A while back, a customer contacted me about making some custom bags for her, she chose all of the fabrics, and she actually sent me some fabric that she already had, how cool is that!  These are the two Uber Large Handbags that I made for her, and I thought they turned out just lovely.  The top handbag features Anna Maria Horner's great Home Decor line of fabric (love it) and the bottom handbag features Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet line of cotton weight quilting fabric.  The customer chose to have three fabrics featured on the Sandi Henderson bag (photos below,) and I love how unique it truly turned out.  This style handbag is "uber" large (hence the name) and can hold so much stuff, but isn't too big, if you know what I mean!

Interested in a custom order?  Just let me know and I will be happy to work with you on whatever design and fabric you would like.  I LOVE custom orders!

Thanks so much to all you lovelies for entering my giveaway!  I loved reading all of the super sweet comments from all of you!  And now for the winner...

Random.org
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random integers, generated without replacement:

13


Timestamp: 2010-08-18 15:15:48 UTC

Congratulations Lucky Number 13! 

Kristina
Who said:  Happy Etsy-versary.  You're doing really well, considering you've been on Etsy for a year!  Keep it up!

Kristina I will be in touch with you shortly.  Make sure you click on Kristina's name to check out her lovely Etsy shop!

Thanks again to everyone who entered and everyone who supported me in my first year of business on Etsy!  Stay tuned to my blog for another great year of adventures, giveaways, and some great tutorials!

Any idea what today is?  Marci Girl Designs 1 year Etsy-versary!  Oh the things that can happen in one year.  So many changes, a lot of work, goals accomplished, a lot of new friends, and a bunch of great customers!  Thank-you to everyone who has made it possible, my customers, twitter and blog followers, all of you who have "hearted" my shop, and everyone who has supported me through this time of "new adventures!"  There is a lot more to come in the future, and I am here today to share one of those *new things* and host a giveaway of my own!  The item you see here today, is one of my brand new designs, and I am giving this one away to one of my readers!  A simple pouch that features pretty little prairie points, and is just the right size to slip into your purse.

Several easy ways to enter, please leave a separate comment for each:
1.  Comment, any comment, anything you would like to say...keep it clean folks!
2.  Follow me on Twitter. @Marci_Girl
3.  Tweet about this giveaway, something like this: "Win a pretty little pouch from @Marci_Girl visit www.MarciGirlDesigns.com for details!
4.  Visit my shop and tell me about your favorite item.

Giveaway ends one week from today, 8/17/2010, Tuesday at Midnight!  I am looking forward to reading your comments!

Sorry folks, these two giveaways are over, congratulations to the winners!
Want to win your choice of Mary Rose Clutch from my shop?  These are just a few you could choose from...

Ready to enter to win?  Head on over to a great site, A Little Etsy Love, you have 10 super easy ways to enter to win!  These guys have giveaways going on all the time, so stop by often to enter other great etsy shops giveaways...there is one I am hoping to win right now...run don't walk, giveaway ends August 5th, 2010.  You still have plenty of time to enter!

Wait...that is not it...you could also win you choice of anything from my shop!  Here are some great examples of what you could spend your money on...

Ready to win a $20 shopping spree to use in my shop?  Head on over to The RikRak Studio, My Talented Talented Friends! The Giveaway! for a chance to win a shopping spree to my shop or a ton of other great etsy shops! You have 18 ways to enter to win, and it is super fun to visit all of the other great shops that The RikRak Studio is featuring!  Giveaway ends August 6th, 2010.  You might want to hurry over, so you can spend lots of time lusting over all of the great participants...spend some time on The RikRak Studio blog too, it is a great read!

Notice anything new?  I now have labels and tags for my handbags!  Now, if you know me, I am a control freak (to a fault) and instead of allowing someone else to print my labels or tags, I figured, why not make them myself?  Well I did, and after lots of tests and failures, ended up with two options shown to the left and below that I was really pleased with the end results.  One day I will do a tutorial on how I created them both, but I will save that for another time.  The tag shown on the left photo is larger and now featured on my Mary Rose Clutches and Handbags.  The labels shown in the photos below are for the interior of my smaller bags, like my Georgette and soon to be listed new pouches and pouchettes.  What do you think?  I think they turned out quite nice, and the best part is, since I created them, I have a lot of color and style options!

Wait a second, is that what I think it is...yes, yes it is, my son in our new ginormous mailbox.  This mailbox is the latest addition to the family, and is a big help to me and my sanity, you see this huge mailbox is saving me trips to the post office, and that is a big deal.  Before when I would sell something in my store, it almost always required a trip to the post office, then I discovered you could print your postage online...oh yes, but I still had the issue of my packages being jammed into a tiny mailbox, thus I was still occasionally having to go to the post office.  If you children, you know what a huge pain in the rear end the post office can be, especially when our local one always has a line a mile long!  So anyways, my husband was shopping in Lowe's discovered this huge baby and purchased it for me...how sweet.  Most women get flowers, candy, no not me, I got a huge mailbox, and was just as happy!

Come on, you know you want it...a $20 Gift Certificate to be used in my Etsy shop!  It can be used for anything in my shop and even better, no expiration date!  Do you want to win this baby?  If so head on over to a great new blog - Shades of Laughter - four wonderful ladies blogging about any and everything, all in a great, humorous, entertaining way!  I think one of the best things about their blog is that they are constantly blogging, it seems like every time I check them out, they have a new post...so great!  Ready to win?  It is super easy to enter, and you have three ways in which you can qualify!  Hurry, the giveaway ends April 21st.

I have been fortunate enough to be asked to create some custom orders lately, (which I love doing, by the way) and this beautiful array of clutches is one of them!  Now I can't take all of the credit, yes, I made them, but I didn't choose the fabric, the bride did, and boy did she pick out some wonderful prints.  This order was such a joy to work on, and I was really pleased at how nice they turned out, each one is completely unique (just like the bridesmaids, I am sure!)  This custom order was purchased before the clutches were made, so I don't have any photos of them on my Etsy site, so I felt this was the perfect forum for them.  Would you like to have something special and custom made just for you?  Even if I don't have the fabric, I am more than happy to get my hands on whatever your little heart would desire.  Just drop me a line and I am more than happy to create a custom order just for you!  Now...off to more sewing and creating...

I know, sometimes it is the little things, but I am so excited at how lovely my little stamp turned out on my manila shipping envelopes.  I think it turned out so beautiful, and hopefully my customers will think the same when they receive their little package in the mail!  I purchased the stamp from a shop on Etsy and was totally happy with the design, communication, proof time and price...not so happy about the fact that the shop "pretended" to be located out of the United States, but the product was really produced in a third world country.  After I made my purchase, they changed their policy section to reflect the truth about where the stamps were really being produced and the "real" shipping time that it would take to receive the product.  It took 6 weeks to receive the stamp, but when I purchased it they said it would be 2-3 weeks.  I left positive feedback because the stamp turned out so nice, but because of the other factors, I won't be recommending them on my website!  Oh well...you win some, you lose some, right?  I still think it turned out lovely and I hope you do to!