Lovin’ the iphone life, but turns out it hasn’t swallowed me whole, yet.

Last week when I finished this big project, I thought I might have a few days to relax. But, somehow, whenever my plate is getting empty, I go back for more.

 Long story short, I thought I might bring in a little extra anthropologie shoe spending money by re-opening my Etsy shop. Yeah, Blue Olive Design still exists, just in perpetual vacation mode! Anyway. Rather than start building up inventory and stocking the shop, I thought I’d try my hand at a little Etsy feature called Alchemy. Alchemy is a place where anyone can go request a custom item, and have all different Etsy crafters bid to make it. I did one Alchemy item last year, but before the girl posted it, she contacted me to make sure that I would/could bid on it and make it for her. So, it was more like a simple custom item. 

A few nights ago I logged into Etsy and began to search Alchemy for some things that I thought were up my alley. I found some. In fact, I put bids on 6 different projects, 3 of which I have already been awarded. Great! Yay! Fun new projects and some extra cash! Oh…and all of the sudden my plate is back to overflowing! Somehow I failed to realize that if I bid on things all at the same time, with similar timelines, I would be crunching to finish them. Fun, busy, and fun. I guess that is my life!

Last night I started…and then a couple hours later finished the first item: a custom tap shoe bag with a ballerina applique.

I was lucky to have some nice satin fabric, tulle and felt bits around, so there was no upfront cost to this bag. Lucky, since the bid was only $15 and I ended up hand stitching the applique for about ninety minutes. Amazing what you can get for minimum wage these days!

The bag is lined with fleece and has two separate compartments. One for each of the tappers, so they don’t tap tap tap inadvertently.