The Petite Seam: I Opened an Etsy Shop!

At the end of my last post I hinted at a big announcement and I am finally back to share with you that I have opened an Etsy shop!  I have thought about opening one for a while now but when I got a big response to the car seat poncho that I made for Lyla I thought that it was finally time to take the plunge.

There are A LOT of steps that go into setting up an Etsy shop if you want to do it the right way.  I started by deciding what I wanted to sell.  For now I will be selling the ponchos, bow tie pacifier clips, and infinity scarf bibs.  I plan to add other drool bibs, bow tie/vest onesies, and fleece hats (and maybe mittens) in the near future as well.  I may add other items as well eventually depending on how things go.  The next step was to come up with a name for my shop and this was one of the hardest steps.  I wanted a name that would be cute, memorable and convey the idea of what I would be selling.  After several days of mulling it over the idea to name my shop The Petite Seam was born.

I found some helpful things on Pinterest on how to start a shop as well as a great ebook from another Etsy seller. Here are the links that I found helpful in getting my shop up and running: writing shop policies, an etsy pricing calculator, a domestic shipping guide, branding your etsy shop including a tutorial on how to create a banner for your shop, tips for choosing your etsy shop name, taking product photos, a step by step guide to creating an etsy shop.

I decided to start a Facebook page and an Instagram for my shop right away.  I plan to create business cards as well in the near future.  I created the banner for my shop on Etsy and the cover photo for Facebook in Pixelmator.

The car seat ponchos that I am making for my shop are a little bit different than the one I made for Lyla in this post.  I found size charts for children by age and created patterns for 3 different sizes: 0-24 months, 2T/3T, and 4T/5T.  The hoods use a 3 piece pattern which makes them rounded instead of pointing and they are lined.  Some of them are made with 2 layers of fleece and some are made with the outer fabric and a fleece lining. I am making them for both girls and boys,  The only difference with the boy ones is that they don't have fringe.

I won't bore you with too many more details on my shop but if you would like to check it out you can see some of the items that I have listed in my shop in the sidebar of my blog.  If you click on any of the thumbnails of my products it will take you straight to the listing in my shop!  I hope to be back with some sort of project to share on the blog in the near future but things have been crazy busy right now so I am not sure when that will be right now.