the SALES BLOCK!

Our Sales Block will be used for one-time offers. You may find last season's styles on it, or some try-outs for a new pattern. Maybe we had just enough fabulous fabric from our stash to make one last dress or pants set. You'll find it on the Sales Block!

This is how the SALES BLOCK will work:

Unless otherwise noted, SALE BLOCK items are NOT available for special order. Once we post the item, we will note size and if monogramming is offered. The FIRST comment that includes the word SOLD! and an email address will get the item. They may go fast, so chances are if you post a question it won't get answered in time, unfortunately. We will put any information that we think is pertinent in the original post to hopefully address any questions you may have. Again, we will send a Paypal invoice and ask that you pay within 3 days. Any invoice not paid after this time will be voided and the item will be offered to the next SOLD post for the item.

Shipping on these items will be within 1-2 weeks from the time your payment arrives.

We are having our first Sale Block tonite! Be sure to be at our facebook page starting at 8:30 CST for some great deals on one-shot deal Halloween items!

Model MONDAY!

This is late, and I apologize.
My day was the craziest I've had in a good while.
I won't even bore you with the details, but it was just one thing after another.
So, here I am!
I mean here she is!
This is little Emerson wearing The Harper Dress.

She is such a little blonde doll!!


And did you know that her mom is Katy Perry? Ok, so really she is Katie Perry. Haha! But I really was stoked that there was a customer with the same name. And I may or may not just decide to tell others that "Katie Perry" is one of my customers. I'm telling the truth, right?
Thanks, Katie, for sharing pics of your beautiful little Emerson! I can't wait to make more outfits for her in the future!!


?

{early} 2 yr pictures

I have the privilege of knowing a fabulous photographer. She is always willing to take pictures for our business and she offers to take pictures of Ava for practice as she is "newer" to the profession.
She must like challenges. Ha!!
I know she naps well when Ava leaves!

This one is my favorite.












She took a few pictures of some new items for fall we wanted Ava to model. I will share my favorite. I have been waiting on pins and needles to show this dress, but I wanted to get a really good picture before posting it.

This is the CanCan Zebra Dress!!
And I am so in love.

I have a deep love for rosettes, rickrack and zebra. So, I just had to bring the three together to create this piece.

We are also doing a corduroy black and white zebra Aline with ballet pink rosettes for winter. Can't wait to see the finished product on it!

Stay tuned this week! We will be adding all of our fall and halloween pieces to here, Facebook, and the website.
The only question is...where will we add them first?

Your Questions Answered!

How do you like the makeover??? Pretty snazzy, huh?! Thanks so much to Jenn at Munchkin Land Designs. She was EXCELLENT to work with!!! I highly recommend her. She even made my Twitter page match!
N
ow....time for some answering of the questions from here and from emails. I am in a bit of a hurry this morning and everything around my house is breaking, so I am going to do this as quick as possible!

-Did you start out on Etsy or just open an online store right away?
Yes, I started out on Etsy just selling bows in April of 2009. I began with the clothing in July of 2009, and then added the website in November of 2009. I now really use Etsy for exposure and Elmo gear apparently! HAHA!

-Did you teach yourself to sew and create?
Yes, all self taught here! I took one sewing lesson on how to make a bag, and intended on taking more, but with the orders coming in and my analness to have quick turnaround times, I never have stopped to take another. I have also learned tricks here and there from Sheila, the other owner of SheShe Made, and the expert seamstress in my opinion! And from Dorothy, our additional seamstress. They both have many years of experience.
As far as embroidery goes, I taught myself that too, and it was a LOT OF RESEARCH and TRIAL AND ERROR! Multiple clothing articles got trashed along the way. Multiple. People in the embroidery field do not like to share trader's secrets. So, there is not much help out there from the "professionals" unless they work in the stores. And then those usually are even hard to come by.

And with that said, I will be giving away limited secrets such as hooping, stabilizer, etc. Ooh! So not nice of me:) But here is what I will share...

-What stabalizer do you use?
I use 4 different kinds of stabilizer. Basically I use every kind out there. Because different material calls for different stabilizer. And I get it from a wholesale distributor in my area, sold in mass quantities (that IS NOT cheap by the way).

-Your appliques and such on your shirts are so big how do you hoop such small shirts and how do you always get it in the middle and straight?
Again, it's all about the stabilizer! I rarely hoop anything. As far as aligning it...the ruler and disappearing ink are my best friend! And I am uber anal!!

-When will you be adding home items and gifts for "him" and "her" on your web site?
I have big intentions of adding to that section, but there just isn't enough time in the day. We will probably add to it after the holidays and will take another 1/2 month off to get new items made to sell. Also, we would like to advertise our business a little further before having such a diverse and BIG inventory. So, our hope is in January of 2011!

-When are you going to have another giveaway?!
We have a giveaway going on right now over on our FACEBOOK page! Check it out and participate if you'd like to win some holiday dresses!!!!

-Where do you get your towel wraps or do you make them?
I just did a lot of research and sampling with various distributors online. That's how we get all of our supplies and inventory. I am proud of our quality we use and that, along with the our great prices is what I feel keeps our customers coming back multiple times!

-What kind of machine do you have?
I have a babylock Embroidery Professional and purchased it off of Craigslist. I love it so!

-When will your Fall/Back to School/Halloween items be available?
Within the week! I've posted some pictures on Facebook already!

-When will your Thanksgiving and Christmas items be available?
At the end of September!

-What do you sell the most of?
One word. Elmo! I bring Elmo to life on a new piece of clothing at least 2 times a week. I am so glad my child is not a fan. He wears me out! :)

-What color are your eyes?
Just kidding. Nobody asked me that.

Happy FRIDAY! Hope you have a fabulous weekend. And ckeck out that giveaway we have going on until Sunday!

Facebook Fan Page...Finally!! And Questions?

First off-
It's finally up!
It's finally ready!
Do you have facebook? (Is that a silly question?)
Check out the SheShe Made Facebook page and "Like" us today.
I will be doing our monthly giveaway over there this month...soon!
And you will need to have a facebook AND have liked our fan page to get in on the giveaway.
Also, if you have pictures of your children in any SheShe Made clothing, please add them to our wall, fan page, or however you do that. Because frankly, I don't even know how to add my own kid on the fan page.

Second off-
I have been getting a few emails lately asking me various questions such as what machine do I have, where do I get my ribbon, fabric, etc., when Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas items will be out, and the like. I decided I will just answer some of those in a post since you may have the same questions.
Anything else you want to know?
Ask me in the comments section and I'll get the answers posted soon.
{Here's another picture from our vacation just for fun}

Happy Tuesday to you!

Model MONDAY!

It's nice to be back after a week off and I am excited about our lineup for the next month or so!
Let's kick off August with a little one year old sweetie, shall we??
Here is little miss Kendal!

Welcome back to Model Monday.
She is wearing the Laila birthday set we sell in pants, only her mom wanted it as a skirt.

Kendal's older sister also got a matching skirt and shirt too! It was so much fun making these sister sets for Kendal's special day!

Her future's so bright!

We embarked upon potty training this week and it has been loads of fun! I was waiting until we got back from vacation to "test the waters" and so we gave it a go on Tuesday.

I just left her bottomless for all of Tuesday, most of Wednesday, and Thursday morning. She had quite a few accidents on day one, and found her preferred spot to urinate...in her closet! That was day one.

Then on day two she did better, had fewer accidents and even pooped in her potty twice! We were super excited. But I also gave her popcorn and let her color and play with stickers while sitting in her potty chair and watching Toy Story. So that helped a lot. Duh!

By day three I made up a treat jar to give her prizes after she went in her potty. She loved this and was highly motivated. But she also wanted a treat every 10 seconds.
Um no.
That's not how it works.
She would run to me and say "I potty!!! Yay! Good girl Awuh. Yay!" And I would run over to see. Nope. Nothing. She would then tell me "Cayndy momma. Cayndy".
Um no.
She did eventually go, and I let her pick out a treat. She had stickers, fruit snacks, candy, and some little party favor toys to choose from. She went again as soon as we got home from the grocery store. I let her pick a treat of course.
She chose this.

Do you remember these from back in the day? They are different plastic fruits and have candy sugar inside. Like pixy sticks!
She didn't get it so I poured some on my hand and showed her how to lick it off with her tongue. So then she was all digging it and took it back to try for herself. I let her be and continued to unload groceries and put them away.
5 minutes go by and this is what I see all over my rug in lines...

And here is what Ava is doing...

So glad she catches on quickly.
No, Ava. We don't pour powder in lines on the living room floor and then lick it up. That's not what mommy showed you.
Um, yeah. Should I be worried about her future????