July 13, 2008
We welcome Doll Artist Joann Bevan from Bluffton, South Carolina to our site! She has babies in the nursery up for adoption and they are just adorable. It is so hard for me not to adopt one myself. :) This is a long time dream of Joann's that she has been working on for years. She learned to sew when she was in high school. She has 3 daughters and 1 son and when they were little she made their Easter and Christmas outfits. Her first soft sculptured baby was Miss Martha's Original Jonathon and she sold many of those. Joann's oldest daughter Julie does handbags with her at the Craft festivals and on her website. She loves making baby items of all sorts. Joann has been married for 36 years and her husband is very supportive even though she spends alot of his money without much payback. This is a full time job for Joann now .. and she tells me "it is very addictive the more I make the more I want to make..I have a hard time selling the ones I make. They are all adorable" . Visit our Nursery and Joann's Web site to see her beautiful creations. You can also email Joann at joannb@grandmascrafts.com.
June 10, 2008
We are uploading a new site thanks to our wonderful Web provider - In A Pickle! Annie has added a great shopping cart and set it up and we are in the process of adding products. It is so exciting and all our patterns are on sale during this process! Check back often for new items and updates!!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
LinniePies has been a dream of mine for many years and it is finally coming full circle. My Dad was a sign painter/commercial artist and he spent much time drawing silly faces and cartoons for me to laugh at. This was not a good thing on Sunday mornings as we sat in church and we both would get into trouble when I would giggle a little too much during the sermon. We always had plans of his making a doll face out of a cartoon character in the Sunday morning comic strip we used to read. It was a little baby - son of Snuffy Smith. Well we never got around to it and he passed away when I was only seventeen.
LinniePie was a name he called me when I was little and I loved it. I collected dolls from a very young age and both my Momma and Daddy were great about adding to my dolls. My only wish is that I had kept all those dolls. When I left home after graduating from high school I thought they were not important any more and left them behind to be given to neighbor children.
About 15 years ago I started making dolls and selling them when I was laid off from a job I had held all of my adult life. It was wonderful but didn't bring in much money and with four boys I was not able to travel to craft and doll shows. Well here I am again making dolls ~ approaching my 50th year and my boys almost all grown, it just seems so right. Now I am working on making my own patterns and will be adding them to the site soon. We will also be adding resources for other doll makers such as e-pattern development. I will also let you know about any information, books, classes that I find helpful - just in case any of you are interested in learning more about this fascinating craft. That is the best thing I have found here and that is the fact that even though we may compete with web sites and sales ~ crafters are a family and very willing to help each other out. Please visit my linkspage as every one of these have been extremely helpful to me - even if they aren't aware of it.
One of my proudest accomplishments so far is getting connected with Vicki Riley at DinkyBaby.com. Her babies are so wonderful and I can't wait to fill my site with them. Check out her blogspot at http://dinkybaby.blogspot.com/2006/07/newest-dinkybaby.html. I am so proud to be mentioned there.
Below is a wonderful class I just finished up. For anyone wanting to design their own dolls this is a wonderful start. There is a link to the site - take a look. It is so easy to follow and will make you look at designing in a whole different way. Until next time - I wish you many blessings and hope you enjoy your visit here! Keep coming back - we will be working hard to update every day.
Design Your Own Cloth Doll
Class
With All The Rights, Honors and Privileges Thereunto Appertaining.
Two Thousand And Five
Judi Ward
Instructor
Laurieann Phalen
Dean Of College
Crafty College
http://CraftyCollege.com
Crafty College is a division of the Internet Visions Company.
PS: One thing I forgot to mention is my wonderful husband - Greg. If not for him I would not be able to take this journey. He has helped me set up my sewing spot and he has been patient with my immersion in everything dolls. I have a fulltime administrative business also and that takes up much of my time, so doll time has to be squeaked in here and there.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
I have spent the last 30 plus years of my life in customer service and administrative work! I truly love this type of work and hard work does not scare me at all!
I worked in life insurance for 17 years handling customer service and administration with a large life/multi-line insurance company. I loved this work and was very sad when the company that I worked for laid my department off. But.....it was the beginning of WordLee! I was paid for almost one year in severance pay and my husband and I used some of that money to buy an electronic typewriter. In 1991 that was the thing to use before home computers were as common as they are now. It only held 8 pages of text and I spent much time typing and retyping. It was great fun. I did everything from typing term papers to legal papers for individuals. I also did transcription for insurance fraud investigators, telemarketing for insurance agents, worked part-time for a local church as their admin, and most of all I did lots of mystery shopping. I have shopped everything from restaurants, gas stations, housing, to hotel meeting planners. That has been a great learning experience.
In 1992 we purchased a WANG (yes, I am serious) Computer from Wal-Mart for $800 because it had a Windows 3.0 operating system. At the time that was a real deal!! It was so exciting when we fired that computer up in our little dinning room turned office. The white glow of the screen and the color monitor was just too fabulous to explain! I didn't even know how to turn it off or use a mouse. I have never had anything like that in my previous computer use. The guys and I still laugh about that computer - but it was a workhorse and the people at Wang were wonderful and spent untold numbers of hours on the phone teaching me how to use a PC and a mouse - it was a very exciting time. Oh my gosh - Prodigy online and chats with others like me - you can't imagine.
Prior to leaving my insurance background, I took a few college level courses on Life Office Management from the LOMA Association and received my Part 1 completion certificate. This gave me a good bit of background on how to run an office as well as a business. But.......wow did I have a lot to learn!!! If I can stress anything to anyone starting a business in any state is read, read, and then read some more and research as much as you can. I will list some great resources here as we expand.
The other interesting thing is that I have worked from a home office for the past 16 years. That alone is challenging but so well worth it. For me it is a necessity as I am disabled and find it almost impossible to keep up with the rigors of working in a traditional office setting. So...this new way of working that has become so popular in the last 5-10 years is a great alternative for many. I will begin to touch on that here more and more and to offer what I have learned the hard way to those who may be young and inexperienced - maybe you won't have to learn the I did.
My best advise is to research what you want to do and be sure you are a good fit and then don't let anything get in your way - it can be done. Sometimes it takes lots of time and even more patience but if you really want it - you can make it work!
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