Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Ami-Halloween & Holiday Prep 2011

Ami-Halloween Trick-or-Treat Bunny???
... is really the Trick-or-Treat Kitten

Ami-Halloween Ghostboy

Ami-Halloween Scarecrow

... the Ami-Halloween Trio.

      I have been getting ready for the upcoming 2011 crafting holiday season. This will be my first full season (did minor stuff @ Christmas last year) so getting all the prep-work down is a new thing to me. I am probably going to start the season with some "finished" works for Halloween. I have found 2 planning tools to help teach me what needs to be done for a successful holiday. The first is the "Holiday Marketing Planner" from Handmade Success. For the second I signed up for Etsy's "Holiday Bootcamp" which sends weekly emails with a list of tasks to be completed to get ready for the holidays.

     Like many of my fellow crafters out there I do have a regular "day job". so I find the structure of a list of tasks to be completed very helpful. Since this is really my first holiday I am able to learn from those who've done it all before. It is great so I don't feel so alone. Breaking it down into smaller tasks also keeps it from being too overwhelming. 

     Above are the first of my ami's part of my Ami-Holiday's Halloween collection.I started out with the scarecrow. Since pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns are synonymous with Halloween I gave him a pumpkin head. My favorite part is how the floppy straw hat came out. Next how can Halloween be complete without a ghost. This one is actually a little boy (or girl - could be either) trick-or-treater all dressed up and ready to go out. Finally the trio is rounded up with my kitten who is dressed up as a bunny along with basket and all.


     It's getting late and I do have to be at that "day job" tomorrow so I must go for now. I really hope to not have postings so long in between, but I really appreciated all of you who keep coming back to visit and see what is new at A.O. . I have also started to have some sales on my Etsy and Ravely sites where I have my patterns available now. They are also available on the "patterns" page of the blog.


I would like to wish you all the best of holidays and Happy Ami,      Shannon