mmmcrafts is 10 years old! let's celebrate!

The comments on this post are closed! Thanks for participating in the giveaway! The winner is posted here.

In 2008 I haphazardly started a craft blog and a pattern business (like you do, you know) and now whammo -- it's suddenly 10 years later. I kept reminding myself last year that this landmark was coming, and then I got too busy and tabled thinking about it for later. Later later. My actual blog birthday slipped by me five months ago on March 29th (here's a throwback to my very first blog post for ya), and then my Etsy shop was born later that year in November, so my Etsyversary is still to come in a couple months. I'll think of this commemorative post as splitting the difference.

2007: Me and my girlies a few months before blogging ever occurred to me. Ah, my brown hair.

2008: Early blog post demonstrating how not to photograph your kids.

2018: Same photographic problem. No more brown hair. This picture was taken on our recent trip to see my BFF, Robyn. If you've been around for a while, you'll know my friendship with her is also a long-running theme of this blog.

My two girls were six and four years old when I started all this, and I was just getting into homeschooling. Even though I had plenty on my plate (can I get an amen, homeschoolers?), I found that crafting, blogging and pattern designing gave me a much-needed adult creative outlet. I had to carve out time to do it though, mostly stolen moments during the day and lots of late nights. My kids will tell you it was more like this.

I came up with my mmmcrafts logo and header in 2008 and it really hasn't changed a whole lot. In the beginning there was one less coffee cup. Somehow I've lost the original 2 coffee cup version, but this is close:

I did update my logo font in 2013 to what you see now. You could say all that sameness is boring or lazy. You could also say I'm Consistently Building My Brand. Haha. I like that. "Building my brand" sounds completely purposeful.

*In voice of Edna Mode* I do vary the colors and throw in the occasional holiday peppermint or cinnamon stick, darling, because I like to push design boundaries. Why the coffee cups, you ask? Because I like coffee.

Besides yammering on about sewing, felt crafting, paper crafting and my procrastination problems achievements, I use it as a travel journal, confessional, resource list and catalogue of handmade gifts. If you like to make handmade gifts, you know it is hard to remember what you've made and for whom and in what color. As I've said many times, I think I'm my own most loyal reader. I'm constantly referring to my own posts.

Even though initially a creative diary mostly for my own reference, this blog has grown into a handy resource center for my tutorials and patterns. Even though I don't post very often, rest assured that mmmcrafts.blogspot.com is here to stay.

Happy tenth birthday to my Etsy shop too. I'm considered an old-timer there, you know. The Etsy marketplace was pretty robust when I joined in 2008 and now it's completely crazy how many Etsy shops there are. I miss the mom n' pop feel of the old Etsy community, but I love how the go-getters at Etsy constantly innovate to serve the massive marketplace and keep the experience as manageable as possible for me.

2008: My first pattern for sale, Katy Kitty, and...

...2018: my latest patterns for sale, the Twelve Days Ornament Series.

Inspired by the new millenium wave of indie rag doll design and my daughter's request for a red girl kitty for her birthday, my Etsy shop opened with a grand total of one digital pattern for sale (Katy Kitty, shown above). Katy was a variation on my popular free pattern, Molly Monkey. I sold 18 Katy Kitty patterns before the end of the year, for which I was completely astonished and gratified. I immediately spent any profits and then some) on craft supplies and fabric. 

Ten years later my Etsy shop has 40 patterns and over 19,000 sales. I'm still astounded by its success. I do so really love to design and write patterns and I'm hugely gratified that you guys actually enjoy using them! (At some point a few years ago I also opened a Craftsy pattern store to put another option out there. It functions exclusively with Paypal payments.)

We are still homeschooling, and now my used-to-be-tiny girls are 14 and 16. High school is hard, y'all. Our program is rigorous, and creative time is much harder to find now. I blog rarely and am a sporadic Instagrammer at best. Patterns have to happen in the chinks between.

GIVEAWAY ALERT.
Let's celebrate, old school! Do you remember the once ubiquitous blog giveaways? They've fallen out of fashion. But. Let's do it up 2008 style! *Viva la Vida blares suddenly in background* No one likes to log in and comment on blog posts these days, so I'm thinking if you are somehow still reading this, your odds will be pretty good! Here's the prize:

Any-thang you want from my Etsy shop, up to $75. Which incidentally covers the cost of the complete Twelve Days Bundle, so if you've been waiting for a sale it doesn't get much better than free. Already got the complete series? No worries. Pick any combination of patterns you like, as long as it doesn't go over $75.

HOW TO ENTER:
Leave one comment on this post with what you were doing ten years ago, and include an email address so I can contact you if you win. That's it.
I'll be choosing the winner randomly on AUGUST 12th.

ANNIVERSARY SALE ALERT.
Not into giveaways? Use the code MMMHAPPY10TH and get 20% off your purchase in my Etsy shop only from now through AUGUST 12th.

Thanks for helping me celebrate, you guys!