Every Good And Perfect Gift is From Above

It has been WAY too long since I have blogged!
If you are not following me on Facebook, I will catch you up a little.
I live in the bustling town of Frisco, Texas. A charming little boutique/ tea party room just opened on our downtown main street. Darling Deuce was given the opportunity to be a part of it!!! The store opened last week and I have been working my little tail off for the previous 3 weeks creating enough inventory to stock the racks with cute DDD stuff!

SHINING WINGS

I truly believe this is an opportunity from God. I have not been sewing my whole life. In college I could sew a button and perhaps a straight enough line to make some simple curtains, but I didn't really begin to sew until a little over a year ago when I started my previous business, Southern Posh Boutique. In April, I made the decision to separate from that business and go out on my own.

The day I formed DDD, I made a promise to God that I would honor Him in my work. A part of that means giving 10 % of everything I make to Him. So DDD began in April. Of the small profits I made that month, an even smaller 10% of it went directly to my church as a tithe offering. In May, orders as well as profits increased. In May, that 10% was larger than April's 10%. So by August, each month was doubling from the previous month in orders/profits. And thus, that 10% was getting larger and larger.
And not only was my customer base increasing, but my actual talent, craft, & skill was improving. Anyone can look at styles I made a year ago and look at some of my current stuff and you can see a vast growth in skill and technique.
So here we are in October. DDD has been on the books for 7 months now and I am so overwhelmed by the success and growth of not only the business itself, but in myself as an individual.  Putting my goodies in a hot new spot in town is the icing on my cake.
So if you have ever doubted the truth and reward of tithing, I am a true testament to it's worth. I am so grateful for every opportunity and skill that God has given me and I will continue to bless him.

We attend Gateway church. This is taken from their website.

Deuteronomy 26:1-2
And it shall be, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.

Custom Goodies for a Special Customer

I met this wonderful lady through Etsy who contacted me a while back about making custom shirts for her children's program at church.
I was SO flattered that she trusted me enough to send me a shirt of her own and ask me to essentially just 'go to town' on it.
Here is what I came up with.

Upon receiving the shirt, she was so thrilled that she requested 6 more! 6 more custom designs! Now I love to designs, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I struggle with outdoing myself. My end goal is always to make it cuter than before- but that proposes a challenge in my crazy mind sometimes.
So my sweet customer sent me 6 more tshirts.
They sat.
And sat.
Finally I started playing and this is what I came up with!
There are 2 programs- one called The Backyard for school aged kids and one called the Treehouse for preschool kids. Both of those names got me thinking of flowers, squirrels, trees, all things fall and fun!


I really LOVE mixing media! felt, bling, cotton, etc. I love the look of all things mis-matching. I think it comes together so nicely.

 PS-- How cute are these hooded Tees she sent? I am loving these!

 Another hoodie-- matches the original design. Don't you love the dove on the shoulder?

 The lighting does not do this one justice. Nothing goes better with red than black and white. 

 This is one is my fave!! I dreamed this up while I was creating her first one. The 'leaves' and 'birds' come together to spell Backyard. There is a lot of fun hand applique in this one. Best compliment I have had so far: Someone asked her if she had the shirt custom made at Anthropology!! Wowsa!! 

 These Treehouse ones are super fun too! How precious are these owls?

 Had to throw in a little purple squirrel on this one!

This was such a fun project!! Thank you SOOOO much Backyard & Treehouse team!

Family Fun Friday Giveaway! WELCOME!!!!

Welcome to my blog!!
Did you find me from those awesome glad at FFF?

FAMILY FUN FRIDAY



Thank you to the ladies of Family Fun Friday for hosting a DDD giveaway!

Little Lizard King Rocks My World!!!

Okay, so obviously, I sew. ' I have tried SEW (like the pun there!) hard to sew like my mother and other talented people by doing it the old fashioned way.


Old Fashioned Way:
1. Go to (insert your fave fabric store name here).

2. Sit and pour over books filled with pattern options.

3. Select pattern (finally).  Let's pretend it's #2417 McCalls.


4. Go to drawer with the correct label number for pattern: 2400-2500.
 Open drawer to find patterns were NOT actually organized according to the number labels on drawer front.

5. Flip through another drawer until you find the card marker for 2417.
6. DANG IT!!!! Nothing. Pattern is sold out.

7. Return to table. Repeat steps 2-5.
8. Alas!! They have it!
9. Scour the store selecting the perfect fabric & notions for your selected pattern.

10. Come home. Open up pattern pieces in  your living room floor because that is the only place large enough to spread them out.

11. Crawling babies really like crawl on little thin tissue paper. This must look like a tummy time mat to them. Baby tears pattern.

12. Tape pattern back together. Decide it's best to cut out pieces once children are in bed.  Give your best attempt to fold pattern back up into that perfect little shape to fit into pattern envelope. This is pretty much the equivalent of trying to solve a Rubix cube IMO.

13. Check to make sure that children are safely snuggled in bed. Attempt Step 10 again.


14. Think to yourself " Am I making Dress A or Dress B?" Whats the difference? Hmm, if I spoke 'pattern' I might be know, but since I don't, I will just cut out all pieces for both.  This requires pieces 1-5.
15. Locate pieces 1-5 (out of 27) on tissue paper. 1-4 are all together. Phew! But where is 5? Where is 5? ........ Oh there it is! It's by 22!!!!! And I have to cut around 18-21 to get to it!

16. Refer back to pattern instructions to determine importance of piece #5 ( is it a sleeve or just interfacing? ). Decide to forego piece #5 as it's interfacing, and who really knows what that means anyway.


17. Admire your nicely cut, super straight lines-- because tissue paper is SOOOO easy to cut.

I could go ON and ON and ON, but you know how this story unfolds.


 Frustrating.


Lots of *&^*&&)(*&^&*%$%^%$#!!!!!


This is where I usually give up!!!!




AHHHHHHH!!!
But there's a light at the end of the tunnel----- (sung in true Andrew Lloyd Weber style)

And that light's name is:

Check her out!!!!!

Little Lizard King has made me fall in love with sewing!! She has amazing patterns that she creates herself-- draws all the pieces, takes real photographs of each step, and then magically turns them into a PDF file that she can email directly to you. No need for draggin crying babies to the store while you sit and look at books. No need to figure out which pieces you need. No messing with awful tissue paper. And she does it all in words that you understand!! 

If you know how to to turn on a sewing machine,  you can use her patterns. The hardest part is picking out which fabric to use. 

I cannot wait to make some more cuteness with her stuff!!

Thanks, Little Lizard King, for rockin my sewing world. 

Love,

Becca-- Your Darling Deuce

DARLING DEUCE takes a break!!

Business has been SOOOOO great lately! Not even 90 days in business on my own and things are looking so positive.
Summer has been super crazy for the Caney family so we are all taking a break! A family vacay is in order for next week.
Any orders received after 8/1 (TODAY!!) will not be processed until AFTER 8/15.
(orders already being processed should all be ready and shipped by this Wednesday 8/4).
Thanks to all for your support!!!

<3 Becca

While I am gone-- check out some of my other faves like:

Southern Posh Boutique
Haute Off The Rack
Little Lovelies

Happy Birthday to the FuzzHead!!!!!

Wow!! 1 year already. I cannot believe it. 

We celebrated Mr Fuzz's birthday last weekend here at the house in Paul Frank style! 

Diaper Cover & Party Hat made by momma using patterns from the oh-so- fabulous  Little Lizard King

littlelizardking.blogspot.com

Older Darlings Like Cuteness Too...

One of my favorite things about my hobby is that I can almost always create a gift for someone's birthday rather than buying one.
I have already posted about my bestie Ellen. It was her bday. She LOVES crazy accessories so I wanted to come up with some unique things just for her!

Ellen's Slew of Cute Birthday Goodies!

RE-styled Forever 21 plain gray T

White Bow Back Beater Tank

Vintage Style Lavender Cameo Brooch

My Inspiration for the Brooch!

(saw this beauty on the Nordie Sale and immediately thought of Ellen) 

We celebrated with a night of relaxing girl talk and pedicures!

Oodles and Oodles of Bows for your Toes

Okay--- so I always have viewed hairbows the same way i view mowing the lawn and grilling-- it's better to live in ignorance than to actually learn to do it. Because if you learn to do it, then you might have to do it. Wonderful attitude, I know?

So I have this customer- let's call her ShAlicia ShMaxwell. We've all seen the bow flip flops right? She had been asking me to come up with a way  to make bow flip flops in such a way that the bows could be removed and put on other shoes or other colors of flip flops.

So first I bought these clippie things.

 Do you remember your momma probably had 'shoe clips' in every color in the 80s? They matched her shoulderpad sweaterdress.

So here are the bow show clips I made!  $10/set. Each set has 2 show clips and 1 hair bow. Pretty good huh? 

{don't you love my lil model's feet? Not the best choice of flip flops, but at least he is wearing blue bows and not pink}

Check this out!!! These are a lil more grown up! Stay tuned for more of these coming for the ladies.  I think I need some to put on my red Converse.

Instead of paying $235 for these:

Kate Spade from Nordstrom

I think I will come up with a little less expensive option. 

Chiffon Cupcakes

Recipe: 
1 part chiffon
1 part cotton
37 parts love

I saw a shirt similar a month ago or so and have been trying to come up with my own. Each one of these below had a different technique for the 'frosting'. I think I finally got it right on the last one.

I just cannot stand how cute these are!! And the icing is the exact same fabric as those fun fluffy pettiskirts!

Cupcake shirt: Generation 1.0

'The Sydney'

Cupcake shirt: Generation 1.2

'The Savannah'

 Cupcake shirt: Generation 2.0

'The Elena'

The Ellen...

So I have this friend. She's one of my best. And when I say this girl is cRAzY, that is an understatement!!!! She is funny, beyond truthful, and has a killer fashion sense. She asked for some special baby gifts for some friends a couple of weeks ago. Here is what we came up with!

We did 2 of these. I love the way these turn out. Name is affixed with heat set rhinestones. Can't wait to get an actual photo of a baby wearing one with those ruffles around the booty! Next to the onesie is an awesome burpcloth. These are my own design- not fabric stitched to a flat fold diaper, but 2 solid large pieces of fabric. One side is black minky dot, the other is fuzzy leopard- everything stitched in pink, of course!

Check out the close-up of the matching hair clip! 

Inspired by Ellen herself- had to add the feathers!!

OKAY! Now this is where it starts to all get crazy!!

One of the gifts is for a baby who has an Egyptian daddy. She requested something with a camel. I was like, 'A camel??????' So we did a camel and my own little version of a baby Cleopatra outfit!

        Camel is made from cute polka dot fabric w/a bling eye!                           Cleopatra outfit has a removable velcro collar, a gold skirt, and a flashy gold  

Matching rolled flower hair clip to go with!                                                                headband! Did I mention that Ellen LOVES gold! Maybe I will make her one!

Last but not least, Ellen is obsessed with all the Real Housewives of Blah, Blah, Blah.... She asked for this special shirt, just for her! 

I's are dotted with a lil bling! Blinged flower is removable!