2014 First Quarter Goal Check In

Can you believe that it's time to check in on 2014 goals already?

Building Passive Income

I've been dragging my feet about writing this post because I wish that I had a better report for passive income. I have to remind myself that it's an ongoing process, and I may not see significant gains for at least a few more months.

• HubPages. I did really well publishing new HubPages content on a regular basis through January, and then I let it slip as I got crunched to meet client deadlines before the Vegas trip. Now that we're more than a week into March, I'm getting back into a regular HubPages writing routine. It's been tough getting the earnings to increase, but with time and continued new content, they will.
• Jewelry patterns. I did set up a Craftsy account and uploaded my first PDF pattern. It's something, right? I would like to get more patterns uploaded there, write a couple more patterns, and promote all of my patterns more than I currently do before the end of the year.
• Other endeavors? I've decided that I would rather put my time into writing an ebook than pursuing any other passive income options at this point. As I previously mentioned, I have narrowed down my first idea. I even wrote a rough outline. Now I need to find the time to keep pushing forward with it.

Maintaining Personal / Home Goals and Client Writing

• Personal / home. Going to Vegas and finally having some warmer days (read: above freezing) has allowed me to get outside and talk walks again, which has been great. I am still using the exercise bike, but it's nice to be able to mix up the exercise routine a bit. Cleaning has been hit or miss. I find it tough to stay motivated with it when the weather is terrible. I know that it'll get easier again in the spring.
• Client writing. My client load has remained steady for the first few months of 2014, which has allowed me to meet my client writing goal most days. When the load is slow, I more than meet my writing total on HubPages or elsewhere (i.e. Bubblews).

Maintaining My Etsy Jewelry Shop

Sales keep coming online, and I'm slowly building my 2014 craft fair schedule. I had my first show last week, have one holiday acceptance, and have one spring app pending. I was happy with my show list last year and am trying for all of them again this year. I'm conflicted about whether or not I want to try for some summer shows. For a number of reasons, I haven't much in the past, but there are a few great ones that seem worth a shot. We'll see how that goes over the next couple months. I would like to plan better for Christmas in July and holiday sales online this year than I did last year. It seems ridiculous to be thinking about that already, but it's not.

Challenging Myself Artistically

Again, with the lousy weather, it's been tough to stay motivated to stretch myself and try out new artistic ventures during my down time. I have been getting outside as much as I possibly can to take pictures. I never thought that 35 degrees and sunny could feel so good, but it really does this year. I've got a couple ideas for new crafts that I could eventually turn into ebooks if I get enough ideas together, projects completed, and high quality photos taken. I'd potentially have new items to sell at shows as well.

How are your 2014 goals going so far?

final cat away from home picture, the dunes, progress

Boba climbed into the TV cabinet last night.  Of course I took a picture of him.

I met up with a good college friend today.  We visited our undergrad campus in the morning and went to the dunes for the afternoon.   I took tons of pictures of the campus when I was there last summer so I didn't take any more today.  I did take pictures at the dunes, though.

Also, as promised, when I got back tonight, I took a picture of the earrings that I've been working on this week.

Last couple hours of the Christmas in July sale are going on right now!  You can view all of my sale items here.  If I stay motivated tonight, I'll change everything over for my August sale before I head to bed tonight.

up and running again

I got up a couple more old listings up and running today.  The first is the companion piece to the embellished champagne peyote cuff that I posted yesterday.  Here is the champagne peyote triangle pendant.

I will do a little adjusting with my glass/propped up poses in my new outdoor photo set up later this week.  I'm really happy with how the music background poses are turning out.  This was the first time that I'd shot earrings and pendants with the white back drop outside.  I think that it will work, but it will need some tweaking.  The above shots are still MUCH better than the old ones.

The second recently revived listing is my Christmas button charm bracelet.  I sold the original at the Arts Festival, and I made a new one this week.  I am really happy with it.  It's more full and vibrant than the original.

It is part of the Christmas in July sale and will be 25% off for the rest of the month.

One of my EBW members kindly agreed to proofread my pattern today.  Thanks Jacquie!  I'm still planning to have it up and running later this week.  I most likely won't have all of my old pictures re-shot for another week, but I've updated the other information for almost all of my other listings now.  I'll put in the final pictures as I get them done.  Hopefully all of the changes/updates/upgrades will help me continue to increase my sales!

more progress with my first pattern and new pictures

Thank you so much to Tara (ScarboroughSeashells) and Sharla (BeadedTail) for being the first two people to read my Skinny Wrapped Peyote Cuff pattern!  Their input was a huge help with my first set of revisions.  I'm still looking for a few more people to proofread it before I list it on Etsy.  I will put the word out to the EBW message boards tonight as well.  If you're interested, just leave me a comment or send me a convo on Etsy with your e-mail address.  Thanks again ladies!

Among other picture editing tonight, I uploaded new pictures for my embellished champagne peyote cuff and renewed the listing so it would be available again.  This is one of a handful of listings that I let go after the Arts Festival when I decided to update all of the listings that needed updated information and/or new pictures.  But it's back!  I created this design for my cousin's wedding last spring and would love to create another piece like it for someone else.

I still need to take pictures of the coordinating pendant and renew that listing as well.  It should be up and running in the near future.

I finished another pair of earrings and a new Christmas button charm bracelet today.  As soon as I'm able to take pictures of the button bracelet, I'll have that listing up so it will be available for the Christmas in July sale.

continued upgrades/improvements, looking for some advice/feedback, this week's progress

I made a new banner and avatar for my Etsy shop tonight.  Please check it out and let me know what you think! The old ones were all right, but as I started redoing my blog design and considering other changes that I should make to my Etsy shop, I decided that they needed an upgrade, too.  My work does continue to change, and I think that my shop and blog should reflect my more recent work.

As I've been going through all of my listings that I did not complete before the Arts Festival, I've been uploading new pictures to my Flickr photostream.  You can check out a handful of items that aren't up on Etsy yet as well as work in progress and craft fair pictures that you may have missed on here.  I will continue to edit and upload all of my button stud pictures on Flickr.  I'm debating listing some of my button studs as grouped listings: i.e. three button stud earrings for one price.  It doesn't seem worth it to list them all individually, but I think that they could sell on Etsy.  If anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know!

In another effort to boost my Etsy sales, I think that it is way past time to get a postal scale and start offering delivery confirmation through PayPal.  Many many Etsy sellers offer it, and it's one thing that I could do to make my shop more competitive.  I would be able to use it for some of my used book sales on Amazon as well.  I don't need a scale that's equipped to weigh textbooks, but I could use it for the smaller hardbacks and all of the paperbacks.  For all of you out there who do use postal scales, let me know if you have any preferred brands or if you were able to find good deals at any specific stores.  The general advice on the Etsy forums seems to be that most smaller models are more than adequate, but it's always worth getting a second opinion before purchasing.

I've been working on the earrings for my Arts Festival raffle winners this week, which are green designs that I've made before.  I'm making additional pairs that will be for sale in my Etsy shop at some point in the near future since green does continue to be a very popular choice for earrings.  After I get those done, I really need to work on my Art Beads summer piece.

wrapping up the weekend

Overall it was another productive weekend. I photographed all of my finished bead woven projects and a handful of button stud earrings. It was pretty cloudy most of the weekend, but I was able to get some decent photographs in the natural daylight. I finished a couple dozen button magnets. If I complete all the magnets currently in process, I'll have just over 50 for the Arts Festival. I will probably work to get at least a dozen more, but if not, I'm still pretty happy with I have. I made progress tagging my items. I'll finish that up sometime next week when I finalize my inventory.

I also got my cash apron in the mail yesterday. I ended up getting the RTG - A HENRY PICNIC vendor - craft apron from PoppysGardenGate. Poppy and Cinders have a couple really cute Hello Kitty aprons in their shop. It took all of my self restraint not to get one. Hello Kitty has been one of my favorite things ever since I was little. I'm 27, and a lot of people think that I look younger than that. I don't want to do anything to encourage that notion so I resisted. I'm still pretty happy with the Henry Picnic print. I was a little worried that the apron would be long (I'm 5'2 and skinny), but it's just right. I will be 100% honest here: It's not the finest craftsmanship that I've ever seen, but for something that I'll wear/use pretty infrequently, that's okay.

I almost finished a pair of peyote triangle earrings to match my new fall embellished cuff. I have a few more small projects that I've lined up for this week as well. I spent the majority of the rest of the weekend cleaning and doing laundry. I have spared you from the full washing machine drama here, but we do have a new washer (this is new #2) that is working so we are caught up again. I cannot tell you how good it feels to say that!

I hope that everyone has a good week. :)

more details for my craft fair booth

I got my official information e-mail from the Iowa Arts Festival today! I still had a few questions so I e-mailed back (still waiting for a response). Actually I have more questions than that, but there are a couple specific issues that I need to know before I get that weekend. Everything else can wait. Now that I know all of the set up times and what not, I can try to recruit at least one or two people to help me. Normally I would be able to recruit my husband or my mom, but unfortunately they're both working that weekend so I need to ask other family and friends. If any Eastern Iowa family/friends are reading this, be forewarned that I will be contacting you soon haha.

I worked on a few more booth projects tonight. The Arts Festival booths are outdoors so I put together paper weights/pen holders. While Jake and I were living in Chicago a few years ago, I stored some of my stuff at my in-laws' house because my parents had just downsized and we had no extra space in our apartment. When we were there a couple weekends ago, I took the last of my stuff, which included a box of art supplies. I'd totally forgotten that I had a TON of these mosaic rocks leftover from a project that my mom and I worked on 5-6 years ago (what you see below is about a third of the collection). I bought some glass cups from Wal-Mart's floral decorating aisle ($1.00 each) for them.


I finished the major work on my large sign. A quick tutorial on this: I printed the letters from Word and cut them out. I glued them with rubber cement to red and blue scrapbooking paper (left over from when I used to make most of my own cards) and covered the front side with contact paper. (I buy large rolls of contact paper from Office Depot for work.) I cut the letters out again, leaving red/blue borders and glued them, again with rubber cement, to a piece of poster board. I'm going to put some jewelry pictures around the edges with Velcro dots (again, purchased in bulk for work) so I can update them in the future as needed.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to hang it. It depends on how long my table fabric cover ends up being and how the festival booths are constructed. I'm thinking either large safety pins or Velcro. If anyone has any advice, please let me know!

Those were the two major projects for tonight. I also finished the last couple table signs and photographed them. The process for these was pretty similar to the large sign. I printed the signs (again from Word), cut them out, and glued them with rubber cement to the red scrapbook paper (these are all edged in red). I cut them out with borders and glued them to a large piece of posterboard, allowing room under each one for tab. I measured out the full length and drew outlines before I cut. I covered the front of each sign with contact paper. Each one has tabs on the bottom so I can tape or pin them down as needed (which I'm pretty much counting on for this event anyway).

The other biggest project I have for this week is to finalize my PR materials for family, friends, and co-workers and start getting the word out.

continued weekend progress

I hope that all of the mothers reading this have had a Happy Mother's Day. :)

Today was another productive day with crafty endeavors. I finished the majority of the signs for my booth. Currently I have them under a large book to flatten them out a bit. I will take (and post) pictures of them later this week. I've decided that I will have enough magnets to sell them at the Arts Festival so I need to finish all of the ones that I have assembled but not yet glued. I made a decent amount of progress with that today. I photographed three bead woven items and two button stud earrings. I organized my finished but not yet photographed button stud earrings. The weather was gorgeous today, and I was able to photograph outside. Finally, I finished a cuff that I've been working on intermittently for the past couple months. It's similar to my Easter morning peyote cuff but with a fall color scheme.

I picked out the beads for a pink/black skinny peyote cuff. I think working on Sharla's cuff a couple weeks ago inspired me to make another skinny cuff right away because I finally finished pink/black one yesterday. While I had the pink base beads out, another idea came to mind. Normally if I name my pieces, I don't do it until they're completed. Also, I normally don't pick out the button that I'll use for the clasp until I've finished the rest of the piece. However, a name popped into my head right away, and while I was searching for a pink/black button clasp, I found a perfect button for this cuff, too.

Here's my mix with the button. It's going to be a wrapped cuff like this one but with more embellishment. I'm going to call it Birthday Cake.


I hope that this week gets off to a great start for everyone tomorrow!

more green for spring

I did not do any more gluing work or take any pictures today because it was colder again (by which I mean 50's), cloudy, and off and on rainy all day. Next weekend is looking the same, but hopefully there will be at least one or two days this week that will allow for either activity. I had to redo the original the leafy series - modern bracelet for the person who bought it, and while I had the beads out this weekend, I went ahead and worked up another one. I haven't worked on any leafy designs since I did the original modern one back in the winter, but this got me excited about the design again. I need to redo my own purple/pink one (which is my fault for twisting the beads). I'd like to make another version of that to sell as well as new versions in turquoise, pink/green, and autumn.

I also finished another pair of earrings, made progress on a cuff that I've been working up sloooowly for a couple months now haha, and got everything ready to start Sharla's bracelet!

I put together another collection of green, not specifically leafy items for spring. Enjoy!

Cards Park Trail watercolor landscape Mill by lauriesdesigns

Black Peyote on Pear Silk String Bracelet or Choker by SandFibers

Set of SIX TUMBLERS made from Recycled Wine Bottles by bottlehood

Landen Road Kiln Fired Clay 2 inch Button Set by LandenRoadDesigns

Continuing with the buttons...
Blades of grass on a spring morning Handmade Pottery by Mudcakes

Tree Silhouette Wrap LEATHER Cuff Brown Chartreuse by hollyhawk

And other cuff...
Triple strand fabric cuff in fresh green sprout by PonderandStitch

Easter cuff and weekend progress/happenings

Thanks to my spring post yesterday, I sold my beloved orange flower garden peyote cuff to Deborah (storybeader)! It will be on its way to her in Oklahoma tomorrow. :) I hope that she enjoys it as much as I (and many others) have.

After selling the orange garden cuff, I decided that this would be as good a time as ever to list my newest flower cuff: Easter morning peyote cuff.



I got most of the Czech flower beads that I used in this cuff not long after I created the original orange version back in August and have been thinking about making this after since. Starting this cuff was also what started my current green obsession. You've already seen this green delica mix or variations of the mix in other pieces and will continue to see it in several more pieces.

I completed a remake of a button charm bracelet design this weekend, this time with matching earrings. I actually made two versions of both. One set will be for sale on Etsy and one set will go to a silent auction. More details on that when it gets closer. Here's a picture of the buttons that I picked out for the bracelets.
I completed a couple other smaller pieces as well. Lots of new listings in the near future!

The biggest news from the weekend is that Jake and I bought a new car (new to us anyway). It's a white 2009 Toyota Corolla. Jake's car had been having a lot of issues for quite a while, and we'd been planning on buying on a new car sometime this spring or summer. This was a little earlier than we'd figured and more money that we'd planned on spending (isn't that always how it goes with cars?), but we're very pleased with what we got. Hopefully it'll be a great car for us for a long time. Jake will be driving it most of the time for now (and I'll still be driving my 1997 Mitsubishi Galant which is still running wonderfully...hopefully I'm not jinxing anything by saying that!), but once I'm not commuting so far at some point down the road (another 1-2 years), we may switch. For now it doesn't make sense to put tons of miles on the new car. It's still hard to believe that it's really ours.


Heading into another week now. At least the days are longer and warmer again!

EBW ocean challenge ideas

I finished my new blue square stitch bracelet this weekend so I'm feeling a little better about my productivity. I will photograph it when we get another sunny day here. I also laid out a basic plan for my next EBW Challenge piece. I know that the current voting is still taking place (you can vote until the 15th on the EBW blog), but I don't think it's such a bad thing to be thinking ahead. The Jan/Feb challenge theme is ocean/sea. You can read more about it here.

I'm going to work up a piece that is leafy and coral-filled in ocean themed colors. Here are the leaves for it. Yes, they are laid out on my library copy of The Beader's Color Palette by Margie Deeb. I know that the book is kind of distracting as background, but I actually think that the colors of it coordinate pretty nicely with my leaves.


And here are the seed beads, coral, and other glass beads. You'll notice four of my funky beads from blueseraphim and a handful of Swarovskis and CZs from Art Bead's blogging program.


I'm pretty excited about it! My husband is already on winter break (he finished up on Friday), and he's been working on some hobby stuff again this weekend, as he will be all of break. Here are a couple pictures of what he's been doing. He did all of the building and the base coat of paint back over the summer and the previous school year. He finished the painting this weekend.


He's going to use the building for Warhammer. (He already has a couple times actually, but it will look cooler now that it's painted up.) Here's a picture of his latest Warhammer figures that he finished painting this month.


I can't resist posting this final picture. Angel thinks that Jake's painting/building assembly process is fascinating. :)

weekend progress/happenings

I didn't list anything this weekend after the Valentine's Day bracelet, but here are some pictures of a few other things that have been going on.

Posting the sneak peak pictures of my champagne/blue fringe cuff back at the beginning of October definitely inspired me to work on it more. Here is how much I have left. I just might finish it before Christmas!

Here is a picture of how the base of my "Peace Piece" for the next EBW Challenge is coming along. I restarted it twice which is why I'm not further along than I am. Thankfully the challenge piece isn't due until Dec. 5 so I still have plenty of time.

I finished my newest batch of magnets. All except the top one (which I'm keeping) are going to be part of my Christmas present for my two aides at school. Our district's colors are purple, teal, white, and gray. You all know how much I love teal/turquoise and how much I've been into purple this past year so I figured it would be a good choice on a couple levels. One of my aides also loves the purple/orange color combination so I made a few of those for her set.

I would like to do a pink/green/white set and a black/white set next, both for Christmas presents. :)

I got my most recent Art Bead's package on Saturday, thanks to my $20 gift card. I know that the cube beads on the top left look weird. They're both gold-lined beads.

Finally, my husband took some pictures of me with our cat Angel today. I don't post a lot of pictures of myself because I'm the one who's usually taking the pictures. Thus, I don't have a lot of myself. Here are a couple for you, though. I'm sure that most of you won't even notice this, but I feel like I should point out that my wedding ring is being repaired right now which is why I'm not wearing it.


Enjoy the last part of your weekend! :)