Yesterday, what a day!

If there were an erase button on the calendar, I would erase yesterday, except for the birthday party we went to, that was fun. In the morning, I managed to delete all of my photos from my computer. Luckily I had some off in Cyberspace that I had to reload and the rest I loaded from Facebook. Took 3 hours to clean up that mess. I just noticed, I still have empty folders, so I guess I'm not through.

Then, last night, I managed to sign on to facebook with a different email account then I normally use, so it created a new profile and before I knew what was happening, I had sent friend requests to everybody on my email contact list. Now, I deal with China a lot in my business, so I have a ton of Chinese email contacts, not to mention my bank, my insurance agent, numerous other businesses I deal with...I can hardly wait until they get my friend request from FB. What a pain. I had to deactivate that account, explain to everyone why they got another friend request and now...well we'll just wait to see what's next.

I've enterered my products in a number of giveaways and they seem to be popular. I'm going to be switching over to making advent calendars though. I spent 6 hours designing them on the cricut design studio only to save the file and have it be too large to save. I lost everything. Still haven't had the motivation to redo everything. It was a lot of work, all down the drain.

The Bellflower craft fair was kind of a bust, there were hardly any customers there. I sold 4 bookmarks. That's it. But what I did while I was waiting was a bit...well, you decide. I was making a necklace, and remember, I'm still learning, out of stone and made the wrong choice in stringing material. Instead of using wire, I used waxed cotton. Did I stop to think that the stone would cut through it? No...of course not. I got to the last piece, putting on the clasp and the string broke. Well, I thought I would be smart and instead of restringing it, I decided to try to glue it back together. So I got me some Bead Fix, very, very strong glue, like super, super, super glue. It wasn't coming out, so I gave it a big squeeze, yeah, it happened. I had glue everywhere, all over my hand, the necklace, the paper it was on, the tablecloth, the table and everything I picked up to move out of the way got glued to my hand. Get the picture? I looked pretty funny. Every time I tried to unglue something, it got glued somewhere else. Glued 3 of my fingers together also. We had no paper towels, soap or water. What a mess. Then I had to restring the necklace all over again, only this time, I used wire. Never make the same mistake twice. Live and learn.

What was your worst crafting nightmare?

Redo's

Well, I redid a few necklaces. The Mosaic Turquoise Donut necklace I finally got the chain for, so it looks a lot better now and I added a few touches to the Ruby Zoisite pendant. Here's some pictures:

Neglect

Yes, I must admit, I have seriously been neglecting my blog. I've been so busy with giveaways, a craft fair, learning wire wrapping and life in general that something had to give and this blog was what went. But have a few extra moments this morning before the work begins so I thought I would check in.

My son is getting a job offer that he's really excited about, problem is, he has to stay in Houston. Why is that a problem, other then the obvious answer, he is VERY allergic to Houston. He gets sick all the time. But, he is very excited about the job. They are preparing an offer now and I'm sure he will accept. He's ready for a change.

Now on the other end of the spectrum, my daughter just broke up with her boyfriend from a 2 year relationship. She really cared for him, makes me feel sad. She wants to move back to Texas, I wouldn't, Texas is not a good state for women, but how do you make a 21, almost 22 year old understand that when it is subtle. Her dad told her she couldn't move in with him, nice guy, so I'm not sure what she'll be doing.

Meanwhile my business has taken off. My fans on pagebook have gone from 38 to 268 in 2 weeks. I donated to a few giveaways and wow, what a difference. I've also gained a few customers from it. This form of advertising works much better for my type of business then a facebook ad. They were never any use to me and espensive. Plus, the giveaways are kind of fun.

You should check out my facebook page, the link is on the right hand side bar, down a ways. I just uploaded all of my pendant inventory into photo albums. Looks good. Have some new necklaces and bracelets, new designs, new colors. Started doing wire wrapping and my first project didn't turn out too bad.

Hope your day turns out good and here's to a great weekend to all!

My new wire wrapped Necklace:

Rah! Rah! Rah! Sold another piece on Ebay.

Yeah, business is picking up. I sold one of my necklaces on Ebay:

Saturday will be my first time being a vendor at a craft fair. Kind of nervous. I have a lot to do still to increase my inventory and a lot to remember that I need to take, like pricing, signs, drinks...the list is getting long for a simple 6 hour craft fair. Hope it goes well...pray for me, please!

Ladybug Necklace with Jade and Agate Beads

I couldn't sleep last night, so from 1 am until 6 am I worked on some popup cards with my Cricut and I made a new Ladybug necklace. Now if you know me at all, you know I absolutely love ladybugs. I got my first ladybug stuffed animal when I was 1 1/2 years old. She has been through many surgeries, our dogs got a hold of her more than once. She's lost all of her fur and one eye. But I still have her. She is probably my most prized possession. In fact, here's her picture:

We've been through a lot together. We've moved 25 times in our life and she's made it through every single one. She was with me when I had my tonsils out. I used to use her for a pillow. She was actually given to my mother, but I grabbed onto her and wouldn't let loose. So...long story short, possession is 9/10 of the law.

In honor of Ladybug, I made this necklace:

Long live Ladybug!

Summer Kickoff Craft/Vendor Fair

Well, I just jumped in with both feet and signed up to vendor in 2 craft fairs. The first one is at the First Christian Church in Bellflower, 17003 Clark Avenue on July 16, from 12-6 pm. I have a lot of work ahead of me to get some more inventory. They told me the jewelry market is flooded but my paper crafts should do well. Let's hope so. I guess I'll switch gears over to my wall art and cards for awhile. The 2nd fair isn't until October 8, so I still have some time to get ready for that. But boy, they are popping up all over the place. I joined a group called the Boutiquers and they have all the information on all of the crafts fairs happening. I guess I better get busy!

Happy July 4th to America

You know, it's hard to believe that there are men and women out there willing to give up their lives to protect our country. A lot has changed since the Viet Nam war, thank goodness. At least our country is more supportive of the soldiers. I know many charities that do things for them. I belong to a card swap, and I really don't send cards to anyone, so there is this charity that takes handmade cards and sends them to soldiers, or people with cancer or some other life threatening illness. I send all the cards I get from the card swap to this charity. I made a circus theme card for the first swap (it was birthday for kids theme) and a tie shaped card for men's birthdays at the second swap. Now I have 20 cards to send to this charity. Looking forward to it. Here's a picture of the Kid's Birthday card I made:

It makes me feel like I contribute something to someone in need. I really do enjoy helping people that need help. Hope you had a happy 4th of July. Our church picnic was a blast, good BBQ'd hamburgers and hotdogs, cookies, chips and of course watermelon. They had balloon launchers that I had never seen before, and boy could they send those water balloons a long ways. It was fun!

Exciting News!

I sold my very first piece of jewelry on Ebay. My Swarovski Crystal Heart Saphire Blue Pendant necklace. I really needed this. My spirits were starting to dampen. Now, I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel and hope. The world is nothing without hope. Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I love reading and responding to your comments. Our blogging group is now up to 92 members. That's a lot of blogs to read, so I may not get to all of them as soon as I would like, but I'll try.

Wire Wrapping

My jewelry hasn't been selling on Ebay, so I decided to take a look at the kind of jewelry that was selling. "Nada", "Nothing", "Zero", boy was I dismayed, but that day in the mail the Deluxe Thing-a-Ma-JIG showed up. I've had fun playing with it and finally got a necklace turned out. I'm not sure if it's my style that people don't like or if I'm pricing things too high or the real problem, is probably not much is selling. I may have to try the craft fair route. But I don't think I have a high enough inventory for that. What would be the right amount. I have 18 necklaces and 5 sets of earrings and many, many bookmarks, some cards and a couple of wall art hangings. I'm not sure which way to go at this moment. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jasper Necklace with my new Thing a ma Jig.Deluxe

 I got this new thingy that helps you design and make your own connectors and designs for chains. This is how it turned out, not too bad for a first time. This is a Jasper pendant on a silver plated chain necklace with Curly Q's linked into the chain.