show and tell: custom orders

In the past week or two I've been happily working on custom orders for Catshy Crafts. All of them have been for my embroidery hoop art! Some have been personalized with names or personal quotes. Others have been based on designs I have in the shop, but have a color change to suit a customer's favorite colors. (You might remember I shared my very first custom order on this blog post.)

Since I've been getting several requests lately, I thought it would be a good idea to share my process for a custom order as well as some of my final results. Ready for some show and tell?

Custom orders

So, all my custom orders start with a "convo" from a customer. They see an item and contact me with their specific request through my Etsy shop.  (Within each item listing, near the bottom of the item description there is link you can click on that says "Contact the shop owner". If you do it that way, it will link back to the item you were looking at.) I respond and usually ask a few questions to clarify what they want and sometimes send photos of the felt colors I have to make sure the customer is getting the colors she truly wants. So far, I have been able to honor all requests.Yay! After we agree on price and shipping (I can always upgrade to Priority Mail if you need the piece in a hurry (take 2-3 days compared 2-5 days for First Class), I create a custom listing and list it in my shop for the customer to purchase as you would any other item. It would look something like this (but with your name instead of "you").

Custom Listing (it would have your name on it, of course ;)

In the description, I'd list the details as the customer and I discussed in convo. Depending on how many other custom orders I already have in queue, I estimate how long it would take to create the custom order and shipping time. And that it's! As soon as the custom listing is purchased, I start creating. I can even send the customer in-process photos as well as a photo of the finished product before I ship.

So now it's time for some show and tell!

It wasn't for a few months after my first custom order that I received another request. This time, the customer wanted four hoops based on this hoop in my shop.

She had specific colors in mind as well as a different saying.  Plus she wanted FOUR of them! Yup. Four. Her idea was to use each hoop as a marker for a big wall clock. She would put clock hands in the middle. And here's what the final hoops looked like.

By the way, in case you like this color palette, I have 3 sets of flowers in the shop that were the "extras" I made for this particular custom order.

The second custom order was to personalize one of the cupcake hoop arts I have in the shop: baby cake.

This customer wanted 3 hoops. Two similar to the original and a third with a slight color change.

The third custom order was a variation of my mini bunting hoop. She wanted two shades of purple instead of pink.

The custom-order purple bunting hoop with one of  my made-to-order "I Heart U hoops". Both are shipping out tomorrow :)

I do have a couple more custom orders to work on, but I'll be sure to share them when I done!

Please let me know if you have any questions about custom orders. Hopefully I answered your questions here, but if I didn't you can convo me here or drop me an e-mail at cayla73@yahoo.com.

Thanks for stopping by!