New Year, Renewed Focus

It's been forever since I posted, life has been hectic! My family has moved to Washington State and we've been busy getting settled in. We love it here so far and are excited to spend at least three years exploring the area. If we like it as much after that we are going to try and stay until retirement in 7 years. We will see!

The kids are liking it too. The little man only has to go to school for 2 1/2 hours a day, so he's happy. Mommy of course is not so happy about that. Not only does it seem pointless, but it doesn't offer much of a break! If he was in full day I could take the monkey to daycare once a week and get a whole day to myself. As it is, not possible. But other than that, we love the new digs.

The move caused me to have to ignore my little business for a while. But I'm back at it now and driving at it harder than ever. I opened a second shop called TheYarnChick on Etsy for my crochet items to move to. I've designed some new styles, including an adult style that I'm really excited about. They've gone over well, I'm all sold out at the moment. But here's a picture of it. I am determined to get into some craft fairs this year so I am focusing on building up inventory. I list everything in my shops because hey, if it sells it sells, I'm not going to be picky about where. But I would like to have a good 100 hats of various sizes plus other items at the very least ready for a show in the fall. My focus is staying on, TheYarnChick for now, although I will still be adding items to my jewelry, art, and gifts shop as time allows. I'll need a change of pace once in a while and I don't want that shop to die from lack of inventory.




I have also stretched myself out a little bit. I've opened a shop on a new site for handmade items called 1000 Markets. It's a lovely website, that is well put together and makes my shop look really professional and clean. I have assisted in starting up a Homefront Market there and am as involved in that as I can be. The Homefront Market, like the Homefront Team I'm a member of on Etsy, consists of shops where their owners are all military or military family members. At this point we are all military spouses. It's a wonderful group to be a part of, with very talented ladies that support one another to no end. I'm very proud to be a part of them. I would love if you came by and browsed these ladies' shops, they really are incredible women.



So as this new year has dawned so quickly, I am refocusing on my shops and determined to make them even more successful than last year. Keeping in mind my family still always comes first, wish me luck! Happy New Year everyone!

Hectic, but doing well

It's been way too long since I posted an update. I apologize, but life has been hectic and full of things to do besides blog. Let's see, where to start....

I'll start with life. We've got the house up for sale. We haven't had any bites yet, which is making me a bit nervous. But we have decided I will be leaving South Carolina at the same time that Mark leaves for Airborne school either way. I guess the kids and I will just be gypsies for a few weeks. Then we'll meet up with Mark in Iowa and make the trip across country together to our new duty station. Keeping the house uber clean all the time just in case someone finally calls to look at it is kinda stressful. But it's also really nice living in a constantly clean house. My daughter is no help, she is Miss Destructo, but my son has been really good about not messing things up. For a five year old, I find that pretty impressive. The good part of all of this is that I'm super excited to move. Our new duty station is going to be right up our alley I have a feeling, and we can't wait to get started on our new life there.

I've been slacking on new items for a couple of weeks. My mom is visiting, so that takes priority. But I do have quite a few new things since my last blog update, so I'll post a couple of those.

First is some new seaglass earrings. There is also a few new pendants posted, one comes with a beautiful sterling silver snake chain. I'm trying out including the chain, but seems like most people are happy to buy the pendant and use their own chain. Any opinions on that? Mom brought me a bunch of new pieces of seaglass from her island too so I have even more to play with, love it!

Next I listed some more crocheted hats. The hat to the left is my Flap Happy Monkey Hat. It looks so cute as you can see on my little monkey. I have also listed a Pom Crazy Earflap hat that is super cute too. I love that all of the styles are completely customizable, whatever colors a customer wants I can probably provide. These things are so addictive, to make and to own. My own kids have quite a collection of them now.

And a sort of new item. I had magnets before, but none quite like this. :) They are miniature chalkboards. What a great present for a teacher, right? Or label your kids' artwork with them. It's totally up to you, and you can change them whenever you like. Just rub them clean with a damp cloth and use them over and over.

I'll stop rambling for now. And hopefully the next update won't take so long! Thanks for visiting me. :)

Tooting my own horn haha

I'm so thrilled with how well my hats are doing. This week I listed two hats and had them both sell straight away. (Thank you to those who purchased them! I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.) Here they are in case you missed them in my store. I plan on making many more in different colors. As of right now I am sold out of hats in my shop and have a custom one to make tonight. If you'd like a certain color, please ask, I'd love to make something special for you!

Also have added some new earrings recently.

On a more personal note, we showed the house this weekend. They seemed to really like it but I honestly got the impression they aren't seriously looking to buy. The husband might be, but the wife isn't. And we know how that usually goes. On the bright side having them come to see the house made us get off our butts and get a lot done on the house. It's looking really good. More to do of course, only so many hours in the day, but we should be able to get it listed officially when Mark gets back off TDY.

The kids are doing well despite being sick over the weekend. My daughter came down with a bad fever on Friday night. It was severe enough to cause me to take her to the ER. She is fine, just has an ear and throat infection that seems to be getting taken care of by the antibiotics. Now my son has come down with the fever as well. So I suppose I'll be taking him to the doc to get some antibiotics too. They are still in pretty good spirits except for the occasional "we miss daddy" moments. They are obsessed with the movie Enchanted right now. I've got the songs in my head constantly. Cute movie though. "That's how you knoooooowwwwww...." lalalalala

Goings on.

I have posted a few new things in my shop that I'm excited about. My new earrings are going to break my heart to leave, they turned out so beautiful. But I can make myself more, I have to remember that. I seriously have to tell myself I can't keep everything I like.

Also made some new magnets that are really cute. The pictures just don't do them justice! I like them so much I'll be making another set for myself.

And I'm still adding new crochet items whenever I get the chance. I'm offering an add-on flower as well. And today...drum roll please...I sold my first hat! I did a happy dance with that. So that's what is going on. With my creative juices flowing and our lives about to get crazy busy with selling the house and moving to Washington...it's hard to stay focused! I should be able to get a lot done during Mark's upcoming TDY trips. Crossing my fingers.

I'm a walking advertisement

Okay, DRIVING advertisement. I got some decals done for my vehicle to advertise my little business on Etsy. They turned out pretty good. Not too much but they stand out enough for drivers to read. Mark even put a little one on the back of his car. hee hee Now I feel like I'm advertising my biz whenever I go out, cool! Makes the gas money worth it? Not quite! But I hope it at least drums up a bit of traffic. Please excuse our dirty cars, ahem.

I got the decals made from ceejay77.etsy.com.

More Treasuries!

I'm honored to be included in the following treasuries: Please click on them to see them full view and be able to visit the great shops included!

From Tuliptreebaby:

From HRPhotography:

From EllaBearBowtique:And one I put together:

Is that seaglass real?

A few people have asked me where my seaglass comes from. My parents live in the US Virgin Islands and we visit there a few times a year. When I'm there I spend hours combing the beaches for seaglass. I enjoy wandering up and down the beach by myself, finding alcoves in the rocks where the waves crash in bringing debris from the ocean bottom with it. Amongst the broken shells, seaweed, and stones a flash of color will pop through, and if you can grab it before another wave crashes in, you have a beautiful piece of seaglass. It fascinates me that our carelessly discarded litter is turned into a lovely little gem by years of exposure to the churning ocean, the weather, and other natural elements. They come in all colors, shapes and sizes and no piece is ever exactly alike. Sometimes while hunting I pick up lovely smooth stones to keep as well. When I started making jewelry again it was a natural progression to encorporate my seaglass collection into it. So there you go, each piece of seaglass you see in my creations is handplucked, by me, from the beaches in the Caribbean.

I can see this becoming a new addiction...

So how do you start a blog? I guess the best way is to tell you why I'm here, yea? I am a Mom first of all. We have two beautiful, wonderful kids. A son who is going to be 5 in June, and a daughter who is nearly 18 months. I am a military spouse second. My hubby is a Career Counselor in the Army, currently stationed at Fort Jackson, SC. And an artist third. I have been selling my art on the internet for a few years. Been doing commissions for customers all over the world. And although I have always loved drawing, I really got burnt out on doing art that everyone but me was choosing. So I started doing some for myself in my spare time, as little of it as there was. And I loved it, I was back to feeling the passion and the excitement of finishing a piece. Then recently I found Etsy, and another excitement found me. People came to this site to find handmade things, and they wanted them to be handmade! They didn't want something handmade just because it was cheaper than storebought, they really wanted something crafted and loved by human hands. I thought, wow...I could start making jewelry again, which I stopped doing years ago for lack of money and time. I could start trying to get it out there. So I did it, I opened an Etsy store. See Beth's Jewelry, Art, and More. And it's been a slow start, but a fun adventure. I've met some great people that I share interests with and I've even made some sales. My fun little Chick Magnets have been quite a hit. Okay, so I've bought more than I've sold so far...no comment on that. :)

I think that's enough for a first post! Who knows if it made any sense, it's 1 a.m. after all.