Towel Hoodies

What is emery doing this week? Working on our products for our Etsy site of course! Towel hoodies are quickly becoming one of our favorite items to make. I even read in a baby book you should have 4-5 for your child...hello emery?! We sell these at the art center and are also making some for our Etsy shop. Here are two of the hoodies that will be featured in our Etsy shop.


They are fun for bath time and also for the beach. I know many times I have been at the beach or getting off the boat and I could have used one myself! Of course they are soft and cuddly and we are loving the idea of using fun emery patterns for the towels. So let us know when you need 4-5 for your child! :)

Keep the ideas coming!

As we spread the word about emery and what we've been up to, we find that a lot of people have interesting suggestions of things they'd like to see us make. Turns out everyone has ideas but they just don't know how to make them happen! We love hearing things like this and take note of products for the future all the time.

I was talking about our little venture at work this week with a friend. She recently had a baby girl. Now that her baby is in daycare, she was complaining about how everything you bring has to be labeled. Specifically she is having trouble labeling bottles. Right now she writes the name on the bottle with a sharpie but it wears in the dishwasher. She told me they have bottle rings but she hadn't found anything good. I was kind of baffled by this. I mean my baby is still in my belly and now I have a label dilemna to worry about?! The wheels started turning and I did a little digging and came up with three different options for labeling.

First is this elastic, embroidered band:

Genius to use it as a gift label to, right?! The second option I found has emery written all over it, literally. It's much like our fabric coffee cozies we've been making for the Lakes Art Center, modified for a bottle. Bottle cozie!

The last one is vinyl labels (dishwasher and microwave proof of course). These would not only work for bottles, but sippy cups, bowls, pacifiers, bags, etc. I have not run this by my partner, but I am confident with her amazing graphic design skills this is something she could easily do. Right Em? She can't really protest, she's living it up in Vegas this week!

So anytime you have a need like this, keep letting us know and we'd love to make it for you. We just want to give the people what the want! We are still working hard on custom orders and more product for the big etsy site launch. We promise we'll have more previews of that to come real soon.

Grand Opening

The grand opening was a huge success! We sold lots of product, lots of people turned out for the event, everyone finally got to see our work in person...overall a great day for emery. We wanted to show our blog readers some of the photos of the displays but check out facebook for a complete album. THANK YOU to everyone who came to support us, it means so much to us.

What's next? We need to fill up that display again, and work on our Etsy site products. A new idea we had is entering into Art in the Park in Okoboji...what do you all think?!

Winter Blues?

Is everyone sick of winter like we are? I guess all the bad weather has given us reason to stay holed up inside working hard on product for emery, but seeing a little sunshine this weekend was pretty dreamy right? We know we've told you all about the opening of the gift and coffee shop at the Pearson Lakes Art Center featuring emery products....BUT we're really excited and want to remind you that it is THIS Saturday, March 6th. So if you can make it, it's a perfect way to come out of hibernation and see some emery product in person. Even better, it's finally available for purchase so all of your dreams can finally come true :) You're going to need a funky new apron or dish towels if you want to do spring right this year. Plus it's probably time to go green and get yourself a fabric coffee cozie that is reusable. AND if you're not in the market for anything amazing right now, it's still going to be a fun afternoon. The opening is from 1-4 pm and there will be food and drinks for your enjoyment-featuring delicious cheesecakes by our own mother, Judy. That's reason to attend right there I'd say! We'd love to see you there and we're excited to be able to offer some of our product in this retail setting.

On another note, with my baby on the way, I think I'm starting to "nest". I've been having my hubby rearrange rooms and scheming how I'm going to deep clean the apartment to prepare. With warm weather on the way (hopefully), everyone is probably starting to think about spring cleaning and how to refresh their homes. We are currently in an apartment, so for me painting isn't an option and I've been trying to come up with some cute ideas for the baby's walls. I know wall decals are the craze right now and they're a good way to give a space a new look without making it permanent. You can use them instead of wall paper or use them in place of a headboard. There are tons of options out there, but I found some cute decals on etsy that you may be interested in.

2010 Emery Gift Giving Guide

It's that time of year when brides are winding down their plans and are looking for more lists of things to do, the mamas-to-be are getting rounder and more irritable every day...that's right, its wedding and baby shower season. What to get your girls that made it through the B-team in 7th grade basketball with you, the ones that held your hair in college, or the ones that you were a bridesmaid for a few years ago and helped throw their fabulous bach parties? Its not easy, and many of you who have been through it will say STICK TO THE REGISTRY PEOPLE. But there are times when being crafty and original might just say it better.

Emery has some ideas to give to your girlfriends and even some of those guys that might appreciate a unique gift. Here is Emery's 2010 Gift Giving Guide.


This is our favorite idea for prego mamas and brides. Use her name and her new hubby's or maybe all her little ones' names will make the perfect gift. We love all of Lisa Leonard's designs so check it out here.

Ok, let's get to the wedding party. Bridesmaids will need earrings for your wedding, so give them as their gift and attach some cute paper and give to the girls in a cute box. Emery makes fabric covered earrings so another idea would be to give these to the girls for throwing your shower or bachelorette party. They'll be more excited they went to all the trouble.These bangle bracelets are fun too, anything unique to their personality will mean a lot.

Your maid of honor or personal attendant needs a special gift for all her hard work. Emery makes tote bags that will give them something to carry all your stuff in on wedding day and will make a great keepsake for after the event.

What to get the groom...the night before the wedding give him a personalized box of beer to make sure every drink he takes that night with the boys will remind him of you and the celebration of your love. Ok, for real, he'll like that you thought of him and went the extra mile to do something sweet. These could make great groomsmen gifts too but you might not want to tell them you love them the night before your wedding. Maybe make it about their relationship with the groom. Emery can make these custom labels for you, just ask us for a quote! The six pack box can have a custom label too. This might be a good gift for the daddy-to-be as well, he might need it before his life changes in a few months.

Ok, those mama-to-be's need some unique gifts too. Why not give her cute burp cloths since she'll have one on her shoulder for the next two years? Emery makes these and we will have a variety of these in our Etsy store. These little stuffed animals and booties are a cute crotched gift for those really ambitious at creating gifts. The patterns for these are free and located here.

Monograms are big right now, Emery makes these custom for weddings. Think cake table or guest book table, or even for that baby's room that needs something else to make the room personalized.

There you have it, a full list of great gift ideas, so get started early or let us help you create these unique ideas.

Busy Bees

Happy Valentine's Day to all of our Emery followers! Hopefully you all had a lovely week. Just a brief update to keep you guys in the loop. We had a busy weekend working on product for the art center project. We were shopping for fabric, scouring a couple of local shops for unique finds, giving out tours of our new crafting room, cutting fabric, and working side by side for the first time since we've started! We didn't even get a chance to take some pictures of some of our finished items, but we'll get some on here in the next week or so to give you a little preview. The main things we were working on were aprons, dish towels, coffee cozies and art roll-ups. There has been some questions about what the cozies and roll-ups are so here is some pictures like the ones we've been making:

The art center hosts lots of cooking classes and kid's art classes so you'll see that a lot of the items are going to center around those themes. They will continue to branch out as time goes on and as customers bring new suggestions & needs.

The sames goes for all of you. Any ideas you have that you'd like to see us make we're always open to new ideas. We've already had people suggesting dog products. We've noticed pet products are kind of a hot item in the handmade world right now so it's defnitely something we're open to. I mean we have to keep our puppies trendy too right?! Below is a cute collar we found on etsy. My husband and I joke about how our dog can chew up toys in no time at all and base new toys on how long we think they will last..."a ten second toy or a four minute toy". Anything stuffed is doomed from the start. I'd say this cute little flower makes it about a "1 minute collar" but still adorable and worth it maybe?!

Emery in Retail

The big announcement is finally here!! On March 6, Emery is officially going to be in retail for the Pearson Lakes Art Center. One of our clients hooked us up with the gig and they are wanting Emery to create all sorts of things for their brand new coffee and gift shop.

We have been busy creating art display boards, aprons, coffee cozies, art roll-ups for adults and children, fabric magnets, beach towels and much much more. We have four weeks to get ready for the opening, so as we get projects done we'll post them to give you a sneak peak. We have been able to be hands on for ideas for displaying our items and how the retail space is going to be set up..so as we like to say..dreams are coming true people! As loyal readers of our blog we would love for you all to be at the opening, so when an official time has been set you all will be the first to know.