My House Is My Workroom... and I like it that way :)

In 2023, we shipped out 907 boxes. A little fun fact- our top state to ship to is TEXAS, followed by NY & CA!

For almost 10 years, I've worked out of my house and never had a warehouse/commercial workroom! While I realize a warehouse would be nice, there are many reasons why working out of my small house is ideal for my situation. Having all that overhead, and paying a high rent is not for me right now, despite the fact having a small house with a TON of fabric and boxes going in and out on a daily basis doesn't make for a very tidy and constantly neat home lol There are TONS of supplies, fabric being cut, strings being cut, staples and screws, glue.. you name it. TONS of supplies here on a daily basis being used but when the priority is to get orders produced and out the door, some things have to slide, as I've come to realize over the years, like a picture perfect workroom. This is why I am not open to the public here. lol. But I have everything in order here always and know exactly where every supply and fabric is and well organized, despite the constant boxes in and out and how it might look to someone else.. it's organized to me and and I'm most productive bc I know exactly where to find everything. I've made it a decent workspace for myself and my assistant. I'm pretty proud that I've been able to swing this for almost 10 years and make it work and save all that money on rent.

I have 2 small kids, so I work whenever I can. I don't ever work hours and hours straight. I work about 2 hours in the morning after school drop off. I work out. Go back to working. I pick up my kids and then I go back down to my workroom and work some more. I like to make sure I take multiple breaks throughout the day and night making shades. It makes it less demanding, physically, and ideal for being a mom with a lot of other stuff going on and kid and usually on the go. I can work with my kids upstairs playing and not have to go any place

I can also work at any time of the night, whereas, if I had a workroom some place else, I wouldn't be able to check on a customer's fabric or an order real quick. I can keep track of fabric being delivered and orders at any time, which is nice.

I also can keep track of fabric being delivered daily here and make sure the fabric is in a safe spot, free from rain or damage. If I had a workroom some place else, I might not be able to keep a good eye on fabric or I would be constantly lugging fabric from my house over to the warehouse.

So there are some of the reasons I work from home here. I can easily keep track of boxes and ship boxes out at any time. UPS comes to get the boxes right from my door. I can also keep an eye on orders and work on them at any time of day or night, while my kids are here with me.

We ship all over the US but here are the top 5 states according to our shipping history last year.

Texas - 9.13% - 83 shipments

New York - 8.03% - 73 shipments

California - 6.93% - 63 shipments

New Jersey - 6.6% - 60 shipments

Massachusetts - 6.05% - 55 shipments

Our Designer Client's Beautiful Before & After Reveal

It’s so fun working with designers! Recently, we made some roman shades for a nice woman named Katherine, Interior Designer and founder of Hausmatter Interiors out of Tennessee. She sent us her own fabric to use, and we made them to her custom size and added the nice touch of grosgrain ribbon down the middle. I love this design that she requested, since it is unique. Most we’ve done are similar to the Pottery Barn roman shades, with the single ribbon inset on the sides and bottom, so it was fun to create something different. The white shades with ribbon are very popular and offer a clean, classic and modern update to any room. These shades goes well with many different decor styles and you can add pops of color and patterns in other places without it looking too busy.

Check out her recent blog with before and after photos of her home office, featuring the shades we created!

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

2017... A Great Year For Sew Lovely Roman Shades!

Happy New Year and I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  The Sew Lovely/Rinik family had a great holiday and now we are just awaiting the exciting arrival of our newest addition, due on March 1st... another little boy!

2017 was a really great year for Sew Lovely and we're so thankful for the continuous support and business.  We hope 2018 is just as good or better!  In 2017, we had over 100,000 Etsy shop views and 287 sales (multiple shades per sale) on Etsy alone, compared to last year's 44,000 shop views, trending up 107% from last year.  We've almost doubled our revenue from last year.  We made over 800 roman shades in 2017 and also many curtains and pillows.  We also had a lot of orders and traffic on sewlovelybykelly.com, which we didn't have in 2016, thanks to a higher ranking on google search, appearing on the first page for the search "roman shades."  We're pretty excited about that!  As it turns out, we didn't have to pay for SEO help to improve our ranking.  In addition, we exceeded 100 5 star reviews and currently have 143 reviews.  We thank our customers for taking the time out to write a nice review when they love their roman shades!

Sew Lovely's Instagram followers have also increased in 2017 and we were featured and tagged in a few really nice Interior Designer blogs.  It's so nice to see photos of the roman shades hanging in our customer's home and not just on the floor of our living room lol  

This past year, we also made some nice improvements to the roman shades in order to reduce our production time and improve our product.  In April, we started using child proof safety knobs in order to comply with the window safety standards for shades.  The knob breaks away if a child puts their head into the loop of the cords, so no loop is formed when force is applied.  We also started putting the pockets on the backside/lining of the roman shade.  This cut down on production time by a great deal, even though the cost was a big higher for the supplies.  We were still able keep our cost down for the customer and only increased the cost per shade by $10 each.  The rib tape is great also because it makes the shade flatter and not as buckled, and also eliminates the need for rings sewn onto the shade and less stitching on the front of the shade.  The pinholes from the rings are also eliminated.  The dowels are also able to be removed and replaced, if needed, whereas, when they were inside the shade, they were almost impossible to remove.  

A huge thanks to all of our customers, friends and family!  Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2018!!! 

Don't Pay Too Much For A Fabric. I'm Here To Help My Customers Get a Deal!

One thing I really enjoy about running Sew Lovely is helping my customers get a good deal and making them happy!  For example, I recently had a customer email me who was interested in a bunch of roman shades for her home.  I gave her a quote and she was very happy with the price, but did not place the order because she was having a really hard time finding a fabric that she wanted to settle on and the ones that she liked were over $100 per yard.  I then asked her if she wanted to send me a photo or link to some designs that she liked so I could help her search for something, letting her know that you can find a much less expensive fabric that is really nice in quality.  She sent me an email saying she finally found one that she loved at a furniture store and showed me a photo of it. Since I have seen a ton of fabric from customers in the past few years of making over 600 shades, I recognized the pattern and style of the fabric right away.  I hate to let the cat out of the bag, but most places change the name of the fabric so that the customer cannot easily find the fabric online by searching the name of it, and mark the price up a great deal.  This particular fabric (the exact fabric) was only $15/yard online, compared to $45/yard at the furniture shop she saw it at.  Her store was calling it, "Plazza Slate" and it's really called, "Covington Slate," made by Covington Fabrics.

It's always a good idea to search around for a fabric to see if you can get a better price.  This fabric was a medallion/damask design, beige and blue.  So if you Google, "beige and blue paisley medallion damask decor fabric," you might have some luck finding it at a few shops, so you can compare prices.  If a customer ever wants some help in finding a fabric that better suits their budget, I am always here to help :) This customer was really pleased when I told her not to buy it from the expensive furniture shop and sent her the link to the $15/yard one online.  She needs 15 yards of fabric for the shades I'm making her, so I saved her $450 in fabric.  This is one reason why I really enjoy my job!