{Sew Indy, a shop makeover by My Little Buffalo}

Hi everyone! Last month I hosted a giveaway with Lisa from My Little Buffalo offering a complete shop makeover to one Gussy Sews reader. The winner would receive a new shop banner image, two advertising buttons, a printable sign for their table at craft shows, and a business card design. AMAZING, right?! oh yes.

…and Dallas of Sew Indy was the lucky winner.

Here is a screen shot of Dallas’s shop before ~ you can see her old shop header and how “unimportant” it looks with the logo off to the side like that ~ no shop header wants to sit in the corner, right? I also think that with all the white on the page/header it’s hard to know where to draw a shopper’s attention:

And here is her new header {below}. My Little Buffalo did an amazing job with the design. If you click over you can see the blue/teal in the shop header is actually a knit background. FANTASTIC! I love small, subtle details like that.

Also included in the before & after part of the makeover post is an interview with the lovely Miss Dallas. I love her honestly and sweetness ~ here’s what she had to say :]

Hey Gussy fans, I’m so happy to be sharing a bit about myself with you today! This is truly a highlight in my sewing and blogging adventures, being interviewed by THE Maggie Whitley! Maggie is truly an inspiration and I enjoy reading what she has to say and sew!

My name is Dallas and I am 22 years old, I live in a very small town called Condor in the rocky mountains of Alberta, Canada. I live in Condor with my soon to be husband Trevor and our little dog Coco. My Etsy shop was a long time in the making… I began sewing on a whim last summer and haven’t stopped since. After I started sewing I began blogging about my experience, and stumbled upon some amazing websites that have now become some of my favorites. One of them being Lisa Leonard’s blog, which lead me to signing up for Indie Biz 3.0 {Lisa was such a good teacher}. As Indie Biz was coming to an end fellow classmates and I decided to have a “Launch day” which Louana from The Eleventh Monkey so graciously organized, and open up our Etsy shops on the same day, host giveaways, and promote each other! It was a lot of fun and I met so many great bloggy friends!

The name of my shop Sew Indy, comes from my love of sewing {Sew} and my love of snowboarding {Indy}. Indy is a popular grab used in snowboarding tricks, just in case you were wondering. Sewing isn’t just for grannies anymore ;]

I was encouraged to enter the shop makeover giveaway to achieve one of my short term goals to start selling at local craft fairs and Farmers Markets. A couple of the things I needed in order to do this was purchase or make a banner for my craft booth, and get some business cards to display and hand out! And of course the obvious who doesn’t want to enter a Gussy giveaway?!

I think having my newly designed shop will definitely benefit my business, it gives my shop a professional well put together appearance. It makes me so proud to be the owner of a well organized, good lookin’ shop! As Gussy would say, YEOWWW! Little skips around my house ;]

I guess I get most of my inspiration online whether its from other bloggers, to looking at fabric, and packaging ideas their is tons of encouragement, advice, articles, how-to’s, and tips to be found. I also get inspiration from my surroundings, family, and friends ♥

The best advice I could give to fellow indie shop owners?? Hmm, that’s a really good question… being so new myself it seems funny giving advice. But a few things I feel are important to remember are packaging, and really good customer service. Taking time to put your beautiful product in a nice box with a cute stamp, and bakers twine makes the customer feel special, and shows you take pride in what your selling. As well keeping your customers happy is important if you want them to return, and give some positive word of mouth, which in turn creates more business!!

Ciao,
Dallas from Sew Indy

Thank you Lisa for offering the giveaway package, and congrats again to Dallas for the new, pretty shop designs! xoxo