Craft sale - branding!

Part of creating a successful shop whether it's online or in person is the idea of branding.  For me, things have progressed fairly organically from my blog.  

Name - for some people like myself, a logical name for your shop comes from your blog's name.  I like the consistency.  It's the name of my shop, my blog, my twitter, and I have a gmail address that's the same too. For other people their blog name might not be appropriate for their shop.  For example, Robin from the T-Shirt Diaries decided that naming her Etsy store after her blog wasn't the right fit. 

Whatever it is, make sure it represents what you're selling.  For myself, I'd like to eventually transition into completely green items, using thrifted materials and green adhesives, etc.  Right now while I'm starting out it's 100% realistic for me to do.  I'm working with my craft stash and using a lot of items I've had donated to me by others looking to get rid of stuff, which is eco-friendly in it's own way.

Create your BRAND

Creating a brand is creating an image, attitude and feeling about your shop and what you sell.  For myself I'm creating my brand visually through the font, colors, and images I use.  

With that said... on to my craft project.  

I made a banner for my booth.  

(unfortunately not a great pic of it!)

Interested in making your own??

Here's what I did (I apologize for forgetting to photograph a couple steps along the way...)

1.  I created what I wanted in picnik.  I would have just done it in word if my font was available.  Whatever works for you.  Then I put each letter into word, 1 letter filling one page.   Then I printed and  cut these letters out to make giant paper stencils.

2.  Find a piece of fabric that's the right size for your banner.  Then, get a piece of freezer paper long enough for your entire word.  Trace each letter (using your stencil) onto the freezer paper.  

(I didn't do the tree, but I left space for it and just used the stencil pinned to the fabric...I wasn't cutting that out twice!!)

3.  Cut out all the letters once you like the spacing, etc.  

4.  Center your freezer paper on your fabric.

5.  Iron your freezer paper to the fabric on medium heat without any steam.

6.  Next, paint in your freezer paper stencil with fabric paint.  Be careful not to push paint under the edged (I tried to paint "inward" from the stencil to avoid this as much as possible)

(note that if you do this on your ironing board like I did, you should put newspaper or cardboard under the fabric to in case the paint bleeds through)

7.  Carefully remove your stencil, and follow any other directions from the fabric paint (ie. washing, ironing, etc.)

8.  I then folded the edges in twice so that the raw edges were contained and sewed them in place!

Voila!  You have your very own banner!

Craft sale this Saturday...yikes!!