I'm in Beadstyle Magazine!!!!!!

Exciting News!

Ok, this is where I need to reveal a little more about myself. After I left my job as a commercial interior designer to be a SAHM, I got a little creatively frustrated. I started making jewelry as a hobby. I would go to the bead store on the weekend as my escape while hubby stayed home with our daughter. My jewelry business grew with baby steps, finally I really wanted to get serious and sell directly to retail stores. I literally hit the pavement with samples in hand. Slowly I was able to gain accounts. But the retail market is finicky and I would gain an account and I would lose one due to a store closing or they just wanted to try new vendors. Some of my best accounts only carried my jewelry for a year and yet they sold huge volumes! I had an offer from someone who wanted to represent me nationally. They were starting out in the sellers representative business and I think they wanted to base their business on me. My gut instinct told me this wasn't a good deal, they were not concerned about my production issues(just me) either. Later I found out they failed miserably and possibly ruined the reputations of their sellers. I was getting to a point where I loved designing the jewelry, just not making the quantities of a single design to meet the orders. I also love so many other artistic mediums and I was actually losing interest in beads. I slowly scaled back my business. It was hard to leave the house for a while, everyone I saw wanted to see my new designs. I turned my attention to wet clay. I have worked with it for years just always as a hobby. I sold a few pieces occasionally but it was only to extremely persistent buyers. I kept jewelry on the back burner for a while still dabbling now and then. I continued to subscribe to bead and jewelry magazines. Lately, I noticed that Beadstyle magazine was looking for submissions. I entered one and I didn't make it in but they published it on their web site. Undaunted I tried again. This time I made it as a finalist! I will be published in the July 09 issue of Beadstyle magazine.

A day in the life of a Security Guard

I'm a teacher's aide at a public Jr. High School. Yesterday my students were not at school for various reasons (2 were suspended for fighting). They were also short 1 security guard. I was assigned to be a security guard sitting outside the 6th grade bathrooms. My school has security guards outside the bathrooms because of vandalisim and fighting that occurs in the bathrooms. I was less than happy about this assignment but thankfully our I.T. person gave me a notebook computer. I was in an Etsy chat room most of the day. The school had 2 events on Friday. It was "Oh no you didn't" Day and Cultural Day. I loved seeing all the boys dressed as girls. Too funny! Also, I was offered various ethnic foods. The most interesting was Serbian sausage called "Chibachochee"or something like that. I'm glad I didn't have to break up any fights. Some boys were less than thrilled that we limit the amount in the bathrooms to 3. I had a lot of pained expressions and dancing. Overall it was totally boring, I feel for these guys.

My Latest Obsession....

I really want this machine, it is $200 on sale, I want to use it for clay. Am I crazy? Yes. It is not designed for clay, do I care? No. I want to buy it and try it anyways. This is nuts, $200 is a lot to spend on something that may or may not work. If it doesn't work am I gonna use it to make t-shirts? Maybe. I can make t-shirts that advertise my etsy store. If I ever get around to it. Anyways I can't stop thinking about it.......such is my life.

My First TTV

One of my hobbies is photography. Every time I see a cool pic for sale on Etsy I look at it and it is labeled "TTV". Finally, I decided to find out what the heck it is. TTV stands for "Through the Viewfinder". Basically you take a picture through the viewfinder of another camera. Cool, huh? Only certain cameras work for this, turns out I have a vintage camera collection and one of the cameras in my collection, a Brownie Reflex is just the kind people use for TTV pics. So now I was totally jazzed. I ran around the house trying to find the neccessary components to configure my contraption. I didn't have anything that would work right away except a leg warmer. After several tries I got a picture that wasn't bad. I'm hoping to make a better contraption soon.

A Valentines Day Message

I currently work as a teacher's aide at a public jr. high. I have a college degree in design and art but how I ended up at this job is a long story. Today we celebrated Valentines day at the school. In the afternoon the students had parties consisting of treats and board games. I work with a wonderful young girl who is a special needs student. At the conclusion of the day the teacher whos classroom I work in, asked the students to write a letter to someone they care about. The teacher stated that the students must tell the person in the letter why they care about them. The girl I work with decided to write a letter to me. (awww!) She has been not listening to me lately and not working to her potential. This is the letter that she wrote me:





Dear Ms. H.,

I am sorry for everything I did. I would like another chance to be good. I love you as a good friend. Thank you for all your help.
Love,
G.

She also made a collage for me here is the pic

Happy Valentines Day!

I'm submitting to Esty Storque

Hi all, I'm submitting an article idea to the Esty Storque, it is going to be about how to find your creative inspiration outside the home. I'm asking all of my etsian blog followers, just the 3 of you, + 2 more etsians that have helped me out, if you would like to submit a quote and picture about your creative inspiration to be used in the article if it gets approved. I think it would be a great way to promote your store if you are interested. Let me know and I'll let you know if they accepted my article idea and when I need your submission by. Thanks!

Roxie Blue Star

Here is my new kitty that I mentioned in the previous post, her name is Roxie Blue Star (named by my 2 daughters) but my hubby calls her "The Silver Yoda" anyways, here is her pic. She is my "kitty alarm" she wakes me up by crawling on me and purring, I love it!

This is my first blog....ever. Ok, so I am behind the times,deal. My first problem is that I would like this blog to look as good as everyone else's that I see and or follow. The second thing is that I'm not really sure what to add as content to this blog. I'm thinking about just posting little or big happenings in my life. I'm a pretty upbeat person, there is a lot of sadness in this world and I'd rather not focus on that, I'd rather post funny/cute stories (to me at least) here or talk about the other awesome Etsians that I have met.

Cute Story of the day:

I have a kitty, she is about 4 mos. old. I cannot tell you how much joy/laughter she brings into me and my families life. We also have a dog who does the same. Well, I had just gotten my coffee and english muffin and I was heading for a seat in the living room in front of the t.v. when the kitten jumped into the chair. I out said "Look out kitten because I'm going to sit there!" The kitten just looked at me and didn't move so I sat down anyways trying not to sit on the kitten. This made me think of something funny. You know how most women will ask someone typically their husband "Do these pants make my butt look big?" Well, how about "Does this butt make my kitten look flat?" The kitten is fine by the way, I did not sit on her :)