Girl Scout Sit Upons

Well, I did not feel like a accomplished much this week, but looking back I guess I did. I completed sit upons for 3 girls in my daughter's Girl Scout troop. They turned out really cute. They all have fleece on the top part (so that it is soft when they sit down on them). The bottoms are flannel. Each of them has the girls name and a custom embroidery on it. I have been told I kind of went over the top with them. I put pillow forms in them so that they would be really cushy. I put zippers in them too, so that the covers could be removed and washed. Then I put plastic lining under the covers and over the pillow forms. That was just in case they get wet so that the pillows won't be ruined. The girls were very excited and pleased. It was a great experience for me. I got to practice putting zippers in and I used my embroidery software to design the embroideries. I am still learning how to use my software.

I hope to do a lot more work on the projects in my brain this next week. Hopefully, more pictures and thoughts will come out this next week.

Might as well

To be honest I don't really believe that anyone will really find or read this blog. I am told it helps with web presence and getting your business out. So I am really not going to worry about if it gets read. I do think having place to download my thoughts would be great. I intend on writing a book some day; maybe this will help me start to get my thoughts together. If someone finds it and reads it, great. Maybe it is obscure enough that I will know that the people who stumble upon it will be those who need.

I will start with the story of why I titled this blog "The Handmade Journey of Dawn the Butcher." As I continue to blog I will talk about the journey I have been on to reach this point in my life. To explain the title I have to explain why I am Dawn The Butcher....
So the story goes like this. I am a makeup/hair artist by profession. My very favorite type of makeup to do is gore and special effects. One day while leaving a particularly bloody photo shoot reveling in the beauty of it, Shanda Kerr, Photographer Extraordinaire, said to me, "Dawn Hall, you should have been a butcher!!" We all laughed. I thought, "that would be a cute quote to put on my my space." I did and not long after someone told me that they found my my space page by searching DAWN THE BUTCHER. I thought wow, that is my trademark. I have gone by that every since. You can currently pull up a whole page on my by entering DAWN THE BUTCHER in Google. My special effects company is DAWN THE BUTCHER FX. You can find it at www.dawnthebutcherfx.com.
When I decided to begin making things that were a decidedly "dark" influence, it only made sense to call my shop THE BUTCHER SHOPPE. Why not capitalize on all the effort I had put into branding DAWN THE BUTCHER?
Now to the journey part. This has truly been a journey to become involved in the "Handmade Movement." If you would have asked me 5 years ago if I thought I was creative, I would have said no way. Now I can look back and see that I was always creative. It took a lot to get me to where I actually believe that. The first step was hair school. I had wanted to get to hair school for about 17 years. I was going to go when I was 16 after dropping out of highschool. Instead I spent the next 4 years being deeply buried in drugs and the lifestyle that I led b/c of the drugs. Then when I was 19 I became pregnant with my first child. That will be story for another post. I gave birth to 3 children and revolved my life around raising them. Finally when the last one was just about ready to go to school, I decided to pursue my dream to become a hair dresser. That was not all it was cracked up to be. Yet another story for another post.
It was in hair school that the creativity began to really wake up. There I discovered that I love makeup. I pursued that whole heartedly. I adore makeup and do a good job at it. I am most well know for and find the most passion in blood, zombies, gore and anything gross. As I continued to do makeup and realize that I had a very creative nature making things naturally seemed the next step. (I always thought that I wasn't creative b/c I couldn't draw.) Once I got over that silly idea, the creativity was unleashed. I began to want to learn to sew....
But the real catalist to creating THE BUTCHER SHOPPE came when it became apparent that my second child, 11 at the time, needed to be home schooled b/c he was not doing well in the public school system. I thought, "Ok I am going to buy an embroidery machine and start making purses." It took a year of doubting myself and getting myself distracted with 2 different jobs, before I got really sold on the idea of making this work. So hear I am 13 months later, I have 2 embroidery machines and a serger now. I lost my job to economic cut backs in January and decided this time I wasn't going to get another job. I am giving my best effort to my business and I am going to do what I really want to do. I am going to make things and sell them. I still do freelance makeup work, but I don't want to be tied to another job that will eat up all my time. Who knows maybe as I start writing more I will go somewhere with that talent too.

This has been the short version of how I got onto the Handmade Journey. There is so much more to share. I will continue to write about this amazing journy I have been on even if I am the only reader. It has taken me along time, about 35 years, to reach the point that I kind of know who I am and like that person.

Almost forgot......
My shoppe.....
www.thebutchershoppe.etsy.com