New Orleans

Just returned from a trip to New Orleans! My husband planned a long weekend away for us to NOLA and we had so much fun! I haven't had a chance to download the pictures yet, but I'll be sharing them with everyone this weekend. I'm really excited - one of them actually includes a baby alligator (stay tuned)!

I'll write down more details this weekend but Rich went all out on this one. We had a different style of tour each day so that we could see different parts of the city. He must have researched for hours - my poor little feet were so sore but well worth the pain. We saw the (in)famous Bourbon Street area, did a haunted house tour, saw one of the oldest cemeteries in New Orleans, took a city tour, soaked in some history at two different plantations, and rode around the swamp. To round it all out, on our last night he signed up for a carriage ride through the city (for animal lovers such as myself, New Orleans has strict regulations regarding the mules - they can only work for 6 hours at a time, they have a required amount of time off during the month, and the licensing).

I would love to have you check back later if you're interested!

Letter stamps

Just before Christmas, I bought some new alphabet stamps. I made a few items for the holiday craft shows, but really didn't want to get caught up in the whole personalization thing that everyone else seems to be doing. Don't get me wrong - I love some of the personalized pieces. But it is also something that is being done by so many others and I wanted to find a different way to express my creativity.

One of my first pieces that didn't get thrown into the silver recycle pile is my new Faith Necklace. Not because it came out perfectly - quite the opposite. The letters are not lined up perfectly and in a neat little row. I kept it (and listed it in my shop) primarily because of the meaning behind the necklace. Life itself can be a bit up and down - and NEVER (at least for me) seems to go as planned. But you need to keep the faith and you'll get through it.

It was really hard for me not to remake this piece as I tend to be a perfectionist. More silver has been put into the recycle pile just because of some minor flaw that I knew was there. This was a change of pace and I kind of like it. I know it's not absolutely perfect - but who is? What do you think?

EtsyHacks

For those of you who have Etsy shops - did you know about etsyhacks? This has been a topic lately on the forums and I finally decided to check it out. Most have been programmed to run in a Firefox web browser (instead of Internet Explorer), but there are a few you can use with IE.

To find out more information, check out the etsyhacks blog - it notes all of the hacks available, as well as lots of other topics. To find out which hacks can be accessed using IE and Firefox, you can check out the scripts page. There is also a link for installing greasemonkey, which allows the little programs to run.

And finally, if you are just curious to see what is available, you can find that on the latest releases page of the site.

Please note - I have NOT installed these yet myself. I also do not necessarily advocate downloading information from unknown sources. The information noted has been used and tried by many users on the Etsy site and I thought it might be helpful to some of my Etsy shop readers.

Other helpful Etsy sites:

Let'sEts - Googlebase formatter.
The Heart-o-matic from CraftCult - see who hearts your shop and products - just enter in your shop name. No downloads necessary.
Etsyfeeder - allows you to tag and organize your favorite items and shops.
Featsy - send you a notification if your product is featured.

Enjoy!

Hearts for you!

Yup - the picture says it all! Hope you enjoy the day!

Birthstones, birthstones, birthstones!

I've been experimenting with lots of things lately - and one of these is a new setting for stones. I love birthstone necklaces so, once I found a setting that I liked, it seemed a natural path to add them to my Etsy shop. For some color punch (and because I happened to love the colors when I saw them!) a bright orange and a champagne color cubic zirconia also found their way into the mix.

Tangerine Necklace

All birthstones available!

My New PDA!

By my own admission, I am one of the last people to get onboard the technology train. Not that I don't like technology - it certainly makes life easier - but I tend to be a late adopter type of person. A new item needs to be out for awhile and get all of the bugs worked out before I spend my hard earned money on it.

When it came time to renew my cell phone plan, I decided to upgrade my phone to a Blackberry Curve. It was a business decision (or so I told myself!) for several reasons. First of all, I can be notified when a potential customer has a question - it will allow me to respond faster and provide better customer service. AND it has a great calendar and contacts feature - no more having to carry around a pocket calendar and everything is in one nice little place. I can also renew items from my phone without having to log into a computer.

The big day - my phone arrives. It is pink (is there really any other color - LOL! my husband was horrified!) and has all the little bells and whistles. So cool! At least, until I try to access my Etsy account - with no luck. According to Etsy tech support "We've found that mobile devices do not support Etsy very well, if at all." Really? Funny. I would have thought that Etsy doesn't support the mobile technology but hey - what do I know?

I still love my little gizmo though - it's a keeper and I think I'm addicted!

Lately

I know, I know - it HAS been a long time since I have posted. What can I say? Life has been a bit crazed. My grandmother had a "spell" and I spent some time in Maine trying to get her settled into an assisted living facility. I started a new job this past summer, only to have the position eliminated at the beginning of the month. This is also my busy time of year since craft show season is upon us here in NH and I signed up for a number of those. Thank goodness I did! I thought a part-time position would be easily found this time of year - and I am wrong. It would appear that the economy has affected retail as well and some places are not even hiring for the season (or they already have their staff in place).

On the bright side, I have lots of time to create. And I've met lots of my NH Street Team members at recent craft shows - and I have to say, we have a GREAT team! For me, this is a huge bonus to actually put faces and names together. Not to mention, the talent! We are trying to schedule a get-together after the holiday season and I'm really looking forward to it since I've already met some of our members.

I hope you'll check back - now that I have more time, I'm hoping to be able to post to my blog a bit more often and I'd love to hear from all of you!