I've own my domain for my web store for 13 years. It isn't until recently that I've actually started to "do something" with it. It's taken me so long to just get the nerve to work on it. That seems like a lame excuse.. but it's true.

I have over 250 items listed there now. Currently I'm being baffled by categories… I've never given any thought to how people have stuff categorized.. Needless to say the categorization of my store is quite vexing…

For example.. do I put Sunglasses in accessories? Do I make a category for vintage and new sunglasses? If I do that, should I categorize them between men, women and unisex? Should the accessories category be under clothing? Way to many decisions..

I'm probably over thinking this… so I'll ask…. Do you have a web store? How did you categorize your inventory?

I've known about this for some time.. but I wanted to make sure it would really happen before I told you. 3M has asked me to be their Shipping Expert. (how cool is that?) Today I received my stuff in the mail to become one

They sent me several rolls of 3M Brand Packing Tape, 3 different

tape guns… and…

A FILP Video Camera. This excites me and freaks me out.

I hate to hear my own voice.. and I most certainly don't want

to see myself on video.. but I think it will be fun to make

a couple of videos for 3M Brand Packing Tape.. showing

how to wrap and ship a box correctly!

3m Brand Shipping Tape & me

Last year I was looking for a fun craft for my girl scouts to do.  I came across this site that had a cute little coin purse that could be wove  (woven).?.?   We did one coin purse out of regular red heart yarn (poly-blend).  It was cute, but I thought I could make it better.. stronger.. faster.. (name that TV show).

I decided if we did the weaving out of wool, we could felt it and make it into a purse or backpack for the girls.   We collected wool and eyelash yarn and started out to make our backpacks.

Here would be a great place for me to show you photographs of the work we did..  which I don’t have.  This weekend (when we went camping), I made a small bag to hold my external hard drive.

This is right after we felted it.. it’s still wet and kind of misshapen.

This isn’t the actual item I made.. but we wove them on handmade

cardboard looms.  (This was a USED postal box just in case you are

a postal person that is having a hard time breathing right now)

Here’s what it looked like before we felted it, and after I took it off

the loom.  It was about 8×8 here.  After agitating  it in hot hot

water for a few minutes, washing it in dish soap…  then rubbing

it against it’s self… it shrunk to this:

About 5 x4.  I will do a step by step blog on how to do this..

soon.  It’s a really cool project to do with your girl scouts,

daughter or friends.  I love watching it go from nothing.. to

something.

The Man & Child #3 ready to go to the Father Daughter Dance

It’s important to Spidey here that he get’s in the picture.

His sweet sister gives him a break and takes a couple of photos with him.

I think she was done being nice to Spidey here..

Ok.. that’s better but what’s with the weird smile #3?

Normally in years past we made dresses really far in advance… and had sort of matching clothes for The Man.  This year we were so NOT prepared for this Father Daughter dance.  We had to sort of throw something together.  This years theme was “Princess”, So here’s how we did it.

I bought a $3.50 girls t-shirt, and some super cute buttons (all from Wal-mart)

Some rick-rack, tread, elastic and 10 yards of tulle. I chose light pink and hot pink (5yards each).

I had #1 child & cut the tulle into 2″ strips.

She likes to listen to music while she cuts the tulle..

Because I am going to sew the buttons on to her shirt, I have added interfacing to the back of the shirt to give it some stability.  Now is the time I like to sew my elastic together with the sewing machine.  I know some people that use ribbon or use skinny elastic and tie it in a knot.

** just a little note I did this with less than 24 hours before the dance.. so forget how sloppy my interfacing is please

This is the process of tying the tulle onto the elastic.

Remember the Rick-Rack? I tied this on to the skirt.. and then hot glued buttons on the end of the rick-rack.

Since we had a princess theme working.. she needed a tiara.. so I made a hair bob out of tulle, rick rack, buttons and an elastic hair band.  It’s cute and matches!

**watch in the next couple of days we will be posting photos of the matching American Girl Doll outfit we made too!

Here’s some photos of years past Father Daughter Dances..

2006 Father Daughter Dance

2007 Father Daughter Dance

2007

2007

2008 Father Daughter Dance

Different Brother.. trying to get in the picture..