Selling My Wares...

   An exciting opportunity has presented itself!  We have a local coffee shop that displays and sells paintings, photography, jewelry and an organic children's line of clothing by local artists.  I bring my kids in there from time to time for ice cream and they offer a wonderful selection of soups for lunch as well.
   A few weeks ago, I treated the kids to ice cream (before the cold snap!) and approached the owner about the possibility of selling some of my homemade quilty items.  It was an impromptu thing, and I showed him a few of the journal covers that I have and use in my bag as well as a cell phone case.  He was open to the idea and I told him I needed to build up some stock as I gave away all my most recent makes for the holidays.  [I also thought it might be neat to sell mug rugs there, since its a coffee shop].
   Fast forward to last week, when I was on-line creating a hard-cover family photo album on Shutterfly, which was having a 40% off sale on most of their photo books.  I had so much fun creating the family album (virtual scrapbooking), that I decided to also create a little soft-cover booklet of some of my quilty items.  It arrived in yesterday's mail.

   Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile (all 41 followers of you!) know that I have a special place in my heart for cranes (the animals, not the construction kind).  I used to work with live cranes in captivity-- all 15 species from around the world-- and it was a profound experience. So I now have a special fondness for Asian fabrics with cranes, as well as origami cranes, which I love to make.   Here are a few crane creations...

This is actually just a quilt top (wall-hanging)--
once I complete my paper piecing class, my top goal for 2012
is to sandwich, quilt and bind all of my larger sized UFOs.

   So anyway, where was I before the crane divergence?  Oh, yeah.  If I'm going to be creating homemade wares to sell, then I need a label.  And Postpartum Quilter might be okay for a blog name, but I'm not about use that label on the things I sell.
   So I knew that I wanted to incorporate the name or theme of cranes in my label.  A few commenters (Thanks, Judith!) offered some good ideas, that helped me get started, but I really wanted to find the name that felt "just right" to me.
   Well, inspiration comes in odd moments.  Hubster is a huge Bruce Springsteen fanatic fan (sounds more civilized), and one of our favorite songs by him is The Rising (about the firefighters in the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2000).  Of course I have to include the music for you, should you be interested in hearing the song (its amazing)

Here is a link to the YouTube video, since I am unable to properly embed it:

http://youtu.be/OODQKaSNz8k

   As we were listening to the song, it came to me: "Rising Crane" [although it has now evolved into Rising Crane Creations].   Don't know if you can read it, but it's there on the cover:

Here's a glimpse at a few of the inside pages (20 total):

   So I now have my own little "catalog" featuring some of my makes that I can take to the coffee shop owner and discuss which items would be best for that venue.  Once I know what he thinks will sell best, I set about making some stock.

   Wish me luck!!

Happy Quilting to all of you!