Quick Note

Just a quick note here. The thing about the pot holders - well - there is another Etsy seller who wants 20 of my pot holders. 20!! And I suspected I might not sell any. She wants to make something else out of them which is fine by me, and she really seems like a darling girl. So - if she likes the pot holders - and likes what she makes out of them - I may be her pot holder source. Too funny when I put those pot holders on Etsy on a whim. !!! You just never know. :)

On another subject - I made a few of the new bracelets I was thinking about, haven't quite made one I am entirely happy with - but I DO like the one's I've made. They are available in my shop now. I plan to keep on working toward the perfect BetteJo's chunky colorful bracelet!

Have a wonderful evening!

BetteJo

Wonderful Weekend!

Yes, my weekend is just ending now. It was lovely. I took 3 days off work, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. That always makes things nice - whether or not I do anything special.

I spent Thursday mostly running errands, etc. Friday & Saturday I spent a great deal of time messing with my newest discovery - photographing my jewelry with the scanner instead of the camera! The pictures are awesome - there is SO much detail!

Now however, I need to find a way to make those pictures cute and or amusing. The detail is truly beautiful, but the only artistic thing about them is the different ways I can find to lay the jewelry out. Not enough. So I will be online looking for ideas for the next week probably, until I come up with something. Hey, for me - the search is always the most fun!

So - the new pictures firmly in place - a really nice lady went shopping at about 3:00am Sunday morning and bought 5 of my pieces!! I was SO excited! Made me feel like the first sale wasn't just a fluke. I will keep pushing on.

Boyfriend was out of town, came back on Sunday and I was able to spend more time than usual with him, so that was really nice. He fixed my birdhouse for me - what a guy! He's great about any heavy lifting I request of him and he asks so little in return. I think I'm gonna keep him!

The boyfriend, JD, also helped me out BIG - with a printer. My base PC died and along with it - the ability to use my old printer with the laptop network we have going here. How sad is it - that when I want to talk to my son the quickest way to get a response is to IM him - when he is in the back of the house and I am in the front? My daughter was in her room one evening and needed to ask him a question, so she picked up her cell phone and called HIS cell phone - again, he was in the back part of the house.

We are fairly wirelessly spoiled here, and then to all of a sudden lose the ability to print was a blow! Now I can print again, thanks to JD - THANKS JD! - and I can copy and fax and I think it may cook dinner for me, I'll have to check. Oh I hope so, I'm not one for cooking very often.

Oh - today I learned how to add the HTML script to put my "mini-etsy" here on my blog. I had gone into Forums on Etsy - and stumbled across a thread about mini-etsy and how to do it. I didn't even know what it was - but I decided to try it anyway! Now - you can see my awesome jewelry pictures and connect to Etsy by clicking on one of those pictures - right here! I wonder how long it will be - before all these little things don't excite me anymore. Hmmmm.

Tomorrow - back to the daily grind. After a while I start to feel at loose ends without work though, so I guess it's a good thing. I wouldn't have minded one more (or 2) day(s) though. :)

Nite!

BetteJo

A Learning Process

Today has certainly been a learning experience. I have been on the computer ALL day! My butt hurts and sometime today my VCR clock changed time - it apparently rejected the daylight savings time I had changed it to whenever that was. ? So.

I decided that of course it couldn't possibly be that people don't like my jewelry - how could THAT be? So I went on an email campaign, emailing scads of sellers from 'ecrafter' - and I don't think I got a positive response back from anyone. Basically I asked what they thought of the site - if they have had any luck there - etc. One lady, her name is Gloria, said "ecrafter sucks." So - I guess I see where we stand with that.


I decided to hunt around and see what I could elsewhere. I found a site that looked reasonable called artsefest.com. I emailed some sellers from that site - and got a mixed response. There was one that was fairly positive, but the other's seemed mixed. Seemed like people were saying that it was a good site but it was not their primary way of selling. There were a number of mentions of eBay and etsy.

After that I started looking at any website designers - or better yet (and less expensive) sites where you can basically build your own site, manage it, but you pay for the web-hosting and shopping cart stuff - oh - I am such a novice.


I really can't sit here and do this right now, I am somewhat unnerved by everything I learned today after putting links everywhere and working so hard to get my name out there. Now I'm tired - eye strain I'm sure. Going to move on on to something else I'm guessing, another way of selling my jewelry and right this minute - move on to something other than being online!

Have a great evening!

BetteJo

Crazy cat lady, am I?

Sitting here with one cat on my lap who is looking suspiciously at the other cat next to me on the couch, it occurs to me that blogging and selling jewelry online are activities I should have started years ago. Not because I find I am a natural - but because I would have been younger and maybe I would have been a natural.

At this point in my life as I am typing I am very aware that once this goes out on the web - anyone can read it and I have to ask myself - "why would anyone want to?" I mean really, I am the mother of 2 grown kids - although not quite moved out yet - more than a couple pounds overweight and facing menopause. I work 8 hours a day, come home, work on my new website, bead, or watch TV and then go to bed. I never quite get my house clean enough and never quite have enough energy to do anything out of the ordinary.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not pathetic or sad and lonely - far from it! Besides the fact that I still don't have the financial security I would like to - I am pretty happy! Properly medicated - and you think I'm kidding! :) But really, I have gotten to that place where I like myself just fine. I accept the stupid things I've done, realized I've made mistakes, but I've also done good things, been a kind person, and experienced much joy.

So what if my daughter says I'm going to be a crazy cat lady!? I have 4, 2 of which she single-handedly talked me into so how she can be the one to throw stones - I don't know!

Into my 40's already and never having done any crafts at all - I started weaving pot holders. Yes, the old fashioned kind with the loops on a metal loom. I was sort of working through some difficult emotions at the time and I made pot hold after pot holder after pot holder. When I had a big box full - I decided I needed to move on to the next thing.

I bought "Knitting for Dummies" and proceeded to knit some scarves, and then a few more. Wasn't really for me. But I DO have a lot of yarn - I tend to collect things. After that it was quilting, which I really do plan to go back to since I gathered enough fabric to make quilts for my family and the neighbors family and probably a few more families besides. Plus I have a quilt that just needs binding - collecting cat hair and dust, just waiting to be finished.

Nothing has satisfied quite like beading. I'm not even sure how I started - but once I did - I couldn't stop. Now I have so many beads I simply HAVE to sell some of the things I make because I have no use for all of it and no place to keep it either. Besides, it's in the making of it that I get my satisfaction. You never saw anybody get quite so excited about leopard skin jasper or soo chow jade as I do! I am quite attracted to the stone beads the most, and like those big chunky focal beads and building something around them. What fun! For me anyway!

I had a boyfriend for a long time who used to complain that I wanted too much of his time, I needed a hobby, something I liked to do. Well now I have a hobby and I don't have him and I tell you what - I like this MUCH better!!! ;) It's a win win situation as far as I'm concerned!

Have a wonderful day!

BetteJo