Second sale comes out of a message on Etsy

Tonight I made my second sale on Etsy! I received a conversation (the way to communication on Etsy) asking about the menu board. I didn't think too much about this. I had received a question about the washer necklace a few days ago and nothing came of this. The question asked if the lettering was on the outside of the frame, and if the blue paper was interchangeable. I responded that it could be made in different colors and this got the ball rolling.

Thank goodness for modern technology. We messaged back and forth about ten times today and settled upon some options. I assembled the frame with her selected colors, bubble-wrapped it up (extra nice since Marjory and I know the post office is not very careful sometimes!), and packaged it nicely.

The finished custom item

This woman requested a "candy apple green" color to fit in her candy apple green and cherry red kitchen. It sounds bright and cheery and good enough to eat. (It also reminded me of Jess and Brandy's kitchen.)

I tried to block the reflection with a beach towel that you can absolutely see. Oh well. 

As soon as she ordered the custom item, I printed the shipping label. This is a much easier option to do on Etsy to send via USPS and they simply bill you the amount. Since I purchased a kitchen scale to weigh packages, it makes it easy-peasy. 

This conversation inspired me to make a few more menu boards and a grocery list board that I use, but have not listed as an Etsy item yet. I took some pictures, so look for some more items to come. Actually, I have four jewelry items awaiting edited pictures and listings, so I guess I need to get busy listing. 

Feeling optimistic tonight...completely opposite of my grumpy self this morning. 

Pinterest Interest

My jewelry organizer frame has been getting some attention on Pinterest. It's exciting each time to see it pinned by a new person, even if they want to try to make it themselves. I hope this stirring leads to a sale!

It started with five repins and grew to ten within a week!

The washer necklaces are getting some interest as well.

The necklace in cool colors

The necklace in coral and pink

 Watch for the washer necklace arriving in coral and grey...I think it's a great color combination.

Over the heat

I'm going to put on my grumpy pants because I am a little irritated. So the midwest is going through a heat wave right now. I have been reading all the complaints on Facebook, so then I checked the weather. It's in the 90's there. Newsflash! It's July and 90 degrees doesn't sound that uncommon. Last year when we moved from Lexington, it was over 100 degrees (July 7).

Just double-checked that at weatherspark.com 

I actually laughed when someone complained that their bedroom was 80 degrees. That's what we keep our house at, and that's luxurious for the summer. Most people here bump it up to 82 or 84 degrees. 

Now I bet you are thinking, "But it's a dry heat in Arizona." So does everyone. And I am here to tear down that little argument. It is a different heat here, with low humidity. BUT it's still hotter than hell most days. And I would take humidity any day over feeling confined to the indoors. 

Every summer for the past four summers, I have spent my time riding my bike. BG or Lexington, I would jet off in the afternoon or evening to catch a nice long bike ride. If it was hot, I would leave in the evening around 7 p.m. and ride back home just before the sun completely set. (Except that one time in Lexington where I ended up way too far away and had to call John to rescue me from Nicholasville because it was dark. Whoops.) I loved having time in the summer to actually ride without schoolwork to get in the way.

So I wanted to keep riding when we moved to Arizona. HA! I tried one afternoon and the handicap of riding in such intense heat sent me home within 20 minutes. So I did not ride my bike last summer. I started up in the fall (October), but with work and the early sunsets, it was hard to even get an hour of riding in. There were some days (when I would plan out waking out a little early) that I would strap my bike to the car and bring a change of clothes to set out right after work. So I could somewhat get my riding in during the school year, but it usually ended up as a weekend thing. 

Hence why I love riding in the summer. If I only ride one day a week, my muscles are adjusting every week. They ache the next day, then get five to six days to forget about that pesky workout. And it's the same thing all over again. When I ride almost every day, my muscles just get stronger. My butt forgets about hurting the next day, and my legs are fine. 

This city is perfect for early birds. The sun rises early, and that's the time when it is the coolest. I have tried getting up early to ride this summer. The one day I actually got myself up and ready to go by 6 a.m., I had a slow and lethargic ride. I am not a morning person. I take my mornings easy, and get most of the work done in the afternoon and evening. I absolutely hate working out in the morning. I don't want breakfast because it's so early, but I need energy, so I scarf down a granola bar only to feel sick for the beginning of the workout. 

If I want to ride in the summer, I need to be riding by 5 or 5:30 and back by 7:30. That's the only way to avoid it getting too hot. If I try to do anything in the yard during the day, I am dripping in sweat after 5 minutes. Any yard work is broken into manageable chunks followed by the coldest shower or jumping in the pool. And by this point in the summer, the pool's not even that refreshing. The temperature of the water is anywhere from 88-93. Most days I don't even want to deal with it. I stay inside, or go run my errands. I am feeling cabin fever during the summer. That isn't supposed to happen! 

So before anyone else opens their mouth about the humidity, know this. I would take the humidity any day over this. I could ride my bike in the humidity. I can't do it in this pure heat, not with only one water bottle. I am fed up with this heat and people belittling the brutality of it. Come and see what it's like to walk outside into an oven. 

Okay, I just had to rant. I am over the heat and we still have at least two months of it. At least the high temperatures for this weekend are in the 90's, but with a high chance of thunderstorms. Screw it, I might go riding in the rain. 

Staycation Break

This past week, I have been MIA because I have been visiting with some of the most important people in the world...my parents! They drove all the way from Ohio, endured five and some days of traveling round trip, and even put up with Meeka. Okay, well, my mom put up with Meeka. My dad loves visiting with his "grandpup." (Yep, they are definitely practicing for the real thing!)

Hanging out with Meeka. We took backstage to her new favorite person for the week. 

It was great to have them here, for real. FaceTime can only do so much. We spent a day in Sedona. John even came along on his only day off - that's love. Especially with the crazy long days he's been working. My mom wanted to take a Pink Jeep Tour, and it was pretty incredible.

All of us with the pink Jeep 

We got to see a part of Sedona you can't see from the main roads, and drive right on some rocky formations. It was a super bumpy ride during parts. I had a flashback to the vacation where we rented a boat and my dad throttled it full-speed - my mom had pretty much the same reaction to both of these events. In my mom's book: pro - getting gorgeous views of Sedona, con - getting bumped around.

It's interesting how conscious they are of their impact on the environment; the tour company limits the number of vehicles that can drive the road each day to prolong its use. You can't say that about most tourist destinations. Also, there were a few intelligent people we saw who tried to drive their own vehicle (read: not off-road capable) back this route.

The rest of their time in Phoenix was spent hanging out by the pool, trying some restaurants in Phoenix,  and trying to fix some items around the house. :) What are dads for? We attempted to fix the pool light, which had a deteriorating seal and was filled with water. A new seal, some caulking adhesive, a new light bulb, and voila! It still didn't work. We have yet to pull it back out to figure out what to do next. We did finally receive a proper ladder, now that we had access to a car that could fit one. No more borrowing the neighbor lady's rusted ladder! (Seriously, who had to borrow a ladder from their 85-year-old neighbor? This girl.)

Also, we got to share dinner with my uncle who was in town for a business trip...that just happened to be while my parents were in town. Fun times.

The reason my parents drove out to see me instead of the of-so-much-quicker flying option? They were bringing me all the "stuff" belonging to me from their house. This included photos, keepsakes, things I deemed keepable as a kid, my trumpet, wedding dress, and my grandma's sewing machine. After they left, I spent an exhaustive three days going through box after box of items. There were a lot of smiles at notes I found, pictures, drawings, cards, etc. There was extensive debate about what to keep. I am a bit of a sentiment-holic, but I am also repulsed by a lot of junk/clutter. Hence the dilemma. I starting looking through it as objectively as possible, asking myself:

1) Would my children care about looking at this? If I wouldn't care to see my parents' version of this, it probably wasn't worth keeping. 
2) Is it still meaningful to me now? Notes from someone in high school that I don't even talk to anymore are probably not worth keeping. 

And so the purging began. It didn't begin huge (4 boxes of loose items), and it didn't end much smaller (3 bins), but I felt a tremendous relief to have it organized together. This included collating what I saved in high school with what my parents saved from high school and so on.

Top 5 Interesting Tosses:
1. Baby teeth
2. First tuition statement from BGSU (thanks, Dad...what statement were you trying to make?)
3. Origami box full of notes passed from Megan Molleran in eighth grade, complete with cryptograms we made up for each other
4. Preschool self portrait
5. Teacher thank-you notes

Top 5 Interesting Keeps:
1. Mom's log of labor, including contraction notes
2. Judge's scoring forms for short story entry in Overture Awards in high school
3. Preschool class pictures where mom meticulously wrote each person's name on the back...so I can see the mini versions of people I went to grade school with
4. A painted pottery piece by Jessica (at a very early age) that has a musical button that plays "Send in the Clowns"
5. Fourth grade poem book along with my own poem book creation that summer

I kept my journals and notebooks because I love seeing the stories I wrote as a child. In second or third grade, I became "pen pals" with a classmate, Danielle. I say "pen pals" loosely because we lived five minutes away from each other and saw each other every day in school. But for a good year, we wrote back and forth to each other and even wrote a story together. Each person would write a portion, usually leaving a cliff hanger for the other person to pick up on. I remember ripping open her letters to read her latest addition to our story and trying to top it in suspense. Later (I would guess sixth grade), I took the story line and loosely drew it out into a new story. I filled an entire notebook writing that story, although I never ended it.

So my days have been consumed making an absolute mess of the living room, then sorting it all out and boxing it away. I wanted to bring the ladder in and possibly store these boxes in the attic, but I was stopped by the presence of one of these lovely beetles in our garage.

Not my actual photo, but these suckers are frickin' huge! For those interested in not being able to sleep at night, you can research more about the palo verde beetle. I like to think Pepper would protect us from this beetle if one ever managed to get in. And then I would build a glass box in which to live out the remainder of the summer. 

I do NOT want to encounter one of those falling on my head as I'm balancing on a ladder. So I immediately nixed the idea of exploring the tiny attic space. I still have yet to see our attic. I couldn't make it to the home inspection, so John has been able to see much more of our house than me. At this rate, I may never see the attic.

So, the items were tucked away in the spare bedroom closet, and I have again turned my head to creating new items to list on Etsy. I have a feeling this store is going to be near impossible to keep up during the school year. We shall cross that bridge sooner than later...first day of school starts August 12 with the kiddos!

Pinterest Interest

My black framed jewelry organizer is getting all sorts of attention. It has 5 repins! 

Ok, so some of them are repinning as a craft idea of their own, but still. The same goes for the coral necklace, but it is getting some attention, too! 

New listings are up!

I've got quite a few new listings on Etsy now. Two days ago, I finally got the pictures of the new washer necklace in pink and coral and the two jewelry frames. After I took some close up shots of the necklace, I was going to get prettied up and take a shot wearing the necklace. That didn't happen. Instead, I took a selfie pic wearing the necklace and my swimsuit. Yep, that navy blue top is a swim suit. When I have to do anything outside for more than five minutes, it involves some time in the pool afterward. 

Pepper was a close alternate for a photo op. It didn't showcase the necklace enough to make it in the top five. 

She didn't appreciate being a model. 

I had some fun staging the jewelry frame organizers. I grabbed some of my turquoise and white jewelry to stage. I wish I had a place to hang them up outside to photograph them in natural light. Still, I think they turned out well. 

Black frame jewelry organizer and brown frame jewelry organizer

On Tuesday night, I was having trouble falling asleep so I pulled out the beads again. I told myself I wasn't going to make more earrings, since I had already stockpiled quite a few. There is also a lot of competition for earrings, so I wanted to try some different things and see what struck gold. So why did I go back to beads? I had set aside quite a few pairs of stone beads to make into earrings to get rid of remaining beads. These have been sitting along the back of my craft table for close to a month, so I decided to do something about them. I made nine sets of earrings rather quickly - this is a reason I love making earrings. 

Wednesday was dedicated to taking pictures of the earrings. I was a little more systematic taking these pictures. I pulled out the white nightstand table from our guest room to use as a prop. It was great, except that the earrings did not stay very well on the edge of the table. 

Sometimes they would fall off the table right before the timer expired. Whoops. 

I snapped from the 2-second timer instead of the 10-second timer, and had three main positions: front edge, top, side edge. I would set up the earring in each position, snap a few timed pictures from different angles, and move on. I had to do this in two batches due to the heat. When the wax in your candle prop starts to bead in the heat, you know it's time to stop. I wish I had snapped a shot to mark a new set of earrings, like Meeka or the pool in between pairs. When you photograph six almost identical sets of earrings, it is not all that easy to find the differentiating shots. 

So tonight, again failing to fall asleep, I put the listings up for the earrings. Now I have 30 listings! See them here. Even though it is only 30 listings, I have 68 items for sale. There are quite a few duplicate earrings. 

Now I am going to try to sleep and await the arrival of my parents tomorrow night!

Pinterest Interest

Today, my new posting got some attention on Pinterest from a high school classmate. Whoo!

There are three new listings in the store: this necklace, and two different jewelry organizers. Check 'em out!