Embroidering birthday dresses, Doing Custom Embroidery, selling Girl Scout cookies and being a mommy, life is good!

One of the birthday dresses I did today

Here it's me again to let you know I am still hanging around :)

Oh boy it has been crazy on Zee's little corner of the world. among Family, Embroidea Custom Embroidery , My First Birthday Dress, Pilot International, the Non Profit Organization I belong to and friends I  have been juggling  back and fourth. Sometimes I have no clue if I am going or coming LOL. No I am not complaining just thinking out loud :)

Zee has been embroidering a lot of  Birthday dresses lately and lots and  lots of Custom embroidery work. I think my Customers have decided to test me the  two last weeks. First the National Guard soldiers with some custom order for gift and yes it was to reproduce a flag so that they could  give as a gift to their fellows who are retiring. That was a challenge, I worked on the for a while but when I was finally done, I was so proud of myself...  at the end it is all worth of the hard work. Seeing the satisfaction on my Customer's face. Now, tonight I am working on a Golf bag. http://www.myfirstbirthdaydress.com/Silver-and-Pink-Polyester-Princess-Birthday-dress-p/d202.htm and this is how my life has been going LOL.

Trying to hoop the golf bag

When the Customer called me I told him it was impossible to embroider on a golf bag, I suggested patches but, he said no, he wanted me to go ahead and try it. Oh dear Lord, my hands and finger are so sore but it has coming along so well. What a challenge. I work for a while on the bag and then take a break to embroider a birthday dress

I guess that all this work is what keeps me going. Juliana took a picture of me on top of the table trying to hoop one of the flaps of the bag.. We struggle and laugh at the same time because  you cant imagine what Zee goes through to have all the beautiful embroidery work done :)

Also, other then all those work, I have been trying to get the word about My First Birthday Dress website out there. Oh boy... That is another challenge. I think I need a vacation LOL

My work  and the competirors

Did I tell you guys also that I have been helping my daughter Isabella who is a brownie to sell Girls Scout Cookies. We had a goal to sell 100 boxes and so far we have sold almost 300! Yep, I want to teach my kids that we have to always shoot to the moon, the worst that could happen is to lend among the stars as the old saying :)

Well, I better hurry and finish working on my golf bag and will  be back soon. BTW Would you like to buy some delicious Girl Scout cookies ? ;-) LOL

Enjoy life and smile no matter what.

Life is a beautiful thing.

 

God Bless

Zee

“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.”

Steve Maraboli...I don't know too much about this author but, I sure appreciate his words of wisdom..

Once in a while, I have the pleasure of meeting some special people in my life through my work. I like talking to the elderly people because I am eager to learn and they always have something to teach me.

Today, this  new Customer who brought a sweatshirt over to be embroidered with a Crappie fish, came to pick up his embroidery. I will tell you, sometimes we look at people and  we see only the outside, that is one of our biggest mistake. I am one of those kind of business person who, if somebody wants something embroidered really bad but I assume they cant afford it, I always price it above what it is supposed to be. I think, oh well, it is only a sweatshirt and it is not a repeated work. It wont hurt me to put a smile on people's face :).

So, this Customer came to pick up his sweatshirt and he LOVED It. He was amazed how it turned out, so he gets his checkbook and asks me  how much do I owe you? He seemed to be a very humble man, I wanted him to keep on smiling, so I gave him a price that I wouldn't lose any money but, I wouldn't be making any extra for my work. Oh well, it was just a sweatshirt...

The elderly man looked at me and said: "ARE YOU SURE?" I smiled back and said, yes I am sure. He told  me: -"Oh no I will give you this much" What he paid me, was double of the price I gave him. That was the lesson I have learned for the day. It doesn't matter if a customer is rich, poor, if  I do the best I can, he/she will know how to appreciate my work and will pay me what it is worth . To me, that is the most important part of my payment, the Customer satisfaction. 

Every time a customer comes over to pick up their embroidery, it doesn't matter how long I have been doing the work to them, they always make me smile with kind words. That is my reward... 

I  guess that my husband might find it interesting when I leave the house and I know that a customer will come to pick up  embroidery. When I come back I always ask "Did the customer like it?" Even if he tells me yes the customer told me that he/she liked it a lot. No, I am not happy I have to ask "could you tell that he was really happy with the result?"  I keep on asking questions until I am satisfied. It's really different when somebody tell us that they like  something because they are kind  and when they tell us that they like it because they are satisfied. Body language, nobody can hide anything from Zee :)

I wont lie to you. It might have had a couple times when I asked the customer if they were happy, they said yes they were but, deep inside I could tell that they were not telling me the truth. After they left my place,  my day didn't turn out so good. I kept on questioning myself what could I have done different and it killed me inside. So, I have already told myself that if I notice that a customer doesn't seem very happy with my work. I will be straight forward. I will tell them I don't feel like they are satisfied. I hope this wont happen again but if it does, I will avoid some sleepiness night to myself :)

Yes Mr Steve Maraboli, “At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” 

Have a precious evening you all! :)

Zee Giddings

www.myfirstbirthdaydress.com

When do you know that you have found the perfect purse?

Started my day at the UPS store waiting for them to open so that I could pick up my boxes. The UPS always come to my place in the evening and I needed do have an order finished for today so, I called and asked them to hold my boxes there hat I would pick them up. When they finally opened, I found out that they had only one of my boxes and the others were in one of their truck out for delivery. O my dear mom... I was so stressed out about that. They told me that they were going to contact the truck driver and call me on my phone so that I could meet the truck some place and get the rest of my order.

On my way back home, I thought I was going to stop at my favorite store and do some Christmas shopping while I waited.

When I got in the store, I felt the purse isle calling my name, I thought to myself, I better don't go that way, I will end up buying one more purse that I don't need. For a "pursehollic" like me, it didn't work. I got myself  eyeballing some cute purses. Yeah, I do have a purse problem... LOL for some reason I cant resist the temptation when I see an "almost perfect" purse. 

While I was "test driving" one of them hanging on my shoulder, I notice a gentleman looking at the purse as well. He looks at me and says:

- I swear I am not looking at purses for myself, I want to get my wife one for Christmas.

- Oh that is really sweet of you! I told him. Let me know if you need help picking the "almost perfect one" He thought it was really funny that I mentioned the "almost perfect one" so I had to explain, that it has been a while that I have been shopping for purses and I haven't found the "perfect one" yet.

- What is a "perfect purse" like? He asked me. and there I go with all my observation when shopping for a purse.

- If you were a woman, which one would you pick for yourself? I asked him.

- Well, he said looking at a brand name purse hanging there looking pretty. how about that?

- Why did you choose that one? I asked him.

-I have heard my wife talking about this brand a lot.

- Well, before you buy a purse, you need to "test drive" it first I explained him. You need to hang on your shoulders, walk around with it and see if it feels comfortable:

- I am skipping that part I think. He said:- What is the next step?

- open the purse and see if you could find your stuff really easy when you open it, plus it needs to have some nice pockets inside.

- I had no idea I had to know all this before buying a purse. I was just going to pick a pretty one one and get over with it, he said.

You have no idea what a purse means to a "purse lover" you need to have the "connection" with the purse you are going to purchase sir. I explained all the steps of choosing a perfect one and then my phone rang, it was the UPS guy. He wanted me to go meet the truck driver to get my boxes.

- well, I have to go now and chase the UPS truck sir, take your time choosing the perfect purse for your wife. Don't rush in, look carefully, she will know if you took the time to pick one or just grabbed the first one you saw.

- I think I might go shopping for something else, I never imagined that picking the "perfect purse" was such a hard work. Thanks for your help, he told me.

I left the store with four pairs of tennis shoes and a new cute black purse, there I went chasing the UPS truck. Making a long story short, Juliana my friend ended up meeting the truck driver who wasn't happy at that he had to wait for her and the day just kept getting crazier and crazier.

Right now is 10:21 PM and I am typing this post and going to go to bed. Tomorrow will be another busy crazy day. Everybody decided to get personalized embroidery for the last minutes, so, my days was as hectic as it could be.

I am going to thank God for one more day, busy, crazy, hectic but it was one more day that He let me have among the ones I love.

Thank you Lord for the gift... The precious gift of LIFE.

Blessing

Zee

Ten days until Christmas... What is the best gift of all?

Today is December 15th. Ten more days until Christmas...

Today we went Christmas shopping for the first time. The stores were packed and I don't enjoy very much all this Christmas present shopping. It feels so weird to go shopping for our family and friends, all the worries about what to buy for everybody. Is that person going to like it or re gift to somebody else? Should we get gift card instead ? 

We should not be feeling this way, we shouldn't be feeling like we HAVE to go rushing buy gifts that we don't know for sure if it is going to be appreciated or not.  I think Christmas is time to rejoice, reflect, time to celebrate life, love, Christianity. 

We bought some gifts and came back home with the feeling that we have to get everything done this week. Lots of pressure knowing that this week a lot of people will be counting on me for their Christmas gift. I have tons of work to get embroidered. Am I going to meet my deadline? Sure I will I really enjoy embroidering and customizing my customer's gift to their loved ones. At least they took the time to think their gift over. They didn't  care about the cost, they wanted to give something unique and special, what is really the holiday spirit.

May the joy and the love of Jesus Christ be with you, in your heart through Christmas and the New Year!

Blessing to all'

Zee

www. Myfirstbirthdaydress.com