Date: November 5th 2008

Hi Ya Folks!

It's been a whole full month since the last enewsletter went out. Wow, and what a month it has been. I have quite a few updates for you. We will start with the new patterns in the Archive. I'm happy to report it's now completely up to date with all the patterns, so go take a look for yourself.

New Patterns & How-To's in the Archive

Crochet Scrap Basket (original post) (download pdf)

Laundry Loader (original post) (download pdf)

Saving My Knitting :: Picking Up Dropped Stitches (original post)
Sewing on Shankless Buttons :: Fabric Buttons Part II (original post)
Making Fabric Buttons Part I (original post)

Apartment Redress :: Laundry Days and the Lamp Redressed

I finished up the lamp and I think it turned out pretty snazzy. You can see all the images from the redress here on flickr. The Laundry Loader took a bit longer than I thought it would with a few hang ups with the weather and being called in to work. But it's finished and in use. Jason likes it as much as I do so that's a good sign of more organized laundry to come. I went ahead and wrote it up as a pattern, so you can make your own too!

Shop Update

I haven't been updating the shop as much as I would like, but I have a new batch of kits finished up, photos taken and edited and I've started to post them.
This actually brings up a point that I wanted to talk to you about. I posted it on the blog, but I wanted to talk to you directly about it too. This past month, I crunched the numbers and figured out that when my student loans come in next month I'm just not making enough... yet. So I picked up a part time job. It's caused a bit of a set back in my flow of work, but I'm starting to get things ironed out and it's getting back to crafty as usual around here. My hope was that after 4 months of working on things full time after graduating I would be making enough to cover my student loans when they started to come in. Well. I'm close. Just about $200 a month away from being able to pay all my bills each month, but $200 is $200 and that is that so I picked up a part time job. My hope is that in the next 6 months I will be up to the level of sales and a good flow of payments from published work that will allow me to quit this part time deal :) Like I said, I'm really close. I'm hea ding in the right direction, we are heading in the right direction really. It is you and your support and your sales and clm subscriptions that make working from home possible after all. Even having to have a part time job... it's so much better than having to get a full time one, and I thank you so much for that. I can't wait until I can be your's full time again.

Kit Giveaway Winners!

Last month I gave away a free shop item! Kathy won and promptly picked out her very own Craft Leftovers Badge! She's showing her pride in using up her craft leftovers! Thank you!

This Month's Drawing

I'm mixing things up a little bit for this month's drawing. I'm going to offer up a pretty exciting prize. A free subscription to Craft Leftovers Monthly for one month. I'm premiering a new layout this month for the Holiday issue! It's going to be crazy awesome if I do say so myself. Packed with loads of the usual crafty goodness (kit, fabric, buttons, goodies) and I'm enlarging the zine a bit! It's almost doubling in size and I'm soooo happy about this. I'm adding craft stories, puzzles, trivia, articles on historical craft interests. And of course a project, craft room tips, and a few yummy recipes. One of the things I have found is over this past year is that I'm having a hard time writing up the zine because of it's size. Editing things down so they fit has always been an issue and then it's always a trade off, more text so I don't have a million fragment sentences, or more illustrations, which are fun and cute and visually nice. So now, I get to have both! Illustrations and text!
So how to win? Send me a link to your favorite election craft/fabric/diy project by Saturday, November 8th. I'll let you know if you've won on Sunday when I put clm in the shop.

Craft Leftovers Monthly

Craft Leftovers Monthly will be on sale from Sunday, November 9th, 2008 - Wednesday, November 12th and all subscriptions will be sent out Monday, November 17th.

And it will be in the etsy shop! That's right, I'm moving it back to etsy! I guess the same reason why I moved the whole shop there :) I just miss my etsy community. And I'm going to go back to just offering a limited amount of new subscriptions each month. I've found that it really goes from "fun" to "frenzy" if I'm sending out more than 35 each month. So only 15 new subscriptions will be available for the holiday issue.

You can be sure to buy it and get it in plenty of time to give to a friend. Oh and if you get one as a gift for a friend and already have a subscription or are getting a subscription for yourself, you will get 20% off your gift! Just put "I want a gift for my crafty buddy too" and I'll send you a revised invoice for 2 subscriptions, one for 20% off! I'll post about that in the listing as well as on the blog too.

Best wishes and Keep it Crafty!

Kristin Roach