Top 10 Ivy & Co. Posts for 2014

2014 has been good to Ivy & Co. Real good.

Here are a few highlights: 

-Ivy & Co. became an actual business, a.k.a. I pay taxes on it. Woohoo!

-I successfully sold my products at the Seabury Hall Craft Fair, my first big event as a business.

-We moved to Kauai!

-I was asked by ROSS Dress for Less to review their new store on Kauai!

-We hit 1,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook!

-A lady named "Nancy Nette" stole my domain name, www.ivy-and-co.com, and tried to sell it back to me for $800. That was fun, and thus the reason why we can now be found at www.THEivyandco.com. 

-And perhaps my biggest goal, which I set at the start of the year-- Ivy & Co. is now in 6 different retail shops on Maui, Kauai and Portland! 

With all that said, there are still 10 other posts that had more page views than any other this year! 

Let's break it down.

#1 - After visiting family in Oklahoma and Arkansas last Thanksgiving, I brought home a few old train cases, and added them to my collection. The #1 post of 2014: How To Recover A Vintage Train Case. 

#2 - My cousin had this Mid Century Modern side table sitting in her carport for a while. She gave it to me and it turned out to be a pretty neat makeover. It sold within 6 hours of me posting it on Instagram!

#3 - So we were looking at houses to buy on Maui, and I came across this Antique Dresser in one of them. Kit went back later and bought the dresser for me, not the house. I was perfectly fine with that!

#4 - This family heirloom got a makeover, and it resembles my favorite movie, The Wizard Of Oz. 

#5 - People loved hearing about my journey into Maui Children's Bookstore. This shop is directly across from my workplace (a dance studio) on Maui, so I think a lot of my readers liked seeing a familiar spot on my blog, and there's also a little bit of an awe factor that they're carrying Ivy & Co.! 

#6 - After making Boho Head Wraps for quite a while, it was time to do a demo as to How To Tie Your Boho Head Wrap. Yes, that's me modeling.

#7 - It's official. 2014 was the year of the black. I painted more pieces black than I can count! This post was a small roundup, and now I have even more to add to the list!

#8 - I discovered a new love: doilies. I sew them along a strip of bias tape and make my own bunting. I kind of love it. 

#9 - This Black Chalk Paint Vanity brought me to tears, many times over. 

#10 - Perhaps one of my favorite posts of the year: Teaching Memory Verses to Pre-Schoolers. This is real life with Ivy, and a special gift that will be written on her heart for years to come. 

So, did your favorite Ivy & Co. post make it on the Top 10?

It's time for me to think about some Ivy & Co. goals for 2015. After all, I told myself at the start of 2014 that I wanted to be in 1 shop by the end of the year… now I'm in 6! 

Happy New Year to you all. Hau'oli Maka Hiki Hou!

Aloha,

Rebecca

Playing On My Pod #9 - Christmas songs that won't make you pull your hair out.

I promise you're going to love these Christmas songs. They aren't going to make you want to pull your hair out or put on ugly sweaters. They're going to put you in the right frame of mind for the season!

1. Hark The Herald Angel Sing, by Rend Collective

2. Wrapped In Red, by Kelly Clarkson

3. Christmas Coming Home, by Lennon & Maisy

4. O Holy Night, by Shane & Shane

5. Ave Maria, by Christina Perri

Once you've added those tracks to your Holiday '14 playlist, come join me, my sis-in-law and some friends for a lady's night of shopping! It will be held at KUGA Visual Arts this Tuesday. 

Have you seen the latest product in my ETSY SHOP? You be the designer of your next Ivy & Co. head band! Choose your size, a fabric or two, I'll sew it up and mail it to you. Simple!

Check out all the fabric choices:

Also, for my REAL job as a dance instructor, I have a few friends coming to Maui this January to put on an amazing workshop for Hawaii dancers. Hip hop, contemporary and jazz master classes for all ages. These guys are the real deal. Are you an avid SYTYCD watcher? You may recognize Nathan Trasoras on the left from a couple seasons back!

Hope you're enjoy the Christmas season!

Aloha, Rebecca

When 2 Become 1 - The Dining Table Edition

Were you a high schooler in the 90s? 

Was your car nicknamed the Spicemobile? 

Did you have Spice Girls perfume purchased in Europe? 

How many times did you see Spice World in theaters? 

If you answered yes or 3 to any of these questions, then of course you remember the reigning Girl Group's hit, "When 2 Become 1." As an adult, I can't believe how inappropriate the lyrics are! But as someone who restores furniture, I think it's a highly appropriate title for the 2 dining tables I picked up, that became 1.

Well, when we moved to Kauai, we had to leave our beloved dining table behind:

Remember the post where I told you to Do Unto Your Dining Table As You Would Have Your Dining Table Do Unto You? Click here to read it.

And this is what we used in the meantime. It was part of the outdoor patio furniture that was here when we moved in. We threw a table cloth over it.

For weeks and weeks I searched for something to replace it. Kit's one condition was that we had to have a round table. I kept seeing these two sad tables at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. One had a solid wood top, and the other had a solid wood vintage bamboo style base. One week I went in and they were heavily discounted. So I bought both and threw them in my jeep!

The top that went with the Bamboo base just crumbled off (good ole particle board). The rolling base of the one with the wood top was breaking into pieces as I unscrewed it. 

Of course, I painted them black. A little chalk paint... a little Typewriter Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint… a bunch of sanding… a few coats of wax...

I wanted to make sure the base was put on really well, so I solicited Kit's help.

I love it when Milk Paint is drying. So glossy.

 It was so nice to bring it in and finally have a real dining table in our home!

Isn't the base gorgeous? That thick bamboo pedestal. Love it.

The wax needed to cure for a week or so, so I kept a table cloth on it at first, and went out to our new (and only) Ross Store on island and bought cute placemats. But now, it's very durable and we love it. 

And that's the story of 2 tables becoming 1.

Aloha, Rebecca

Business Branding Basics

I'm no expert on branding. But, I have a brand, and have committed to utilizing a few things that I keep consistent and deem important to who I am and what Ivy & Co. represents. Keep in mind, I'm a one-woman show (except of course when I make 5 year old Ivy do child labor for her future company). There may be more i's I could dot, or t's I could cross, but at this point, this is what works, and what I can justify putting time and money into.

1. Put yourself in a box. But, it can be a big box.

I sew. I paint furniture. I teach dance. And I'm a wife and mom. I have a BA in Organizational Leadership, and I also love to promote products and businesses I love. You will find all of these things on my website/blog and social networking accounts. Though it's broad, it's all part of Ivy & Co. and I'm okay with that, as long as it seems cohesive to me, and can be explained to my audience. Normally when people ask me about Ivy & Co., I say, "there are two components to it- furniture rehab and sewing. If I've got great pieces, I paint them. If I have to fill an order of headbands, I sew them. Supply and demand." Everything else, they can read about on my blog. 

2. Develop a logo. 

This is a very helpful early step. Mine is simple (I made it on picmonkey) and I like the look. I like bringing new life to old things, and I feel like my font and the weathered postage stamp background conveys this. My logo is on my sewing labels, business cards, hang tags, online headers and enlarged onto 5"x7" foam boards for display purposes.

3. Use thematic images. 

One of my very first sewing projects in my adult life utilized this fabric -->

I made valances. Since then I've reused this fabric for drawer fronts, runners, valances again, etc. Now, to tie in those early years of creativity, I photographed it and use it as a background image for my website and social media headers, buttons, etc. it helps that it's green, since my business name sake is "Ivy." 

4. Pick a font (or two) and use it. 

Special Elite is the font I chose as "my" font. It makes it easy to keep everything looking uniform. I usually ensure that I use it when typing out my website or brand name on photos, invoices, business cards, etc. 

5. Business Cards. 

Develop a business card you're proud of. I recently ordered some that came out terrible, really grainy, and the logo was so tiny. I'm not sure what went wrong, but about a week later, my website got hacked and I had to change from www.ivy-and-co.com to www.theivyandco.com, so I needed to reprint all my cards anyway. (Read about that debacle here.) Have your business card on hand at all times and don't be shy when giving it out. I'll staple it to the back or bottom of a furniture piece I'm selling, and always slip one in when mailing something out. I love having them double sided to include all my social media links on the back side. I use mpix.com to print mine. Super fast shipping, even to Hawaii, and great quality.

6. Get a logo stamp. 

I love my stamp. I use it on everything from paper bags, to quick labels. I put it above my return address on envelopes. I stamp it on thank you cards. Don't get me wrong, this isn't essential to have, but it sure puts the icing on the cake when I don't have the logo product I need. I got it made at Office Max. 

I am actually awaiting my first set of professionally made hang tags, as we speak, but for the last year, I've used my stamp, Avery marking tags from Office Max, and some gold safety pins from Walmart to create the tags for my products. 

I've invested in clothing labels for my products (headbands, mini-washcloths, bunting, aprons, baby soft blocks, etc), since that's not exactly something I can create on my own.

I hope these simple tips help you get started on making some steps in the right direction for your small business. It's been a few years in the making for me. Let me know if you have any questions about anything.

Aloha, Rebecca