Snow, Basketball and all that jazz…

Ok, so maybe I don’t have any jazz for you but I do have the others!

Yep, it does snow in my neck of the desert about once a year, twice if we are lucky. And this past time it stuck around until…are you ready for this????? NOON!!! LOL It is gorgeous. All the way to school the kids kept saying, “Aw, look at ________! It’s so pretty!” Fill that blank in with everything from the school, a car, a house, a mailbox, literally everything! But I didn’t stop them, because they were right. It was a stunning 5 minute drive.

From our house in Cottonwood:

The drive to work, took my breath away! I actually played a tourist and took pictures from the van.

Snow in Sedona:

For those of you who know the rock formations, Bell Rock is in this picture:

On to basketball. Yes, I know, compltetly out of context and has nothing to do with snow but it does have to do with my life so you are subjected to it as well! hehe

We pulled up to the elementary school last night for Ben’s basketball practice and a fire truck was there. Ben was a little concerned that something may have happened. But all was fine, except for the fact that they had to practice with the Cottonwood Fire Department! He was so excited and talked about it all night! Our coach is a fireman and his buddies came over to help the team out! How cool is that???

Can you find my kiddo in the bunch?

The chicken pox, pneumonia, broncialitis and ear infections are gone….though Noah is cutting another tooth, but I should be able to get updates done a bit more consistent with healthy kids and actual sleep!

Another preview!

I haven’t even added these to Flickr yet! I had them soaking in water for 3 days and finally cleaned them up late last night and grabbed pics this morning! I am really sad that I broke my favorite leaf, but I will make more! Also, made some beads into earrings! I plan on selling those not only on etsy but also in our store and the other 2 places you can find my jewelry and beads IRL! 😉

So here they are!

And some closer pics of the leaves that are sellable:

 

So that is all for me today! The kids have a half day of school and I have two home sick with sinus infections and ear infections. I am clorox-ing EVERYTHING today! Gotta get the germies out of here!!!

Didja see? huh? huh? didja?

I got to torch last night! *dances*

I already added them to my Flickr page so the little “thingy” on the side should show them but just incase 😉 I plan to give you sneak peeks 🙂

Now to get my tush moving and get some jewelry made. I am, with other artists, going to have a space at the artisans galleria over the Holiday Season!

Randomness

Is there such a word? LOL

Well, if not, give me credit if ya use it! Today’s quick blog post is just that, random!

First a pic of our wee one:

he’s 4 months old now and such a delight and HE’S CRAWLING! Seriously! He is! The boys nurse was at the house last week and was just floored when she saw his making his way across the floor!

And then a tea cup candle! This one was on Etsy but sold, if you are interested visit either of the etsy stores and convo us. We have 2 more available and ready to go, they are just not in the girls shop yet!

Next, I have been making jewelry! I am trying to get our retail store front stock up since busy season for our place is now thru January. I am not going to have a lot of spare time so I am trying to have a bunch ready ahead of time. Pics to come…that is if you all want to see…but then maybe you don’t have an option! hehehehe

And finally today, a shoutout for fall weather! *woot woot* *dances* It’s noticably cooler overnight and early mornings. Still gets “warm” during the day but its so much more tolerable! The kids have been enjoying lots of time outside and I have been enjoying the thought of our electric bill going down! Yeah!!!!

A big KUDOS to Arizona’s MLB team, the Diamondbacks!

Due to a few factors, our family never got to take a trip out to the ocean like we had hoped to. Instead, we decided to take all the kids to a baseball game! Yes all ten!

The Arizona Diamondbacks are a super family-friendly ball club. Not only do they offer great deals on a big pack of tickets, they also have a “family day” every Sunday. This means that with the right coupon, kids 12 and under eat free. Yes, totally free! A free hotdog or corndog, milk or a soda and popcorn! After the game, the kids 15 and under are allowed to go down on the field and run the bases.

For our Little Leaguer this was totally awesome! To be on the same field as his favorite players…and btw, he got to see his favorite player, Brandon Webb, pitch the game! Wooohoooo!!!

To our 4 year old mentally and physically challenged child, going on the field was a dream come true. I wish I had known ahead of time that there was a “quick” way to get him on the field. The Diamondbacks crew have it set up absolutely beautifully for children with handicaps to get on and off the field so smoothly, I had tears in my eyes! Our oldest took him around the bases in the stroller and they had no issues with this. They were so very accomadating! Now had we known it was going to be an easy thing to do, I would have brought all the kids down with us. Instead, they waited in line with dad for over an hour to get down to the field. The wait was well worth it.

And I bet you are wondering just how we kept the kids sitting the entire time? Well, boy oh boy do the D-Backs ROCK! They have an indoor playground, a miniture ball field and a Peter Piper Playzone!

To top off the whole experience, it was a give-away night. The first 5,000 kids 12 and under got backpacks! Nice, good quality backpacks! Nicer than the one I paid over $15 for at a large, well-known retailer in our area that broke before our Kindergartner even got to use it!

AND YES!!!!! The Dbacks won their game and Brandon Webb, our PITCHER, won us the game with an awesome hit! GO DBACKS!!!

So the AZ Diamondbacks get two big thumbs up from this large family from Up North! Thanks for some great memories!!

driving home with our tired crew….

Self-Promoting

A new topic for FlamingHot! A topic that my hubby and I just discussed this very morning!

At the beginning of 2007, I worked really hard and built up a great customer base. I was very happy with what I was making and hey, I was doing something I love!! Fast forward a couple of months and I find myself working full time at our family’s new business. I didn’t have a lot of time for making beads, let alone the time for promoting myself. Guess what? My sales dropped. Drastically. 😦

Recently, with me doing my portion of work from home, I find myself with more time to make beads, jewelry and time for self-promoting. But at this point, I have let my sales drift away to almost nothing so it is like I am starting all over again at the beginning.

I have made a few notes in my bead journal, goals I guess one would call them. Steps to take and work hard on to get my sales back to where they were and above.

So, on to what do I do?

I blog, you are reading this right? Well, I hope someone is!!! I joined the very cool group of FlamingHot! I try to blog when new topics come up.

I am trying to keep up with new auctions on JustBeads.com Keeping fresh auctions up always helps. I got into such a bad mode with relisting week after week after week.

Recently, I opened an Etsy.com store. I am putting some new stuff in there along with some of the sets I have had in my stash for longer than a month. I have had no sales there yet, but I do know that it takes a lot of networking. I am trying to reach out to other store owners there as well as keeping that link in my sig lines on most forums I visit.

Lastly, I alluded earlier to our family business. Well, we have a storefront in Sedona, AZ. Just before Christmas I set up my rack and displayed my finished jewelry and put out a rack for earrings. I have been selling things like crazy there lately. In fact, a few customers have given us some tips to get more sales and I plan to act on those as soon as I can.

I guess from what I have rambled about, it’s all about word of mouth, getting your name out there. I never realized just how much work that can take but I do know that in the end, it will all be worth it.

Expanding My Horizon’s

I knew at the beginning of the year that I wanted to get my work out there and sell a bit more. Luckily, I had a few avenues to go with.

One being that we are lucky….or not so lucky….to have a retail/wholesale store in Sedona, AZ. There you can find jewelry made by me and beads. If you are in the area, let me know ahead of time! I don’t usually keep just beads there unless I know someone is stopping by. Maybe that is one thing I should change. My BIL is a concierge at a hotel and has sent people over to buy beads before. My jewelry sales have been great the past 2-3 weeks. I just restocked some today.

These sales have pushed me into opening an Etsy.com store.

My Etsy Store

This is just a beginning. I plan to get more listed there over the remaining part of the week.

Since I am new at the whole Etsy store thing, I am more than willing to take comments, advice, anything! I need all the help I can get there!

What else is in store for the year? What will the following months bring? I don’t know yet, but so far my sales for 2008 have been pretty good. I am pleased. 🙂

Visual Presentation

Yesterday, on FlamingHot!, A discussion was started on how you present your beads when you sell. This is on topic that I am trying to find just where I want to be. What do I mean?

 I will state right off the bat that photography is not my strong suit. I have tried white backgrounds and I still struggle getting the right colors. Though, I do think that I can get “ok” pics this way. These beads are an example of this type.

Not perfect by any means, but the colors are accurate and hey, I sold the beads.

But unfortunately, I know these pics are not the best so I set out to try something different. I tried shooting on some marble, I tried shooting on just cement. I also tried wood, along with a few other ideas, none of them stuck.

Then one day I ran out of time to shoot pictures at home so I brought my setup and beads to work with me. I am lucky enough to live near Sedona, AZ, home of beautiful Red Rocks…..and lizards!

Yes, sometimes I am lucky enough to have a little helper while I am taking photos. So I found a great backdrop that works for me, though a few colors I have to take alternate shots of because the red rocks just do not work the best for certain colors.

 So now that I am happy with the backdrop I can finally get to the actual presentation! Isn’t that what I am supposed to be blogging about anyways? 😉

The two options I have used are pretty basic. Strung and unstrung. My mind is still not made up as to which way I like them better. Maybe you all can help!

Strung:

Unstrung/Random:

 Posting them like this does give me an opinion after all, but…..I am going to wait until I get a bit of feedback before I reveal which I like better, which I feel is more “me”.