Playin' With Pretties, Your Opinion Please.....

I spent a little time playing in my studio yesterday with some ideas for items to list in my new shop. I know realistically that I cannot keep it stocked with artwork as I can't produce it that fast, so, I have been playing with some ideas of ephemera packs, supplies, or kits for creating with.

Mostly I was playing with packaging ideas and I would love to get your input. I am toying with the idea of a unique pocket filled with vintage ephemera as one item. The two I created yesterday are just samples and still need some improvement. Here are the pockets...They each have a little pocket on the front for tucking in small ephemera...Some ideas for what I would tuck inside the small front pocket...The contents could include two "finish me" tags, I use scraps from projects to cover the tag base so a background is there just waiting to be finished up with your embellishment, a vintage post or greeting card, a little vintage ad or recipe, themed color images, a punch out image on vintage book paper, and a small tag. The bundle would be wrapped in a bit of lace with a final embellishment of some sort or trinket, in this case an old key.(NOTE: I would not be including some of these exact images as shown in the above photos. I don't own the rights to some of these images, these are just samples of stuff I have been using on other projects on the work table and they were handy for using as props.)Some ideas for stashing in the larger pocket...The contents could include large dictionary pages, writing tablet paper, vintage map page, handwritten pages from an old notebook, vintage ad, Latin and French lesson book pages, vintage greeting card, and old photo. Contents would vary and change from packet to packet but would include two dozen pieces of ephemera plus the envelope.Is this something you would be interested in? I am trying to come up with things that I love and would buy myself.I also thought of some smaller paper bundles and embellishments like these...They include a small roll of wallpaper (1), vintage sheet music (2), and ledger pages (2) all tied up in tulle with a monogrammed tag.The little bag of paper punches include snazzy circles (6) and sweet little birds (6) punched from various vintage paper sources. What do you think of either of these or similar products?Well, that is all I had time to play with since I had an opening ceremony to attend. Yes, I made a couple of Etsy purchases and decided to have myself a little opening ceremony. Beth (Gathering Dust) said it sounded like the Olympics and really she wasn't that far off. The rules of the Etsy Olympics are very simple, the fastest one to click on the buy button wins!I really placed well over at Beth's Etsy place, she even sent me a congratulatory card! Could you not just die over the cuteness of this vintage card? Beth is bigger than me, I never would have let it go. Nope, I'd of kept it all to my stingy little self. Thanks Beth, I LOVE IT!I love this little bundle of lace all tied up in gold seam binding, this is how Beth sent me my Etsy Olympic winnings...OK, back to the games, I won the cracked porcelain watch face! I thought I placed pretty well in this event.Next I cleaned up in the Cameo Category! I got the Cameo Queen and Dust Rose awards!This next one was a sporting event called Shootin' from Your Canoe and I won this little brass and gold affair!Now we are really talkin', this is where the stakes get high, the Watch Case Awards. I placed in two events here and won the Wrist Watch Award complete with monogram, they got my initials wrong but that's OK, and the grand prize of them all, the Pocket Watch Case award!I also made a purchase from Rolling Hills Vintage on Etsy. I adore seam binding as an accent on packages and artwork and she had some is the most delicious color of green. It was packaged up with a pretty little snippet of ribbon and a sweet little quilted heart. The stamped tag will be fun to play with once the seam binding has been all used up! Thank you, Beth and Anita, for the swift service and great goods!

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I think the shop name will be Quill Cottage Creations. This one got the overwhelming votes from you. I hope to set a final opening date soon. I want to get some things worked up to stock it first as well as work out pricing and shipping details.Now, I'm off to dream up some projects to accompany those great pieces I just got.

Blessings,

Miss Sandy