Feature Shop: Peace, Baby! Batiks

Good morning! Continuing our "meet your leaders" series of shop features, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Cori of Peace, Baby! Batiks; I bring you the feature shop each week and am leader of the SAHM of Etsy Facebook Team. I've really enjoyed learning more about everyone in their feature each week!

What is your name?
Cori

Where are you located?
Waldorf, MD

Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a SAHM to my son, who will be four in December. Currently, he’s obsessed with all things space, so we spend a lot of time playing, building, reading about, watching, and Googling the Space Shuttle, Mars rovers, and various rockets. My husband and I have been married eight years. My professional background is in online journalism, and before my son was born, I worked as a web producer for a nonprofit media watchdog organization in Washington, DC.

Toddler T-Shirt: Blue with Batik Peace Sign,
Long Sleeves (18 months)

What type of merchandise will shoppers find in your shop?
Batik T-shirts and dresses for babies and toddlers. By popular demand, I have expanded to include a few shirts for youth and adults.

How/why did you get started?
I got the idea after my mother-in-law gave me a beautiful batik wrap-around skirt many years ago. Originally, I was going to make and sell wrap-around skirts, but I can’t sew very well, so that idea fizzled after a couple of prototypes. After my son was born, I picked up my wax and dyes again to do a couple of onesies for him, and thought I might be on to something … and here I am!

Baby Girls Dress: Pink with Batik Hearts,
Long Sleeves (12 months)

How long have you been crafting?
I’ve been doing various crafty things all my life. My mom and I are constantly introducing each other to new hobbies. Some stick, others don’t.

What is your favorite thing to make?
I love making boy onesies and shirts. Maybe I’m biased, but I love my truck, train, plane, and helicopter stencils. I also really enjoy working on custom orders. It's fun to do something I know someone will love.

What inspires you to create?
The colors around me, my kid, my friends and family, my husband. They’re always giving me design and color suggestions, or, in my son’s case, placing orders. I just finished a Mars rover T-shirt for him to go with his Halloween costume. He's tickled.

Toddler T-Shirt: Red with Batik Fire Engine,
Long Sleeves (2T)

What is one thing you need to have with you while you craft?
Some kind of background noise like music or the television.

How do you balance mothering and running a small business?
Until recently, I really tried hard to work only when my son was asleep or occupied by someone else. Lately he's been boycotting naps -- and not sleeping in -- so it's become a little more challenging. I still try to do the hot wax part of the shirts early in the morning while he's asleep and limit computer time the rest of the day, only checking in for a couple of minutes here and there. My motto since the nap boycott began is to say "yes" more often than "no" when he asks me to play. The shirts will wait; he'll only be this age for a short time.

What is your favorite thing to browse Etsy for?
Jewelry, no doubt about it. I have favorited so many jewelry shops and items it’s not even funny. It’s going to put me in the poorhouse.

Toddler T-Shirt: Purple with Batik Flowers,
Long Sleeves (3T)

When you're not crafting, what are you doing?
Playing with my son, watching movies or “Glee” with my husband, watching Washington Nationals baseball, scrapbooking, cooking, reading, or wasting time on Facebook.

Where can we find you?
Etsy: http://peacebabybatiks.etsy.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/peacebabybatiks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/peacebabybatiks
Blog: http://peacebabybatiks.com/blog/
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/peacebaby/
Stores: Just Between Kids, Route 5, Mechanicsville, MD; Stoopher & Boots, Amsterdam Avenue, NYC.

What is your favorite shop (not yours) on Etsy currently?
For jewelry, I really love Jewelry by Aimee, Ear Wigs by Liz, Pink Paisley Boutique, and Countrified Pride.

Toddler T-Shirt: Orange with Batik Dinosaur,
Long Sleeves (3T)

Tutorial Tuesday - Glowing Spider Decorations by Peacebabybatik

I think this is a perfect tutorial to post for this week with Halloween is just around the corner!  My girls and I went and got the supplies yesterday, and we are going to make them after school tomorrow.  Fun! Thanks Peace, Baby! Batik

Glowing Spider Decorations

A few weeks ago, little guy and I were wandering around a big-box home improvement store looking at their Halloween decorations. We became enamored with some tinsel spiders, but they were too pricey (in my opinion) to buy too many of them.
So, we decided to make our own spiders, an idea that fit well with my husband’s plan to go all out for Halloween this year.
Any by all out, I mean, all out. Our house is going to be something else this year! I can’t wait to see it all put together. We’ve got lights and ghosts and pumpkins, of course. But, that’s not enough. Oh no — he’s got a fog machine and built a contraption to cool the fog so it settles on the ground, and he is rigging up some electronic wizardry to make it look like thunder and lightning.
Don’t let me forget about the black lights, which is where these little guys come in.

Here’s what you need:

• Styrofoam balls in whatever size you choose
• Paint (we used neon orange, neon yellow and black)
• Pipe cleaners
• Googly eyes
• Hot glue gun

Paint the spiders your desired color(s). If you’re lighting them with a black light, go for neon colors so they glow.
The balls need more than one coat to completely cover the Styrofoam. Let the paint dry completely between coats. Little guy had limited patience for so much painting, so I added the later coats on my own.

When the balls are dry, cut pipe cleaners in half for legs. Poke them into the Styrofoam and then bend them to look like legs with feet. Before we hang ours outside, I am going to go back and glue in the legs so they don’t fall out.
Cut another pipe cleaner in half and twist it into a loop. Poke it into the top of your spider to make a hole. Remove the loop, and fill the hole with hot glue. Poke the loop back in.

Glue on googly eyes, and find a great place to hang them.

Happy Halloween!