Thanksgiving weekend

Our Thanksgiving weekend was really great. My sister was in from Colorado and my mom had her usual Thanksgiving day where she invites friends and family from both sides. It is huge. Mom makes the best dressing! Forest and I made some chocolate pecan pies from a recipe we saw on Martha. There was so much good food. In true Thanksgiving tradition, we all stuffed ourselves! Friday night we went to a football game. We had a really fun domino game going all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night James and I went over to hang out with some of my high school friends at their house where we had pizza and margaritas. It was a really nice weekend! I posted pictures on my flickr account.

We bought this couch for our back porch at a little antique store in May:

Isn't it neat?! We got a great deal on it.

Today I am playing catch up and getting myself to the gym to burn off the weekend. Thursday is my show in Dallas and after that, a flurry of events including setting up for bg and a couple of shows. I am excited and ready!

the big show and the busy week

Well, things are finally settling back down after Saturday night's show. It was such a great show. I had so much fun seeing all my friends and I doubled my sales from last year. That was nice!

Sunday morning I got up and picked up Melissa from the airport. Then I spent the rest of the day building a website for one of James' clients. I think it came out pretty good! The customer was pleased. James thinks I should go into business making websites. Sometimes I think about it - I would definitely need to take some classes to amp up my technical skills but I feel I have a good grasp of what a good website entails. I actually get a lot of emails through my website asking who did my website. Maybe I could turn those around into business?! ha ha. Maybe when I get tired of making jewelry, I will have a new career designing websites! The good thing is that James understands all the super technical stuff about ftp and shopping carts so we could be business together.

I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up on household chores. Tuesday night we made dinner for some friends who are going to keep our dog while we are on vacation. I feel so good knowing that he will be in a house with people who will take such good care of him. Yesterday was busy with taking Forest places and going to the bg artist orientation.

So today is my first day to get back to the jewelry. Hopefully I get to work through until next Wednesday when I go home for Thanksgiving. I need to PRODUCE some jewelry! The first part of December is going to be crazy! But, I do love to make money. I heard this old interview with AmySedaris on FreshAir where she was talking about how much she loved to make a buck - she would have a party and put out a bunch of stuff she wanted to get rid of and sell everything for a quarter and she also has a small business making cheese balls. She said she just really likes the feeling of making money. I feel like that when I sell jewelry. I just really like to make money! ha ha.

Man, I am seriously listening to a lot of old episodes of FreshAir lately. They have them all archived on npr.org and you can just go back and listen to all the interesting interviews. I like listening to stuff like that when I am working. I like music okay but I really like talking wordy things - like AlFrankenShow, FreshAir, audio books.

Okay, so I am going to work on jewelry today, go to yoga, meet up with Melissa for lunch and then work on jewelry some more! Tomorrow night I am having a couple of friends over for dinner. Then I am going to work all weekend on jewelry - and maybe go on the EastAustinStudioTour if I feel I have time. And, that's my week!

Oh man, bg orientation last night was super neat. I am really amped for the show! The organizers seem so nice and earnest in their attempts to create a good show. I am so excited to be a part of it.

PS: Since I have been getting googleAlerts for my own business, I feel so self conscious about using the names of things on my blog because I know that they come up in google searches sometimes. Does running the names together help that? That's so weird!

Getting Ready for Shows & Vacation

I went to the Settlement Home Garage Sale yesterday and picked up a whole bunch of new pieces for my display for very little money! Man, the stuff there is so cheap. The money goes for a good cause, the Settlement Home for abused and neglected kids. I only know this because they keep saying it over the loud speaker. It makes you feel good about spending money. Didn't find much jewelry though - just a few more things to make rings out of. The show is all this weekend - here is the website: http://www.settlementhome.org/GarageSale.asp

I have been so focused on making earrings for the upcoming shows that I realized last night I really need to make some new necklaces. That's cool because they are my favorite thing to make. Unfortunately, they are not what I sell most of. So, it's a good thing that I made so many earrings! However, I really need to diversify the colors - I made so many blue and aqua earrings. It's hard to strike a balance. I just end up making what I think will sell based on past experience. I made an assload of rings too.

After getting rejected for the last two years, I finally got accepted into wheats*ville this year and sadly I think I am going to have to turn them down. Two years ago I would have killed to do this show but at this point I just feel I will be doing a dis-service to the shows I am already in if I take on anymore. I can't afford to run out of product for bg! I have really had some good fortune with show entries this year. I only wish I knew I was going to be accepted into all these shows in the summer, I could have been prepared to do all of them. I wish they would do the applications earlier in the year. But, oh well! I also got asked to do a stitch after party show at a gallery the week after the event and I have to turn that down too because I already have plans on that evening.

*I am misspelling this word on purpose. ;)

Okay, now for the BIG news! We are going to London for a two week vacation, Christmas through my birthday. We are also going to take a side trip to Paris. I am going to turn 35 in Paris!! What better way? I am so thrilled! A friend of James' family has a flat in London where we can stay. We stayed there when we went to London for the 2000 New Year. It is really beautiful, up on top of a building so that you can see all the chimney tops from the balcony. It is going to be so cold there. I will have to take all my NYC clothes. Hope we can stay warm. Anyway, after all the struggling we have done this year, it will be really nice to have an actual vacation. I am really looking forward to it.

Alright, guess I better hit it today. I have my booth set up in the dining room. I am trying to get it all worked out plus it just helps to see what I need to make next. I wish I could work faster!

Feeling better, family visit and cool goodwill find

My parents dropped in this weekend for an impromptu visit. My brother and his girlfriend, Courtney, were also in town so it was a fun family weekend. Mom and I did some shopping at the hardware store and thrift stores on Saturday. We had to go to a funeral in Killeen on Saturday for my aunt Linda's father. On the way out of town Mom and I stopped into a Goodwill store and I found this little gem:



It is very long and just barely fit in the back of the cruiser! I am going to hang it in the living room over the desk. I just have to find a home for that file cabinet first. In our shopping expeditions I ended up getting the light fixtures for the front porch which my dad and brother installed for me and some roman shades for my office which James installed for me. Yay! Two major house jobs, done!

Sunday we all went to Magnolia for breakfast. The secret to getting a table there without waiting 2 hours is to get there early, around 8 am. We had lunch at Hills Cafe and then went to the Texas History Museum. I wasn't really ready for company having just barely gotten over being sick but it was a lot of fun. My family is pretty spontaneous and fun.

Other than that I am just working on jewelry, trying to get my inventory ready for all the shows. I have a little high school holiday bazaar up north this weekend and then Stitch next weekend. I think the high school bazaar will be a good opportunity to lay out my stuff and see what I am missing for Stitch. Here is what my desk looked like this weekend:



Monday I got it all cleaned up!

Okay, well better head out to jewelry class! I feel antisocial because I haven't been able to see any friends recently! Being sick and then busy getting ready for shows makes it difficult to see friends but I really want to soon!