Pin It To Win It Winner!!

 

 

We have a winner in our Pin It To Win It contest!  The winner will receive this adorable pink, grey & white bow hat in their choice of size.  Thank you to everyone who repinned the photo and participated in the contest.

 

 

Using Random.org, the winner is...  Shayla Wilkes!!!

 

 

Shayla, please contact me at littlelovesdesigns@gmail.com with your shipping address and size hat needed :)

Time for a Change

I started Little Love's Designs in December of 2010 with no clue on what to expect.  Money was tight and I only had about $200 to spend on supplies.  I bought a few yards of fabric, some elastic and some plastic rhinestone buttons from Hobby Lobby thinking maybe I could just sell enough headbands to buy more supplies and hopefully one day I would even have enough money left over to cover the cost of diapers for my then 1 year old.

Fast forward to March of 2011 and things really started to pick up.  I was able to start ordering 200 yard spools of elastic, metal rhinestone buttons instead of plastic (I was moving on up in the world) and the sales just kept coming in.  When things started to get busy I was excited but constantly felt guilty because it was taking so much time away from me spending time with my daughter. 

When I was pregnant I decided to stay home with her until she started school but with me being so busy with making headbands and filling orders I started thinking maybe she would be better off in a day care where she would get more interaction with other kids and adults.  The thought that I was allowing what had turned into a full time (more like 80 plus hours a week) job for me to make me consider sending her off to day care constantly bothered me every single day.

Last September- November was a blur, between those 3 months I had over 700 orders through Etsy alone.  I would work from 7am- between 2-3am and still felt like I wasn't making any progress in getting caught up.  After the holiday rush we decided to move to TN to be close to my family.  This would give me some help with my daughter and we would also be moving into a home with a extra room just for LLD.

Since our move at the end of May I have found ways to be more productive but still find myself wishing for time to spend with my daughter.  I have been considering switching to ready to ship pieces only for a while and came to the conclusion last night at 1:00 am while making the final plans for my daughter's 3rd birthday party this weekend that it was time to make a change.  Not only for my own sanity but also for my daughter who deserves to at least have a couple of hours each day of my full attention.

After tonight I will no longer be listing my rolled flower/rosette headbands in the Etsy shop on a made to order basis.  Once I am able to get caught up on my current orders I will be making the rosette designs available once a week and will only be accepting a limited amount of orders.  These are the most time consuming designs and is what causes my processing time to be so long on orders (usually 10-12 business days but sometimes more).  By only accepting a limited number of orders for this style each week my goal is to cut the processing time frame down to 2-5 business days. 

I hate having to make customers wait so long for their order so I'm hoping this change will make everyone happy.  You get your packages quicker and I get some time to spend with my daughter :)

I will be posting a poll on Facebook to see what evening each week you guys would prefer that I make the rosette headbands available, if you could take a second to let me know which date you would prefer I would appreciate it. 

In the meantime, the rosette designs will be in the Etsy shop tonight until midnight so if you have been wanting to order one of these designs now is the time to do it (it will probably be around 2-3 weeks until I start listing them again on a limited basis).

I will continue to work on new designs that I can make and ship quickly.  I'm currently looking into broadening the products I carry to include cotton knit hats for newborns (similar to the ones they use in the hospital) but in cute prints/colors and with handmade flowers for the girls!

Being this busy is definitely a blessing and I can't thank everyone enough for your support and for sharing LLD with your friends!

The New Little Love's Designs Office

I love seeing photos of other vendor's work spaces, it's nice to be able to see exactly where your order is being made and is a reminder that these are small businesses being run by 1 person who designs, edits, lists the products for sale, handles customer service, makes the products, ships the orders, etc all while caring for their family. Our family recently moved from North Carolina to Tennessee and while I wasn't looking forward to packing & unpacking everything, I was so excited that I would finally have a room to myself for everything related to LLD.  Here are a few (ok, quite a few) photos I snapped today of my new office.  It's still not completely organized but somehow using Instagram covers up the mess a bit :)

Computer area- I decided to buy a new computer at the end of last year with a bigger monitor, but my favorite purchase of all time is the Dymo 450 Turbo that is sitting on top of my printer.  If you own your own business and ship from home, please do yourself a favor and get one of these, it has cut my shipping time in half!

My 'little love'... the whole reason I started LLD ♥

Tons of containers of supplies!  Crocheted hats on top in the clear containers, fabric, silk flowers & elastic on the bottom shelves and all of the brown boxes are filled with fabric flowers!

Containers of crocheted hats! This summer I've been working on stocking up for the fall/winter busy season

Each container is labeled with a picture of the hats inside and a style # that makes it easier for me to keep up with inventory

My workspace- It's hard to tell in this photo but the table is raised up to the same height as a kitchen counter.  For some reason I work a lot faster when standing up so no chairs for me :)

  My collection of elastic! I ran out of room on the rods above my worktable so the rest of the spools are still in the box I packed them up in until I can find room for them.

Drawers of pre-cut strips of fabric for our rosette flowers

A couple of new designs I'm working on

My shipping table with supplies on the right and my backdrop for product photos on the left

I had this designs a couple of months ago with words to describe LLD, now that we've moved I finally have a place to put it!