Out-numbered...

okay....i am SWAMPED here at brownie-goose. SWAMPED. i have gotten more orders in the second round than i got in the first...also throw in there my daughter's 3rd birthday, a full-fledged bathroom renovation, a week that i will be in savannah with family, and my own family here in my house.

so, please be patient with me and your order. i work as fast as i can, but i also produce a quality product that cannot just be thrown together. my family comes first, and i sew while my toddler sleeps, is at mother's morning out and when the rest of the world is in bed. also, i try to spend more time with my machines than in front of the computer with my email - so there may be more delay in me answering.

thanks again for everyone's support. i had no idea when i came up with the hunch to start sewing for the public that this would be the reaction. it is amazing and overwhelming at the same time. you guys are awesome and if it wasn't for you...bg wouldn't be what it is today. however, i am also trying to keep it small for the time being since i am not quite ready to hire out my sewing. thanks again to the best fans a business could have!

Oh Snap!

Let's just talk about how awesome you guys are! 169 orders in 3 and a half hours. Oh my gosh. That is crazy-nuts. Last time I had over 200 in 3 days...you girls are ON THE BALL!

Bare with me the next few days as I sort through all the emails and get everything straight!

Did I mention you were awesome???

more faces

Just some more new applique faces to show and make you smile! I try my hardest to keep my applique page updated, but sometimes it just gets hard when things get crazy....so your best bet is to look at all my albums on Facebook!

If you are a dinosaur expert...please don't study this guy too hard. I googled a bunch of different dinosaurs and took characteristics from a bunch of different ones to make it applique-friendly. :)

Oh, and Kristen.....those were the only 2 pictures in the last one. :) PS - Wondering who Kristen is? Check out her fun website chock-full of personalized gifts and fun things! She is at www.savannahjacks.com and she is having a huge spring sale, wahoo!

Oh my, I almost forgot to debut this little cutie!!

Want more details? Check here out, click here!

Just Some New Faces

If these little fellows don't make you smile.....I don't know what will. I LOVE them!

Ohh....Pick me, Pick me!

Who doesn’t like to win things? Not I. I love to enter blog giveaways. I am not neurotic about it (imagine that, ONE thing that I am not neurotic about) but when I come upon one I do like to enter. Especially the ones that give away fabric. I have never won, which is sad, but it is still fun to think of wining.

Speaking of wining, I know of a blog that has a fantastic give-away coming up. It is sort of a contest for those of you out there that are a bit more competitive. It is the Dear Mama Contest being hosted by Moms Are Human. This mommy blogger is a great girl (we went to high school together.) She is a real girl and has real stories and real pictures and things that are important in everyday life as a mom. She has entries that will speak to you as a mom, and most of these topics are not ones that you will find on other blogs. She talks about the down and dirty side of being a mom. She even bared her post-partum mid-section for all to see. Have you read her blog yet? If not, you should. Especially read about the Dear Mama contest that she has going. Brownie-goose has some mighty-fine appliquéd kitchen towels in the give-away that are just about to wet their pants to be in your kitchen. Oh, and a $150 Target gift card. If you are anything like me….I could live in Target. I love that place. She also has a signed copy of a Paula Deen cookbook, don’t know about you but I am a huge Paula fan. So, got you interested yet? Get on over there, read about the contest and open up your word document and get started!

Just a peek of the hand towels that need to be on the handle of your oven...



So, get on over to Moms Are Human and read up on this contest. Hey, by the time you are done you just might have a new blog to stalk. Gotta love that! At least, I do. :)

Moving Right Along

Okay, for the record, I am not sure yet when exactly I am opening up for more orders. I know that I will, but am still working on the first batch of spring/summer orders. thanks to everyone for their patience.

i am planning a sew-a-thon this weekend in the hopes of getting a ton done. however, for all of you fellow moms of toddlers out there....i am sure that you can understand that sometimes things don't always go as planned. :)

here are more recent pics, i know i chose the lazy way again with the slideshow, but i think this may be the way to go from now on. it is easy and quick and you still get to see the pics. excuse any duplicates....the steam coming off my iron is slowly killing off the brain cells. well, at least that is my excuse this week.

also, i am beyond myself with my brownie-goose facebook page. i have 411 fans right now and that just about makes me fall out of my chair. i love it, and love yall and are so glad that people out there like what i do! i tend to be a bit out-there sometimes and to know that other people find that great just humbles me something else! if you aren't a fan yet....come on and join since that is where i update the most pics and info and such!

40 days to help the strays

okay, this will be a post that may be a bit out there, but it is about something very important to me, and to brownie-goose.

there are a few things in life which i am very passionate about. some of these things are quite controversial, and while opinionated, i tend to keep quiet as to avoid the drama that soon follows. goodness knows i have enough drama in my life with my toddler. i think the thing that i am most passionate about, and thankfully i don't think is very controversial, is animals. i am a huge animal lover. they have my heart. i cannot even stand to think of one in pain or sad or anything to that extent. i originally wanted to be a veterinarian, until i realized that i would have my heart broken every day. my dad is a big animal lover as well, so i think i got it honestly. nothing melts my heart quite like a wagging tail or a wet kiss or a big dog snuggled up with me on the couch. although i realize i treat my animals like children and some people don't agree with that, it is fine. if we all agreed, the world would be a very dull place. i love them. and it breaks my heart into a million pieces when i think of all the animals out there that do not have homes, or the ones that are in abusive homes. cannot think about it without crying. i wish that i could open my home to them all, but i know that husband would probably leave me if that happened. i have, however, converted him from a person that has outside pets to one that enjoys them indoors which makes my life WAY easier. :)

where am i going with this? for those that read my personal blog you know that i tend to be all over the place. today marks the beginning of lent. while i will refrain from going into the details to avoid offending those that may not be christian (like i said, we all make the world go 'round) i will just say that i remember learning in a religion class in high school (yes, mrs. urbine....i did pay attention every now and then) that lent was not only about giving something up for 40 days, but resisting temptation and working to be a better person. She also taught us to take the "rules" loosely and to apply them to our lives in a way that we saw fit. Basically, lent is what you make it. i remember girls from school that would give things up like candy or cokes, etc. but there were also girls that stood out to me when they didn't necessarily "give" things up, but in a way gave themselves in a way to help others. i always thought this was huge, and i secretly wanted to be just like them. the other night as i lay on the couch sick as a dog, i realized this was my chance to be like those girls. so, this year for lent, brownie-goose will be "giving" itself to something i am very passionate about. for the next 40 days, i will be giving a percentage of each article of clothing that i make to help the animals out there that do not have homes. at the end of the 40 days, brownie-goose will be making a contribution to CARA, one of the no-kill shelters here in Jackson. I am really excited, as i have been wanting to figure out a way to give to them since i started BG. this just seemed right to me. and, since brownie-goose is named after my 2 sweet labs, i can think of no better way. :)

while i am not opening orders right now, i have plenty to keep me busy for the next 40 days. if i run out, never fear....i will open back up.

just wanted to share with everyone what we've got going on over here. now, back to the machines....i know some sweet 4-legged babies that need some help.

wiped out!

okay, i have been hit hard by some sort of sickness that is beyond me. i have not had the strength nor sanity to sit in front of the machines or computer since wednesday night. so, i am a little behind on orders and emails and such. i still feel wretched this morning, but do not have the fever that has plagued me over the last few days - so there is a chance that i will get to open the door to my neglected sewing room and get to work.

thanks again to all of my wonderful customers for your understanding and patience!

email issues

okay, so i know of 4 customers off-hand that for some reason our emails do not play nice-nice with each other, so my emails do not go through to them. if you have emailed me and i haven't gotten back to you....there may be an issue with your email as well. if you are on facebook - message me or post to brownie-goose page so that i am not missing anyone! if not, comment on here. this means that you have never gotten an email back from me. i haven't sat down to emails in a few days, so if you have written me and i have responded before - but just not in a few days, i promise yours is sitting in my inbox just waiting for me. :)

thanks!

Business As Usual

So, wondering where I have been lately? Seen the smoke coming off of my roof over my sewing room? Heard my sweet mail lady griping about all the packages? If so, we know it is just business as usual. Things have been hopping here at brownie-goose trying to get all the spring/summer orders done and out. Not near finished yet.....but working on it. Here are just a few shots to show that my motto is true. A clean sewing room is an inefficient sewing room.

For all of you that aren't on Facebook (you should cave, I did and I love it...and if you are on there and not a fan yet of brownie-goose's page - you should be) i just wanted to give you some pictures of some of the recent completed orders. I have been a sewing machine and am so in love with all of these new fabrics and patterns. I have been getting a ton of emails asking when i may open orders again, and honestly....i am not sure. i know that i will, but don't know when. i definitely have to get caught up on what i have going on in the meantime in order to avoid the craziness that sometimes occurs in my household. :) Oh yeah, excuse the laziness of me putting these in a slideshow, it was just the easiest thing for the time being!

Back to the machines......

Back In Business

okay, THIS IS NOT THE GREEN LIGHT, just wanted to say that you know you are back in it when you come home to find this at your door. the mail. all fabric, every.last.package. i LOVE it. getting fabric in the mail puts the biggest smile on my face. thankfully i have the sweetest mail lady ever since we don't have a mail box, just a slot on the front door and sweet mrs. susan has to contend with lucy (my black lab alarm system) on a daily basis.

does this make you smile too?

holy haberdashery batman....over 100 orders already!

The title was the status for my BG page on Facebook earlier today, and the madness has continued, so once again the green light has turned red for the moment.

But, don't get discouraged if you didn't get your order in. I will use the orders open/closed as kind of a revolving door. I have closed them for now since I have already taken over 150 orders in 3 days. That is nuts and will have my hands full for the next month or so. In the meantime, I will be posting some pics of the new outfits and once I start to get a handle on it, I will let the green light shine again!

If you have already talked to me about your order, or if you have emailed and just not decided yet...I have you on the list. So, chances are...take you time in deciding, and I will hunt you down when I am ready to start on your order if I haven't heard from you.

Wow....yall are awesome!

The Shazaam

Okay, for all of you that have emailed me and haven't heard back - I apologize. My husband and I were hit by what my sister-in-law so properly named "The Shazaam" yesterday and honestly I am not quite sure what happened in the last 24 hours. If you are wondering what the Shazaam is, it is the rotten stomach bug that comes out of no where, rips your stomach in shreds, leaves you motionless on the bathroom floor and the next day the only reminder you have is the sore stomach muscles from throwing up your toenails and the hangover that remains from the Phenergan.

So, as I lay on the bathroom floor yesterday (thankful that I had cleaned it just hours earlier) I listened to Sambo (my blackberry) BLOWING up with BG emails. So, I will be sitting down to emails at some point today when the fogginess has cleared up.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Okay, I sent this out in my mass mailer today...but somehow it came through as code for some of you. I am pretty impressed with myself as a IT person for this one, I wasn't even trying. Hehe.

But, for those of you that may not have been able to read my code, or if you are not on the mailer - I figured I would let yall play too. Here is what I sent:

Hello all and Happy New Year! It is definitely a new year here at brownie-goose, and I have just a few changes that I wanted to fill everyone in on.

• The website. It is brand-new and *hopefully* improved. I got rid of my actual website and got creative with my blog. I have configured it to where it works as a website and then my home page (http://browniegoose.com) will be kind of a bulletin board with updates, news, etc. I did this to hopefully make it easier for me to update, fix, etc. and easier for all of my readers to follow.

• Order taking. I don’t know if everyone read my post about last years numbers or not (here it is if you are interested, http://browniegoose.blogspot.com/2009/12/numbers-are-in.html) but last year got a little crazy with the amount of orders that I took. This greatly took away from time with my precious family, and I do not want that to happen again this year. Therefore, I am limiting the amount of orders that I take. I am sorry if this inconveniences anyone, but I learned the hard way that family comes first, always. On my home page, I will have written at the top either “orders closed” or “orders open.” Please look for this before you email an order. I will be opening and closing periodically, just making sure that I am not a slave to my sewing machines…and instead to my sweet, understanding husband and spit-fire toddler.

• Sizing. I am no longer making any outfits over a size 4T. Once again, I apologize for any inconveniences, but I had to cut back in some areas, and this is one that I felt was needed since I didn’t have patterns in most of my outfits over 4T anyways…

• Prices. Sorry guys, I am not going to hide it – but I had to increase my prices. I am now solely using designer fabrics, which cost me more to purchase, and also my patterns and appliqués and such are getting more time-consuming, and in the end – last year it boiled down to me making about a penny an hour, if even that – and that just wont work. We all need to make a living, right? I debated about even writing this…but I think honesty is truly the best policy.

• Outfits. I have now made all ordering set up as separates. For example, you must order everything individually. Pants are a separate order from a shirt, or a top, etc.

• Turn-around. Please allow at least 6-8 weeks for delivery. I doubt that it will ever take that long….but each outfit is custom-made by me, myself and I.

Now for the fun part, I have some AMAZING new dress and top patterns in time for Spring/Summer ’10. They are awesome and adorable, and of course fun & funky. The fabrics I have for this season are just about as fun as they come. So, all this aside…..brownie-goose is BRINGING IT this year. Are you ready?

Keep checking my website for the green “orders open.”

Also, have you joined me on Facebook yet? If not, you should! Search brownie goose on Facebook and become a fan.

Thanks again for all the support, understanding, patience, etc. that comes from each and every one of you. You are the reason that I continue to do all this, my fans are the best!

Amy

debuting.......

Just some of the new styles debuting this Spring/Summer '10.

Love them???

Check out more details under the Styles tab.