Etsy Finds Friday

From left - right:

BenAndOliver - Sale 40 Percent Off Modern Circles Necklace

retrofied - Large Reversible Hobo Deer Valley Columbine and Lodge Lattice

shoogi - Love birds on a branch and lucky leaf

diffractionfiber - Paper Dolls Pillow in Fuschia

rapidmoodswings - Day of the Dead Mask Vistiendo Santos

bionicunicorn - Autumn Bouquet Steampunk Necklace -  Vintage Pocket Watch Enamel Flower Silver Gear Dreampunk

NanLawson - Mine is the Heart that You Call Home 8x10 Print

tsaifi - Luau Lulu iPhone 3G Cover

blockpartypress - Out on a Limb - My Heart

gamiworks - SALE valley of vines large round handcut glass and Japanese chiyogami pendant necklace

I've noticed that my "finds" never have rhyme or reason - I just grab whatever I'm liking at that moment. Maybe I should try to have my Etsy Finds have a theme - but that seems like too much work. :)

I was just about to write that today has been a gorgeous day - especially for a week predominantly filled with heavy rains - but I just heard the old familiar rumble of thunder and the sky has quickly darkened, so nevermind! I guess rain is a comin'. I've spent a lot of this week working on the cuffs and organizing the dungeon. I'm headed back there now, to start breaking up a massive amount of boxes that I thought I'd eventually use. I haven't, so out they go. I'd rather have a clean, tidy space I can craft in than keep storing items I may never use.

In the coming week I'm going to try to revamp my shop a bit. I have a collection of items I haven't yet listed because I'm not thrilled with the pictures I've taken of them. I'll have to tackle that first, maybe retake a few for items currently in the shop, consider my pricing again, and focus on made-to-order items. It'd been my belief that most folks would rather purchase items ready-made and avoid the usual delays associated with custom orders, but I've been thinking about it a lot this week and have concluded made-to-order definitely has it benefits. Certainly for sizing purposes and color preferences. I get to make what I like and the customer is practically guaranteed an item that fits perfectly and is in a palette they prefer. Most of my items only take a couple days at most to make and, unless I'm inundated with a barrage of orders (ha!), I foresee my turnaround time as being about a week. I think that's still reasonable. And this will free me up to work on my items in the order needed, instead of crafting madly just to build up stock - which is what I've been doing. Because I'd eventually like to tackle participating in craft fairs, I'll still continue to make my items, with or without orders, but I won't feel so stressed about deadlines anymore. That's definitely a plus. And I'll be able to instantly focus on new ideas I think of without feeling like I'm letting others fall by the wayside. We'll see how it goes, but I hope it'll allow me to post more frequently to my shop and start including a wider variety of items.

Ha!

I'm not really a fan of the rap nor do I keep up with rappers, but English50cent is cracking my bits up. Grammar jokes and mocking slang? - sign me up!

Knitted Cuffs

This weekend was a busy one for me! I got a gift package last week from my crafty soul mate and in it she included this awesome trinket. It inspired me to try to make my own version of a cuff, though, I admit, one with a totally different feel - both tactilely (?) and stylistically. So I started knitting up some cuffs with button accents and I am loving them! So quick and easy to make and it's a great way to use up every last bit of yarn (since it doesn't require much). And such an easy way to add a pop of color to casual outfits. I just finished blocking the completed ones this morning and am working on choosing and sewing up the buttons for them. Wanna see? Of course you do!

In my head, I imagined they'd all have funky contrasting buttons, but I find myself placing complimentary ones on some. I guess it just depends on the color and what my eye finds pleasing.

This weekend was also occupied with taking care of Moondoggie. Full disclosure, I wasn't really the one who ended up with the job. After giving him his usual bath on Saturday afternoon, he became really antsy, whiny and trying to climb the fireplace to look out our front window - behavior very unlike him. He seemed like he kept wanting to go outside so I opened the front door, the back door, but he wouldn't go. Just stayed inside moving restlessly about. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. I went to sleep about 2am and The Doomed stayed up watching tv. I awoke at 5:30am to find that The Doomed still hadn't come to bed and when I opened the door to investigate, I was slammed in the face by an awful, overpowering smell. I found Moondoggie quietly in a corner and The Doomed on hands and knees, scrubbing the rug in his office. Turns out our pooch got horribly sick half an hour after I went to bed, puking and shooting liquid poop for the next 3 hours in our living room, dining room, and finally the office. The Doomed had stayed up all night taking care of him and cleaning up his messes. He hadn't wanted to disturb me and figured with his war experience, he'd smelled everything bad in existence, so his gag reflex wouldn't be as delicate as mine. Poor Moondoggie walked around ashamedly, tail tucked between his legs and looking generally awful. I took over Moondoggie duty and The Doomed finally went to bed around 7am. By then Moondoggie was a little better but he didn't regain his appetite until Sunday evening, after just a bit more puking and pooping. Luckily, he had more control of it by that time and I was able to get him outside to do it. Poor thing! We can't figure out what made him sick, since we didn't feed him anything different or new (though he has been known to take a good, unintentional chomp out of snakes and lizards he finds outside) but I'm just glad he's back to being his happy, hungry self.

Well, that wasn't shop talk! - but, hey, it's what makes up my days.

I Don't Have Time To Blog...

...I'm busy crafting! Update next week!

What I've Been Doing Since Saturday

1) Learned to use my new knitting loom.
2) Made three scarves with said knitting loom.
3) Almost finished knitting red slouchy beanie.
4) Did a small photo shoot this weekend (wasn't crazy about the way it turned out, but maybe there's something there to work with).
5) Started a new book now that I finished Black Dahlia Avenger.
6) Got a new idea for an item.
7) Embroidered another pair of mittens.
8) Rearranged craft space and began (finally!) tidying up the dungeon. (Gotta get ready to work down there once the weather cool's off!)

I've been busy! And you?

Currently shuffling through my soundsystem:  El Matador - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Not A Lot To Do - The Zutons, Consequences of Falling - k.d. Lang, Superheroes - Esthero, The Rain, The Park and Other Things - Cowsills