Monday, December 12, 2011

Photo of the Day: Tory



I love shoes. Imagine my excitement when I found these crocodile Tory Burch booties in BEAUMONT, Texas for $65. You see, there is a store there that is very hit or miss, but when you hit, you HIT.

I have no idea where I will wear these and I'm sure when I do wear them, I will be miserable, but holy moly it will be worth it.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Photo of the Day: Elf Lunch

This morning our Elf was feeling helpful and decided to make lunch for the kids:



Cornbread mix, uncooked lasagna noodles, an entire can of peas/cream style corn, and unpopped popcorn.
That crazy ol' Elf.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

A Quiet Afternoon

It's so rare we have a completely quiet afternoon. Usually we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Today she got to watch TV while sitting in front of the fireplace. It's a good one.


Friday, August 26, 2011

A Change in Operation

I would like to preface this blog post by stating how much we LOVE our customers. I mean, LOVE. We are grateful beyond measure and appreciate not only your business, but being part of your lives. We have many repeat customers and begin to "know" you by the names embroidered on your custom shirts. I have never met Annabelle or Savannah, but I have made them so many shirts that I feel like they're old friends. It's nice.

Because of our fabulous customers we have become really busy. Busy to the point that our customers are waiting...and waiting...and waiting for their orders. Because we want our customers to receive their orders as quickly as possible, over the next few weeks and months we will begin to carry a MUCH wider variety of ready to ship items. Many of our monogrammed or custom items will still require a wait, but our goal is to keep the wait for custom shirts and monogramming to under 2 weeks. We also will be offering a wider variety of styles and prints.

Thank you again for your business and support. We appreciate you tremendously :)


Sunday, July 31, 2011

Look Who We Have!!

(She really loved an impromteu photo session at 8:30 am!)

Anne is SUPER excited to welcome Katie as her assistant/master organizer/child care expert. Katie's duties around the studio include everything from cutting, organizing, assisting in design, and SHIPPING! Having Katie on staff to help with shipping will allow Anne to get orders out much more QUICKLY.

Katie also brings a fabulous eye for design and sells and designs Aggie game day dresses. Look for us to post and offer some of her amazingly cute ADULT game day dresses very soon.

We are happy to have her on board and look forward to her sharing her talents and enthusiasm with our customers!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Backstage Pass

We've given a glimpse into Anne's studio before, but here are some of her tips and storage uses!






My work table is an old dining room table. The desk, was made by my husband (he's so crafty). I use rubbermaid shelving under the table to store scrap fabric, smaller peices of fabric, and thread. The table holds my cutting area, serger, and sewing machine.





My room has amazing natural light and recently I had my husband hang a birdfeeder outside this window. The ironing board and my embroidery machine sit where I can look out the window while ironing or checking embroidery work.






The entryway to the studio has these alcoves where shelves used to be. The previous owner displayed her HUNDREDS of Precious Moments dolls on the glass shelving....Needless to say, I'm not a Precious Moments collector, so I removed the shelving and hung up tension curtain rods to hang finished clothes.

This is my fabric storage shelf. I bought comic book cardboard backing and wrapped the fabric arond the backing(actually my MOM did it!). It works great because it is acid free and cheap! The baskets hold *some* of my blank shirts and I can write the sizes in the basket on the chalkboard labels purchased on ETSY That's our little peak for the day!








Thursday, March 10, 2011

Time Keeps on Tickin'

So far February and March have been super-duper for us here at The Purple Pecan. We're so blessed to have so many loyal customers AND have new customers! It is so exciting. We love what we do and wish we could spend all of our free time designing, sewing, and creating.

Also important to us is creating unique, high quality designs that are custom made as orders are placed. We also strive to keep our prices competitive and reasonable. We draft our own patterns and often draw and digitize our own applique designs. We LOVE what we do and want to be able to provide great customer service. Currently our turnaround time is 10 business days, but we will likely be extending that time to 10-15 business days for a short while to allow us to catch up (at least a little bit).

Because we live in a college town, Kathy finds herself working full time as a real estate agent for several weeks during the Spring when 40,000 students find themselves looking for housing next year. Because a faculty member in her department was diagnosed with breast cancer, Anne had to take on a 4th class for this Spring semester. Add into this our children, family obligations, and Kathy's pregnancy and we can feel very overwhelmed.

We love what we do very very much and appreciate our lovely customers. We are blessed with your support for Mom-owned business. We promise that we are working diligently on creating high quality, completely custom items for your family. Thank you for your patience and support.

All our love,
Anne and Kathy

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Sewing Room Re-Do




Anne here, in the middle of renovating my sewing studio. Not so much "renovating" as moving stuff around so it's not in various piles of disarray. I LOVE sewing, I LOVE my customers, and I really enjoy the business aspect of having my own company. BUT, managing my time effectively tends to leave my sewing studio in a huge pile of blerg.

So, this weekend I've taken to task my room. The thing about my sewing studio is that it's actually my dining room. In my dining room is my Granny's china cabinet. Granny passed away September 11, 2009 and it was a very difficult experience. She was my Mom's Mom and definitely, as grandparents go, the one I related to the most. She shared with me her love of shoes, of shopping, of creating. After she passed away my Mom brought me a lot of Granny's arts and craft supplies, which I'm so lucky to have. I have a huge quantity of paintbrushes, all with her name "Vera" written by her hand.
I have a huge quantity of ceramic containers she made, all inscribed on the bottom with her name.
Probably the most wonderful, yet saddening thing I have is the china cabinet. It's beautiful and houses one of the 5 sets of china I inherited from her (she loved glass wear and china). The thing about the china cabinet is...it smells like her house. The house that no longer belongs to our family, but that housed so many wonderful memories for us. Opening the china cabinet and smelling inside brings me comfort, but it makes me long for her, and then I become afraid that if I open and smell inside too much, the smell will go away and I won't have it as a reminder of her.
I'm so lucky to have it though. And to be reminded of her so constantly in a room where I spend a lot of time. Our little business really took off after she passed away, so I wonder what she'd think about The Purple Pecan now? I wish she was here to give her opinion on my product design and fabrics, but I am so blessed to be surrounded by the items she loved and the items she used to create her works of art.