Onwards and Upwards!

So, what's being going on this week?  Oh yes, I was challenged to wear one of my own aprons to the Sunday lunch I hostessed last weekend.  I thought it was quite a valid point so I did.  I ended up wearing Hedy and loving it.  I took the photo somewhat drunkenly after the event but it did look lovely.  However my short crocheted dress did make me realise that I need to make a few aprons that will work with short dresses…Its also got me mentally going through my wardrobe wondering which apron for which outfit…are those glamourous photos going to turn up on the horizon soon? In any case this ain't one of them...

Now, where were we?  Oh yes, last week I managed to get the right photos in the right places and posted the most dreadful french version of my Etsy pitch on my shop in the spirit of "get something up there".  The plan for that one is to become part of the French Etsy community and then do an exchange deal where I check a French shopkeeper's English and they check my French - of course that sort of relies on equal abilities in the 2 languages and equal work load… maybe not such a good idea.  I'm in France for goodness sake! this really shouldn't be that hard to deal with so I'll move on with a mental "note to self" to get that sorted soooon.

So the new aprons "Belinda", "Gwendoline" and "Evie" finally made it into the shop and so to the world!  "Racquel" didn't make the grade in the end and will remain a curiosity made from a recycled fur coat. I didn't want to stir up an ethical storm and anyway the fur was so old it really was falling apart.

So, my little social empire has a few foundation stones and a lot of ambition.  I'd like to find some sort of "news" story about aprons for the FaceBook page and I suppose the Google+ page although that's still the mystery it was last week, maybe I can get to the bottom of that this week?

That's Feedly, FB, Google+, maybe Twitter, no, definitely Twitter (I'll do that this morning too!) Pinterest, FlickR and of course Etsy.  I'm thinking a little Tumblr activity wouldn't go amiss either.

I need to be looking after the shop a bit and sorting out this Treasury lark which looks like a lot of fun and basically getting to grips with marketing on both Etsy and Pinterest - I've been getting emails about this stuff so maybe now I need to pay a bit more attention.

And then, of course there's the merchandise!  Mustn't forget that.  I've been worrying about sourcing my fabrics for a while now and have done a tentative search for vintage fabrics on line but, the bottom line is that I don't think that's going to work for me.  I need to feel the fabric and see it move really, and a lot of the time its the fabric that inspires the garment so…. I've decided that I need to get serious about "brocante" and start systematically going to any that are announced locally.  I've already scoped out fabric shops in my nearest big city I'm now going to be searching farther a field and, of course, there'll always be Paris.  So I won't worry about that too much.

I'd like to get the packaging looking really lovely and find some nice boxes for the ultimate  gift experience.

Oh yes and the new product line!  I've decided that I want to make ties too!  This makes the fabric sourcing even more difficult but I think that's the whole point.  I've been sewing for years - practically all my life and the reason why I stopped a few years ago was that I got fed up of not being able to find the right fabrics… I'm thinking now that I just didn't try hard enough.  And of course I've always got the option of making my own fabrics - for the ties at least.  Its strange how the ties and the aprons seems to belong together, both part of the cocktail era somehow.

Mrs Apron on Pinterest

Haha! That's me! Me and hundreds of others of course, but I like to think I'm doing something different but given the scope of the Web there's bound to be someone out there diddling around with all this social media stuff and possibly even making a bid to be Mrs Apron, at least on Pinterest.

I'm getting the feeling that it really doesn't pay to think things through too much as far as social media is concerned and that the way to go is "with the flow".  I rambled on about gift suggestions and clever marketing, I've even signed up to some sort of Pinterest marketing blog.  I well and truly got my knickers in a twist about what I should be doing and when and for how long and then, thankfully, I read a blog that just said "Chill, just be yourself".  Sound advice in all matters as it happens but in this particular instance it allowed me to put my knickers back on.

1943 Cocktail apron by Mainbocher. The peplum would have been the ultimate decorative apron worn purely for effect rather than function. The construction is such that it is form fitting and has an interesting shape around the hips. The bouquet of flowers used to accent this piece is a testament to the fact that all Mainbocher's artificial flowers were beautifully crafted and voluptuous. Via MMA metmuseum.org.

Creatively I find Pinterest to be an amazing tool, I, like millions of others, mostly women I think, also really, really enjoy the pursuit of images.  For anyone who doesn't know Pinterest yet; its sort of the 21st century's digital answer to scrapbooking - not something I ever learnt to do but this modern version is a lot of fun.

So, rather than using my Pinterest account to push people to my Etsy shop I've decided to use my account as an inspiration tool for ideas for my apron making industry.  What has happened is that, where most people on Pinterest have a few hundred boards and one of them is about aprons or vintage aprons, all of my boards, well, nearly all, I couldn't resist a quick vintage dresses board, are about aprons.  I've ended up categorising the world of aprons.

The mind boggles at all the different sorts of aprons there are out there, and there's a few that I haven't added because I think they are off subject... for the moment things like butchers' and bakers' aprons, nurses aprons.  Ha! even as I write that down I'm thinking "but nurses aprons are sexy" anyway, "not now" is my attitude.

Here's the list as it stands today: hostess aprons, cocktail aprons, half aprons, full body aprons, smock/cobbler aprons, drop waist aprons, bib aprons, transformation aprons, festive aprons, wedding aprons, craft aprons, working aprons,  barbecue aprons, funny or theme aprons, children's aprons, antique aprons, national costume aprons, crochet aprons, contemporary aprons, apron patterns, photos of aprons, dirty kirtle... phew! impressive heh? I had a bit of a marathon session last night on crochet aprons and was truly amazed at how many lovely things there are out there, and, of course those are just the photos I found on Pinterest, I haven't even started looking elsewhere.  I reckon to be valid all of my boards need to have at least 100 aprons on them - well, I've got to aim for something haven't I?

The whole process ends up being quite instructive, I mean, I had no idea what a wedding apron could be, a quick look last night came up with 4 possible uses: a) as a hen party gift that the guests at the party could write messages on b) as a his and hers gift c) as a protection for the "somewhat pricey" wedding dress from food and drink and d)something to wear as part of the wedding outfit.

What is becoming clear to me is that the world of aprons is remarkably complex and, what initially attracted me to aprons, the glamorous 1950's hostess apron is just the tip of the iceberg.  Women have been wearing beautiful aprons for centuries and the idea wasn't to protect their frock, possibly to display their handiwork but mostly to wear some finery.

At some point during my pinning someone mentioned that black aprons were for mourning - now there's a thought, that I should maybe research before creating the corresponding board.

Whenever I come across someone else's board that is dedicated to aprons I follow it and this morning I am following 347 people!  Its true that not all of those people are going to be passionate about aprons that that's just my off the cuff following, I still need to look for the apron fetishist pinners.  The world may have shrunk with the internet but social media seems to have made it infinite.

I now know that the spanish for aprons is delantales I'm sort of wondering what the singular must be, but its cool that I learnt that while I was having so much fun.

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and put a blurry photo on the last post and I think I'll try to post my favourite find from yesterday's trawling.

Aha, yes, for info there are 4 more aprons finished and photographed just got to get their descriptions done then I can launch them on my unsuspecting, if somewhat scattered and minuscule public!

More Pinterest!

Phew! That was a bit of an absence.  It was only supposed to be for a week, although, in retrospect I suppose  I should have mentioned that I was popping off, indeed I would have if I thought anyone was reading this.  2 weeks ago the weather was gorgeous and, I have a big garden to deal with so I took a "garden break" to try to steal a march on the weeding and planting etc.  Other people go on proper holidays this is what I do.  Holidays for me constitute limiting my time on the computer so that's what I did... for 2 weeks.

I couldn't, however stop my urge to make aprons so, the next four are ready for launch.  Haha launch means actually taking their photos, hasn't been done yet but the photo studio is up and nearly running - that might be what gets posted here, the photo studio.  According to my book I can even furnish videos of my my work space and methods etc.  Well, for anyone remotely interested, drop me a line!

My little photo studio

It turns out that making aprons isn't the only work on my horizon.  I finally decided to create a business account for Glamour Aprons on Pinterest and that has opened up a whole giant can of worms in the form of how I'm supposed to be doing things and general tips and advice floating all over the place and, yes, you've guessed it, I need to spend some time getting to grips with Pinterest.  Good job I've already got Blogger under my belt, eh?

The way I see it, Etsy is turning out to be the shop, Pinterest should perform as my shop window and this little space here performs the function of Me in my shop.  So, in that respect why would people want to visit this blog other than to get to know me and my ethos for my aprons?  If I were out there in the real world with my shop full of aprons I wouldn't be offering another service to my clients just to get them to come into the shop, would I?  So why would I do that on the web.  This is a reference to my previous blog about making gift suggestions to stop this blog being just me burbling on about creating a web presence.

Just as well really, since that idea wasn't going to fly anyway.  Its my mum's birthday next week and I've just had a really difficult time working out what to get her.  That is something that other people, not least my little sister, come to think of it, have a gift for, not me.

So, the idea of the blog and Pinterest is to drive people to my Etsy shop and get them to buy aprons from it.  Of course I have to add to that Facebook and Google+, StumbleUpon, Twitter and I have signed up for but am only mildly interested in Tumblr (I think its out of my age bracket).  Oh yes there's Flickr too.

Essentially, anyone who's looking for aprons I've probably got it covered, even just carrying on as I am here should manage OK for the apron people since I will wax lyrical about the history of aprons and all the wonderful things about aprons, as I am coming to discover.  Which is probably what I'd talk about if you came in to see me in a physical shop.  I'd talk about the inspirations and why I make aprons, wouldn't I?

Of course, because I'm an antisocial sort of a girl if I went into an apron shop I would hope that the shop assistant would leave me alone to look around... OK so that's what I'm going to do, I'll try creating a post for every apron and explaining in more detail than is available on Etsy about that apron....

So, fine, people who know that they are looking for an apron they'll probably find me but what about the ones who don't know that they're looking for one of my aprons?  Well, I dare say if I'd got that one sussed I would already be a millionnaire and not pondering the question on blogspot.

Sweating Blood Here

Note the big gap in blog entries - that's because I have been doggedly trying to put some social media buttons on this thing! But I have not given up and finally, yesterday, I managed with the help of someone on the Blogger forum, oops I should, at least, have credited him here. I'm really sorry, whoever you were, but I can't find you back - unless you're in my history... hang on...found you Deepak Kamat! here's your link https://www.blogger.com/profile/09720758850729600278 and you truly saved my bacon with "Social Media icons - Making it inline." You and Martin Leblanc at Iconfinder.com and his blog "How to add social media icons to your gmail signature" have allowed me to produce that nifty little line of icons at the top right of my bar to the right.

I am inordinately proud of this and those little icons lead to all my other web presences, which, hopefully, will be of interest to you, my reader. That is, of course if you're interested in aprons, and, more specifically interested in glamourous, silly, sexy and pretty well more decorative than useful aprons.

Of course this is the strategy as mapped out by my book but I shall explain for anyone who hasn't dabbled where I have.

I make aprons out of vintage fabrics and off cuts and generally anything that inspires me. My aprons pay lip service to the idea of the 1950's hostess apron that I think is pretty sexy and how the happy owner of one of my aprons decides to wear my apron is entirely up to him or her. Indeed I learned a long time ago that its best not to explain your art, people who like what you do have their own understanding of what you do and its best not to disillusion them. So I don't explain my aprons, they are what they are.

I offer them up for sale on Etsy.com where I have my own shop called GlamourAprons and where I can accept credit card and payment by eBay. Cool. Ah, I haven't mentioned this before, but I live in France so any purchases will be despatched from France with the incumbant postage fees.

My blog here is to give a more human aspect to the GlamourAprons shop, possibly even represents a sort of shop assistant. I can of course be contacted via Etsy (they call it a convo), but, here you get to know me a bit better, and what my aprons and I are getting up to. So really, you get to know a bit more about my product too.

I have set up a page on Facebook for Glamour Aprons although I'll admit that at this point I don't really know what to do with it just yet.

Next to that is the button to my Google+ page which, at the moment just shows posts from here but in time, that too will have apron relevant stuff on it. I am hoping to use news feeds to post on both Facebook and Google+ but up until now I haven't really found anything that entertaining about aprons, after all there's only so much you want to read about Grandma's apron and how you remembered her at the kitchen sink and, as I have already mentioned, my aprons aren't really about that. I may need to get imaginative here. But that's the next job now that I've sorted out those Icons.

The St Patrick's day Sexy Hostess Half Apron

The next button is for my Flickr page - for anyone who doesn't know Flickr is a photo sharing site so I am using it for photos about my aprons (as opposed to the 5 "packshots" per apron allowed on Etsy), how I make them and anything that I feel is worth taking a photo of - like, for example, the half made St Patrick's apron, upstairs that's waiting for a bit of inspiration and that I'll post here too.

The final button is for Pinterest. Pinterest is a wonderful universe for anyone who loves looking, almost a visual odyssey I think it can best be described as a collection of digital scrapbooks. My sister introduced me to it and it wasn't until I wanted to see some examples of vintage aprons that I really got hooked. My relevant board for here is called Apronerie and I have pinned to it aprons that I like or patterns that I think might be useful and even the odd photo of women of the fifties wearing their aprons just a whole bunch of lovely things really, and, of course my own aprons.

Since I'm only in the beginning throes of all of this, although I have opened a Twitter account, I really don't know what to do with it, so until I start tweeting, and more's to the point, find something interesting to tweet about I'm not providing a link to that.

And then of course, there's here, which in true Blog tradition is just me burbling on about whatever I have to say on any given day, with the proviso that it has something to do my aprons or trying to promote them or sell them.

Now this little diatribe has got the juices flowing about alternative points of interest for Facebook and Google+... watch this space.

Upcycling or Waste Not Want Not?

In all my blurbs about my aprons I've been explaining that they are "upcycled" because I use leftover bits of fabric or clothing or whatever inspires me to make an apron of it.  You can be forgiven for thinking that that sort of thing is quite on trend and how clever of me to be so politically correct.  However, the more I delve into the wonderful world of Aprons the more I come to reallise that aprons were the original upcycled garment.

In my internet surfing I found a wonderful collection of vintage apron patterns (that I will now endeavour to not only find back but link to this) and a lot of them are explaining how to make aprons from old shirts, handkerchiefs, teatowels and old dresses.  I'll admit that I came to aprons from the other end.  Originally people needed something to protect their clothing from food spatters and looked around and used an old dress or sheet.  I was sitting in my studio surrounded by lovely vintage fabrics and wondering what to do with them since a great many of my bits of fabric were not large enough to make a whole item of clothing.

Detail from Anupama the recycled sari

Aha, maybe that's the difference between upcycling and "make do and mend" or "waste not want not".  My husband loves all this, but then, he does come from a generation where upcycling was the by word, no it wasn't, it was "waste not want not" which just falls into the lap of any hoarder like my darling hubby.  

Now I'm actually writing about it I reallise that the premise behind upcycling is to take something old, worn and unwanted and to make it into something better.  The origins of aprons would be more akin to down cycling, taking something old, worn and unwanted and using it for something less desirable than its original usage.  Aprons came after "make do and mend" had done all it could for an item of clothing, and I believe "waste not want not" was more relevant to food.  The good bits of an item could be used to make an apron and the other bits would end up as dusters, no doubt.

I think upcycling has rather the notion of decoration as well.  Plain old recycling doesn't really convey the bows I have just lovingly crafted and attached to my Racquel fur apron, which is still in the works by the way.  I suspect that the cushion I also hope to make from the unfortunate fur coat that has come my way would qualify more for the label of "recycled" so long as I don't start embellishing it. 

What is fabulous once you start looking at al these vintage aprons is the sort of effort that has gone into making these supposedly boring domestic accessories beautiful decorative objects in their own right, often with embroidery, sometimes with appliqué but they are very rarely just a bit of sheeting with ties on it.  So, really ,I suppose aprons were the original upcycled garment. 

I just can't help wondering if there isn't another term out there that would better express the personal detail and individuality that slipped into these works haha what about "unicylcing?"  now I'm just being silly.

As you can see the blog is looking less minimalist now, managed to wrestle my banner onto the top - the next challenge is to get links sorted out.  Ha!  I'm not only stuck for a photo to put up on here, but reallised that I need to pin something else to the Pinterest group board "Vintage Aprons" and that I would be well advised to photograph the aprons which originally got me so excited about Glamour Aprons. Yikes I haven't linked once to my shop, either, aha, but if I get the gadgets on blogger working then I won't need to, or will I?

Striding on Through

I'm being quite disciplined about reading my RSS feeds although I suspect that I could do better with my choice of alerts - I'm assuming that that's something that "matures" with time as I try different alerts. The RSS alerts has me reading other people's blogs quite a bit and makes me reallise that I really can't be just leaving this little missive in its plain, unadorned state.  I've just been reading a blog called 3am teacher who's also a seller on Etsy and it looks like a masterclass in what I should be aiming at. Oh hey I'll give it a link here, why not. Well, that's an object lesson if ever there was one, I didn't mark it "save for later" so its been read and gone! Maybe I can find her through Etsy...found her! http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/ duly bookmarked for perusal later.  Always good to have a benchmark, I say.

Puppy Isis Sleeping on the Photo shoot!

Meanwhile I've been having a blast on Pinterest - My sister plays games, I bounce around Pinterest.  Wierdly people are following me at the moment, I think I must be being offered up to newbies, I think I'm supposed to follow them back.  I'll do that next I think.

Actually the best bit is the Apronerie board I've created.  Pinterest does have a separate section for businesses but after reading the conditions etc and given that I'm not making any money yet I've decided to put the business side of Pinterest on hold, for the moment.  Getting a few people following my apronerie board already and a real Pinterest pro has not only followed me back but invited me to join her group board on vintage aprons!  I know, I know anyone who hasn't discovered the wonders of social networking might think I'm getting overly excited about an automatic email response but, here's the thing, because I am now a member of her group board, I get to post on her board, so guess what I get to post? my "vintage style retro hostess half aprons".  I think I might be getting the hang of the selling thing.  Anyway I won't abuse and I'll post as many non sales posts as sales and that should be OK there are plenty of other sales posts up there and quite a lot of modern aprons.  And there's there's the wierd thing...

... haha 15 minutes later.  It caught me again.  I thought it would only be polite to give Margaret Riggins a mention since she is the source of my excitement, I only went to my email to find her name and caught myself creating new mailbox's for the various pinterest activity and then decided it would be nice to follow my mate Wend who's just joined and there you go, wandering off into Pinterest!

So, back to the lovely Margaret.  She's almost got herself an apron shop on Pinterest, with, as far as I can see a very respectable collection of various aprons from around the world.  I have to wonder what she gets out of it and how can I repay her kindness and what I've come up with is that she wants posts on her boards and to be followed.  So there you have it.  Thank you Margaret.  And now I need to work out how to link to Pinterest from here.  I'm not sure that 3am teacher is on Pinterest... oh yes she is... she's got a button...

That's a surprise I've got an address http://www.pinterest.com/Tracythevan/ that's my perso Pinterest, that would sort of argue for a GlamourAprons pinterest wouldn't it, and then fess up to being a business, and, come to think of it, doing it sooner rather than later would stop people getting directed to my perso pinterest instead of my apron Pinterest.  haha there it is "Big Sigh".

And, there we go http://www.pinterest.com/Tracythevan/apronerie/ is my board for aprons as it stand at the moment, oh dear I may need to do it all over again for the business one.  By rights I should do a link to lovely Margaret Riggins too http://www.pinterest.com/1953liz/vintage-aprons/ well, that's her vintage aprons board.  Ah, it strikes me that my photo doesn't look very nice on Pinterest, although lovely on Etsy, I need to crop it... "Big Sigh" again.