Our Handcrafted Journey

Christmas Gift Ideas - Handmade Jewelry - Upcycled Scrabble Tiles

2014-11-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

As we move into the Christmas buying season, the Etsy shop has picked up some. We are excited to have some great Christmas gift ideas for all different interests. That's one of the reasons we enjoy making the Scrabble bracelets so much. We have something for gardeners, animal lovers, foodies, dog lovers (of course - our "original" line), music, Christmas jewelry and so much more. We keep thinking of fun ideas. Rarely, do we not have an idea for a new bracelet or two.

Gardener Scrabble Bracelet

Bird Lover Scrabble Bracelet

Degas Ballet Scrabble Bracelet

Italian Greyhound Scrabble Bracelet

Australian Cattle Dog Scrabble Bracelet

Then, we have our vintage art dog picture frames. Now, those truly were the original of our items. That's where it all began. I still love making them, and now after making hundreds of bracelets, it's comforting and calming to take a day or two to make frames. We don't have many for this season, but we'll get inventory back up in the New Year.

Boston Terrier Picture Frame

Sheltie / Shetland Sheepdog Picture Frame

When it comes to Christmas gift ideas, one of the best places we have found for ideas and to share our products is on Pinterest. I have a personal Pinterest page where I have garden, home and other personal interests, as well as a Christmas gift idea board that my family and friends can check out if they need ideas for me, and they can order most of them right online if they want! There are so many cool things on Pinterest. Definitely something to look through if you haven't already. We have just started to pin our products on our business page. It can be checked out by clicking here. It's really great when we run across our products from other people pinning them. That makes us happy to see.

At any rate, things are doing better for the holiday season. People seem to be turning to us for some of their Christmas gift ideas. We'll hope the trend continues on like it did last year and the year before. Hopefully, everyone remains calm and pleasant, and doesn't get the holiday crankies.

'Til next time...

Come visit our shop for some cool and original Christmas Gift Ideas!

Slow Start to Holiday Buying Season

2014-11-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a slow start to the buying season. We've kept track of each week's sales for the past few years, and this year is by far the slowest start. However, it has picked up the last few days. We've had more views of our Scrabble jewelry and vintage art dog frames. Even views had been slow up until then. It's been an odd season on Etsy. We were cruising along, but when we were used to sales picking up, they didn't. Scary...to say the least.

At any rate, these things do happen when you have your own business, but it's always disconcerting because we count on holiday traffic to make it through the year and to catch-up on things. We are confident that sales will continue as they did this past week, but there is always that little worry-bug.

Thought we'd share some of the favorite Scrabble bracelets that people seem to be liking this year:

Anne of Green Gables Quote Bracelet

Thanksgiving Jewelry - Scrabble Bracelet

Greyhound Dog Scrabble Bracelet

Cook's Gift! Foodie Scrabble Bracelet

Our quote pendants always seem to be popular. They are so fun to make! The beads add a little pizazz to them. We have plain bail pendants as well, but we enjoy embellishing them with the beads.

Jane Austen Quote Pendant - "You Pierce My Soul."

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote Pendant - "Scatter Joy!"

Our dog items generally do well.

Dachshund Pendant

Well, that's it for now. Maybe we'll get so busy that there will be no time to write until after Christmas!

Christmas Jewelry with Vintage Sheet Music

2014-10-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

As a handcrafted business, we are always experimenting with new ideas. One of the things we're working on this year are bookmarks...for good old fashioned hard copy books. We read a lot that people think paper books are on the way out, and it makes sense environmentally to produce less in the way of material objects like books. However, we believe there will always be people who want to hold a book in their hands to read, like to wander through actual bookstores, and there will always be the books already printed. So, we have enjoyed experimenting with fun Scrabble tile bookmarks. Next time, we will show you what we have come up with.

For this post, we wanted to share an idea that we worked on the last couple of years and with the Christmas holidays right around the corner, it seemed like a good time to share these.

We use vintage sheet music that is no longer useable due to missing pages, torn, etc. and create Scrabble bracelets out of them. Sometimes, we make inspirational bracelets that are faith-based, others are just inspirational with words like smile, dance, and play.

The ones were going to focus on today are Christmas song bracelets. They are so fun!

We use vintage songs that are Christmas carols. So far for this year we've made three. We hope to make more, but they are a little more time-consuming because we have to look through all our old music books.

Here are the three we've made so far:

Jingle Bells Christmas Bracelet

This is a Jingle Bells bracelet. The tiles on the inside spell: WHAT FUN

Santa's Reindeer Christmas Bracelet

This is a Santa Claus Reindeer Scrabble Bracelet. It has all the reindeer on the music (except Rudolph). The inside spells: DASH AWAY

Christmas Carol Lyric Bracelet

This is the classic Christmas carol lyrics that read, "Peace on Earth. Good will to men." This one spells: REJOICE

Just a fun idea for that old sheet music!

Bookmarks next time...

Banned Books Week - September 21 - 27

2014-09-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

BANNED BOOKS WEEK

Right to Read

September 21 - 27, 2014

Celebrate your "right to read" and to choose your own books.

For the past three years, we've created a new Banned Books Scrabble bracelet to celebrate the week. This year the titles included on our Banned Book bracelet are:

1984
Animal Farm
Catch-22
Clockwork Orange
Slaughterhouse Five
All the King's Men
The Great Gatsby

New Banned Books Bracelet 2014

Banned Books Bracelet

This year's Banned Books Week will run September 21 - 27, 2014. It gives us the opportunity to celebrate our freedom to read!! Banned Books Week began in 1982 and each year libraries and bookstores help to create an awareness of challenged books.

Here is the top ten list of frequently challenged books from the Office of Intellectual Freedom for 2013:

Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
Looking for Alaska, by John Green
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

To view and download free lists of the most challenged books, you can go to the American Library Association website.

Click here for lists of the most challenged books at ALA.

If you would like to read more about Banned Books Week...click here.

Here are our other two Banned Books Scrabble Bracelets:

Banned Books Bracelet

We are fortunate that we have the right to read literature of our choosing.

Celebrate the FREEDOM TO READ not everyone is so fortunate!

Summer's End

2014-08-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Labor Day is upon us. It's been a busy summer. We try to get ahead so we will be prepared for the holiday season. It's right about now that I start feeling the pressure to have more inventory of Scrabble jewelry and Vintage Art Frames completed for the holiday buying season. As anyone who has a crafting business knows, it takes a long time to create products. We hate to lose out on the sales during that time of the year, but we can only do so much, and quite honestly we sometimes need a break from the long hours it takes to get everything made.

At any rate, we had a couple of big orders come in the last couple of weeks. That was good because with the end of summer and the transition to starting school, it always slows down for a few weeks. Always scary to see those revenue dollars drop, but at least it is somewhat expected.

I made a set of frames that last few days. Our frame inventory is quite low and will be limited this holiday season. I did enjoy making them. They were a nice break from the Scrabble bracelets. Even though I love how the Scrabble bracelets turn out, they do get tiring to make at times with the precision that is needed.

Well, the next time I write, it will be September and fall will almost be here. I do like that our summers here in Washington tend to run into September and even part of October at times with warmer weather and little rain, but the leaves will still drop and the daylight hours will still get shorter. By October and November the rains will be back and cooler temps will move in. That's okay though. I love fall and the start of the holidays season!

Here are a few of the frames that I made last week:

Brittany Dog Photo Frame

Border Collie Picture Frame

French Bulldog Frame

Looking towards the fall, here are a couple of bracelets just for the season!

Fall Leaf / Autumn Scrabble Bracelet

Halloween Scrabble Bracelet

Till next time, we hope you have a safe and fun Labor Day!

Graduation Gift - SCRABBLE Jewelry

2014-05-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

Graduation time is upon us! High school, college, kindergarten...whatever the stepping stone...always a celebration.

My nephew is graduating from college in two weeks. Hard to believe. We are looking forward to attending the ceremony. My two nieces are continuing their college education with a couple more years to go. I'm always so proud of their hard work. It has not been an easy journey for all of them, but they stuck with it. Hats off to them.

In honor of this special time of year, we have created a unique graduation gift - actually a few different styles. One can even be a personalized graduation gift if desired.

Here they are:

Graduation Scrabble Bracelet

Personalized Graduation Gift Necklace

Graduation Scrabble Bracelet

Congratulations to all 2014 Graduates!

Quarterly Taxes

2014-04-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Wonderful news! Taxes are all paid! Done...finished...and off they go.

This is the first year that we paid quarterly taxes. I checked last year to see if we needed to and, surprise, surprise, it was a bit confusing and we were supposed to pay quarterly taxes last year. So, unfortunately we got a penalty this year. Bummer.

At any rate, we have paid our 2013 yearly taxes and our 2014 first quarter taxes. I feel like a "real" business now. I've been working at keeping good records. I have spreadsheets that I enter information into and we use an online bookkeeping service for our Etsy business. That helps a lot and saves so much time.

Business has been good the last few weeks. Thankfully, since we needed the money for our taxes.

I do really need to work on our vintage art picture frames now. Our inventory is down. That is on my schedule for next week. I've been trying to work on bracelets about three - four days a week and then one or two days on either the frames, Scrabble pendants or our vintage shop. It definitely keeps me busy.

We've listed a few new bracelets. That's always exciting. We created a Sea Turtle bracelet, a couple of Mother's Day bracelets, and a Wizard of Oz bracelet.

Here is the new Mother's Day bracelet...

Mother's Day Bracelet with Victorian Art

It was so much fun because we found oodles of Victorian heart postcards and art to use!

Here is the Sea Turtle bracelet...

Sea Turtle Bracelet

Love the blue colors in this bracelet!

Finally, a Wizard of Oz bracelet...

Wizard of Oz Bracelet

Until next time...we're off to see the wizard!!

Shakespeare Quotes, Wassily Kandinsky and Beach Bracelets!

2014-04-05T18:33:00.001-07:00

It's been a great couple of weeks! Even though business has picked up again, I was still able to create quite a few new Scrabble bracelets! That always makes a good week!

Here are four of our new Scrabble bracelets...

Shakespeare Quote Bracelet. Quote bracelets are always popular and I enjoy making them. They take more time because the tiles are made differently from our normal image files, but they generally turn out well and people seem to like them.

SHAKESPEARE QUOTE BRACELET

Shakespeare Quotes

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet. Considered the father of abstract art and a modernist. He was originally from Russia, but spent the latter part of his life in France. His art makes fabulous bracelets, but I found it was more challenging than some of the bracelets to figure out which beads to use. You wouldn't think it would be an issue with all the colors he used, but with the nature of the art, it was really east to overwhelm the bracelet with the beads. In the end, I opted for a nice smooth round black bead with silver spacers. Nice!

WASSILY KANDINSKY BRACELET

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet

Two Beach Bracelets. We had fun creating these two beach bracelets. One with vintage art of different beach scenes the other of seashells from the seashore! So many fond memories of the ocean beaches!

SHELL BEACH BRACELET

Shell Bracelet

VINTAGE BEACH SCENES BRACELET

Beach Bracelet

More next time....

Anne of Green Gables

2014-03-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

Because I love Anne of Green Gables and all her wonderful words (written of course by Lucy Maud Montgomery), we have created several Anne of Green Gables Scrabble items.

I was fortunate to be able to visit Lucy Maud Montgomery's home site and the Anne of Green Gables Museum on Prince Edward Island a few years back. My mother was out visiting me when I lived in Ohio, and we took a magical trip up through Concord, Massachusetts visiting Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House and Ralph Waldo Emerson's House, as well as others. Then, we headed north into Canada and up to P.E.I. - a dream come true for me.

Following are links to the Anne of Green Gables Museum on Prince Edward Island, as well as the home site where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived with her grandparents from 1876 - 1911. There isn't much left at the home site, but it is still worth the visit! There are placards that describe places around the property and a little gift shop. Anyone familiar with Anne of Green Gables, will be able to walk around the property getting goosebumps seeing what she saw.

Museum link: http://www.annemuseum.com/index.php

This is a photo I took on our visit to Green Gable Museum on Prince Edward Island

Lucy Maud Montgomery Home Site Cavendish: http://www.peisland.com/lmm/index.shtml

Lucy Maud Montgomery Home Site

Here are some of the Anne of Green Gables Jewelry items we have created:

Anne of Green Gables "Kindred" Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables - Prince Edward Island Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables Scrabble Pendant

For those who haven't had the opportunity to read the Anne of Green Gables books or watch the movies, here are a couple of links to them if you'd like to check them out.

Amazon.com Widgets

Next time...some of our new bracelets!

New SCRABBLE Bracelets!

2014-03-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

We've caught up from the holiday season, except for a few frames, so now we have the time to create a few new Scrabble bracelets and our vintage art frames! This is always a fun time of the year. We love creating, but generally don't have a lot of time. We also spend some time listing our vintage items on our vintage site. It's nice to change things up a bit from the normal routine of just making bracelets for the entire fall and holiday season.

Here are a couple of new Scrabble bracelets we've made so far.

Emily Dickinson Quote Bracelet

Emily Dickinson Quote Scrabble Bracelet

Fiddler on the Roof Bracelet

Fiddler on the Roof Scrabble Bracelet

In the next few weeks, we're looking forward to making a:

Beach Scrabble Bracelet

Wassily Kandinsky Scrabble Bracelet

Wine Lover Scrabble Bracelet

Wizard of Oz Scrabble Bracelet

Broadway Hits Scrabble Bracelet

Philosopher Quote Scrabble Bracelet

Edgar Allan Poe Scrabble Bracelet

Shakespeare Quote Scrabble Bracelet

We'll share them with you as they are created.

We've also enjoyed listing some of our vintage treasures on our vintage site. Here are a couple of my favorites. Sometimes it's hard to let them go, but we hope they go to new homes that have just the right spot for them.

This is such a cool vintage water well. It reminds us of something that was made during the arts and crafts era, but most likely is from the 1960's or 1970's.

Wishing Water Well

How fab is this retro Native American Indian belt buckle! Hand painted and with just the right amount of blending colors and flow to give it a unique style. Love it!

Native American Indian Belt Buckle

Can't beat these vintage Japanese tea tins for color.

Vintage Japanese Red Tea Tin

Such an elegant dangle drop pearl earring set! Definitely one of my favorites.

Vintage Pearl Dangle Drop Earrings

Until next time...

"...dwell in possibility" Emily Dickinson

Beatles 50th Anniversary

2014-02-06T20:32:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe that it is already February! Our last post was over two months ago. Makes one wonder how time can go by so quickly. Just as it is hard to believe that it has been 50 years since the Beatles made their debut on the Ed Sullivan show. They appeared on the American scene about a month after I appeared on the Earth's scene. Yes, I just had the big 50. Doesn't feel like I thought 50 would feel.

At any rate, to celebrate the fab 4...and that momentous debut...a bracelet in their honor.

Beatles Scrabble Bracelet

And here is a clip from that debut on the Ed Sullivan show from Rolling Stone video

(http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/watch-rare-beatles-footage-from-the-ed-sullivan-show-in-1964-20140203)

Next time...an update about taxes, how the holiday season ended up and plans for 2014!

Home Business Challenges

2013-12-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

The Christmas buying season is well on the way. Fortunately, people seem to like our Scrabble jewelry and dog frames for Christmas presents, so we've been busy. Cyber Monday was especially good for us. That was a nice way to start the week. We didn't offer any Cyber Monday sales because we try to keep our prices as low as we can anyway, so we don't have a lot of room to play with our prices.

We are, of course, still finding challenges to running our home business - time management and space issues, just to name two. We find that we have to be well organized with our space constraints, which isn't a bad thing (the organization that is), but we do bump into each other once in a while and have to watch where we're walking.

Time management is always difficult. Not spending so much time working is a great goal, but it doesn't always work out. Actually, it rarely works out. Even though, I wanted to work less after moving to our new home with less expenses, but it is the holiday buying season, so we have a small window of opportunity. Business drops off about December 12 - 13, generally, so we work long and hard for these few weeks.

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

Thought I'd show a few pictures of the space in one of my work areas. The following photos shows bracelets in various stages of being completed. I have all the beads handy. The other supplies are in the drawers directly above the containers of beads like our elastic .

Below shows the storage for some of our bracelets. We separate them by dogs, holidays, music, etc. It makes it easier to find them when getting ready to ship.

Some of our biggest sellers this season have been our...

vintage art dog frames...

Border Collie Frame

scrabble bracelets

like our Elvis Presley Bracelet

"The King" is popular this year


Elvis Presley Bracelet

as is our Jane Austen Quotes Bracelet

Perfect for book lovers!

Jane Austen Quotes Bracelet

Right now, we're just trying to make some of the bracelets as they sell. We won't keep up with all of them and by Christmas, we will be out of many. Then, the whole cycle will start again as we start the New Year, but next year we won't be moving to a new home, so maybe we'll be able to get even more inventory made for the next holiday season! Oh, no, this season has not even come to a close and I'm already planning for next year. Not exactly living in the moment...well time to stop for the evening and get a little shut-eye.

Let the Frantic Holiday Season Begin

2013-11-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

I can tell the holidays are nearing. The feel of emails from customers is changing. The majority of the time, people are so kind and free with their good words. I would say 99% of the time, but once in a while we have people who make it difficult. I guess that is the nature of working with the public.

We have been so blessed that we have had such wonderful customers, and we have a huge customer return rate - like 65% to 70% have returned to buy again, so that pleases us. Our feedback has always been fabulous like the following:

"SO AWESOME!! I know I will get tons of compliments on this bracelet....super fast shipping too"
"I love this bracelet so much. I love when people look at it, assuming it must be pictures of my family and then say, "Is that...the redrum kid?" And I say, "Yes, yes it is." And then suddenly it's like I have a secret side they know nothing about. Mwahahaha. Seriously, though. It's a fun bracelet I love to wear with otherwise standard outfits just to give them some punch. I get compliments on it a lot."
" Great Quality shipped very fast"
" THANK YOU for using so much imagination and creativity! This bracelet is much nicer than the photo shows. Jimmie Ellis"

However, as the holiday season approaches for some reason some people start to get prickly. We had one customer recently who we tried to do everything right for, but in the end, she was not happy. This is only the 2nd customer in FIVE years that has ever been grumpy and rude, and we just didn't know what to do to satisfy her. Bummer.

Yoda, Please give us the wisdom and calm to get through this season.

You can just sense the change in the emails. It's really rather interesting. If I can remain unemotional about it, I would realize that I haven't changed and our products haven't changed. It must therefore be the people who are coming to us, which traffic certainly increases during the holidays.

This is what the customer today reminded me of...just kidding, I'm sure she was just having an "off" day. - From The Shining

That's okay. I'm not going to let her ruin my evening. We are actually taking the evening off and watching the Snow Queen (kind of an early Christmas movie). Huge artichokes were on sale today, so we're going to have them with our barbeque chicken for dinner. We'll have popcorn during our movie. A nice evening.

Well, take care until next time. I'll breathe deep and be happy, as I hope you all are as well.

Yes, to this quote...What do you bring to the world? From Anne of Green Gables

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS GALORE

2013-11-06T19:57:00.001-08:00

We have continued to work hard to build our inventory in order to provide a plentiful selection of Christmas presents. I know as the holiday season starts to rev-up, the Scrabb le bracelets and frames on our shelves will quickly diminish. That's good. We want them to sell - of course, but then comes the pressure to try to keep up with replacing items that are sold out. I need to just take a deep breath and do the best I can. Get the most popular back on as soon as I can and go from there. We still don't have as many items as I had hoped for this year, but...

..this has been such a crazy year! It has been difficult to keep everything in order with moving, fixing the house and keeping the business up and running and running well. Additionally, I have wanted to live a more balanced life, but I also know that the holiday season is probably not a good time to try to read and walk several times a day, keep up with household chores, call friends and family to chat, and start a new exercise program. Might be a bit much.

However, I am still trying to find a little balance. My non-handcrafted business time is basically spent on household chores. That's okay for now. We try to watch some funny shows and movies in the evening to alleviate some of the stress and intense focus we experience during the day. The Big Bang Theory is one of our favorites. Here is a short clip from the show. If you haven't had a chance to watch the show, it's hilarious.

The new year will allow us to take stock, plan for the upcoming year and thankfully, we won't be moving next year!! Yippee!!

A quick note about the supplier issue I talked about last time. (Do other people have these same issues? Sometimes, when things go awry, I wonder if this is the right thing for me to be doing. I love making the jewelry and frames, but sometimes it is sooooooo frustrating.) At any rate, I have now ordered from several different suppliers to see how their seal works. Meanwhile, our good seal is quickly running out. Not a great time of year for that to happen, but I will just take a deep breath and do the best I can (my current phrase of choice).

So, I thought I'd share some of our Christmas jewelry and I just finished a couple of our Santa art frames. We put the frames up each year around our house with family pictures and pet photos. Fun and colorful.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Bracelet

Hark the Herald Angels Sing Music Scrabble Bracelet

Vintage Santa Art Bracelet

Nativity Scrabble Bracelet

Snowman Pendant

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Pendant Set

Vintage Santa Art Frame

Time Off

2013-10-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done a bit better with my working all the time. I have actually kept up with the laundry and cleaned the kitchen all week...sweet! As I wrote last time, I have, indeed, not listed as many Scrabble bracelets this past week. It bothers me some, but I'm learning to live with it and trying to find that balance.

Additionally, we've been having supply issues, so I am being very careful about the bracelets I'm making. Fortunately, we have quite a few bracelets made, but we may need to find a new supplier for the seal we use for our Scrabble art. This is frustrating, time-consuming, and not happening at a good time of the year, but it did work out as far as my not making quite as few bracelets in order to form better habits...oops, excuse me..."routines" to follow.

Fortunately, I was able to make a few of new Scrabble bracelets that I've been wanting to make before our supplier issue occurred, so that was good. We try to offer a couple different style of bracelets with the same theme for people to choose from. Some may prefer a single glass bead, or silver instead of gold metals, etc.

For example:

The Monkees Scrabble Bracelet looks like this...

The Monkees Bracelet - Glass Ball

But the other Monkees Scrabble Bracelet looks like this...

The Monkees Bracelet - Gold Tone

One Star Wars...

Star Wars Bracelet

The other Star Wars...

Star Wars - The Force Bracelet

A gold tone German Shepherd...


German Shepherd Scrabble Bracelet

A silver tone and brown German Shepherd...

German Shepherd Scrabble Bracelet

A single glass Whippet...

Whippet Scrabble Bracelet - Single Glass

And the other Whippet choice...

Whippet Scrabble Bracelet

Well, we're glad we have choices to offer, and we hope we are able to offer more choices when we get our supply issue taken care of in the near future. For now, we've got a good inventory built up...thank goodness, but not enough to get us through the holidays, so I know the issue will be taken care of very soon!

Finding Balance - Creating Habits

2013-10-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Now that we have been at our new place for several months, I have found that it is very easy to slip into the same old habits that we were in at the old place. Finding balance seems to be a habit that needs forming. The idea of a habit feels like a negative behavior. Merriam-Webster defines habit as:

¹hab·it

noun \ˈha-bət\

: a usual way of behaving : something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way
: a strong need to use a drug, to smoke cigarettes, etc.

: a piece of clothing worn by members of a religious group

However, I do believe, for me, that a regular routine and repeated way of doing something has a calming effect on my soul. Merriam-Webster does not list routine as a synonym for habit, but other references do. Routine sounds better than habit.

At any rate, I had hoped that with less expenses at our new place, I would have time to keep up better on household chores (dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc.). That those tasks would not fall primarily to my HTP. Bless his heart for doing as much as he does. And...I am so grateful for the blessing of him coming into my life. I want to do more, but...

I work a lot.

And I will continue working now through the holiday season, so that we will not have to work so much during the rest of the year. We truly are a holiday season business. We do "okay" at this handcrafted business the rest of the year, but we just get by. I don't always want to just get by. I want to be able to fix up the house and yard, go to a movie now and then, taking a training class with my Border Collie, so it's important to make as much as we can during the holiday season. I'm hoping next year, since we are all moved, that I can make more inventory all year long - more than I was able to make this year, so that I can find some sense of balance. I wonder how many people use the phrase next year?

So, back to habits...the one thing I would like to accomplish RIGHT NOW is to develop a daily routine. I love going into the kitchen when the dishes are all done, counters are wiped and the stove is clean. I love having clean clothes in their rightful place and not seeing mounds of laundry when walking into the laundry room. So, I have decided that if it means I make two less bracelets a day in order to get that done, then so be it. Of course, for the money we would earn selling those two bracelets, which would be about 10 bracelets for the week, we could hire a cleaning lady.

Don't they know there are newer washing machines?

Hmmm...cleaning lady...maybe I'm onto something. Big smile.

Currently all the hours in my day are full up. Unless I want to get fewer hours sleep, which certainly is a way of life for many in the U.S., but I know I need my sleep in order to stay well and not go totally off the deep end. Right now, I generally sleep from about 8:30 or 9:00 pm until around 4:00 or 4:30 am. That's an adequate amount of sleep.

Well. for now, I will make the two less bracelets a day and get the housework done. I'll consider some outside help. I will still try to take most of Sunday off and go outside a couple of times a day to enjoy the outdoors - even just to walk around the yard and watch the birds. My HTP keeps reminding me that that's one of the reasons we moved here, to enjoy things more. I'll let you know how it goes.

Until next time...I'll leave with a quote from Emily of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. I originally found this quote in a book titled The Simple Abundance Companion by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It was a workbook type book that went along with her great book Simple Abundance. I read Simple Abundance at a time when I was searching for an authentic life and some direction. I can't tell you how many notes and highlights are in that book. A great read. Here is Emily's quote:

"I didn't realize," she confesses mournfully, "all that was going on and we never noticed...clocks ticking...and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."

Some inspirational jewelry to remind me to enjoy life

Inspirational Scrabble Bracelet

Inspirational Bracelet Made From Vintage Sheet Music

Inspirational Live Pendant

Take care!

Fall and Halloween Scrabble Jewelry

2013-10-04T11:08:00.002-07:00

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year - with the crisp mornings, changing leaves, pumpkins...nice.

That's probably why we have quite a few different fall jewelry pieces. It seems we often gravitate to what interests us or what we enjoy visually.

It is, of course, a busy time of year, since we are gearing up for the holiday season. We have all our Scrabble Bracelets caught up and are working on having duplicates of some. We still need to get the rest of our vintage art frames caught up, but we're working on that steadily, so if someone is looking for a unique Christmas gift and wants a dog frame for a dog loving friend, we will have all our inventory available.

Thought we would share some of our fall and Halloween jewelry items for this entry.

Sample of our FALL JEWELRY

Fall Scrabble Bracelet - spells AUTUMN on the inside

Fall Scrabble Pendant

Sample of our HALLOWEEN JEWELRY

Love the old Halloween images

Halloween Scrabble Bracelet - spells BOO TO YOU on the inside

Classic Monster Bracelet - spells MONSTER on the inside - Monsters included are: Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Wolfman

Black Cat and Owl Halloween Pendant

Flying Witch Scrabble Pendant

Well, just a short entry today. Need to get busy with making more bracelets! Happy Fall!

BANNED BOOKS WEEK - Right to Read - September 22 - 28, 2013

2013-09-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

BANNED BOOKS WEEK!!

September 22 - 28, 2013

Celebrate your "right to read" and to choose your own books.

Banned Books Bracelet

This year's Banned Books Week runs September 22 - 28, 2013. It is a celebration of our freedom to read!! Banned Books Week began in 1982 and each year libraries and bookstores help to create an awareness of challenged books.

Here is the top ten list of frequently challenged books from the Office of Intellectual Freedom for 2012:

Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey (offensive language, unsuited for age group)
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie (offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group)
“Thirteen Reasons Why,” by Jay Asher (drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group)
“Fifty Shades of Grey,” by E. L. James (offensive language, sexually explicit)
“And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell (homosexuality, unsuited for age group)
“The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini (homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit)
“Looking for Alaska,” by John Green (offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group)
Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz (unsuited for age group, violence)
“The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls (offensive language, sexually explicit)
“Beloved,” by Toni Morrison (sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence)

We are fortunate that we have the right to read literature of our choosing.

Celebrate the FREEDOM TO READ not everyone is so fortunate!

Banned Books Bracelet

A Dog Frame From One Dog Lover to Another

2013-09-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday…a day off…sort of. Sunday is supposed to be my day off – to take it easy, relax, find some balance. I do take it easier, but I have to say I long for the days when I could read most of the day or watch a movie (during the day) like Anne of Green Gables, Sarah, Plain and Tall or Mary Poppins. However, right now, things are different. I spend any time off working on the house. We’re still unpacking and organizing, and that’s okay. At this point, I would rather get the house taken care of than sit and watch a movie. It makes me feel good when a room is “settled” and I can enter it and feel calm.

Work has been busy as usual. The days go quickly. I generally start my day between 4:30 and 5:00 am and finish around 7:30 pm. I don’t work every night, so that gives me a break. There is always so much more to do at the end of the day, but I think I am getting caught up. I’ve been longing to list some of our vintage items. I have pictures ready to go for some. It’s just a matter of having the time to sit down and list them.

This past week I’ve worked on getting our Scrabble bracelets strung and tied, so we won’t be going crazy during the holidays. I have also been working on our vintage art frames. I haven’t made any for a while, so it took a couple to get back in the groove. The first day I ruined one. I hate that. Our printer has been giving us fits, so that has been frustrating. I have to say that the whole printing situation for this business has probably been the most frustrating thing to deal with. Getting the quality pictures that I want is not always easy. My poor HTP has had to don the hat of copier technician. Poor guy. He is super smart about those things thank goodness. The other frustrating thing is consistently finding the materials we need. I worry about losing a source for one of our key materials. We’ve worked so hard to find what works best for us. And the beads…well, geez…they come and go, so we try to buy in quantity whenever we can.

At any rate, that is my venting about our frustrations. Overall, we’re moving along nicely. I did get a dog frame or two made this week. We’ve already sold a few. That makes me feel good. I couldn’t believe that some of them I hadn’t had listed online since last November…2012! Yikes! Like the Pointer dog frame – terrible. I even got the horse frames and Army frame made. So we’re on our way to getting our inventory up-to-speed. It's great to see the frame totes filling up. I forget how good it feels to have plenty of inventory.

Pointer Dog Frame

Horse Frame

Army Military Frame

Well, off to enjoy my day of leisure. Well, kind of a day of leisure. Between cleaning, unpacking and organizing, I am also going to map out the property! Then, I can start planning the garden. That will be fun! I’ve starting using Pinterest to keep track of some of the cool things I’ve seen online. What a fun site that is! It gives me so many ideas for the yard.

Until next time…

AND

Cool Christmas Gift Inventory is Building!

2013-09-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

Wow! We have really kicked it into gear now. We're still working on our house trying to fix this and that, paint here and there, unpack boxes and still build our business. It's been challenging with long days. Basically, I work on the business all day (sun-up to sun-down most days) and squeeze in some "house" time when I am able. My HTP (husband-type-person for those who haven't read previous posts), works on the business in the mornings (drilling tiles, shipping, helping me string bracelets, etc.) and then moves to house tasks in the afternoon.

We have been a little worried because business was kind of slow after all those months of minimal online presence, but it is picking up now - especially after Labor Day with the kids back in school, so people are getting back into their school routines.

Our inventory has jumped to nearly 400 items, thankfully. The one thing we always make sure is that our quality stays consistent with our fantastic feedback / reviews. My HTP often says I'm too particular, but now I find him saying little things like, "Hmm...maybe we shouldn't use that one." It makes my heart smile.

Etsy has changed their feedback program. They now call them "reviews" of the each product (like Amazon). I have mixed feelings about it because they put wording with each star. (1 = disappointed, 2 = Not a fan 3 = It's okay 4 = Like it 5 = Love it) We'll see how it goes. I didn't appreciate that they took away how we were able to leave feedback for the buyers, but it seems like they are always changing something. Not to sound grumpy about it because we have greatly appreciated the venue by which we can sell our items and less expensively than eBay with what seems a little different audience.

At any rate, we have released several new Scrabble bracelets as I said we would in the last post. I've also made several Scrabble pendants with new ones coming. I don't focus on Scrabble pendants as much because they are not quite as unique as our bracelets and there are a ton of them for sell out there. They do take less time, are easier to make than bracelets, and people seem to like them, so I make a few choice pendants now and then. Plus, they are great for stocking stuffers and small gifts like Secret Santa gifts.

Today, I'm off to the sunny landing upstairs that I wrote about last time - although it has been storming the last few days, so it's not so sunny right now. I really want to get going on making our vintage art frames. It's amazing how many I need to make, so that will be my main focus during the day for this next week at least.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Here are some pics of our new bracelets.

Star Trek - The Next Generation Scrabble Bracelet

Alfred Hitchcock Scrabble Bracelet

Mary Poppins Scrabble Bracelet

And a few of our pendants...

Classic Monster Scrabble Pendant Set - Dracula, Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein & Frankenstein

Disney - It's a Small World Scrabble Pendant Brooklyn Bridge Scrabble Pendant

Teacher - Apple Scrabble Pendant

Next time, I'll focus on our Fall Jewelry and maybe I'll get some pictures of our house to put online. Have a great week and take care!

Moving a Home and a Handcrafted Life

2013-08-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Soooooooooo much has happened in the last four months! First, and foremost, we have moved. That means that we not only had to get our house ready to sell and move, but we also had to move our business, PAWS IN TIME, since it, too, is in the house. My, oh my, what a time.

We got a place that is about ½ the size of our old house, so we had to downsize considerably, which isn’t a bad thing, but frustrating when trying to make everything fit inside the new place. A real bonus of the new place is that we now have about an acre to plant a garden, have a few hens, let the dogs run (in a fenced area of course). After having lived in town on a very small lot for the past six years, we are so excited!! It’s also by the water, which is calming. When we go for our walk in the morning, we step out on our rural road and see the bay. Just beautiful.

However, the new place was in desperate need of renovation. We’ve lived in an RV for several months while fixing things – starting with the majors…plumbing, plumbing and more plumbing, roof replaced, putting sheet rock in, floorboards down, cleaning and painting. I never thought I would know so much about sheet rock - the different types, how many sheets can be fit into a Dodge Caravan (weight and measurement wise), how to use sheet rock mud and tape. Who knew there would be so much to know? But we’re finally in and even though there is still lots of work to be done, it’s nice to be in.

Here's a picture of what the house looked like when we first got it. Note the roof - truly a "green" roof with all the moss.

Next time, I'll include a picture of how it looks now.

Thankfully, there is a fairly good-sized sunny landing at the top of the stairs and that is now where PAWS IN TIME resides. It has a deck off of it with a fabulous old maple tree covering the whole area. We also use a downstairs back room for drilling tiles. I was terribly spoiled in our old place because I had room for everything. I loved looking at all my materials - even what I wasn't currently using. I could say to myself, “Someday I’d like to try making such and such out of that.” Unfortunately, a lot of those creativity inducing items that I’ve been collecting will need to stay tucked away. However, I will try to keep the boxes handy for those days when I want to do a little treasure hunting to try something different.

My work area is ready (cleaned, painted, carpet down) for all my stuff to be put out…Yeehaw! All the materials for our Scrabble Bracelets and Scrabble Pendants are out and organized. Due to our move, our inventory was down from over 400 items to under 200. Yikes! We’ve been busily making bracelets to rebuild our stock. The holiday season is looming. This was to be the year that we got ahead and had plenty of stock for the holidays. Hmm…guess not. But we are going to do our best to have enough stock to at least have an acceptable season.

We even took our personalized gift / custom bracelet listing off for a while to get caught up, but it's now back up and we've had several orders in the last few weeks where people use their own pictures on a Scrabble bracelet. I’ve been using the tiles as fast as my htp (husband type person) can drill them. Now, I really need to start on our vintage art dog frames…as soon as I can find the box the glue and seal are in.

Well, I better get going, but before I sign off, I thought I’d share a couple of our newer bracelets. I did have time to create a couple of new ones. Always love that!

Star Wars Scrabble Bracelet

We now have two STAR WARS bracelets one featuring different characters from

Star Wars

Luke Skywalker (THE FORCE) Scrabble Bracelet

and one with just LUKE SKYWALKER. The Luke bracelet spells: THE FORCE on the inside – fun!

We also created a couple of new artist bracelets including Van Gogh and Picasso

Picasso Scrabble Bracelet

And...

Simon & Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel Scrabble Bracelet

Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World Scrabble Bracelet

Soon to be released:
Mary Poppins Bracelet

Super Heroes Bracelet
Alfred Hitchcock Bracelet
Barcelona Bracelet
Star Trek - The Next Generation Bracelet

Off I go to my sunny landing!

Have a happy day and hopefully it won't be four months until I write again!

UPCYCLED JEWELRY / Boston Terrier Domino Bracelet

2013-03-27T20:59:00.001-07:00

We started to make a new type of upcycled jewelry. It's always something to go through an initial development phase. Creating and trying different things. We tried different seals, different adhesives and in the end we went with the one that takes longer to make, but the final result is so much better.

So...what is this new piece that we have created? It's a fabulous chunky bracelet made out of upcycled dominoes! The bracelet we just released is a Boston Terrier bracelet. It has different Boston Terrier vintage images on it - six to be exact. The color is bright and vivid. We are pleased.

We have only the one at this time, but now that this one turned out so well, we plan on making more. Let's see...what should be next? We'll have to think about that. Maybe we could make a couple. We'll see how it goes.

For now, here is the new Boston Terrier upcycled domino bracelet!

Boston Terrier Upcycled Domino Bracelet

Boston Terrier Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables / Poetry / Book Lovers / Quotes Bracelets

2013-03-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy! We got through the taxes and they will be filed shortly. We continue to try to catch-up from the holiday season. We have almost all of our upcycled Scrabble bracelets made. We still have to work on our vintage frames.

We have created a couple of new Scrabble bracelets for book lovers! That's always so fun. Two are Anne of Green Gables quote bracelets! I just love that character by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Anne of Green Gables Quotes Bracelet

I also love poetry, so we have created a poetry Scrabble bracelet with images of famous poets:

Emily Dickinson

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Bronte Sisters - Emily, Anne, Charlotte

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

John Keats

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Famous Poets Bracelet

And for people who love Jane Austen...a quotes Scrabble bracelet just focused on her, as well as several pendants.

Jane Austen Quotes

And there are always our popular Banned Books Scrabble bracelets based on our freedom to read. It is so much fun to come up with this Scrabble jewelry that will hopefully please the book lovers out there!

Banned Books Bracelet

Well, spring is on the way! Flowers are starting to bloom, birds are singing and we're creating. What could be better.

The Reachable Star

2013-02-23T20:36:00.000-08:00

January is over and it was pretty quiet for us. It kind of catches you off-guard when we were so so busy during the holidays. It makes me want to work twice as hard to try and rustle up some business, but I also know that we have to have faith. Faith that the business will return once we get restocked and people catch their breath from the holidays and New Year. And, it has started to pick up. Did you hear my sigh of relief?

So, on the days when we had but one or two orders, I just kept telling myself to consider this time a blessing because we’re able to get caught up from the holidays (which we almost are). After all, it would be hard to sell what we were selling when we had less than half the stock left. I just now am starting to create some new Scrabble bracelets. My three newest are Don Quixote, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Da Vinci. As sappy as it may be, the song "The Impossible Dream - The Quest" from Man of La Mancha / Don Quixote gives me a bit of a lift when I hear it. You can watch Peter O’Toole sing Man of La Mancha's "The ImpossibleDream - The Quest" by clicking here. So, I was pleased to introduce that new Scrabble bracelet. The other two are ones that I have wanted to make for a while, so they are finally released.

Don Quixote Bracelet

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Bracelet

Da Vinci Bracelet

We’re trying to get into a rhythm - a cycle for the year. That’s why we created our daily schedule that I wrote about last time, which has had to be tweaked. It feels like everything regarding our business is always in development, always being planned and tried. We try to make schedules work, materials work, and organization of paper work. Try, try, try again. And I know it's because we're just starting out, but...

Do others have it easier and just slide into their business knowing exactly what to do? Do others wake in the morning and have a leisurely day where they take breaks to do fun and interesting activities other than their home business? Do they work from sun-up to sun-down much of the time? Do they worry about doing taxes? Do they worry about having enough materials to build for the next big season? Do they live paycheck to paycheck?

Do they enjoy their work, which may also be their passion? Is it still a passion? Sorry for the cliché, but “life is short” and I sometimes I worry that I’m spending all of it working. Fortunately, I love what we create, and I LOVE that other people love what we make! That keeps me going. That, and the fact that I do get to work at home. I do get to walk out into the yard once in a while to get a breath of fresh air. I do get to see my dog sleeping at my feet while I work. I am able to easily adjust my days when needing to go to a doctor’s appointment for my HTP’s (husband type person) treatment. I don’t have to commute anymore. I don’t have the level of stress I once did working in a high-profile coordinator job (hmm - still coordinating though - just our own business). There’s still stress of course, but it’s mostly centered around being able to create enough and earn enough, but it has a different feel to it. And…I have faith. We’re just starting out full-time. It hasn’t even been a year that we’ve really been working this. So overall, it’s been a productive year, albeit very busy and tiring, but I think it’s getting better, and that's what I need to focus on. I don’t work every night now and I take almost every Sunday off! Hallelujah!!

Well, as sung in the song "The Impossible Dream - The Quest"…

To try ... when your arms are too weary ...
To reach ... the unreachable star ...

But in our case…I believe it is reachable. We just have to figure out the way.

'Til next time, take care and we hope people are having fun and finding joy out there.

Inspirational Jewelry

New Year Organizing

2013-01-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

It’s the New Year! We got through the holiday season – as busy as busy can be! We now know what is possible during the holiday buying season and look forward to upping our inventory for next year.

But…for the past few weeks, we have been catching our breath, organizing and doing some listing on our other site Vintage Antique Lane. We love Paws In Time and creating upcycled art, Scrabble jewelry and our vintage art dog frames, but we needed a little break and we also love searching for vintage and antique treasures, so between those two passions, we are always creating, learning, searching. It’s great exercise for the brain!

With regards to our organizing, we have created an Excel sheet on the computer that tells us how many Scrabble bracelets, Scrabble pendants and dog frames we need to make a week in order to have the inventory we’d like to have by the next holiday season. As we record sales and production each week, we can see if we are on track, if we need to make extra the following week or if we need to adjust our projections because it’s just not humanly possible keep up with the production schedule we’ve set.

That’s the logical, time management part of the business - knowing that we have to have a production schedule. We have to have a plan. Hmm…what about creativity? What about not making this so much “work” that we don’t enjoy our handcrafted business. That’s where we had to (have to) find balance. We’ve also created a daily schedule that allows us to have time to do our Tai Chi and walk the dogs in the morning, time to list some vintage treasures on our vintage site, a little bit of down time to just “be” and on the Paws In Time handcrafted business side the schedule we need to make this little handcrafted business of ours our livelihood. We’ll see how it goes.

Next week is our first real week of trying the schedule out. We know we'll still need flexibility because, after all, life does happen. That’s why we’ve left some room in our production schedule.

I admit that what really gets me excited is creating!! Now that the planning is somewhat in place, I'm looking forward to getting back to that. We’ve already released Marilyn Monroe and John Keats Scrabble bracelets,

as well as replacing some of our most popular like our newer Star Trek Bracelet that says, “BEAM ME UP” on the inside, our French Bulldog Bracelet and Banned Books.

We’re off and running in the New Year, we just don’t want to run so fast that we miss all the scenery along the way.

Happy New Year everyone!

Our Handcrafted Journey

Christmas Gift Ideas - Handmade Jewelry - Upcycled Scrabble Tiles

Slow Start to Holiday Buying Season

Christmas Jewelry with Vintage Sheet Music

Banned Books Week - September 21 - 27

Summer's End

Graduation Gift - SCRABBLE Jewelry

Quarterly Taxes

Shakespeare Quotes, Wassily Kandinsky and Beach Bracelets!

Anne of Green Gables

New SCRABBLE Bracelets!

Beatles 50th Anniversary

Home Business Challenges

Let the Frantic Holiday Season Begin

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS GALORE

Time Off

Finding Balance - Creating Habits

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Fall and Halloween Scrabble Jewelry

BANNED BOOKS WEEK - Right to Read - September 22 - 28, 2013

A Dog Frame From One Dog Lover to Another

Cool Christmas Gift Inventory is Building!

Moving a Home and a Handcrafted Life

UPCYCLED JEWELRY / Boston Terrier Domino Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables / Poetry / Book Lovers / Quotes Bracelets

The Reachable Star

New Year Organizing

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