New Idea's

I have been playing with the idea for a few day's of how I could make a beaded item attached to a key chain. Thought I would give you a pic of what I came up with. They need a lot of tweaking and figuring how to correct certain problems I am encountering but I think I am in love with the basic idea and once I have the problems ironed out It would be a really easy item to make a good number of to post for holiday buying. I really think I like them and I would like your feelings and ideas how to make them better. Thanks!

No good news

Hey everyone, how was your weekend. I did not post last night hoping to write really good news today. Now I am really bummed. Last Friday I applied for a job on line that really caught my eye. Within 2 hours of sending my resume via email I got a phone call. It was the head Chef/owner of the restaurant I applied at and we talked on the phone for a good 1/2 hour or more. We made an appointment to meet in person on Sunday and I was interviewing with him and a partner for a good hour. It went great, I was really psyched and felt really good and was really wanting this job. At the end of the interview he promised he was making a decision today and would call me (Monday) one way or the other. I have sat on top of the phone all day long. I have been afraid to leave the house for anything. It is now midnight and the phone hasn't rang. I am so bummed out over this, I guess I really wanted this particular job pretty badly but once again I have been passed over because of my age and disability (neither would have interfered with this position) actually being older with the Restaurant experiance I have would have been a asset to them soooo... I have to assume my disability has scared off another potential employer.
Any way on another note, I am experimenting again, playing with making keyrings with a beaded ornament on them. I will show you a few of my ideas soon. Mean while have a great evening.

Just one last thing

Just finished one more bag and put it in my Etsy store so I thought I would stick it up here and then I think it is time to do a bit of housework and make sure I have my outfit for tomorrow set.

Happy Saturday

I hope everyone is having a great day. I am happy, it's a sunny day, I have accomplished some things but have a big to do list. I have a job interview tomorrow. I am very excited about this. Fingers and toes are crossed. Most of our local restaurants set up food booths at the Harness track all season long. Of course the racing season is only 6 weeks but still. A restaurant less than 2 blocks from me is looking for a person to come in nights after the dinner hour and do prep cooking for the meals that will be sold at the track. Simple stuff, cooking chickens, making sauces, slicing meats , about 4 hours a night. Perfect for me. No special cooking skills required, no chef exp. just plain years of cooking dinner for the family. Pretty much on my own, the kitchen is quiter because the restaurant is done serving for the day. And the hours are ideal, I work better at night, don't sleep well so I am up till 2 in the morning any way and don't have to worry about clocking in in the morning. Morning is tough for me, my pain is very much out of control and it takes a few hours of coffee and my meds before I can be the one in control of the pain. So, here is hoping that it goes well for me.
While I am out tomorrow, dressed up any way I will multitask. I will bring a tote of Avon books, town is full of people, I will bring my camera to show you around a bit more, in the mean time I just posted this new bag below in my Zibbet shop. I will you update tomorrow on how my day goes. Have a great weekend.

Another bit of my Home town

I have already told you how much I love our local park downtown. Soo much rich history in one place, so many fabulous artistic sculptures. I wish my picture taking ability was a bit better but be that as it is I wanted to show you the Sundial Garden. This little area has several carved sundials and statues that just amaze me. Love to just sit and look at them when I vist the park, which I don't do as often as I used to. If you ever get a chance to come to Saratoga Springs, New York you will have to visit the Congress Park. You will not be sorry. Hope everyone is having a great week so far.

Busy Busy

Hi everyone! I have had the most productive day today. I was a little bummed this morning, pain in my legs cancelled my original plans for the day so I turned on the computer, I updated my face book a bit. I really neglect that , don't really like it very much. I learned how to join groups on Flickr and joined a number of beading groups. Got my website out into a few search engines. My website has been updated, I think it is looking pretty good but would love a bit of feedback
www.serenitycollections.com
Last but not least, finished a new bag got pictures done and posted it in my new Zibbet shop, the picture is below. Now if I can finish another green bag I am working on for my Etsy shop and post that I will have accomplished a great deal today. Hmmm maybe tomorrow I can go walking and find some new Avon customers. If not I have an idea for some new pictures downtown I want to show you. Have a great day and I will see you later.

Breezy Greens

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I have news!

I have been very busy today. First this is my latest silly play time. Please meet Garden party. My newest lip balm holder. I will be listing this in my Etsy shop this evening. The big news though is this. I just opened my new store on Zibbet. I have been looking at it for a while and it is very much like Etsy but there is no listing fee. You just pay a percentage of your sale. I like that. Any way I have been looking at it and looking at it. This morning I decided to give it a try. What do I have to lose. Any way, I opened it and got a few items up for sale just to get me started. Now I had just said to myself, okay after what you accomplished today you can take a break this weekend. Then I realized, after what I have just done.....now I have to work harder and bead for two! Good thing I love what I do. So I have asked my webmaster to make another change on my website to add the new address but here it is if you would like to check it out:

www.zibbet.com/debsparkles

A quick update.

When I showed you my new bag, Bloomin Berries I had decided to try it on Ebay because my Etsy sales are so very slow and I need a paycheck. Next time I say that please reach out and slap me. I left Ebay because fee's were getting ridiculous and while I was selling almost every item I put up, I never made more than what I listed as my starting bid. Well, I put my bag up there for a 5 day auction, incurring over 60cents in fees, 5 day's later had 10 views as compared to the 40 and 50 I used to get and today, the end of the auction, got that little note" Sorry , your item did not sell". I learned my lesson , I remember why I left, I love my Etsy, some day someone will need aAmulet bag to hold their MP3 player and give mine a lovely home. That's it, happy Friday everyone!

Art on the Streets

One of the things I love about living in Saratoga Springs is that during the warm spring and summer months you can walk down Broadway which is our main street or through the park and see artists of many mediums set up at a card table working and you stop and watch them and admire what they do, speak with them , learn a bit about them and why they love what they do. Just something I get alot of enjoyment out of. Saratoga Springs is very art oriented and something that isn't just for the tourist season but for those of us who live here which is important because there are many drawbacks to living here including the horrible winter weather so I love being able to show you all the good things. I will probably do alot of it this summer.

Art on the Streets

I'm keeping my promise

It is finished, ready to post and I just love it. I truly love these tiny little glass teardrop beads and sometimes I have fun playing with branch fringing. So this one is set, my pictures are done and I have made up my mind to try it on Ebay and if it does not sell, I put it over into Etsy where it will probably sit until Holiday shopping time comes along. I am going to work double time over the next few day's, I keep looking at Zibbett.com. They don't charge a fee for posting your work, they charge a percentage of what you sell. Can't hurt to try it out a bit and see what happens. It is a beautiful Sunday and I am feeling motivated.

No Beading for me

I was hoping to show you my finished bag by today but that wasn't in the cards. I have been outside for 2 day's helping my son. I have a very large shed. This past winter the snow and ice were so bad it caved the roof in. I live in the city so that is not allowed so the shed had to come down. No one showed up to help so I have been carting peices of aluminum to his truck as he pulls it down panel by panel. Emptying the shed out was a major ordeal. My son took a truck load of stuff to his house, besides his motorcycle, which really upsets him, he lives in a trailer park, no security, no place for a shed, all he can do is use a bike lock and a tarp to keep it safe. My front porch is loaded with stuff that needs to make it's way to my cellar, that should be fun because my cellar is loaded , well during this of course we had a lot of clean up in the yard to do and I ended deciding to send a lot of stuff to the dump or donate depending on what it was and after all this, we had to move my fence. The shed blocked one side of my yard and the fencing extended from that to keep my backyard secure so my big dog does not go strolling downtown. Taking down the shed left a gaping hole so we had to rearrange the posts to fill in so she couldn't get lose. As much as I hate to admit it, after two day's of work like this, when it started raining around 4:00 I was overjoyed! My son went to help someone else out and I came in the house, took 3 aspirin with a glass of iced tea, scrubbed some dirt off my arms and legs and took a long nap. Maybe tomorrow night I can get a picture of Bloomin Berries up here for you. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Christmas in July

I just this morning decided to join the Christmas in July sale on Etsy. Every shop that is participating, today through July 22 will have something special going on. For me, I will take 20% off every purchase. Just shop around in my store, choose and purchase, but wait, do not follow through to pay until I have sent you an adjusted invoice. Once I have made the adjustment go ahead and follow through with payment and please, share my shop info with your friends.
Thank you, Debbie
www.serenitycollections.com

A Sneak Peak

Well, I am feeling more like Debsparkles today. I am on a mission, I have to come up with a chunk of money this weekend and it "ain't" happenin by sitting around being miserable. Today, I finished another custom order , it's ready for the trip to the post office, got 2 Avon orders and started working on another bag, it has a long way to go but I thought it would be fun to show you my "Bloomin Berries". I think though, and I hate to say this, if I post it in my Etsy shop it will sit there. I hate to have to revert to it but I think I will have to do an Ebay listing. Don't want to but I must make money this week so I am going back to working on this and stay focused on working and posting as much as I can. Yup Debsparkles is in the house!

I hate being down

I haven't been on here in a few day's, truth be known I am so miserable that I don't feel like doing anything. I know, need to look at the bright side, stay strong and you know, I try very hard to do that . Most of the time I do a pretty good job of it. But there are times when my disability gets the best of me. I think I do really well controlling the constant physical pain, you do get to a point, you know it is going to be there and it's not going away and you figure out a way to carry on and ignore it. My biggest frustration is the financial crap. Learning how to never have enough to cover the most basic needs just really sometimes puts me over the edge and I just don't know how to handle it. I have worked so hard my whole life. If anyone had ever told me the day would come that I could not go out and get a job to take care of myself I would have said they were out of their mind. And now that so many people are out of work it has gotten worse. I have put so much of myself into the things I can do like my Etsy store and my Avon store, yet it gets me no where. While I keep telling myself to stick with it and when the time is right it is going to work but day's like today when I am once again losing everything it is really hard to beleive in myself. So when the emotional stuff gets to me, I can't deal with the physical pain and between the two I just want to give up. I just don't feel like continueing to push myself, what makes me think I deserve a roof over my head or electricity and just how do I justify spending money to be online?
I am not telling you this to say feel sorry for Debbie, I told you when I started this it was just my diary open to the public, that being said, I think it may be just as important to tell you when my life sucks as when I am feeling strong and confident and good about myself because you know what? In A few day's down the road I will be feeling better. And I know this and it is the reason I can carry on even when I just want to Lock myself in my room get into bed and not come out. There, I have unloaded all this crap off my chest. Maybe that's the first step to feeling like Debsparkles again.

Now they are back

Okay after I spit and sputtered and went about trying to re follow, I clicked around and kept getting error messages and then came back to my dashboard and everyone was there again! So I might be following some of you twice:)
I think I better get off the computer and come back tomorrow.

What happened to everyone?

Well I am mad enough to spit nickels. I am bored and just not in the creative mood and decided to read updates on the blogs I follow and I have been following a steadily growing number. I signed in to my account and scrolled down , nothing there, nothing except this notice that say's I am not following any blogs! Where did they go? I did not delete them, who did? How does this happen? Grrrr! I just want to sit and read and how can I possibly remember who I was already following to refollow? I know if I was computer savy enough I could probably find them somewhere but since I am not I have to start all over again. This is the kind of stuff that really aggravates me just because I don't know how to fix it. Okay, done ranting, now I have to go find you all again.

First Friday Art Walk

I don't know how many people are doing this because I don't think it got advertised as well as it should have. A group of us are doing a First Friday sale in our Etsy shops. Just like many towns have a First Thursday or First Friday of the month Art walk and sale in the town, we are doing it the First Friday of each month on Etsy. I decided it sounded like a fun thing to do and as people learn about it maybe it will turn in to a good thing. I think for me, it will be a good way to clean out some stock or at least a possibility of cleaning out stock because I have decided I don't like having so much just laying around the studio without having it up for sale. So, I just listed my first 2 items and hope to list one more before bed tonight then list a few throughout the day. If nothing else maybe it will get me some views tomorrow. I wish everyone a wonderful, safe 4th of July weekend.

A great change for a lousy week

This past week has been horrible. I told you about our illness in the house. Who gets a flu bug in the summer? We are over it. I was vacuuming my room the other day , stuck the vacuum under my desk and heard this horrible noise and my vacuum stopped working. Took it a part and there is something large and fabric stopped up in the handle part just up past the hose where I cannot take it a part. I have about 1" of dog hair in here, my bull mastif is shedding the winter coat. I walked into my kitchen to a huge puddle of water. My refrigerator died.
Only place that keeps anything somewhat cold is the very back of the top shelf. Who the heck has money for a new refrigerator? Not me so for a while we eat only what I can keep in the freezer or pantry. Anything that has to be refrigerated has to be bought and eaten same day. Okay now it gets better. Doing some laundry, my smoke detector goes off. No fire, nothing cooking but the vent hose came off my dryer, it is directly under the smoke detector which also detects heat. Okay, I am a big girl. I take all my clothes and hang them out on the porch. It is warm and sunny. Less than 1/2 hour later, it is pouring out!
Yesterday morning we once again had no phone, no internet and I got stuff to do. Yeah this is getting to be such a fun week.
On top of all this, I had a custom order for a beige Amulet bag. I have had it for a while for a July birthday. I haven't had the money to put a good seedbead order into Fire Mountain, where I usually get the specific brand of seedbeads I like so I decide I have to bite the bullet and go to the craft store. My sister picks me up and takes me to AC Moore, no Beige seedbeads. We go over to Walmart, no Beige seedbeads, now we hit the Northway to hit up Michaels. 2 small tubes of Beige seedbeads. This does half my bag. Now I have to bite the bullet and go to our one and only bead store in Saratoga Springs. All she has is some very, very small tubes of Beige seedbeads, in delica's and horribly overpriced but I have no choice, I buy them take them home and finish my bag. Now I am thinking that my customer is not going to be happy with this, she has already purchased some of my bags and the delicas make this seem so much smaller and "flimsy" any way I posted it in Etsy and sent her a message that she should take a look to see if it was what she wanted. Then I went down stairs to make supper. By the time I finished cooking, not only did she look she bought and payed for it and sent me a convo saying she loved it. Oh HOW HAPPY she made me. It was worth all the crap I have been through this week and now I am going to enjoy my evening.
My intent on writing this rant was to give you a smile, I hope it did cause I have one now..:)