Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Changes are Constantly Happening...a Short Blurp

A new look-

I am always looking for a way to decorate this blog.   Well, Blogger has come through with this pink packground.   I love it better than the old one.  This is bright and cheery.   Sure, I can always go on these sites to download a template for this blog and my other, but whose to say with bloger will do with it.   They do have the right to reject it.   I am not taking that chance.  Well that is it for now.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Scrapbooking class

Hello-

A couple entries ago, I mention something about a scrapbooking class that I was going to be teaching at my church.   Well, that day did not work out at all, because it was a long day, and if you are over the age of 60, sometimes but not a lot, you get tired from sitting in a meeting that has to do with the well-being of a church.   I have one position in the church that requires me to be on that board, and sometimes I wish that I was not on that board, but God sometimes calls you to do something that you thought was impossible to do.   This particular meeting, things had got a little out of hand, and people were not happy with how the meeting turned out.  in the end, it worked out, but my class ended up being sacrificed, and I had to scheduled it for another day.   Well, that day was this past Saturday, June 5, and this day did not go as well as the last one.    The big difference in the two days was I had two people on Saturday, besides me and my mom, and I had to share the fellowship hall with the Saturday adult class.   I had a boat-load of stuff to show the two ladies, and since we do not have an elevator to go down into the basement, and carrying the roller with my stuff in it was not an option.   I was disappointed in the number of people who showed up, but these two ladies, who I admire, gave me constructive criticism  on my advertising.   OK, so 7 years of advertising training went out the window the day I made the announcement in the morning worship went over my head, and I lost all marbles.   The way they heard and the way I said it, did not make a lot of sense.   What the two ladies heard was I am having a scrapbook class.   No description, no nothing.    So maybe the class only brought out two curious people, and the rest who spoke to me, said that they were not interested  in learning about this craft.   The two ladies and my mom also said that because of what the weekend was that it was hard for people to come, an said that maybe I should have one in the fall, to promote making gifts using the photos.   so I am gathering Ideas for that.   I had fun regardless of the problem.  They said that I should have a sign up sheet too.

No new stuff...

Sorry no new card or scrapbook page to show you, but I am have my list of things to do, such as:

  • a multi-shot of Nine'na on a page.   It was Mother's day, and order for my father and Mike to finish setting up the dinner buffet, me, mom, and my sister Schaundra took the kids out to a nearby park in the neighborhood.   Deonte went straight to the  play equipment, while Miss Nine'na ran in the grass, with her nice pretty dress on.  My camera has a a multi-shot option on it, but I wanted to see if I can capture that same look without using it, and it worked.
  • Deer multi-shot.   Not to out do what I took of Nine'na on mother's day, I saw as I was driving up in my condo neighborhood was a deer.  rare sight, so I drove like a bat out of you know where to get to my camera.   after carefully driving into the garage, I ran in, grabbed the camera, and in a nick of time was able to the same multi-shot without the mult-shot feature.  I did not know luck would stike twice.
  • Christmas cards.  This is my last swap from this group for a while, but I only have to make 4 cards.   I am taking a break from swaps, and maybe from the group.  I will see.
  • Etsy/ebay cards and pages:   I need new pages and cards.   the condo association is having a community garage sale this Saturday, and usually, I sell my retired Longaberger products, and try to take orders.  this year it is going to be different, in that in addition to that, I am going to try to sell the cards that I have listed on Etsy.   I have had them there for 6 months, and I think I need to get rid of them.   I am also going to sell tags, note cards, and Jumbo papercips with something pasted on them.   If I get really ambious,  I may make note pads and jounals with pens.   I will also have things that I no longer need too.  wow what a sale.  If I sell the cards from the etsy store, then I have to un-list them.  
Well that is it for now.   I will talk to you later, and God Bless You.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Sorry, been MIA

I have been absent the lasr few months.   I Have been busy trying to get this business off the ground, and it seems that I am not getting anywhere with Etsy.   I thought that Etsy was the best there is next to Ebay, and neither one of them are giving me the satisfaction I need as a seller and my cards.   I know also one of the reason for this, is I have been concentrating on swaps, and not my businesses.   This is a lesson learned for me.   After I make these Christmas cards, I am off swaps for a while.   I need to do the following things:

Concentrate on both of my businesses.
Concentrate on why I am doing my businesses.
Update my blogs.
Update my facebook page
Concentrate on what God wants out of these businesses.
Concentrate on both of my businesses.

Notice how I said "Concentrate on both of my businesses" twice.   I did not quit Archivers to do swaps, but the owner of the group felt like it is totally neccessary to swap out totally professional work, not my best work, although she says in the emails, our best work.   Swaps have to be wrapped just so, which I am willing to do.  You cannot have certain items on a swap piece, which I am willing to do, but with me making very little money at the moment, If I get out the pieces on time, I am doing good.

OK, enough with the gripe session, it is time to move onward and upward.   I need good website to promote my items on, and having my 14 year old nephew as a webmaster is not it.  He means well, and I love him for asking, but I went to one of my networking meetings the week before, and topic was how to promote your business.  the person who spoke, gave some good information on how.   I have most of it, I mean I have a facebook page with both companies, joined an online networking group, where I can promote both groups.   I am on a couple of yahoo groups to promote my businesses.  I have an Etsy store, I sell on ebay, and I have these two blogs.    I know I am not doing enough or my sales in both companies would reflect otherwise.

Well at least one:

I will show you at least on of my projects I worked on.  Yes, it was for a swap for this group I am in, and I mailed it yesterday.   I can make one for you, if you would like a copy of it for you Disney scrapbook you are working on, or would like for me to work on.
This is for an Animal Kingdom swap, and it is made out of the following :  1 bazzill Suade Brown Dark (12x12), Bazzill Grey (12x12, do not know the actual name of the paper since it is discontinued, but you can use another bazzill grey paper, I had this on hand), Creative memories White (12x12), Remininence leopard print (12x12), Bazzill Poka dot Beige ribbon, Mementos Black ink. elephant is from an unknown source from the internet (but any jungle animal will do).  The scallop and smooth oval circles were cut out from the Cricut cartridge Storybook, one of my favorite cartridges.  The scallop borders is a lighter unknown brown bazzill paper (it too is also discountinued)    
This is the sketch I drawn from:
The only thing that I changed up from the orignal sketch is that I have an oval instead if a circle.   I took the top of the paper Leopard print and where the writing goes, I flipped it, and used it on the ribbon.   I replaced the stars with the elephant to give that African look, and I put the journaling directly under the pictures instead of off to the side.  Now for the tricky part.   The scallops under the patterned paper were not on the orginal.  I faked a piece a scallop paper to make it look like there is a second peice of paper underneath.  I cut a scallop border from the Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge, then traced it onto a lighter brown bazzill cardstock.  

Well that is it.  I hope that I can get back on track.  I hope you have a wonderful start to the summer.  if you have kids, have fun finding them something to do for the summer.   My nephew will be busy, and other neice and nephew are not old enough to get busy.   (nephew is 3 and the neice is 1). I have no children, yet, so I get to skip that luxury.   Talk to you next time.