March Madness

It seems like March is both flying by, and dragging on. The year is almost a quarter of the way over, and I have made little progress on my goals for the year. I am no where close to my sales goal, I haven't done any craft shows yet. However, I have done pretty well with committing 5 hours a week to designing and creating. One of the side effects of unemployment :)

So, my next goal is to spend a bit more time creating jewelry so I can get more items listed and hopefully sold. I also plan to start looking for some spring time craft shows. I already have a fall show in mind, back in North Carolina, at the beach where I go for "girls weekend" with my girlfriends. A great excuse to go back to see my friends, and spend some time at the beach. And we went to this show last year and I really looked around and scoped out the other jewelry designers. There were of course quite a few, but none were selling jewelry similar to mine.

Now that we are settling in back in California I can start looking for and planning for some craft shows out here. There are also tons of weekly "farmers markets" and "street fairs" that I could probably rent a booth at.

So that's my update and plans on the progress towards my goals.

My workspace

As most of you know, my husband and I have just relocated back home to Southern California. Only one month ago we moved into our new apartment. So, needless to say, my workspace is not in it's ideal state. I am working out of boxes, on a card table and folding chair that I commandeered from my parents!



My new home



I'm also using the extra chairs to pile stuff on. A big problem I'm having, is that I don't have all my supplies. Because I flew back to California, I was unable to bring my soldering supplies with me. So those supplies and my drilling supplies, as well as more beads, and my photo props are all still in North Carolina. And of course, when you don't have something, it's all you are motivated to do. I really want to be working on another line of rings, but don't have my supplies.



My workspace



Here are some pictures of my workspace in my old house. I had some shelving and was slightly more organized. However, organization is not my strength, so I tend to waste a lot of time looking for things, but I was trying.



My old, old storage system ( I had actually revamped it a second time with the help of a friend)




My old space, I guess when I got tired I could have taken a nap :)



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.