Needle felt friends with alpaca hair and some new purchases

 All three of the latest felt friends are a base blend of wool and alpaca with a thick layer or alpaca firmly felted on top and then reverse felted to make their fuzzy coats . It took most of a week of 10 hour days to finish them but I then rested for the next 3 days until my arm recovered . (I'm also running low of wool .)

 Below are new cards I ordered from Vista Print(left) and a company called Print Runner(right) . The few business cards I have ordered in the past were from Vista and they have always been good with some great sale prices but this last order then sent me cards with the front and back barely usable . They took a while to respond and were then confusing in their intentions when they did respond . In the end, the fixed the problems and sent me free replacements but had I been in a hurry for new cards that would have really been a problem . The other down-side for Vista is that they spam the hell out of you . I think I get several a day and it does get annoying .

 Print runner was quick and efficient and for less money then Vista (which charges a lot if you want to up-load your own pictures), Ialso got a bit thicker card stock and lamination on both sides . I would recommend them and plan on checking out more of their services . My intention was to use the card on the right as a hang tag for my needle and wet felted items .

 As you can see (if you click on the picture to make it bigger), on the back side of each card, I used pictures of some of the different fibers I use in my work . I think this will speed up the process of labeling what each item is constructed of, which could become a bit tedious to write out . Now I can just put a check mark by each item and still enough space to write weight, size or other details of the items . I'm hoping this will speed up the listing process for Etsy and lessen the questions at craft shows .

Above are two more items I invested in last month...the sweater dryer to be used with washing alpaca/wool in the bath tub . I bought 3 green houses were marked down to $20. at Big Lots,
(love them) . I think they will work great for craft shows and the plastic cover can be used to keep dust off while storing animals for sale . It's hard to justify these expenses when you are not actively selling anything but....part of me sees my creations as a safety net for if I lost my job or had other emergency that required some extra income . I know I'm supposed to be setting aside money for a retirement fund but considering how the stock market has gone in the past few years, this doesn't seem all that crazy as an alternative .

Happy felting to all .