As the New Year is beginning, Elisabeth and I have been reflecting on our first year as Texas Craft House. It’s almost hard to believe that 5 years ago we started our journey as a humble little blog at, Connoisseur of Creativity.  Then last year (New Year’s Eve to be exact!), we decided to give ourselves a little makeover and move our “operation” to a website, updated with easier to access pages and a whole new look and name – and WOW what a year it has been!

In just 365 days…

We secured our own domain name and celebrated with Pommosas (and submitted it into Urban Dictionary!)

 

 

Became an official LLC business…

…and even sold our first item (the Americana Wreath) to a manager at our local bank when setting up an official account. I don’t think we’ll ever forget that day.

 

We acquired 480+ followers just at http://www.texascrafthouse.com and had more than 80,000+ views.

Spent hours writing a total of 164 blog posts… take a look at our Top 25 Crafts from 2015 here. 

We have fun making things and sharing our ideas with everyone. Here’s a look back on each our most favorite from the 2015.

Elisabeth’s favorite is the Wall Decor Curtain Rod with Hanging Frames

Cassie’s favorite is the Ruffled Lamp Shade DIY

Eric Hawkins, a close friend, helped design and create Texas Craft House’s logo. We love it! You’ll still find some of our first posts and pictures without the logo, we’re working on updating them all.

We also started up on all forms of social media and gained hundreds of followers.

Etsy – Visit our shop/TexasCraftHouse 

Facebook/TexasCraftHouse – 531 followers

Twitter/TexasCraftHouse – 202 followers

Instagram/TexasCraftHouse – 123 followers

Pinterest – follow our pins and interests

• Cassie pinterest boards
• Elisabeth pinterest boards

 

We participated in our first craft fair at the Steve Mayberry Memorial Cook-Off in McKinny, Texas. We donated part of our proceeds to help support colon cancer research in honor of Steve Mayberry. Learn more at their Facebook page here.

We hosted our first private craft party – a wreath making class! We have been wanting to do our own craft classes since the very beginning so this was a big milestone for us. Our client, Jill, chose the wreath and we gathered all of the materials and taught 12 of her closest friends and families how to recreate it.

Jill chose a wreath similar to this with the red, chevron and burlap ribbon and the bow on the side. We surprised her and her guests with wooden snowflakes and twine as additional embellishments. Do you love it as much as we do? We don’t like to keep secrets… Learn how to make it on our post: Red, Chevron and Burlap Christmas Wreath.

 

 

We designed and created a bottlecap pallet sign for a local taproom, Lonestar Taps and Caps – here is the link to their website and shop located in The Colony, Texas.

We had so much fun with this project – read about how we made it here.

Elisabeth and I took a glass blowing class earlier this year at Sinaca Studios in Fort Worth, Texas. We had a blast creating these sphere shaped paperweights.

After letting the glass cool and set for a couple of days we returned to pick them up. The gentleman who helped us instantly recognized us and the blog post we wrote about them. “Hey! You’re from the blog!” It may not be the “big time” yet, but every little recognition counts!

We introduced Texas Craft House to Rachel, a friend of ours. She quickly became a valuable asset with lots of great suggestions and crafty ideas. She has helped contribute several blog posts ranging from home decor and giftables, to baking and cooking. Simply search: Rachel on our search side bar to see all of her creations! Thank you for all you do Rachel, we love you!

We went on two vacations with our husbands this year, the Dominican Republic and Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Elisabeth and I talked about TCH most of the time. Read all about our stories by clicking the links below.

 A Visit to the Dominican

Road Trip to Broken Bow

 

This year has been such an adventure, with lots of fun and learning along the way. This next year we are focusing on becoming better. We still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, we’re just going to take it one step(or craft!) at a time.

A big thank you for everyone visiting our blog, reading our posts, trying our tutorials and sharing Texas Craft House with your friends and liking us on all social medias.

Have a very Happy New Year!