You might be tired of me posting about Tiny Tin Sewing Rooms, but this one is a bit different. It is not a shop announcement, it is about "behind the scenes" post. What inspired me to write this post is that I got asked the same questions from people about the Tin room. So I thought it would be fun to collect my thoughts and write about them. :)
{Question 1} "How did you come up with this idea?"
I always liked miniatures and wanted to make miniature rooms. When I finally did it, it was in a little wooden suit case and I loved how it tuned out.
I made some more for my
etsy shop and sold them. They sold alright, but there were some challenges... because I used different bases(boxes), I always had to figure out the shipping for each one of them. Also they were harder to ship. There were a couple incidents where some parts came off when my customers received their packages, and I needed to do trouble shooting. I was a bit discouraged and going to stop making them to sell. Then one day, as I was eating some Altoids mints the idea hit me. "Hey, why don't I make a tiny sewing room inside of the Altoids mint tin?!" That's how I started making the Tiny Tin Sewing Rooms.
{Question 2} "Are you thinking about manufacturing them at some point?"
That is a hard question to answer. It would be a lie if I say that it didn't cross my mind, but I feel like manufacturing takes lots of knowledge and money up front. Also, I am afraid that it might lose the uniqueness of each item's "one of a kind" feel. I feel so bad that I can only make so much in a week and make my customers wait, but I think I am going to stick to what I do for now. OH! I *hired* my 11 year old daughter to paint the spools though!
{Question 3} "Do you ever get sick of making them?"
Not so far. I usually don't like doing the same thing over and over again, but because all the sewing rooms are different I enjoy making them. Coming up with different combinations of color, paper, buttons and other miniature items are challenging sometimes, but very fun.
{Question 4} "What do you do with all the mints???"
Hahaha. Yes, we have so many mints. I dump them in a 1 gallon freezer bag and keep them in our pantry and the whole pantry smells very MINTY! I eat them, but one person can only eat so many mints.
I put them in a snack size plastic bags and gave many away to my friends and neighbors, gave my kids some to share with their friends and my husband took a 1 gallon bag to work to share with his coworkers. He told me that they were joking about how their section has the freshest breath in the whole company. :) At this rate, I might start leaving the bags on my neighbor's door steps. hahaha
I better go back to my sewing room and make more tiny sewing rooms. I should be ready to restock my shop by the end of next week. Those of you who are interested, I am sorry to make you wait and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your interest. I will do my best to make them cute and fun to look at. :)
