Dog Placemats

One of the items I want to offer in my Etsy store is dog placemats. I know my dog gets her food EVERYWHERE when she is picking out the tiny bits she DOES want to eat. I did some searching on Google to see what was available. This is the version of the dog placemat that I am currently offering at HotDoggies

I make these from a large stash of tapestry weight fabric I found on one of my thrift store trips. I love the fabric because it has a sheen to it that you can just wipe off small spills. You can get almost any kind of dog breed, just let me know. The black paisley print on this dog placemat is gorgeous. But in my quest to make an even cuter dog placemat I found this one that I really like the looks of:

The problem with this dog placemat is that it is made from laminated paper and I really like the idea of being to throw them in the wash when they get really messy so today's project is going to be trying to replicate this placemat in fabric, Stay tuned...

Etsy Shop Banner

As I mentioned before I recently opened a new Etsy shop- Hot Doggies. For those of you that don't know Etsy is all about handmade things both buying and selling. I think it's a million times better than Ebay because it is targeting an audience specifically shopping for handmade items. It's a lot of work, I love the crafting part, no problem there but one thing I found out is I am horrible at making an Etsy Banner. Here's what mine looked like after a whole day's work:

It's an Etsy Banner all right, right size , cute baby, name of shop but it looks like my three year old drew it. I needed some help with a professional looking Etsy banner so I turned to this really cool section of Etsy called Alchemy. Alchemy is a part of Etsy where anyone can put in a request for an item they want made and recieve bids on it. So in the interest of having an Etsy banner that people weren't going to laugh at, that's what I did and I immediately started recieving bids and samples from some really talented artists. It was hard to choose but I went with a lady from a business called Kaiyo Design. She did a wonderful job, even with my picky revisions. Kaiyo Designs worked with me until I had exactly what I wanted. Here is my new Etsy Banner for my new shop:

I love it! To see more of Kaiyo Design and get your own Etsy Banner go here, you won't be disappointed.