Bountiful harvest

 I like having a blog since I can write about things that interest me like new sewing projects and also interesting things that happen to me related to my business. Here's a great example ..... A lady, Mary, bought 2 of my balsam sachets from one of the retail outlets that I consign with, the Leverett Village Co-op. She got my website address off of the label and went to my website and from there, e.mailed me.  What she told me was that last Christmas her granddaughter gave her a balsam wreath and she saved it!  I am not sure WHY she saved the wreath but she did. She also told me that she had disassembled the wreath, asked me if would I make her some balsam sachets from her wreath? Now, I am not short on needles, in fact, I have a freezer full  of them so I DO NOT need my customers to provide me with needles .What she said to me when she handed me the bag of balsam was that she can't wait to hand a sachet to her granddaughter and say to her...see what I did with the wreath???  OK, NOW I GET IT!!!! I LOVE IT!  Not only that...it sends a message to her granddaughter that I liked your gift so much that I went to the trouble of repurposing it.  To me, the best gift is a thoughtful one!   I dried out Mary's balsam and striped it earlier in the week.  I blogged about how I process the needles on a previous entry.  http://newenglandfiberarts.com/node/22   I timed how long it took me to strip the needles and it was about 30 minutes.  Since I had never dried a balsam wreath before I had NO idea how many needles it would yield, frankly I was surprised by the amount....more than enough to fill Mary's order of 6 sachets since that would only take 6 cups of needles.   Yesterday I made Many's sachets for her. As I was doing this, I realize that there are probably other people out there, like Mary, who might see the value in recycling their wreaths into something useful and I thought...HEY, I can offer to not only process their wreaths but also make balsam gifts for them from their own needles.  There are places that will process your sheep's fleece and then send it back to you and?or, make you yarn out of it so...why not wreaths?   It's not like I don't have PLENTY of balsam needles kicking around and I am looking for a source of needles, I'm not, but I do believe that people would like taking something decorative and then recycling it into something useful so I am going to offer this service now and let people know about it out on Facebook.  THANK YOU Mary for the great idea! 

Comments

It makes me very happy that Sandy has agreed to make the sachets for me from the Balsam Wreath that my Granddaughter Mari gave me last Christmas.  I consider it a "gift from the Heart" to give back to Mari what she gave me!!  And when I met with Sandy and saw her smiling face I knew I had exactly the right Craft Woman to do this work!!!  She is a very upbeat, caring person and I'm sure all that will go into her work for me.  Thank you Sandy! ! ! !

Thank you for taking the time to make a comment on my blog.  If you hadn't asked me to make those sachets from your wreath I would have never come up with the idea of doing it for other people.  I was also very pleased that you had disassembled the wreath.  Years ago when I first started making balsam gifts I had a balsam Christmas wreath that I tried to dry out with out disassembling it.  Needless to say it did not work out at all.  I did find some dog themed fabric so I threw one of those into the mix.  Also, thanks for your interest in my balsam products.  Hopefully you've started a new craze! 

Hi Sandy  just a quick thanks for these sweet Balsam sachets you made for me. They are just what I wanted!!  Thanks again!  Mary T