My Newest Fall OOAK Carrie Purse

My new TOTALLY VINTAGE Carrie Purse makes me soooo ready for for cooler weather, fall festivals and arts & crafts shows! How about you?

UPDATE!: My new purse SOLD already! To one of my best repeat customers! Thank You Susan! I know you will love it! ... And there are more OOAK's on the way, stay tuned!

This OOAK pocketbook was so fun to make. I wish I had enough fabric to make more, but this is a vintage linen I have been saving for a long time and there was only just enough to make this one lovely Carrie handbag.

When I found the gorgeous and unique tatted cluny lace, it was the perfect match for this fabric, then I spotted the little blue metal button with the rhinestone center in my stash of vintage buttons, and was inspired to add a whole row of unique vintage buttons.

The runched calico handles are so sweet and comfy, I know I'll have to create more bags with those kinds of handles again soon!

The second photo is truer to the color. I took the first one on the table in my entry and just could not get the pinkish tint out of the image. The fabric is a creamy linen and the leaf print is in shades of ecru, tan, denim blues, and there are little golden-yellow berries and tiny flowers sprinkled about.

I've got the fever now to make lots more pretty Fall purses, so if you aren't the lucky one to snag this one ... keep tabs on the new listings here on the blog, or join my newsletter, or bookmark the site! I hope to add new creations every few days.

Thanks for looking! AND please comment.. I love feedback!!

Come to the Best Tea Party Ever!

Fill your week with Tea Parties !!!
Starting Monday September 10, have a fun filled week with the
Make Mine Pink Bloggers as they host a virtual Tea Party.
Visit the Mine Pink Blog for all the information and a list of participating
Make Mine Pink Blogs.
Why Tea Party? Well what can be more fun, tea for two, tea for one, a princess tea, a mother/daughter tea, best friends tea, long lost friends tea, or to just take a moment to slow down and enjoy the tea.

Catching Up After Summer Flu (and Flew!)

I'm used to being in a fairly continuous state of playing "catch-up" and I don't think that's all that unusual or remarkable. After all, like most of the women I know, I wear many hats ... from wife and mother, to entreprenuer, writer, designer, and consultant, and about a thousand things in between.

My PINK friends and I are go-getters, we blast through to-do-lists, we take on challenges left and right and we do it with joy and excitement because we are living our dreams. To get to do what you love everyday is a highly motivating blessing. So, it's not lack of motivation, and it's certainly not lack of desire that has me dropping all the plates I have spinning in my balancing act ... It's the horrible, dreaded, dratted, SUMMER FLU! BLEH!

I've almost fully recovered now after two weeks of this nastiness, the last week of which I was joined in my misery by my husband and my son. In this case misery definitely did not love company. (And speaking of which, we also had out of town company coming this week! - but that's another post for later!)

I had big plans for August. Best laid plans. But with this flu suddenly my summer flew - as in - OMG, it's already the middle of August! ACK! HELP!

I'm so lucky that I seem to have been blessed with some of the most patient customers in the universe. So far no one has been mad at me for having to wait a while for their purses and I thank them deeply for that (and I'm sending extra goodies to those few of you who have been forced to wait for your orders... trust me, you'll be glad I did not spread my germies to your pocketbooks!)

But never fear, I'm recovered and back to work full steam ahead now. My house is probably the cleanest it's ever been or ever will be thanks to the constant disinfecting we've been doing and the fact that my brother and SIL were coming to visit, so everyone pitched in and got the place looking pretty spiffy!

It may be a few more days before I actually get to where I can do this blog justice. I'm so jealous of all my hyper-blogger buddies out there. I don't know how some of my friends like Sharon of C'est Chouette, or Joyce of Cottage Collections do it. These are two of the busiest ladies I've ever known but they also keep amazing blogs! They are my blog inspirations. Maybe now that I've had my flu bug come and go (along with my summer! Grrr) I will be bug free from here on out and can catch up on the 4,381 or so items on my to-do list. I have hope! I am WOMAN ya know!

OH, and I've been tagged while I was sick... so now I have to go and find 7 friends who have not been tagged and tag them and then post about my prestigious tagging adventure!

Whew, ok. Item one. Update Blog. Check. TTYL!

Mama's Pocketbook

Winner of the MSN Business Breakthrough Challenge II, Finance category, Mama's Pocketbook offers unique, one-of-a-kind and limited edition romantic, floral fabric accessories, fabrics, sewing patterns and other fine fabric accessories. Owner/Designer Dianne Hadaway is well known for her annual Pink October totes! Member & Writer at MakeMinePink.com

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And The Winner Is..... Mama's Pocketbook!

I have been sitting on this long enough I guess. Well, not really sitting on it because I have told an awful lot of people about it, but I haven't posted it officially ... so now I am!

Mama's Pocketbook has been awarded the Grand Prize in the Finance category of the MSN Business Breakthrough Challenge II! Seriously! This is a for real prize ... we are not talking leg lamps here! We are talking $10,000 worth of custom business solutions just for my business! Major business makeover!

The official word came exactly a month ago, on June 8th, but I've been waiting to see when MSN would put up the info on their website. Well.... still waiting on that, and I figured there were cobwebs growing in here so I better write something new and this is the best something new I've got!

The contest/competition is really pretty cool. I found it one Saturday in March while I was searching for information on how to get help from the SBA. I just stumbled onto the MSN Business Breakthrough website, read about the contest and since it was one of those rare Saturday's where I didn't have anything major going on, I sat down and wrote an essay about my business, how I started it last year, some of the really great steps I've taken (joining MMP!) and some of the setbacks I've run into (financial, due to my husband's back issues and his surgery) and what my plans are for growing the company and how we have managed to stay on top of things and keep it going. Apparently my essay was compelling enough ... the essays are judged three times, based on four levels of criteria. The first go round determines the top 20 out of all entrants, the those are judged again and the top 10 are picked, then a third judging is done to pick the winner.

That would be me or rather, my company, Mama's Pocketbook. Which is pretty much ... ME!

Ok, I do all the sewing and designing, and packaging and shipping, and website building, and ordering, and every other hands on management of my business, but I'm not alone... I have the most fabulous support network anyone could ask for. I have my awesome family. My brilliant hubby, Steve, who has his own exciting entrepreneurial stuff going on (on top of his teaching job and while recovering from major back surgery) , is forever encouraging me, supporting me, believing in me and basically treating me like a Queen. He helps take care of the house and the kids and animals and yard and all the domestic stuff. He's a keeper for sure!

And then I have my Pink Sisters at MMP, who are unbelievably talented, sweet, wise, resourceful, and marvelous in every way. I could not face the day without my coffee club check in at MMP! And of course without this great network I would not be sewing my fingers to the bone (that is when I'm not trying to chop them off with a food processor blade.... but that's another story!). Thanks to my MMP ads, as you've seen below, I've been completely overwhelmed with orders for the past two months! But that's not a complaint ... no, not at all. It's been just the blessing we have needed.

I can't leave out my single parent forum friends. They keep me grounded. They know way too much about me! But they are always supportive and really only want to see me succeed. And they want me to take them with me when I'm on Oprah! LOL!

I'm excited about my prize from MSN. Things should start happening now, I have my financial advisor and we are working on my plan, and my proposal (wish list) for what I need MSN to provide to push Mama's Pocketbook to the next level. Maybe get some help for the construction process of my items, get some cool inventory, fabrics... I can't wait to get my Amy Butler fabrics and purses to add to her pattern line that I carry already... and hopefully, even get me some walls for my studio. That would be sweet!

OK, so there, now I feel better. I'll update as the excitement builds and I start seeing the real effects of winning this thing!