A GREAT Father A GREAT Day !!

The GREATEST Dad I Know " My Dad "

I know we all have Great Dads ! But yea to me my Dad was the Greatest ! I lost my dad back in 2007 he had Alzheimer's & Parkinson's disease . But my dad lived a nice life, he loved what he did ( an over the road  truck driver )  He always encouraged me and he loved that I taught myself to paint. I remember when I learned to macrame in art class in school and I had my macrame all set up on the living room floor, all my cord cut and pinned to a piece of cardboard. I was never one to be able to follow written instructions, I would read them and then figure it out in my head,then I would begin my projects. This time I was making a macrame purse and he would watch me and ask all about what I was doing,taking pictures and was just amazed how tying all the cords in knots was taking shape into a purse!  My First and I used it too !!!

It's really hard sometimes to find your Dad something for a gift for Fathers Day and even birthdays that would be so different and Unique for you're Dad that isn't your typical gift ! I always like giving gifts that were unique,handmade and that was most likly a gift that your neighbor wasn't going to walk out the door with the same tie or shirt that you bought for your Dad !! 

Here at our Etsy Shop www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden we do have Unique, handmade, one of a kind gifts for you to give your Dad or husband for Fathers Day or any occasion !

Stop in and take a look ! Does your Dad or Husband like sports ? We have a variety of Sports Team player Birdhouse Gourds and ornamental player gourds. Football, Baseball, Basketball, weve done Hockey also.

We have also done nurses, doctors and just about anything else you can think of. I have had customers come back year after year to buy another  gourd. I always have the same spots at the craft shows we do and it's GREAT seeing customers comming back and all the new ones that comes from customers who have given them for gifts or even seen them .

Heres a few ideas of some of the sports gourds that we do and

I hope you get a chance to stop by my Etsy shop and see all that we have to offer and theres still time to order some for your Favorite Man or Men in your life !

       Until The Next Time !!!

                 Cheryl

Please Pray For Oklahoma !!

Lets All take the time to Pray for Oklahoma !!

Garden Fever !!

 

 

 

Garden fever , spring fever, green grass ,blooms on trees and flowers and yes don't forget the sunshine and warm days !!! Time to check out the garden space in your yard !

This is how I started my gourds for my garden again this year with regular garden soil and long planter pots & regular pots for me starting them out this way seems to work out really well for me.

Oh yes can't forget that my dog Kaiden he loves to come out and see what he can help me with which in most cases isn't what I needed it's what he wanted which is to play !!!

Martin House Gourds

So after about 4-5  weeks they just started popping up like crazy (LOVE it when a plan comes together !! ) Of course it ALL depends on the weather, the rain and the sunshine.

Along with the gourds this year we decided to start a big garden, this we have never done since we moved here to Tennessee. When we were in Michigan we had a fantastic garden ! Yep there's my Kaiden watching over the garden  " Good Boy " !



This picture was  taken about a week ago, we hadn't had much rain yet and we were beginning to wonder if this  was the right place to put the garden ( last year we planted it on the other side of the fence ) this year we decided to try it on the out side of the fence theres more growing room . Besides gourds we planted alot of vegetables to see how well it would do. With not much rain yet and just  the water from the garden hose we noticed that something was eating on the leaves. So on taking a closer look we noticed these little yellow & black stripped flying bugs which upon further searching on the Internet we found out they were called cucumber beetles. They eat the leaves and can bore down into the roots of the plants ( they of course Love the cucumber plants and gourd plants ) This is what the cucumber beetle looks like. So we went to the store and bought some garden friendly insecticide called Sevens and sprayed the garden and so far it has worked great and the bug seemed to have gone hopefully for good !!

This picture was taken a week later after a great rain and everything just seem to grow like magic !  Still no bugs and the garden is looking Fantastic !!

Here's my husband out after the rain inspecting the gourds ! He said they are looking really good and counted about 10 more plants popping up in the soil. We have planted martin, bottle, apple, egg &  mini bottle  gourds. Along with Strawberries, lettuce, romaine lettuce, peas, beans, onions, egg plant, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, peppers (green, red, yellow, orange & mini colored peppers ) zucchini, jalapenos, yellow squash, potatoes

These are just some of the gourd plants that are out in the garden.

Here  are some of the gourds from our gourd garden last year. We have been bringing them in cleaning and cutting them . We ended up having some nice gourds.

Yes they can look pretty nasty, very moldy & stinky, but when they are all cleaned up they have a Beautiful natural wood color and are hard like wood that's why they make such a great canvas for painting on ! These are just a few that my husband has been cutting for me to make my birdhouses. Aren't they pretty !!!Well time to get to work and start painting them. Besides my Etsy Shop we have a few craft shows to get ready for .

 

So until the next time, Please feel free to leave comments & ask questions.

and Please don't forget to stop by my Etsy Shop we have GREAT gifts for Fathers Day or just for any day ! Remember if you don't see what you like just ask I can paint just about anything !!

 

Cheryl

49 ers or Ravens ?

 Which team are you rooting for ?? The San Francisco 49er's Or the Baltimore Ravens ? Are you or your family going to be watching The Superbowl XLV11  Let take a vote Please post your vote in the comment box. Vote for yourself , your husband family or friend. ! 

I just gor done painting these team football player gourd birdhouses just in time for the Superbowl ! So if you are a fan or know somebody who is jump on over to my Etsy Shop where they are for sale. They make GREAT gifts ! They are one of a kind, Unique and quite the conservation piece !

Like me on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/In-My-Painted-Garden/170385616339261

Follow me on Pinterest http://pinterest.com/cabow/and Twitter  https://twitter.com/inmypaintedgard

Follow my blog !

 

Post your vote below in the comment section !!

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Until the next time

 

Cheryl

Webb School -Bell Buckle Craft Show 2012

This was our booth

I thought I would share some of the photos and fun that was happening at the annual Webb School-Bell Buckle Tennessee Craft Show. We were on Maple street which is our spot every year, so hope to see y'all next year.

These pictures were taken early in the morning we had to be there by 6:15 a.m. because they shut off the streets to traffic at 6:30 a.m.

So I decided to walk around before the crowd started coming and take some pictures. Now this show is so BIG that they shut down the whole town ! This is actually like 3 show in one the have the downtown show which is all the stores, theres like 10 stores on one whole block & craft booths set up in front of the stores, then across the street there is 3 more shops & the parking lots are full of craft & food booths and down the street is the fire department and 2 Big antique stores ( love love love going shopping there ) Behind the stores there is part of the downtown show which has about 100 booths, then theres the Webb School Show.

This is across the street from where I am and it's the Webb side of the Bell Buckle show and this is only one small side of it there must be another 200 or more booths set up there.

These two pictures here are taken looking down the street between the Webb craft booths on the right and the Maple street  ( which is where I am at ) on the left side of the street. It seems like there was just as many craft tents on our side of the street also !! Lets just say the whole town was packed  with tents then add all  the people and you can say it was one BIGGGGb craft show !




These are very early customers, both mornings we  got there at 6;15 a.m and the show hours had it starting at 8 a.m. but within a half an hour of unzipping our tent doors on both days we had sold something, it was GREAT !!The weather was Fantastic and the people were in the mood for buying  !!There was sooo many Great handmade crafts , some that made you go Wow, some that made you go Awe , some that made you say I never thought about doing that and some that you said I Have Got To Have That Now !! After hand made is the best !

This is my tent

This was right after the start of the day as all the people were starting to filter in and it started getting pretty crowded

All in all it was a Fantastic weekend, We had a great time and the sales and orders were really good! I sure hope that next year is just as good .

  Well I hope you enjoyed coming along with me for a weekend of crafts in Bell Buckle Tennessee ! If you have never been you need to make it one of your yearly stops. You'll LOVE it !!

                                                              Until the next time !
                        
                                                                      Cheryl
www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden

Your Business Logo & Labels - Make Your Own

"Blue Moon Over Tennessee "

Your Logo and your labeling is one or if not the most important components of your business . Your name of your business and your logo that you are going to use should reflect what your business is about.  When coming up with the name for my business I asked myself these questions ( it helps to put it down on paper, seeing it written out really helps. 

 

 1. What is your product ?

    2. What do you do with it ?

      3.Is it just a hobby or do you want to make more  out of it ?

4. How should you market/promote  your product ?

 

Actually I have always loved doing crafts, I started out sewing, I loved to make my boys their cloths, sewed all the time. I used to make those stuffed geese/ducks that sit on the back of your couch or your bed , I made their fancy dresses with the ruffled aprons and the puffy tie bonnets, men's ties, the sock stuffed reindeer and I also crocheted and did macrame. I worked at the elementary school back then and would take my items and put them in the teachers lounge and "yes" the teachers loved to buy, so I did sell a few things. I did do a couple of local craft shows, but felt that what I was making  there really wasn't a big selling market after it was really just a hobby I wanted to show .
   I used to watch the painting programs with my son who would come home from school and sit down and watch ( it just amazed me that he loved those programs and he got me interested) So I bought every book and videos I could find and taught myself how to paint and I'm still learning !  I had saw a women painting on gourds and just thought that was so cool, so I looked up a local gourd farmer and bought a bunch, my brother-in-law decided to take them to work ,sold every one of them and had orders for more thus began  "In My Painted Garden" and that's where my name/logo began !

 

I decided that after years of buying most of my marketing  items online & there are still many items that I do buy online from some Great companies like  www.vistaprint.com and www.moo.com  they both customize any marketing items for your business that you may need and Great deals !

But I wanted to make hanging price tags with my picture logo on them and hanging custom care cards with my logo and care instructions on the flip side to hang on my gourds and my other hand painted items, which I am sooo happy how they turned out that I wish I would have done this a long time ago ! I have a nice scanner and printer so I the the picture that I had already chose as my logo/avatar (that was already downloaded in my picture albums on my computer ) then on word on my computer typed out the care instructions to the size of my logo picture that I had chose  ( it took me a few times to be able to match up the front and back so the care instruction and my logo picture fit on both sides, that way if you have the print on both sides option on your computer it all fits.) I also inserted a text box option for the front side/picture side and added my title of my business ( In My Painted Garden ) Then I took some  white card stock,scanned my logo picture and printed it on the card stock,ran alot of copies. I really liked the way they turned out, so I bought some clear contact paper and covered both sides,cut them out ,punched a hole in them with a hole punch and put a string on them so I could hang them. Then I just made smaller versions with just the logo picture on one side and blank on the other for my price tags.

Here's what they look like on both sides.

Here's to the finished product and I got alot of compliments from my customers at my last show ! This way they have all the information they might need on those little cards and of course I still hand out my business cards and flyer's . This way it makes it a little more personal for my customers and hopefully gives my brand a little personal touch of it's own from me.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think ?

Thank You for stopping by my blog and Until The Next Time !
   
                                                      Cheryl

www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden
www.twitter.com/inmypaintedgard