WHERE ARE YOU: I’m in Petaluma, CA. It’s about 45 minutes North of San Francisco in the Sonoma Wine Country. It’s where American Graffiti and Peggy Sue Got Maried were filmed and while it has a small town Americana vibe it’s quite sophisticated and progressive. Although I’ve only been in Petaluma 2 1/2 years I’ve been in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1995.

COMPANY NAME: Queen Puff Puff & Stitchcraft

WEBSITE: www.queenpuffpuff.com & www.stitchcraftonline.com

BLOG: http://stitchcraftonline.com/blog/

CRAFT TOOL YOU CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT: sharp fabric scissors

FINISH THE SENTENCE: When I am not sewing purses I am…… usually cruising the web. Live Journal, Bloglines, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter…. ahhh. such a time sucker! I also love thrift shopping and vintage hunting.

How and when did you decide to make the transition from working in the garment industry to making your own handbags?

Owning my own business has always been my dream. My dad started several businesses and I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. But I wanted to learn as much as I could while being paid. So I worked in a bunch of different garmento jobs like designer, merchandiser, freelance artist, sales & production assistant, etc. and absorbed as much as I could. I started making bags because they are quick, don’t need to come in different sizes and don’t take much fabric. I gave them all away as gifts and people seemed to like them and suggested I sell them. In late 2003/early 2004 I was going through a rough time between getting divorced and my dad passing away. It seemed like the time to make a change and I needed something just for me. Life is too short to work a job that doesn’t make you happy, you know? So I shared a booth at the first Fashion Co-Op in SF with Susan Beal and sold my stuff for the first time. We were crammed into a 4′ x 5″ space and it was chaotic and scary and wonderful. That first taste of success hooked me and I’ve been doing this ever since!

Tell me about the SF Seamsters.

The Seamsters are a collective of women owned businesses that is made up of me, Jennifer Pellecchia of Hambone & Jennicakes and Deborah Maciel of Chic Cosas. We all do sewing and fabric based businesses so we can go in together on fabric & supply purchases. We also share booth spaces at shows and do group advertising & promotion. So press coverage for one is press for all. It’s also nice to have other people to brainstorm and commiserate with.

You recently started Stitch Craft which is your own teaching studio.
How is going? What kind of classes can people take there?

It’s going really well! I have been teaching sewing classes since 2004 when I started freelance teaching at Stitch Lounge in SF and at Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley. But when I moved to Petaluma I realized that there weren’t any sewing studios in the entire North Bay that reached out to a younger and hipper audience. So I started StitchCraft. We have all sorts of classes from super beginning pillow & totebag classes to more advanced things like draping and patterndrafting as well as special events like Halloween costume workshops. Some of the most popular classes have been the A-Line Skirt class and the Summer Blouse class. We also sell tons of fabric and trims (new & vintage) as well as independent patterns like Titus, Betsy Ross, Oliver + S and Sublime Stitching.

People sell their goodies in different ways. Would you say most of your sales are internet based, wholesale orders or do you sell like hot cakes at craft shows?

It depends on the time of year. Wholesale tends to be busy from February to April and then summer craft shows are June/July. Then you have the next round of wholesale from August to September and now you are in the thick of holiday craft shows and website sales. I also do a bit of consignment. I pretty much pursue all sales avenues and try to have as many revenue streams as possible.

I’m sure you have been asked this as many times as I have, but where did the name Queen Puff Puff come from?

Ha! My very good friend Roxanne of Cheetah Velour fame found these vintage knitting magazines from the early 60s. All these horrid sweaters had names like the Easy Enid, Rod’s Ski and the Queen Puff Puff. The actual sweater was awful with the giant crochet puff balls hanging off of it but the model had this awesome dark beehive and winged out eyeliner and all my friends said “That’s you!” So it became my nickname, my Live Journal name and then the name of my company. Everyone calls me QPP for short.

WHERE ARE YOU: Dallas, TX

COMPANY NAME: One Good Bumblebee

WEBSITE: onegoodbumblebee.com

BLOG: onegoodbumblebee.com/blog

CRAFT TOOL YOU CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT: So many things! But I’d say my most precious tool is my Rotatrim paper trimmer.

FINISH THE SENTENCE: When I am not running One Good Bumblebee I am making art for the fun of it.

I saw from your adorable childhood pictures that you have a life long love of all things crafty. When and why did you decide to take this passion to the next level and start selling your goodies?

Although art has always been in my blood, I never really aspired to have a career in art. I always wanted to be a teacher. But while working towards my degree in education, I realized that teaching really wasn’t for me. So then I fell in love with creative writing and poetry and somewhere between sending off applications to writing schools and receiving the acceptances, I switched gears yet again and returned to visual art, which I’m pretty sure is what I’ve really loved all along. I feel at home when I’m making things with my hands. I just knew I couldn’t do anything else with my life. Selling the things I design and create just came naturally to me. My father is a professional photographer so I knew it was possible to make a living selling art.

You have so many fun things on One Good Bumblebee, but the art department is where we can find Ms. Katey Nicosia. What is your medium of choice?

I am very drawn to the idea of cutting up unrelated pieces of paper or images and gluing them together to make something new. I am a collage artist at heart. I literally have urges to cut and glue. I’m a paper addict. And the older the paper or the more history a piece of paper has, the more I love it. I like to work with things that have a mystery about them, like most old papers and ephemera do.

I see that you are an avid blogger. Does the One Good Bumblebee blog have a certain theme or is just whatever floats your boat that day from ice skaters of the 70’s to artists obsessed with detail in their work? What came first your e-commerce website or the blog?

Sometimes I wish I had a very specific blog on one tiny topic but it’s almost impossible for me to do that. I love so many different things and I have so many interests, so my blog can be a bit random, but in the end it’s really just a perfect representation of me and the things I love. I try not to censor myself or be “professional” but to just be me and say whatever I feel like saying. I’m a believer in going with your gut and being as true to yourself as you can, and I think that’s why my blog is so full of different types of posts and ideas. It grows and changes as I grow and change. My blog came before One Good Bumblebee. The One Good Bumblebee blog is not a business blog. I try to remember that it came first and it’s about me, not necessarily about the store One Good Bumblebee. It’s a way of showing the real person behind the business.

According to your website these are you top sellers:

Pile of Paper

Mini Piles of Paper

Kill Time Workbook

Dog Pencil Sharpener

Jar of Whimsies

Could you pretty please tell us a couple of sentences about each and perhaps your theory on why they are your best sellers.

Pile of Paper: I love paper and I’m so excited to know that other people like it as much as I do. The piles of paper are literally piles of old papers and ephemera that I assemble together in special little ways. I try to make each pile look like a piece of art, or to at least be visually overwhelming, and in turn inspire someone to make something from the papers and pieces inside. These are probably a best seller because It’s pretty obvious I love making them. I think my passion shows through and people appreciate that.

Mini Pile of Paper: These are smaller versions of the original Piles of Paper. They are just as fun but more affordable and quick. I like the idea of a customer being able to buy themselves a little something that makes them happy just for the fun of it. The Mini Pile of Paper, I think, serves that purpose. They’re a surprise because you never know what you’re gonna get, and there’s so much fun in that, I think.

Kill Time Workbook: I also sell other people’s products and it’s always a gamble! You never know what people will like, what will sell well, what won’t, but I love the Kill Time Workbook. It’s for people who like to draw and mindlessly doodle. A lot of my customers are creative and this fits them perfectly.

Dog Pencil Sharpener: I think these are a best seller because they’re adorable, functional, and affordable. It goes back to the idea of getting something small and fun in the mail even if you don’t have lots of money to spend. And who doesn’t need a pencil sharpener?

Jar of Whimsies: These are jars filled with vintage whatnots. Each one is different. I like the idea of selling a surprise and thats exactly what these are. You don’t know what you’re gonna get but you know its gonna be good. That’s thrilling and fun!

What is the crafty scene like in Big D? I am from North Texas (McKinney) and between One Good Bumblebee, The Dallas Craft Mafia and The Make Studio it seems like things have really gotten crafty since I left.

I wish I knew! I’m so busy working that I hardly ever have time to get out of the house and find out what’s going on. I’m working on that.