Fantastic Toys Brand New Website!!!

I'm over the moon with my much improved website! I fell instantly in love with Goodsie! The name - so cute! The format so simple, clean and modern. Goodsie allows you to make your own branded shop online. Plus, the fact that it accepts digital content with instant downloads, I was head over heels. Goodsies integration with Fetch allows me to send my PDF printables immediately upon purchase. No more waiting for printables! I have been waiting years for this. Finally a professional website with a cart! I can't recommend Goodsie enough. Here are some of the benefits of having a shop with Goodsie.

• Fun and easy to use!
• Create your OWN custom website.
• Use your own custom domain.
• Great price with unlimited products. $15.00 only!
• Accepts digital downloads including PDFs.
• Embed portfolio or videos.
• Paypal and 3 other ways for your customer to pay.
• A shop on your Facebook page!
• Great customer service!!!

I was also able to combine my blog seamlessly with my shop. My blog as you may know has cute crafty tutorials. In a mad dash to find storage for my free PDFs I discovered Google Docs. My tutorial documents can now be previewed before printing. How convenient is that!

In addition to shopping at my website, Goodsie has a Facebook app. That's right an app that allows the customer to shop directly on my Facebook page. How cool is that!

On the workbench...

Ok, so this may be my favorite paper toy I've designed so far. A working paper marionette of Pinocchio! I've been cooped up all weekend because of the snow storm and was able to make a lot of progress. I have the character down and the technical aspect of making him move correctly is finished. He's fully jointed and will move and dance just like any other marionette. I just need to design the controller and string him up! He should be available shortly.

Kawaii Fabric Design Available at Spoonflower

FYI, Spoonflower now has a feature which allows you to purchase fabric that other indie crafters have designed. For each fat quarter or yardage sold the artist receives 10% of the sale price. Its optional of course. If you design some fabric you don't have to have it available for sale to the public. I now have two kawaii designs available at Spoonflower which can be purchased at my profile. I have some more ideas which I hope to have available as well.

If you've been on the fence about giving Spoonflower a try, now is the time. For one day only they're have a Free Swatch Day. In the past I have used this offer to purchase a color chart swatch which has been invaluable when creating new fabric designs. You can also use this offer to get a swatch of not only your design but designs offered by others too.

Adventures With Embroidery

As if I didn't have enough to do with making plush, digital illustration, paper toys and custom fabric I had to add embroidery. The embroidery machine I bought last winter has been sitting idle taking up space for months now. I was beginning to think of ways to unload it on Craigs List. The machine sat there taunting me, reminding me of what colossal amount of money I invested, for nothing.

For some reason I thought I could plug in an illustration with a flash drive and it would magically embroider my illustration like a printer would printing ink onto paper. I could go about my business while the machine was happily stitching away. Hah! Not quite that simple. In reality you pretty much have to babysit the machine while its embroidering. With each color change you must change the thread color, cut the threads and make sure nothing else goes awry while it doing its thing. A design can take up to 45 minutes or more to complete.

The digitizing process itself is quite a bear. As with all new software there is a learning process. Slowly but surely I'm gaining confidence with the tools and have begun stitching my first samples. Although I have so much more to learn I'm starting to like the whole idea of adding embroidery to my list of crafty conquests. I think it fits well with my brand. My plan is to have finished embroidered artwork for my upcoming show in August. Let me know what you think of my first sample of Little Red.

Sewing Friends Fabric Design

I love these characters and I've been working on some sewing accessories that feature them. I've just about finished the prototypes and will send the file to Spoonflower for printing within the week. This pattern will be used to for some mini zipper pouches. I plan to design more patterns featuring Mushroom Hill and my storybook characters.

In Progress - Mushroom Cottage Dollhouse

Ever since I made my first paper toy, the gnome mushroom cottage I've wanted a to make a dollhouse version. This tiny dollhouse is part of a series of paper mushroom cottages I hope to finish soon. Gnomie the gnome lives in this red capped cottage complete with paper furnishings. I just love the wood grain furniture and all the other details of the house. I 'm thinking some of Gnomie's animal friends and a vegetable garden will complete this playset. :) I've included the original rough sketch of my idea to show some of the process involved when I create new toys.

Dazzled by Zazzle

How cool is this! Zazzle.com has got to be the funnest website to make products from your own illustrations. It features hundred of items to place images on including t-shirts, skateboards and even shoes! Its really high tech and it allows you to see the product as it would look finished. It does however require the latest flash update to properly function.You can even set up shop and sell products with your images and get a percentage of the sale. I'm slowly getting use to the site but eventually I'll have items available in my Zazzle shop. What do you think? Should I design more products?

I spent the whole day playing and I came up with a few items. A tote to carry all your crafty purchases with my newest pin cushion character. Or a pair of Matryoshka slip-ons for your little girl. Don't forget the two tone coffee mug with cute mushroom cottages. Imagine the possibilities!

The Cutest Little Toy Shop In America!

I recently had the pleasure of designing the outside sign for this charming toy store in Plymouth, Michigan. The Dollhouse and Toy Cottage is an old fashioned toy store that been in business for over 35 years. If I ever had my own shop it would look a lot like this. I just love the pink facade and sloping roof with scallop trim. It matches my brand perfectly. I only wished I lived closer so I could spend hours looking at all the collectible toys inside. Don't you want to visit? Its almost worth a road trip!

Cute Paper Sewing Machine

I'm having fun designing some new toys. In the past I've put so many projects on hold because of wholesale or custom orders. Now, its my goal to finish some of those items and just CREATE and design new items! I've neglected the paper toys and am currently working on a few. Heres a sneak peek of a series I'd like to do of crafty mascots. I'd like to add more characters to this series. If you have any ideas for more crafty mascots, let me know. :)

Less Than Two Weeks Until the Big Show

I've been busy, BUSY getting ready for the Powderhorn Art Fair. Heres some stuff I finished in the last week. I'm absolutely thrilled about my new business cards and my handmade banner.

Die Cut Mushroom Cottage Business Cards

Finished Banner

Plushie Keychains

Craft Show Banner

I wanted my banner to be so much more than just a logo printed on vinyl. I was thinking of a tapestry/quilt when I was designing it. It will be printed on 45" X 72" canvas. I can't wait to see it hanging up at my next show.

Spring Cleaning

I never thought I would like blogging.. it took me so long to start one but now I'm starting to get into it. I've been sprucing up the blog and making it more user friendly. I've added sections to make past articles more accessible and changed the look a bit to compliment the Fantastic Toys brand. I'm looking forward to adding some more tutorials and giveaways in the near future. I've got quite a few ideas so stay tuned.

Show your love for Fantastic Toys.
A couple of badges to add to your blog or website.

Softie Keychains

I'm really excited about Spoonflower and all the possibilities of creating my own custom fabric. In the past I have designed printed dolls with the custom printing service. Recently I have designed some Russian doll keychains based on my paper nesting dolls. Right now I'm working on some new designs to get ready for professional printing. I made these samples by printing them onto fabric that is made to go through an ink jet printer. Which one do you like? Help me decide which designs to send off to Spoonflower.

On the drawing board.

New look finished!

I'm so happy with the new look of my website. I think it really reflects the Fantastic Toys style so much better now. The pastels, scalIoped trim, ric-rac are all elements I use in my creations. The page literally looks "handmade" now. I just about gave up but I pushed on. I swear I think I have a blood clot in my leg because I've been sitting in front of the computer so long. I need to finish some of the remaining pages, the shop in particular. You should see my cart icon.. its a little wheel barrow. :) Anyways it should be live by the end of the week, wheather or not I finish the shop page.

Website Redesign

After making some new logos for my blog I thought I should tackle the website again. As much as I love, LOVE my current website splash page its almost impossible to make changes being that it's essentially an illustration. Ideally I would like something that would have a blog, gallery and shop with cart. But since I'm doing everything from scratch its an endless task. I thought my blog would be a good place to get some feedback. If you any ideas please share. Do you like the current website or do you like the new direction I'm going in?


Current website is an illustration with animation. Roll over the flowers and they move. B-fly boy flutters wings. Impossible to move elements around. I can only add text in text box. I like the illustration style but have pretty much abandoned it in favor of faster vector graphics.




New direction I'm going in. I have kept most of the elements from the original but have gone with a handmade look. I like that it looks like cut paper illustration and there are elements of sewing in it. I think it reflects my style more and the direction I'm going with as far as what my store will carry... i.e. dyi kits and paper crafts. It is however missing any visual reference to softies. Even though it still needs works I like the user friendly menu on top. I'm thinking the rollover flowers on the bottom is too cluttered and might remove it entirely but will miss the animation. Maybe some photos to replace it?

So what do you think? I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. Thanks