Yart Sale

Well , I decided, I have never done the Etsy Yart sale before because I know I kind of underprice myself to begin with but I have been wanting to do some spring cleaning and have tried a few sales on my own. So I decided today it was time to get brave and join, well I dived in nose first and put my entire shop on sale. Would love it if you felt like taking a peek.
www.debsparkles.etsy.com

Busy ness

I have had a really busy few day's and haven't got a bit of bead work done to show for it. Monday, had to go to Albany with My Mom and Sister, my Aunt recently had a heartattack and after surgery and coming home decided she needed to clean out her craft supplies because she couldn't handle walking to her second floor and just trying to down size things. I worried that when she got feeling better she would want to start crafting again but say's most of the supplies hadn't been touched in years. I came home with a car ful of stuff. My sister and I need to sit down and split it up, we have material, lace, ribbon, beads, fun foam, stencil patterns, plastic canvas, felt, yeah, lots of stuff. Last weekend my daughter took my granddaughter and a friend to the Americade motorcycle rally in Lake George. They took my camera so I am thinking I am going to have some great pictures to post. This event is so awesome, if you like motorcycles, it draws the simplest to the most extreme, some of the art work alone on these bikes is simply amazing and to see so many thousands of every description under the sun in one place is awesome. Any way, this morning I uploaded the pictures from the camera thinking I would pick out just one really cool picture here and the entire camera, I mean the entire camera was full of pictures of my granddaughter and her friend posing. One, ONE picture of a motorcycle, plain, no airbrushed painting, no cool tattoo decals, just a plain everday blue motorcycle????? I guess 13 year olds have their own set of what's cool! Any way, sorry, no planned eye candy today unless you want to see my granddaughter posing for the camera. I am working on an idea, to use up some of this fabric without neglecting my beads, I'll tell you about it later.

Serious thought required

I went to bed angry last night. I woke up still angry this morning. I know I have to really give some thought to what I am doing and I don't want to. LOL.
I opened my Etsy shop in 2007. Almost 2 years later I only have 42 sales. That does not bother me too awfully badly because I am the first to realized and admit my type of work does not appeal to everyone. There is a particular niche of people that wear the type of beadweaving I do. I have been doing alot of reading on turning your craft into a business that you can support yourself on and the one message that keeps coming through all of it is there is a very small chance of supporting yourself with your jewelry making because so, so many people are doing it. I have been looking for summer time craft shows in my local area, I did craft shows for 20 years with reasonable success. 80% of the local shows say they are full or accepting accplications in every area EXCept jewelry, they have enough vendors doing jewelry. I had someone approach me and ask me if I would be interested in doing a series of shows this summer for a organization that was holding them. I got excited only to find they wanted me to showcase my Avon fundraising. Which is wonderful, I could use alot more Avon customers but....they already had enough Jewelry Venders. Got a call last night that I was waiting for for a show I have done for many, many years, found out there is still time to apply for the show "as long as I am not selling jewelry, they already have too many booked selling jewelry.

I am so frustrated, angry, I am writing this in the morning and mornings are tough for me. The first few hours I am up the pain is unreal. It takes a long while of sitting quietly waiting for meds to kick in, Coffee to kick in, before the pain eases up to the point I can be productive and now I am just sooo lost. If I beleive everything that I have stated above, I have to rethink what I am doing. How do I turn this around , what can I do with my beads that is going to be more of a benefit. I have pushed this so hard just to ... not even make a living, just be able to pay the monthly bills on basic house hold expenses.

I guess there is no real point to this other than to vent. I am so angry, all I want to do is be able to take care of myself. I don't ask for much out of life. just the basics we all deserve. a roof over my head, electricity for light and heat. My cable, I guess I could live without cable but I don't want to, the TV, and internet get me through the day because we all need something to keep our minds active, the phone, well these day's how do we live without one?

Any way, I have vented. If you have any ideas' of something different I can do with my beadwork that would better my ability to create an income, please, please, let me know, I would love any ideas, input, advise.

Gettin Busy

Well I made a decision this last few day's that I needed to find a different outlet for promoting both my Etsy shop and My Avon Shop. So , I have applied to several summertime craft shows. By doing so, I have just created a huge amount of work for me. First of all I have to bead double time. I do not want to remove items from my Etsy shop. It seem's to take so long to add to my shop that I just prefer to leave them there. So I need to make a bunch of things to take to the shows. Here we go with the simple bracelets and bookmarks. I need to order alot of material and assemble for Avon. Some of these crafts shows I will be doing double duty. Selling my jewelry and Doing a Avon Fundraiser for the organization of the show. What I really need to do is come up with a really eyecatching business card and they must be plentiful. I have an idea though. Use colorful cardstock, just have My name, phone number, email and 2 website printed long way and cut the card into bookmarks. Punch a hole in the type and thread with a little ribbon. If the time is available use clear adhesive covering to kind of "Laminate them" . Any way's a lot to think about and do in a rather short time. I just hope I can do all this without neglecting my Etsy shop terribly. Worth a shot, need to be more proactive in getting my name out there.

Do you have your own website? Know any one who does? I would absolutely love to trade links at:
http://www.serenitycollections.com/links/links.php

Hope you are having a lovely Saturday.

Today's work

I finished another lip balm holder today and actually got my pictures and posted it in my Etsy store. I surprised myself because I haven't been feeling good and napped all afternoon. I have spent the last 2 days, up until last night with no internet, phone or cable. A wire to the modem broke outside my house. I was going crazy not being able to follow my schedule, checking emails, my Etsy, twitter etc and etc. That is so sad that I have become so dependant on something like this but boy do I realize how much having it has helped me stay involved and busy and socializing. It has been quiet here and I do enjoy that, we only have 3 weeks before school is out for summer and my daughter is going to be very busy so I may be doing a lot of babysitting. Hopefully not, would like to have some time this summer for me. Sounds terrible but even if I felt better, I am getting a bit old for chasing a 6 year old around all summer long:)
My item is in the giveaway today on the indiestyle blog, hoping it gets a good response. Now, I would like to go take another nap but instead, I will start a new bit of beadwork.

Accomplishments

We have had a busy weekend here, kids were away but we started working on some household repairs and they sort of took over the week end. I still found some time to sneak away and work on my new bag. I am going to call it...
Hold my lip Balm..... I am so creative with my titles! Any way my new bag is just the right size to hold a lip balm securely and it was just a thought to change things up a bit. What surprised me was how much more work it took than my mini bags not thinking about the fact that it had to be almost 3 1/2" tall in order to hold a lipbalm or chapstick without it sliding out. So now I have a bit more knowledge as far as time involved in making the different size bags I do.

I wanted to get a few new items up early this week before the giveaway starts and don't forget, it starts tomorrow, a different giveaway every day for the month of June. The blog is pretty nice to. So be sure to check it out.
http://indiestyleblog.com

More Finished work