A beautiful sunrise...

means a day at the beach. I'm in the process of packing up the family for a beach run today, even though the day would be better spent getting items together, crafts made, photo-paper and shipping supplies purchased, etc, etc.

But after the bad weather we had for most of the week, we'll battle the traffic and go to an over-crowded beach (I can't wait for Sept)

Another "in the process"... I have a bunch of items that I plan on putting in my ETSY shop, but I think I'd like to have a pre-ETSY sale with at least one of the items for Blog readers. Maybe a 50% off sale. I'll use the time at the beach to give it more thought.

Okay, I have to run. I've have to call about getting a table at a local craft show in a few weeks, get the kids ready and off we go.

See ya when I get back...

R

The Sunny-Sun

has finally returned and that's a good thing! The beaches will be packed by all the "Bennies" who spent their hard-earned cash to rent an expensive beach house, where they spent the bulk of the last 4 days. Well at least it wasn't a total wash-out for them. For me, I put together a few more pieces of jewelry, worked on getting my inventory organized and picked out my initial 5 photos that I'll be offering on ETSY sometime in the next 2 weeks. (the picture above didn't make my final cut and won't be one that is offered, but it is indicative of the my style of photography)

I have 4 or 5 more items that will be going into my ETSY shop over the weekend and I'll try to get back to this blog later this evening with the pictures of the items before they go into my shop. Who knows, one may be offered at 50% off before it goes to ETSY, a sale for the bloggers....

Gotta run... take the boys for a quick dip in the waves and maybe to get their haircuts and I'll be back later this evening!

Robin

A so-so Thursday...

It didn't rain much, but it was overcast much of the day. The sun finally (yea!!) started peeking thru in the early afternoon and I met up w/ my sweetie and the boys and went to the beach for a few hours in the early evening. The cool, autumn-like weather was gone and in the low 80s, the sun actually made it pretty warm on the beach.
The huge offering of shells and sea glass the ocean gave us on the weekend had magically disappeared tonight. Not even a medium sized shell was to be found. Hopefully the weather is nice at some point next week...I'd like to take my sweetie down to Wildwood w/ the boys for his B-Day. Hopefully there'll be a couple of finds on the beach down there.... who knows, maybe we can even get down to CapeMay and find a "Cape May Diamond" or two.

Nothing was accomplished today as far as crafting goes. After the beach we went to Michaels and I was able to cruise the aisles looking for a few things for future projects, but no where in the store did they have a can of knitting incentive. I guess somehow I'll just have to cook-up a batch of it (maybe I'll bring a couple skeins and my needles in case the weather is awful)
So, ETSY update... two and half weeks into this online experiment/project and I've had 1 sale. I guess that's not too bad, considering it is August... last 2 weeks of summer and a lot of people on vacation and add in back-to-school, so I suppose everything is a bit slow (in the ETSY forums, I've read where alot of sellers waited a month or more before getting there 1st)

It looks like my 1st fall craft show will be in the middle of Sept... I'll get more info once I'm sure I have a spot.
Looks like the rainy-day blahs are gone for the moment and I hope it stays that way.. I really need to get crackin if I'm going to succeed at this. Good- night from the Jersey shore!
Robin

Hump Day...

So hump day comes and goes without much fanfare. ETSY was somewhat slowed by glitches, I went 0-2 trying to grab a new treasury and more than 25% of my inventory had their "views" reduced to 1, where they seem to be stuck on that #. (and to top it off, 2 of the items were among my top 4 in views...uggg- that can't be good for someone with only 2 weeks on the site)

Rain and more rain was the order of the day in the morning and afternoon. The evening brought wind and a misting rain. Tomorrow's forecast isn't much better- considerable clouds, but no call for rain... maybe I'll take the boys to the beach and let them run around and hunt for shells, while I look to add to my beachglass collection : )

I made a few pieces of jewelry tonight and the 1st piece went on ETSY... my angel earrings. The rest I'm putting to the side for craft shows later this fall. I wish I was doing the Wildwood or Cape May shows... if the weather remains wet, those shows will be mobbed by the tourists (of course if the weather is nice, the show may resemble a ghost town) I may be better off waiting for a show in Cape May later in the fall, when the draw of the ocean is gone.

I've added a couple pictures of my boys. The picture on the left has made thru the 1st round of judging in a photo contest. It was taken in Slide Rock St Park, in Sedona, AZ back in the spring. That's my oldest son sittng on the rocks. The photo on the right is my 4 yo, shading his eyes from the sun, while watching his brother play baseball. He almost looks like he's saluting and the America on his shirt and the flag flying in the background, it became a great 4th of July-type shot.

Seeing pictures of my little men make the drab, dreary day sooo much brighter.

Onward to tomorrow!

Robin

Rainy Tuesday

Once again, another rainy, cold day the Jersey shore. The best way to describe it would be Blah! I had very little motivation during today. I didn't do any crafting during my lunch hour at work, not did I cruise Michaels to look for crafting supplies.

After dinner tonight, I spent a couple hours looking at some of the ETSY shops....maybe I'll do another treasury. I'm thinking about doing a blue-themed treasury. I have a few pieces of my own that I can slip on and off the treasury and I found some beautiful pieces in other seller's shops that I'd like to feature.

With a nice strong cup of coffee, I scanned the forums on ETSY for about 45 minutes, looking for spots to promote my newest addition to my shop... a very cute child's scarf & hat set and then set off to create some thank-you cards and pack away all my finished work from this weekend.

Tomorrow's supposed to be drier in the afternoon, maybe I can find some incentive to knit?? Or perhaps, I'll head to the bay after dinner hoping for a few nice photo ops.

Yea, that would work!!

Robin

Today's picture was taken on Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, before the crowds came for the summer. I needed this summer-y type picture to remind me how the beach will be again in a few short weeks. I can't wait!!

Very busy weekend

This is a photo I took while on vacation in Arizona. We were packing the car and I saw the chance for this photo. It was dark out and I didn't think it came out (even when I downloaded the picture on the computer, the moon wasn't in the shot, but after enhancing a few time, the moon did "come out") This shot and so many others I took while out west this past spring are my little incentives to tryget out of the daily 9-5 grind and spend more time with my sons.
Now off to my JOB...uggghhh!

R

Another catch entry...

A busy weekend starting off with having my own treasury from Friday -Sunday. After getting the treasury selected and running, I went to work for 8 hours, came home and ate dinner with the family. I then made jewelry until 4:00 am , yea I know... but I was on a roll. When my sweetie asked me if I knew what time it was, I really thought it was a little after 1 am...LOL

Saturday- I used the nice sunny morning to experiment taking pictures of jewelry outside. The pictures were okay, as I didn't get the lighting I had hoped for. And while out there, I thought I heard the ocean calling my name, so I packed up the family, made lunch and off to the beach we went.
The ocean was pretty rough, just perfect for finding a bunch of beach glass ( my banner on ETSY is beach glass in water- walking the beach everyday, looking for beach glass is my incentive for selling my creations at craft shows and in my ETSY shop) and we found about 15 keepers and saw, but couldn't get to at least that many more.
Saturday night, I made some jewelry... a few of the pieces became today's newest additions to my ETSY shop.
After the Sunday morning activities, I made a couple more pieces of jewelry, helped my boys make their cousins a couple of bracelets and headed out to A C Moore to hunt down more craft supplies. We joined my sister and brother-in-law for dinner at a local place and headed home.

I didn't find the incentive to knit, nor did I do anything to get my photography section closer to debuting on ETSY, but I did build up my jewelry inventory for both my ETSY shop and for upcoming craft shows. I know I need to knit, but after working all day, to just sit down and knit for a couple of hours isn't all that appealing... maybe in the fall when the "good" TV shows come back on.

Hope eveyone had a great weekend!

Robin