Monday, April 25, 2011

Manic Monday: Back To business.

As usual it is a busy Monday morning, Right now I only have time to pop in and write a blog entry because I have pots of shirts dying and the closer I keep an eye on items I dye the better they usually turn out.

I did finally reach my goal of 1000 sales last week, and  after a good week it looks like I am getting a little closer to my sales goals for the month as well.  The ebb and flow of sales is always surprising. Last week was one of my best weeks ever in caustic threads, and the week before was one of the slowest. There was a time where I worked on commission, so naturally sales was part of the job. Anytime we would get discouraged by a slow down they would tell us to remain consistent and not to let the slow day affect how we did things, and never to panic,  and eventually things would even out. It was hard advice to follow when you were watching your paycheck get flushed down the toilet, but it proved to always be true. It has been a long time since I thought about that advice, but it is a good way to remain calm when the anxiety of low sales hits you.

We had a great weekend here,  My mom and her husband were in town for the week and my brother and his wife drove up for the weekend too. It was fun and eventful to have so much family in town, and a little bit of a relief on Sunday afternoon when I got to get back to some of the work I needed to do.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

♥Erica

Tropical Paradise

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Almost There!

I  opened Caustic Threads before I started listing items, but I know that I started listing items April 15th of 2010. I wish I could say I had ambitious-or really any- goals for caustic threads when I started listing items, but I didn't.   I didn't even open it with the expectation that Caustic Threads would primarily be a TShirt store, but rather a sewn clothing store, because as you may know I am also a fashion designer and Caustic Threads was intended to be my indie design label since I made the best decision of my life and decided to be a stay at home mom instead. The problem with having a store of all intricate designs that I have to sew to measurements is that while I LOVE designing, and can sew well, i don't love sewing the same thing over and over, especially if it is complicated.

I had been interested in screen printing for a long time and decided early 2010 to invest in a screen-printing set-up- the initial costs for my business were very low and I am still happy with it. I started out buying overstock shirts and then as I made more I was able to invest my earnings into made to order shirts, which is when my sales really started to take off.

Early January I finally set my first sales goal for caustic threads. I wanted to make 1000 sales by April 15, 2011. I didn't quite make it but now it is April 19th and I am at 997 sales! It is so close I feel like I reached my goal anyway! I am so thrilled that Caustic Threads has been so successful, and I love designing the art for my shirts as well as dying and printing them!

So cheers! To goals, and reaching them... or at least getting REALLY close.

Here are some of my newest items at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CausticThreads




















































Good luck with all of your goals!

Take care!
♥Erica

Monday, April 18, 2011

I finally did it!

I have been interested in purchasing fabric from spoonflower.com for a long time but got sticker shock from the $18 a yard price tag. Not that that is a BAD price for a custom item, just that that is a lot of money for fabric.

I decided to buy myself some fabric for my birthday last week and was planning on buying some from some of the sellers on etsy, but when my favorite seller was on vacation it re-sparked my interest in designing my own fabric.

Here are a few of the designs I ordered:







































































I was hoping I could share what they looked like with the images repeated to give a better idea of how they will turn out, but I am sure I will be back to share what the actual fabric looks like later!

I am super stoked!

Take Care!
♥Erica

Spring Romance