My Creative Space

Today is an exciting day, we have the Etsy meet-up in Helsinki tonight! So much fun to meet Admins Matt & Benedikta and a bunch of fellow Finnish Etsians.

As this is a short day to work today I just whipped up a custom pouch for a customer in Chicago. A sweet thing is, she has a family in Finland. I have met quite a few US people on Etsy who have their roots in Finland. Each time it's been so nice to have a little chat together. Oh, I have to tell you a cute story! One sweet lady wrote to me a little ago. Her grandma used to call her Karuski when she was a little girl. They have Polish family roots instead of Finnish ones but I still find it amazing how people meet and get connected in an online community. She found it great fun to come across my shop with the same name as her nick name. I loved to hear her story for sure!



This is my new packaging with a handmade thank you card. The packaging material is vintage paper Finnish households used to have on kitchen shelves. I don't think modern homes have these any longer but I remember seeing similar at my Granny's, maybe even my Mom had those when I was small. This roll was found from our attic so it's probably from the 60s.

More creative spaces on Kootoyoo's blog...

Custom Work Finished

I finished my custom wholesale order and had it mailed out yesterday. Here are few pictures of my work I did for Unkai. I spent quite a while editing pictures last night and got a feedback today: they will use my product pictures on their shop site, yippee! It's so nice to have my items represented there the same way I do on my site and in my Etsy shop. I also prepared a bunch of nice packages for those pouches (I used vintage wallpaper and paper tags I got from my fellow Etsian Greet of Fleurfatale). Now, these would make sweet little gifts for the Christmas, for example. They will be soon available here (they do ship internationally but you need to get a shipping quote by emailing them...).

Custom Order

A little time ago I received a friendly enquiry via Etsy conversation. Nicole from Colorado was planning her upcoming wedding this August. She asked if I could make a custom order for her, it would include 12 Boutonniere pin-ons with various patterns & colors. It all started with my little flower ring and a flower brooch she had seen in my shop earlier.

The Blossom flower ring in my Etsy shop was a starting point in the process

The flower brooch my customer had seen in my shop earlier

Our communication was smooth, it was only me who managed to misinterpret some color combinations along the way. She told me her ideas and wishes, I showed her my fabrics (by scanning the samples and sending via Etsy convo), got her approval, went on to making few samples and after her feedback made some adjustments and in the end the final pieces were easy to make. The final pieces are combinations of this flower brooch and ring of mine you can see in the 1st and 2nd picture above. After completing the work I asked her the names of the participants of her party, gift wrapped their "flowers" and added the names on the gift boxes giving them a final personal touch.

Some of my fabric samples being showed for the customer

Final work: bride & bridesmaids (3 pieces)

Final work: officiant, groom & groomsmen (3 pieces)

A picture for approval during the process: other participants flowers (3 pieces)

Everything gift wrapped and ready to ship!

What I find important in making a custom work is to take pictures along the way, show them to your customer and keep the connection active from the beginning till the end. I also tucked a greeting card in the package (handmade by me of course) wishing a lovely wedding party for her and her close ones. As I just tracked the shipping it looks like the flowers are soon arriving to their destination. I'm excited to receive the final feedback soon!

This was my first custom order via Etsy. Do you have experience on online custom orders? How did they go?