in the works / life lately

Just a few of the things that have been going on the past month or so...

I never did put together a craft fair prep post like I'd planned so I'm sharing those pictures here today. I had my first 2014 craft fair at the beginning of the month.

I'm well stocked on button magnets, music magnets, and other small show items again. I have an abundance of bottle caps saved so that I'd like to use for magnets as well, but otherwise I'm in pretty good shape for the next show.

Since the 2013 holiday season, I've been restocking all of my best selling blue and rainbow items. I always save price tagging new items until the week before the show.

I organize all of my show inventory in Tupperware containers with labels on the tops. By the end of the 2013 holiday season, the containers were not very organized. Before the first 2014 show, I went through every single piece of jewelry and made sure that it was in good shape and had an up to date price tag before getting it into the proper container.

I picked up a bulk stash of wooden buttons at some point near the end of 2013, and I've been having a blast creating new pieces with them.

I'm super excited about these new wooden button embellished rainbow bracelets. They'll be heading into the jewelry shop soon.

Edi gifted me some custom buttons for my birthday last year (yep, almost a year ago), and I'm so happy to be putting them to good use at last.

One of the things that falls to the wayside during the holidays is listing new items on Etsy. I try to keep re-listing the best sellers that are likely to sell online, but I don't feel like spending my little free time photographing brand new items that I may turn around and sell at a show the next weekend. As such, I just pack them up and end up listing them later. These pairs of earrings are still on the list.

One of the first photos that I ever shared on Instagram was of this piece in progress. That was back in August. Clearly this is another project that I put to the side for a ridiculously long time. I want to get it finished, photographed, and listed in the near future.

As the weather has been very winter-like most of the month, I'm still making a lot of slow cooker and cold weather foods. I recently made pulled pork for the first time. I make pulled chicken pretty often and would like to get pulled pork into the regular rotation, too.

  

Finally, I couldn't put together a life lately post without a few of my recent SLR kitty pictures. On the cold weather note, they like this spot because it's right by a heating vent.

Everyone loves Michaels.

Ares, my ever present photography helper. I still had the daylight bulbs on in the lightbox, which is why he has a slightly washed out appearance.

What have you been up to lately?