Sherwood Forest Faire 1883 Old Hwy 20 McDade, TX Weekends March 4 through April 23, including Friday, March 17 Iris Adornments & Corsetry, shoppe 120 www.sherwoodforestfaire.com
Scarborough Renaissance Festival 2511 FM 66 Waxahachie, TX 75167 Weekends April 8 through Monday, May 29 (Memorial Day) Scarlett’s Corset, shoppe 109 www.srfestival.com
Sherwood Celtic Music Gathering 1883 Old Hwy 20 McDade, TX September 8 – 10, 2023 Iris Adornments & Corsetry, shoppe 120 www.sherwoodforestfaire.com
Texas Renaissance Festival 21778 Farm to Market 1774 Todd Mission, TX 77363 Weekends October 7 through November 26, including Friday, November 24 Iris Adornments & Corsetry, shoppe 44 https://www.texrenfest.com
Steampunk November Amber Inn 492 Cordes Dr. Venus, TX November TBD www.SteampunkNovember.com
They’re here! They’re here! They’re finally here! Yes, the new Hourglass Underbust Corsets with hip ties are now available. And hey, there’s even one in PURPLE! (This is my most requested color, well, second to black.) While there are still more to come in the future, like the leather and lace overlay hourglass corsets, ten new hourglass designs have been added to the site.
I will fully admit I’m late making this update, because next week, I’ll be packing many of these up to take to our shop at Sherwood Forest Faire, which is opening this season as Iris Adornments & Corsetry. We’re still at the same location, just with an updated name now that we’ve sold through my sister’s oils and perfumery. I really want to thank everyone for supporting Stephanie’s business, Stephanie K Naturals, over the years, especially since she passed away in 2018. Those sales helped my family bridge the gap in dealing with her end of life expenses. If you would like to visit Stephanie’s memorial tree at Sherwood Forest Faire, it’s located in the grove of trees straight out from our shop, with ribbons strewn throughout its branches.
Our Sherwood location will now be dedicated to clothing and accessories, and my husband and I are spending the next weekend reworking the shoppe layout to accommodate more chemises, skirts, and capes! Which also means I need to make more strands of Pirate Hair Jewels. I started on a batch last year, and unfortunately got too overwhelmed with doing two Spring season festivals for the first time and didn’t finish creating that batch. Here’s hoping I can balance sewing clasps, sewing pixie skirts, and making Pirate Hair Jewels over the next few weeks!
Many years ago, I saw a picture of someone’s petticoat project that they had done a solid color accent ruffle on the bottom to contrast with the natural toned cotton of the body. I fell in love with the look, while also wondering, “how would this look if the contrast accent were patterned instead?” It didn’t take long for me to test out my petticoat design with printed cotton as the ruffle, and I’ve been continuing the accented design since. This is the largest batch of cotton petticoats we’ve done thus far, and I’m excited to now have them available both here on FaireTreasures.com and in my Etsy shop!
A couple of these are restocks of designs I’d handmade in the past, while many are new designs that were sewn by my Dallas sewing team. The solid muslin and solid black cotton petticoats are also back in stock, and more designs will be coming later this year!
Tiffany was kind enough to forward this TikTok video to me from our 2022 season at Sherwood Forest Faire! It’s a great little look at our shoppe there. ^_^ Many thanks to FaireFreak for the video!
With 2021 being a year of maddening stress while making decisions that would effect the future of Faire Treasures for the foreseeable future with the merge with Scarlett’s Corset, 2022 has been a year of finding a new normal, new schedules, and opening up my workshop to appointments with local customers. I had the first year of juggling selling at two events running at the same time–twice during the course of the year! This past year has included our final season at Sherwood Forest Faire as Iris Adornments & Apothecary and our first season at Texas Renaissance Festival as Iris Adornments & Corsetry. I’ve started transitioning our corset designs to have hip ties to allow for more comfortable corset wear, and have gotten incredibly positive feedback on the new designs. And my husband and I reworked the layout at the TRF shoppe while it was incredibly hot, and I’m not sure I’ve ever sweat that much in my life!
It’s not easy being a small business owner with a ridiculous list of chronic health issues. Add the lingering effects of Covid that I caught at the end of the Autumn season, and my body is cooperating less than I’d like for it to considering my grandiose plans to update the website with new hourglass corsets, outfit listings, and new chemise and skirt colors! Those updates are still in the works, they’re just taking me longer than I would like for them to. I’m not sure I’ll have all of them done before we start into the Spring festival season, but if that happens, then the plan is they’ll happen in the summer months.
Now, there’s the awful reality of the inflation of material costs and travel expenses of 2022. I take pride in keeping my prices from my jewelry to my corsets as reasonable as possible. I’ve seen the trickle effect of slow increases over the years, and made the decision to keep my prices relatively the same because I know what it’s like to live on an incredibly tight budget and have to save for any and all little luxuries. But costs went up drastically, and I now have to do price increases to keep this little business moving forward. Of course, I’ll still keep everything as reasonably priced as I can, and I’ll be adding more clearance and lower cost items. (shhh… it’s a secret, but I’ll be working to bring back the Pre-Loved item section!)
So what does 2023 have in store here at Faire Treasures / Scarlett’s Corset / Iris Adornments & Corsetry? Currently planned, we’ll be at our usual festivals including Sherwood Forest Faire, Scarborough Renaissance Festival, Texas Renaissance Festival, and Steampunk November! My workshop in Arlington, Texas is open for appointments for shopping and corset fittings until I pack up for the Spring festival season. And I’ll be looking into some local weekend events outside of faire seasons to set up a small selection of my wares. I have a few ideas to work on this summer to improve existing designs, as well as dabbling in some prototypes to see if they’ll be something to add to my offerings.
I hope you all had a wonderful end of 2022 holiday season, and that your 2023 is off to an optimistic start!
It’s a write-a-blog-post kinda day for me today. From photo editing, to filling out forms, to deciding on the next colors of fabric to order for the fall, I’m doing everything I can to work from home and not have to leave my house. You see, here in DFW, Texas, the average high temp is about 105F. Last week, while taking orders from my workshop to the post office, I ended up with a touch of heat exhaustion that wore me out for the next day and a half. Yes, that was with my car’s AC going as cool as its poor little heart could churn out. Even after the sun sets, it’s in the 90s well into the night.
My typical June/July routine is to set up my dressform in my backyard, bring new product from the workshop to my home to photograph in front of the hedges, and spent at least a few weeks photographing as much as I can to list online before the Halloween rush hits. Unfortunately, it’s extremely dangerous to do that this year. In previous years, I’d attempted to make indoor photo studio sets that inconveniently blockaded the front door to our house, and then I hated how the pictures turned out anyway. And now, with our household having become a cat colony, I don’t feel comfortable bringing product into a cat-hair-heavy location. So indoor shoots at my home are out.
Which now leaves me with shooting at my workshop if I’m to stay indoors. There are very few good spots in my workshop to take pictures. When I say few, I mean one. I only take corset pictures in that spot. The lighting elsewhere in the place is bad, there’s not enough space to bring in my studio lights, and I’m still working toward having the front area of the workshop as a by-appointment-only shopping space. So I’d prefer not bringing anything extra into there, when I’m desperately trying to remove things that don’t need to be there any longer so I can organize better.
As such, my plans for having beautiful outdoor pictures of coordinated outfits to list here and on Etsy, or to post onto social media, have mostly come to a standstill. Additionally, I’m only making once or twice a week trips to the post office to ship orders out. (And taking an electrolyte drink mostly filled with ice along with me each time!) So while I would normally do up to four post office trips per week to ship your items out as quickly as I can, I now have to contend with my health in the heat. Orders are still being shipped in their 1-3 business day window, but I’m taking fewer trips overall.
So, for now, I’m making plans. Doing the things I can do from home. Redoing my former sewing room into a dedicated home office for me to have separation from my husband’s office space. Hoping the power grid doesn’t go down. So I leave you with a picture of one of our kittens, Little Miss Callie, napping in my computer chair.
Sherwood Forest Faire 1883 Old Hwy 20 McDade, TX Weekends March 5 through April 24, including Friday, March 18 Iris Adornments & Apothecary, shoppe 120 www.sherwoodforestfaire.com
Scarborough Renaissance Festival 2511 FM 66 Waxahachie, TX 75167 Weekends April 9 through Monday, May 30 (Memorial Day) Scarlett’s Corset, shoppe 109 www.srfestival.com
Sherwood Celtic Music Gathering 1883 Old Hwy 20 McDade, TX September 10 & 11 Iris Adornments & Apothecary, shoppe 120 www.sherwoodforestfaire.com
Texas Renaissance Festival 21778 Farm to Market 1774 Todd Mission, TX 77363 Weekends October 8 through November 27, including Friday, November 25 Iris Adornments & Corsetry, shoppe 44 https://www.texrenfest.com
Steampunk November Amber Inn 492 Cordes Dr. Venus, TX November 11, 12, & 13 www.SteampunkNovember.com
I am so incredibly excited to announce that Scarlett’s Corset is now part of Faire Treasures!! For those of you who came by Scarlett’s Corset at Scarborough Renaissance Festival this past season, thank you so much for your support and making us feel so welcomed as the new owners of the shoppe.
Scarlett’s Corset has been bringing high quality silk steel-boned corsetry to the Renaissance costuming and geekery communities for the past seventeen years. Of course, we will continue bringing these beautiful corsets to you! Over the course of the year, I’ll be working closely with the original owner to learn how SC has run, and I will be working toward merging the businesses together.
In the fall, we will be at Texas Renaissance Festival shoppe #44, Scarlett’s Corset. For the 2021 season, expect to only see Scarlett’s Corset items at TRF rather than our Rogue Capes, linen skirts, and hourglass corsets. Keep an eye here on our blog for updates, as well as on our posts to Facebook and Instagram!
Scarborough Renaissance Festival 2511 FM 66 Waxahachie, TX 75167 Weekends April 10 through Monday, May 31 (Memorial Day) Scarlett’s Corset, shoppe 109 www.srfestival.com
Ama-Con Amarillo Civic Center 401 S Buchanan St AMARILLO, TX July 31–August 1 www.libraryamacon.org
Sherwood Celtic Music Gathering 1883 Old Hwy 20 McDade, TX September 11 Iris Adornments & Apothecary, shoppe 120 www.sherwoodforestfaire.com
Texas Renaissance Festival 21778 Farm to Market 1774 Todd Mission, TX 77363 Weekends October 9 through November 28, including Friday, November 26 Scarlett’s Corset, shoppe 44 https://www.texrenfest.com
Steampunk November Amber Inn 492 Cordes Dr. Venus, TX November TBD www.SteampunkNovember.com
It’s been some time since I’ve made an update, so as I try to get back to some kind of normal again, I thought I’d make a “normie” post. (Still in some of my handmade jewelry though!)
This year has already been hard. I lost a family member to Covid at the end of January, and then, just after the funeral, had to deal with the Texas snowpocalypse that knocked out our power for several days. Thankfully we had little to no damage, but we were lucky. I’m extremely thankful for those who were graciously patient while I could not fulfill orders in my normal fashion since I couldn’t print out shipping labels or go to the post office!
I’m now back in my sewing room, cutting out fabric, prepping new projects, and processing orders like normal. My Etsy shop is still ready to ship items only, while I’m accepting all of my current styles as made to order pieces through my website.
Now, with the pandemic ongoing and other obligations coming up soon, I will not be open at Sherwood Forest Faire this coming season. Iris Adornments & Apothecary will be back at Sherwood for the Sherwood Celtic Festival in September!
I’ll be posting more updates soon, so be sure to keep an eye out for those!