I made up a pretty little set of 4 cloth napkins for the shop this week. I love the little carrots on the fabric. I bought it almost a year ago because I thought they were so cute, and only just now found the right project for it. As I mentioned before, I have been making cloth napkins for my own use. I’ve been pretty satisfied with them, and particularly happy about not wasting paper napkins or paper towels, so I thought it would be good to make some for others, too.

While I’m making things, I decided to create a new Flickr group for handmade items for your kitchen (like cloth napkins, but also anything else you’d use in your kitchen), called Handmade Kitchen. Please join and share all the wonderful things you’ve made for your kitchen. You can also share handmade things you’ve purchased for your kitchen, or things you’ve made for someone else’s kitchen. I can’t wait to see all the creative things you’ve been working on!

I know a lot of Etsy sellers are already familiar with the Heart-o-Tron 3000. I’ve known about it and forgotten it and recently rediscovered it, now that I’m listing new items in the shop again. Whether it’s brand new to you or something you’ve known about for awhile and forgotten about, the Heart-o-Tron 3000 is worth checking out. It provides a quick way to check how many hearts your Etsy shop has. You can also easily see how many hearts your individual items have, who left those hearts, and how many views each item averages per heart. Definitely faster than going through your shop item by item.

Do you know of any other cool unofficial Etsy tools? Share them here!

I’m finally starting to restock my Etsy shop, and the first item to go in is this cute zippered pouch. The combination of the blue prints and the natural osnaburg fabric make me think of a day at the beach. It feels good to be updating the shop again.

I did some sewing over the weekend and made up some new cloth napkins. They’re much prettier than paper napkins, and I feel good about not wasting paper napkins or paper towels, too. They can also be quick and easy to make. So I decided it would be fun to start a summer napkin swap at Swap-Bot for handmade cloth napkins. I hope you’ll join me and trying making some cloth napkins, too.

If you haven’t made cloth napkins before, here are some tutorials to get you started. I think you’ll quickly see that they are simple and there’s no one way to make them.

• Molly’s Handmade Napkins
• Simple & Spooky Cocktail Napkins
• Handmade Cloth Napkins
• Angharad’s Napkin Tutorial
• Liberty Picnic Napkins