Win a Diaper Bag and lots of MamaMade goodies!

As the summer is starting to wind down (in my mind at least, as the Monkey has only 2 weeks of summer pre-school left), I've decided now is a great time for a giveaway!

You can win a beautiful MamaMade diaper bag, full of wonderful MamaMade goodies (over a $150 value!!), just by making a purchase of $20 or more from my Etsy shop between July 18th and July 31st.

Even if you're not in need of a diaper bag, this bag would make a great tote, or a fantastic gift for any mom-to-be!

The winning package will include:

- MamaMade Diaper Bag: 4 external pockets (2 are perfect for bottles), 5 internal pockets. Long handles allow you to wear the bag over your shoulder. 100% cotton fabrics, completely machine washable! Very durable. Bag measures 14" wide x 14" tall x 6" deep - great for cloth diapers too!


- Rubber Ducky Minkee Baby Blanket: This adorable blanket has a super soft, yellow Minkee on one side and a 100% cotton "Just Ducky" flannel on the other side. Measures 30 x 36", a perfect size for baby. Machine washable, great as a crib blanket (my Small Fry curls up with one like this every night!)


- Flannel Burp Cloth Set: This set of adorable pale blue flannel burp cloths is perfect for cleaning up any mess. They are double sided flannel, top stitched for durability. Each burp cloth measures approximately (9" x 17")


- Custom Sock Monkey Shirt or Onesie: You pick - girl monkey or regular sock monkey, and pick the shirt size (newborn-18 months onesie, or t-shirt - I'll discuss the best size/style with the winner).



- MamaMade Reusable Sandwich Bags: You'll get 2 Sandwich size bags and 1 snack size bag in prints that coordinate with the diaper bag (photo below is a sample, the winning bags will be different prints).

Read on for all of the details:

How to Enter:
- Make a purchase of $20 or more (before tax and shipping) from my Etsy shop any time between July 18th at 12:01 am MST to July 31st at 11:59 MST. For every $20 (before tax and shipping) you spend, you get ONE entry to win the diaper bag and goodies!

(One entry for every $20 spent (before tax and shipping) means that if you buy $40 of items from my shop, you get TWO entries, and so on!)

Drawing:
- I will draw a random name from all qualified entrants by using Random.org's random number generator. Name will be announced on my blog on August 1st, 2009, and winner will be notified via email (make sure your email is correct with your Etsy account!)

Other stuff:
- I'm sorry, but purchases made outside of the contest dates do not apply.
- $20 must be purchased in the same transaction.
- Any unpaid orders will not be eligible for the drawing, so please make sure to submit your PayPal payment upon check out.

Thank you and good luck!!

Head on over to my Etsy shop to fill up your shopping cart!

I love mail day!

I knew I had good mail coming today! Check out what I got from Fat Quarter Shop today:

Most of it will become sandwich and snack bags, but it will become other stuff too. I had a great idea from a loyal customer when she asked me to make some water-proof water bottle holders for her Sigg bottle. The bottles are great, but I know condensation can make everything else get wet, and a waterproof holder would be ideal!

From the left: Bot Town (the first four pieces, I have more coordinates), and then a great new zoo print in two colorways.

From the left: A fun and funky print from Moda, some great dots, three colorways of a fantastic tree print, and my favorite - blueberries and strawberries, on light green and cream

A few cowboy prints, I can't wait to work with these!

Things Happen for a Reason...

PHEW! May was one of the busiest months of my whole life. Thanks to a completely unexpected shout-out in an "Etsy Finds" email/blog post on Earth Day, I was beyond swamped with orders. Earth Day was definitely a lot more like Christmas this year, and totally busy, but wonderful. Things are starting to get back to normal, and I have started to even take a night off every now and then (I generally sew in my studio from 8 pm - 2 am every night).

Funny thing...the DAY before Earth Day, I got this strange urge to move things around in my studio. I have this beautiful, and LARGE Sylvia cutting table, and I knew I could reconfigure it so that I could open out the table the whole way (It has two drop sides, and I only had one side up).

What I thought (ha!) would be a quick project, turned into 8 hours of complete reorganization and a fantastic and completely productive new set-up. Little did I know that 24 hours later, I would be on my way to making over 600 new sandwich bags, and finally have the perfect set up for such a mass-production? Kind of cool how things worked out that way.

Thought I'd post some before and after pics. The before pictures were taken in January 2009, so just less than 4 months before I decided to do a switch-a-roo. Oh yah, and I added new lighting - it's like a whole new world!

View from the entrance - BEFORE:

View from the Entrance - AFTER:

Fabric Storage/Cutting area: BEFORE

Fabric storage area/Ironing area: AFTER

View of Ironing Area: BEFORE

View of Cutting Area: AFTER

New shelving to hold the rapidly multiplying fabric stash:

View from the sewing machine: (My space is optimized, and there is a much better flow/path through the area)

And a few last photos...that moving around was good, because I need LOTS of floor space when I'm packing orders:

I restocked!

A quick note, my shop is restocked on snack and sandwich bags. I don't know when I'll be able to restock again, so get your order in before they all disappear!

http://mamamade.etsy.com

And the Winner is...

The winner of MamaMade's Earth Day give away is...

From Random.org's Random Number Generator...

Comment #22 - Amber!

Congrats Amber! I'll be leaving a comment on your blog, but please email me at MamaMade@LNSDesigns.net with your mailing address so I can send you your bags!

Thank you to EVERYONE who left a comment for me during this giveaway! I am so excited to see the variety of ways that everyone is trying to live a simpler, greener life. Thanks to a great Etsy article that showed my sandwich bags, I sold out the shop a few times today. I'll be listing lots of pre-order bags tonight, so if you didn't win this bag, consider checking out some new listings.

Thank you again!

Earth Day Giveaway - Win a Reusable Sandwich Bag!

***This contest is now closed, but I still have bags available in my shop!***
Over the past year or so I've seem to become hyper aware of what I'm throwing away. Every time I take out the garbage (or make hubby do it), I think what is in there that I could have saved, reused, or gone another route to avoid throwing it away in the first place.

One big change we made is to completely eliminate paper towels from our house. That was a change, but our dish towels love the use they're getting! We switched over to more eco-friendly cleaning products and detergents (like Crunchy Clean Detergent) and even stopped using dryer sheets (thanks to Fuzzy Wuzzy Dryer Balls!)

I also started to realize I was using LOTS of plastic zip-top baggies. With a 3-year-old in pre-school and a 1-year-old with a big appetite, I am packing lunch and toting snacks on a daily basis. I'd reuse the plastic bags filled with cheerios as much as I could, but I figured there was a better way. So I checked out my studio and realized that the seemingly simple combination of a cute cotton print, a waterproof lining and some velcro would make the perfect reusable sandwich bag!

After a few trial and error bags (those that I could barely get open, lol!), I made the perfect bag, in two sizes too! The bags are completely reusable, waterproof (so put in a handful of grapes, carrots, celery or even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich), AND they're machine washable.

When the bag gets too dirty, just toss it in the washer (and dryer if you need it right away)!

As Earth Day approaches, I know we all start to become more aware of ways to preserve our majestic planet, and I want to hear your ideas! I'd love to know what you currently do or would like to do to be more Earth friendly! Leave a comment with your ideas and you'll be entered in a drawing to win a sandwich bag set (like the bag pictured above!). One lucky winner will get a Sandwich size (6.5" x 6.5") AND a snack size (6.5" x 4") in my new favorite batik print - Recycle.

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How to Enter:
1) Leave a comment on this post between now and April 22nd at 11:59 pm MST. Tell me the ways you have become more Earth friendly, or things you'd like to change. One comment per day/per person please! If you leave an anonymous comment, be sure to leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner!

2) Blog about this contest to win another entry - just leave a comment with the blog link.

3) Mention this giveaway on a message board to win yet another entry! Just let me know which message board in your comment.

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I will randomly select one comment as the winner for the giveaway and post the winner on my blog on April 23rd. Good luck!! :)

Monkey has a Girlfriend!

After several requests for a girly version of my classic Sock Monkey tee, I designed this sweet little lady.
Of course, her bow can be any color, and she even has sparkly genuine Swarovski crystal "earrings".

A New Lunch Bag - Opinions Please!

For a long while I've been thinking about making reusable lunch bags, and lately have started to get some requests for them. I want to make something fairly simple, but practical, and of course, cute!

So, I've come up with this bag:

It is approximately 7" wide x 11" high x 4" deep, a perfect lunch size.

The tabs you see will have snaps (poly resin snaps), and the snaps will have two points to snap.

First, they will snap here:

And then if you want to fold the top down further, they will snap here:
The bag outside is 100% cotton with a ribbon embellishment, and the inside is lined with a PUL, waterproof laminated knit.

The entire bag is machine washable, lightweight, and oh yah, also comes with a cloth napkin! I'm expecting retail price to be about $18. I also plan to offer a set with matching snack and/or sandwich bags too.

What I'm looking for is opinions! I want to know what you like, what you don't like, what you think the bag needs, what it doesn't need, etc. I want to make a great lunch bag, and that requires hearing from more than the voices in my head (lol!).

So let me hear what you have to say!

Shhh...it's a secret!

Well, it's not really a secret, but I've been making some new items to have at the Hopscotch Hustle on Sunday and I couldn't wait to post a preview. Anything that doesn't sell at the show on Sunday will be listed on Etsy, and I may remake a few of them as well, so let me know if you're interested!

I made a new black and white and red baby quilt (it will have a coordinating tummy time pillow) with a luxurious Minky (super soft velour) backing. There is a nice batting in the middle (a Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly blend batting - durable and still soft). It's large too, 42" square, so something that will be great as baby gets older.


I've also made lots of new ribbon play balls. My favorite is this eco-friendly play ball, using bamboo fabrics and even a super-soft bamboo/organic-cotton velour.


Even this adorable baby boy version has a little touch of tie-dye green Minky.


And of course, I can't forget the girls:


Sock monkeys, always a classic:

Last Day to Order!

Just a quick little reminder - today is the LAST day to get in your order for the "Some Bunny Loves Me" Sock Monkey onesies or shirts. My Small Fry has been wearing his for a while now, it washes up wonderfully and is still picture perfect for Easter Sunday.

(Click on the photo for more details!)

Hopscotch Hustle

I'm participating in a fantastic event next week and have been super busy making lots of cool new items to have at the event. So, if you're in the area, please attend and make sure to check out my booth as well as the many other exciting vendors that will be there!

The Hopscotch Hustle is an event that benefits "Wee-Cycle" a local organization that "distributes new and gently used baby gear through our network of community-based organizations that serve families with infants and toddlers int he Denver metro area who are coping with poverty, homelessness and domestic violence".

Click on the photo above to visit the "Wee Cycle" site and learn more about this fantastic organization - and make a donation or purchase tickets to the event!