Meet one of my friends....

This is a wonderful girl who has a fantastic store on Etsy.  Her shop is LBTOYOS . In it you will find a wide range of beautiful jewelry perfect for all your needs. Here are some of my favorites:

endless love emerald green color

cloudy earrings

leave flower and fruit earrings

Update on my progress towards goals

My first goal was to make approximately 8 sales a month. January was extremely slow, with only one sale, on the 31st. But thats par for the course according to all the "etsy pros" so I'm trying to not freak out too much.

My second goal was to attent 4 craft shows this year. As of right now, I haven't done anything towards that goal, since I have no idea where I will be living. I guess I should see if there are any spring shows to participate in. I'm going to try and follow the example of a fellow "promotional frenzy" team member and set up to sell my jewelry and my mom's school.

And my final goal of commiting 5 hours a week to jewelry creation. I can say I did that last week, but not any other weeks this year. I had forgotten what my goals were, so I couldn't keep myself accountable to this. Now that I am reminded I hope to do much better with this goal!!  However, here are some of the things I did create last week:

Funky Fun Fantastic Bracelet

spring flower earrings

Getting Settled

Here I am in Sunny Southern California, living with my parents. Who would have thought that at the age of 30 I would be back living with my parents, with my husband over 3,000 miles away in Florida?? Not me!!! I never expected this. (Don't worry, hubby and I aren't having any problems)  However, its a little bump in our road, and we will soon be together again. His flight instructor standardization is going much slower than expected, he is at least a week behind, so here I am, stuck at the parents, not knowing when I will find out where I will be living.

The one good thing is that I am not currently employed, so I have more time for beading. So, lookout for some new pieces coming up real soon! This opportunity has also given my the chance to find some new bead stores and new inspirations. Yesterday, I found an absolutely gorgeous ring, that will hopefully be appearing in my shop soon :)  However, there is one little problem with being unemployed: I'm not making any money so I can't be spending any money. Which is really hard to do. So hopefully my Etsy sales pick up with the addition of some new items. Keep your eyes open for some new items at www.turtlexiii.etsy.com

A fun contest

Here is a great contest being run by my good friend Janet. She makes AMAZING jewelry, and her swarovski button rings are fantastic. I have 2 of her rings and wish I could have more, but money and number of fingers are limiting me :) I suggest you go check it out, for a chance to win your own ring!

Treasure Hunt Contest - Win a Swarovski Ring!


Trinkets N Whatnots - http://www.galla15.etsy.com/ is holding a contest NOW through February 14th!

One month to enter and spread the word for a chance to win a Swarovski crystal ring from my shop.





http://www.etsy.com/listing/46421256/swarovski-red-magma-button-ring-baguette

There are 2 prizes, and 2 ways to win!

1. The 1st place prize is a Swarovski ring of your choice from the shop above.

In order to enter you have to go to the Etsy shop: http://www.galla15.etsy.com// and search through the Swarovski Ring listings. Find the one listing that has this in its description:

*********** TREASURE HUNT ************************

Once you have found the listing, please e-mail or convo me through the Etsy system with a link to that listing. PLEASE title the e-mail or convo CONTEST so that I will get all entries.


DO NOT POST the answer in the comments of this blog.

You can e-mail your answers too: galla15@verizon.net

I will keep a list of each response, in the order that I receive them. Then use http://www.random.org/ to pick a # from my list and that will be the winner. The winner will be announced here on my blog.

2. A 2nd Mystery prize will be given out through the same system with http://www.random.org/ but it will be from a list of people who have promoted this contest. If you blog about the contest, post it on your facebook, or tweet it etc. please leave a comment here to a link of your promotion. Your comment in this blog with your promotion will be your entry to the 2nd place mystery prize!

Have fun on your treasury hunt!
Janet

http://www.trinketsnwhatnots.com/

http://www.galla15.etsy.com/

And when you least expect it, the window opens...

As I reported in my last posting, my husband and I were still totally unsure about where we would be living and working even next week. He went on an interview yesterday in a city about 1 1/2 hours from where we currently live. Totally not where we wanted to live. But we couldn't turn down any possibilities since we had put all our faith in him getting a job with the company he trained with, and that hadn't happened. So off to the interview we went. He thinks it went quite well, but the pay won't be great, and really he won't be getting paid at all the first month.

Well, tonight we got some great news! He got hired on with the school he went to!!! So he will have a guarenteed salary. The hours will be a lot, but we will be living back closer to friends and family. And with my type of job, it's easy for me to get a job. And if I get what it called a traveling job then I would get paid housing for us, so that would make a huge difference in our lives. It would free up some of our money to go to paying back our school loans.

So remember to keep the faith, and look for the open windows all around you.

"Man Plans and God Laughs"

The title is a funny quote that always seems to be true in my life. This last month has been absolutley true to form. My husband finished flight school right before thanksgiving. We gave our notice to our rental company, and I gave notice to my job. The plan was that hubby was going to be a flight instructor for the company he just finished school with, and we would be moving back home to the west coast or arizona. Well, it's now January 5th and we still havent heard from them. So here we are, sitting in an extended stay hotel, with no job. Hubby still has his job, but he is grossly underpaid.

Luckly he has an interview tomorrow. Unluckly its in Winston-Salem, NC. About 2 hours from where we currently live. Not close to Arizona or Southern California like we had planned. We just have to remember that when God closes a door he opens a window. Now I dont tend to be overly religious, but I must say, God was everpresent in our horrific move. What should have been a simple move of putting most or our items in storage and only keeping the vital necessities with us turned into a 4 day marathon, one day in the rain, one day in the freezing cold, and dropping furniture outside the salvation army in the freezing pitch black night. Throughout all that my husband and I found ourselves asking for help, and we recieved it everytime. Now, you dont always get everything you ask for, but if you dont ask, you definately won't get help!

So now we wait and see what opportunities are out there waiting for us to find. And I try to keep working hard on my jewelry business and focusing on reaching my goals for the new year!!

Hope everyone has had a wonderful start to their new year.

2011 Goals

Well, 2010 is rapidly coming to a close and its time for a quick look back, and to plan for the future. Today marks my one year "etsyversary". I set a small goal for myself after a VERY slow start to selling online. My goal was to sell one item a week, or 52 items total. I met and surpassed that goal and made 57 online sales. I also made another couple dozen sales to friends, family, and at craft shows. I did 2 craft shows this past year, with one being classified as an absolute learning experience!! It was an awful show other wise, but I gained a lot of information, and my next show was much more successful.

So my goals for 2011 are a little loftier.
1.  I would like to double my Etsy sales to 104 for the year. Thats essentially 2 a week, or 8 a month. In those terms it seems much less daunting.

2.  Participate in at least 4 craft shows. This will really help get my name out in my local community, not just the online community. There is one I wanted to do this year, but couldn't find how to apply. Well, I know what I need to do now to participate so that's one show down. And it will be back in North Carolina, at the beach I usually go to with my girlfriends. So It will be an awesome opportunity to get back together with my girlfriends who I will be moving away from shortly.

3.  My goals for creating products is a tough one. I will say that I need to dedicate 5 hours a week to product creation only. This can always be changed as my life changes. Right now, I may not be working after wednesday for the next few weeks, to months!!! Scary thought, but our life is in major flux and all I can do is roll with the punches. So I can use it as an opportunity to create like crazy.

More goals and ideas will surely come as the year rolls on and I enter a new phase of my life.

Good Luck to all in 2011!!!!