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| Bake Sale Designs : Email Interview with Rebecca, Crafty gal behind Bake Sale Designs : Feb 14, 2006 |
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1. When did Bake Sale Designs open? Bake Sale Designs officially opened on the web in late September 2005. However, the website for Bake Sale Designs was live earlier in the summer of 2005. The whole process of starting Bake Sale Designs began in even earlier in the winter of 2005. 2. When you say that 'sewing and crafting were never supposed to be a career' for you, were you on the way to a career in something else before Bake Sale Designs? I actually have a undergraduate degree in Literature and a master's degree in public health, which I use during my day job. In a sense I have two careers, my day job and Bake Sale Designs. But I also made that statement more generally to mean that sewing and crafting aren't necessarily seen as legitimate career choices for women anymore. My parents never would have said when I was going up, 'Oh, I hope our little girl sews for a living.' I come from a very academic family. And sewing and crafting are seen as more of a hobby than a career. 3. The inspiration for your goodies - how do you come up with it all? I have a little idea notebook that I have with me most of the time to sketch out ideas. I'm not sure where some of them come from! I often have thoughts about projects when I'm trying to go to sleep. I really like different shapes to bags. Some work and some don't. I've been working on an amoeba bag off and on for quite awhile and it's just not right yet. But I'm also very inspired by fabric. Sometimes I just find a fabric and know what I want to do with it. Other times I know it's a great fabric and I just need to keep it for awhile until inspiration strikes. 4. What kind of places do you scour to find these cute fabrics? You can find great fabric in the most unlikely of places. I go to thrift stores, rummage sales, estate sales, antique stores. I look for more than just neatly folded fabric, I go to the linens for the kitchen and bedroom. Each fabric I use has a story behind it. I found a vintage toaster cover at a hospital rummage sale with a spectacularly lush flower pattern. I used it to accent three bags. The pumpkin swirl fabric I used for a few bags came from some vintage pillow shams I found at a church sale. They were over as pillow shams, but the pattern of a fabulous mod swirl still had life in it. Wherever I go I'm always on the look out for fabric. Over the holidays I visited my parents and headed off to the thrift stores. I found a great spring green bedspread at one. I'm using it for a lot of the spring bags I'm working on now. It happens to go perfectly with some salvaged fabric I got months ago at the hospital rummage sale. Friends will also send me fabric sometimes. Now they all know I collect it. 5. Where do you do your crafting? Have you an area set up at home? I have my own corner in my apartment which is starting to overflow. I have my sewing desk there and store all of my fabrics and finished products in large bins. 6. What time of day do you find yourself crafting for the shop? I craft when I have time. That's usually in the evening. I'm also a morning person on the weekends. I'll get up and do some sewing. 7. What are your long term goals for Bake Sale Designs? I would love to become more recognized in the craft community. That will take some time. Ideally, I'd like to be able to continue with Bake Sale Designs as a part time job. I'd also love to expand into creating my own textiles to use for my bags as well as sell to others. But that's a long way off because I just don't have those skills. 8. Do you get to squeeze in much personal crafting? My own personal crafts pile up. I've been meaning to reconstruct a few pieces of clothing and I just haven't gotten around to it. Little things I can fit in easily. The good thing about the business is that I get first dibs on all the fabric. Some of it I can't part with so I make a bag just for myself or keep the prototype. If I fall in love with something I'm making I can always choose to keep it. 9. You mention you’ve been sewing since you were a kid, have you been crafting since then? Or was it something that came back to you later? My grandmother passed away a little over a year ago. As I was going through her things, I found a very primitive envelope clutch I had made her. I'm talking about just a scrap of fabric folded over and sewn up the sides with the seams showing! I didn't even remember this thing, but it stirred up old memories. My mom sewed. She sewed her clothes before she had kids. And once she had kids she sewed tons of stuff for us. We always had homemade Halloween costumes. She always sewed school play costumes and toys. I took sewing classes when I was younger and then in middle school took sewing in home economics. When I changed schools in high school there were no elective classes like that except art. I'm really not a good artist. I have to try really hard. But all of my friends were artists. I found photography then. In high school I did some silly crafting. For me crafting can be very playful. I remember making placemats for all of my friends to use at the lunch table. I even covered them in contact paper. That's also when I got into thrifting and I was into clothing because we had a dress code. I made my own pants by taking apart some old ones. I just got so impatient with making clothes in high school. In college and grad school, crafting, sewing, photography--it was all gone. I just didn't do it. I came back to it slowly after school. I always made silly decorations to welcome my boyfriend home, stars and heart hanging from the ceiling. Then I found Craftster.org and it reopened the whole world for me and I got myself a sewing machine. 10. Can you tell me about your personal involvement with Crafters for Critters? Crafters for Critters is a great organization where crafters donate items to be sold in the store. Proceeds go to different animal rescue organizations. I'm an animal lover and I just wanted to do it. 11. Where else can your goodies be found? I have items at Crafters for Critters and MYMY, both online. Right now I have some of my pins in a local Baltimore shop, 2 Hot Art Chicks. 12. Is there anything you'd like to add about the crafting community? I mentioned Craftster.org already, but I just have to say again it is an amazing community and resource. I only wish that something like that existed when I was in high school. Not sure where this would go--I mentioned above that for me crafting is really playful. It's like grown up play time and I think that's important. I like to think my products have a playful element, some overtly, like the mustachio bags, but some are more subtle, like the shapes or the bags or patterns used. We like to ask everyone this one: List any 5 songs in your most current (last listened to) playlist. Neighborhood #1(Tunnels)-The Arcade Fire Nice Dream-Radiohead Pretty (Ugly Before)-Elliot Smith Headlights Look Like Diamonds-The Arcade Fire Needles and Pins-The Ramones |