Doubt and stuff

This weekend has been a reminder not to get too cocky and expect success. The weather was perfect, the football game had a perfect late kickoff time of 4pm and it seemed like it would be a good weekend at the market. Wrong wrong wrong.
I've done better in the rain. Then to top it off and push the self doubt to completion we sold absolutely nothing online for two days all weekend. nada, zilch,big fat zero. Big losers. The self employment and self esteem roller coaster took the downhill plunge. That's like a "self" sandwich between employment and esteem all rolled into one tasteless bitter disappointing snack. Perhaps I'm being a bit dramatic.
So I am holding off on the giant glass supplies order I was about to make until I feel confident again that I will indeed be selling lots of stuff soon.
This upcoming weekend is the Corvallis Fall Festival. We will once again be selling in our regular pretty good spot across from the "real" Fall Festival at the First Christian Church Craft Fair that cleverly takes place on the same weekend and much to the ire of the "real" Fall Festival is almost impossible to discern from the "real" Fall Festival where the participants pay significantly more in fees for the privilege of being juried "artists". (The word "artist" said in snooty, self righteous tone.) My expectations are now properly lowered for the weekend sales.

We added the Aluminum Widget Pendant and these Black Stone and Fresh Water Pearl Swirl Earrings to our Etsy shop .

And now on to the real purpose in living and the reason we try to sell all this stuff so we can have money to buy our little imps more crap.

Torturing your brother!

Yikes!

Loving your brother!


The girls are back!The brown one is Grover who is actually a boy.

Mama Llama ,their serious protector.

The amazing path that our neighbor Chris made through our jungle. The goats are doing an impressive job destroying all the blackberries,poison oak,and general overgrowth of our poorly maintained property.They are like little tractors tearing it all down and we love them for it.

Henry the grape picker. The only fruit he will eat and only if it is from our vines.

This is what happens when you let a pumpkin grow throw the chicken wire fencing that we put around the bed to stop the deer from eating it.

The end of blackberry season. I was wrong. Actually henry will eat blackberries too if he picks them or demands I pick them for him.

"Tight" Jewelry

This past weekend was the Eugene Celebration. Sales vary greatly from year to year on this wekend. Many regular market vendors take the weekend off because they feel there is just too much competition with all the other stuff going on in town. Not to mention you have to set up an hour earlier than normal to get out of the way for the big annual parade that goes right past the market. But this year they wisely planned it on a weekend that there were no football games. (The 12:30 kickoff Ducks football games are usually the death of fall sales at the market. ) I did suprisingly well and sold more than the usual amount of these lovely Swirly Girly Princess Mirrors.
I was also reminded again of what an old fart I am. Apparently our jewelry is "tight". This phrase has been repeated quite a few times by the young hip kids who have come by the booth lately. I assume that they mean it is "cool", "sweet", "da kind","chronic" or very nice. When did "tight" become the new cool word? And is it like a tight joint? A tight music jam?A well formed buttocks? Or something from a scene in "High School Musical"?
I was also reminded of my old age when looking through a music magazine a few months ago. It had a photo of a rock show and all the people in the audience were holding up their glowing cell phones in the dark facing the band at the end of the show. In my day we held up our bic lighters to declare our delight and desire for an encore. (And we damn well liked it sonny.)

I digress...
Etsy continues to please us with constant regular sales and what appears to be the beginning of Christmas shopping. We sold a lot of these Cobalt Iridescent Blue Glass earrings.

and the matching Cobalt Blue Big Iridescent Pendant

and more of these Sterling Silver Celtic Budding Spiral Earrings which have become my favorite everyday earring lately.

This pendant has been selling really well too. The Celtic Budding Spiral Large Light Weight Aluminum Pendant. Do you see the matching earrings and pendant theme here?

In the meantime I have been trying to order supplies and keep up with all the maddness while stepping over the filthy debris scattered throughout my home and of course being a perfect mother to my little angels. My favorite new jewelry box supplier is http://www.fetpak.com/. Their prices are comprable to all the others but they have free shipping which really makes them a great deal. With the holidays coming up I felt like I need to have boxes for the more expensive items we well since so many of our things are gifts. My favorite bubble mailer supplier is http://www.royalmailers.com/ which also has totally free shipping with reasonable prices which makes their prices even better. Now to find a place to store all this stuff.

Speaking of being a perfect parent , I have been reading a book for the first time in a long time-

I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood

It's written in a large print easy to read ,short sections with large funny quotes perfect for 2 minutes in the bathroom at a time reading sessions. It's always nice to know that I am not the only insecure mentally ill woman out there who judges herself and others harshly. Of course I knew that already but still it's great to get that reinforcement. One of my favorite quotes came as I was having a little glass of wine and read -

"My girlfriends and I decided that 4pm is the "new 5" when it comes to pouring that first glass of wine everyday."

Nothing new and mindblowing. The typical Oprah/Dr. Phil/Rachel Ray type stuff, (in fact I remember seeing the women who wrote the book on Oprah)-take time for yourself, don't overschedule, learn to say no, communicate your needs, lighten up, be realistic blah blah blah.

I already knew all that. I'm perfect after all. And so are you.

widgets and grandparents

We've had a busy few weeks. I keep thinking I can't possibly come up with new jewelry designs and then as I am trying to fall asleep at night I start thinking about spirals and swirls and designs we already have and new versions start forming in my sleepy mind. This is a take on our celtic spirals and swirls with some iolite dangling. It kind of looks like an angel if you are in the mood.

We call these Aluminum Widget Earrings. I was climbing through our carport full of Nick's crap- I mean really important things he's found and bought throughout the years that we are storing until they find their proper home - and I noticed a bin of aluminum scrap that yelled to me- Hey idiot, look here! Earring parts!

So I dug through and cleaned them up ,stuck an earwire on them and wa la.

The dreary overcast weather was perfect for photographing jewelry and I got this ideal shot. I listed the earrings and they sold in a few hours on Etsy. But don't worry. We have lots more.

Here is Henry our almost 5 year old drilling the lego pieces with Nick. Hey pay attention to the drill!

Now he's focusing on the handle that he pulls down to drill the holes. Those earrings have been astoundingly successful at the Saturday Market.

My parents came to visit this week from Albuquerque. It was a relaxing visit filled with lots of reading and sitting and mayhem.

Max and Grandpa Joe in a quiet moment.

Grandma Fran in a not so peaceful moment

Henry goofing around with Grandpa.

More reading. Notice Grandma Fran's Lego earrings and the book is Lego book too. Such synchronicity!

Brothers

Attempting to get a good group picture. This was the best one out of about 20. (And frankly, not so flattering. )

Tomorrow I go to the Saturday Market. Hopefully I shall return home with a pile of money and interesting stories to share with the boys.

Designer,inventor,human mop and more

We have been having a full yet simple summer. Lot's of playdates, a birthday party, the annual adoptive families picnic held by the nicest people, the annual Brooks Steam Up that Nick blogged about and more swimming classes involving me getting both kids and myself dressed ,then undressed ,then dressed with swimdiaper, then briefly showered ,then swim for half hour, then showered ,then undressed,then dressed then repeat the next day for two week intervals.
Henry has been very busy creating and showing off his designing skills in all areas. His Lego earrings sold last saturday at the market and one of the pendants I made based on his design sold as well. I made about 4 pendants that I hung on our pendant display next to each other. Throughout the day I would have to detach them from each other. I guess it is just irresistable for random customers to not stick lego's together.
A couple of nights ago when I was really hoping we would be getting ready for bed he insisted that he wanted me to help him make a "sweet little jacket". Not being one to stifle my son's creativity and because I am the most lenient and lame parent when it comes to enforcing bed time I became his "factory" worker (his words, not mine). He told me to cut off the cuffs and neckline of his camoflage longsleeve T-shirt. He then instructed me to cut down the front of it to make a jacket. Then he picked out specific buttons and placed them where I was to sew them on. I did a quick simple job of it and then cut little button holes on the other side to match up.

Here is the serious model and designer:

A jubilant designer in his sweet little jacket.


And this is the tag that he insisted that I cut off the collar and sew a button to and then sew to the back bottom of the jacket. He has always been fascinated by the spare button that often comes with new sweaters , coats and shirts that is sewed on the inside and out of view. This is his hommage to the spare button.

Here he is unbuttoning his coat. I think the moose T shirt underneath works really pulls the whole outfit together with the camo jacket.

As long as I'm going on about the creative impulses of my child ...

He insisted that I tie sponges to his feet to make sponge shoes so that he could clean the floor for me.

And these are the towel shoes I came up with so that he could dry the floor. Frankly, that was the cleanest my kitchen floor has been in years.

And so this isn't just one of those annoying "Look How Smart and Cute My Kid Is " blogs-

Here is one of my latest listings on Etsy. It is the Light Weight Big Aluminum Celtic Budding Spiral Pendant . It is a simple easy inexpensive item that has been selling really well at the market and I sold two of this week.

We discovered an amusing Cheeto this week. We think it looks like Squidward from Spongebob. Right after I took the picture Henry devoured it.

Sticky ,sandy, filthy fun

What strawberries? I didn't smush strawberries all over my head and shirt.

Well yeah, maybe I did...

My brother thought the strawberries would be a good undercoat for the sand that he said I needed in my hair.

Sand is fun!

All this happened within the first hour of waking up in the morning. Two year olds are very filthy cute little beings.

I was going to add some pictures of some new jewelry but apparently blogger won't let me do it. So this is one of those all cute, filthy Max posts.

new stuff and brothers

This is a new design that just sold for the first time on Etsy today! It is our Sterling Silver Vining Spiral in a Teardrop Earrings.

Here is another fairly new design which is actually a rework of an old old design I used to do.It sold this week too! Moss Green Fresh Water Pearl with Dangly Garnet Earrings.

You can see I am very clever with the titles of these pieces.

This is collaborative effort. I bought the glass beads and then Nick said something about how he should have a ball of silver yarn to play with. We have been seeing the Ball of Silver Earrings selling a lot on Etsy which kind of surprised me that it was so popular. So I ran with the idea and as our description in the listing says, we are taunting this dignified kitty with the yarn ball. It was featured in an Etsy treasury today which was somewhat exciting.

And now onto the cute kids pictures. The theme for this week is "Brothers"...

Henry designed this robot costume. He told me exactly where to cut the holes and how he wanted it to be. He originally had me make it for himself but then decided that it would be better on his brother. Max was a more than willing and very cute participant.

Co-drivers of the car. Two can fit in there, really...



This is Henry's newest entree in his repetoire of Mac n Cheese delights. It is called the Easy Mac n Cheese Burrito. The ranch dressing really kicks it up a notch. And of course there is not a trace of a healthy vegetable anywhere in this cheesy masterpiece except perhaps some bleached out corn in the tortilla. It's all in the presentation. He insisted that I wrap it aluminum foil like the real burritos that we get at La Roca in Philomath. (A delightful taqueria that we highly recommend.)

mmmmm

Jigs and trains

This is the jig Nick made for me to make the sterling silver earwires I use on the big aluminum earrings. I needed to make earwires that are larger than the ones we use for all our other earrings because of the large diameter of the aluminum. I was making them by just bending the 20 gauge half hard wire around my fingers. This jig is somewhat quicker but more importantly allows me to make a consistent size earwire.

This is my stubby finger holding down the end of the wire that is still attached to the big coil of silver wire. This way we have no waste.

Snip...


Here they are on a finished product. These Big Chunky Chain Aluminum Earrings look really heavy but are amazingly light. I sold a couple of pair this week for the first time.Yippee

This is our Big Aluminum Treble Clef Pendant.

Brothers...

Henry wears this shirt almost everyday. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine and all things Thomas. It was traumatic week last week when they announced the recall of certain Thomas wooden trains and accessories that were painted in lead tainted red paint in China. We studied the pictures on the website and gathered up our two trains, a box car ,railroad crossing sign and stop sign and put it in the big bubble mailer (which luckily we have a lot of) and sent them back to the factory. It will take 6 to 8 weeks before they will send back replacements and a "free gift". Henry has all sorts of wonderful fantasies about what the free gift or "prize" as he calls it will be. I keep trying to remind him that it will probably be something he doesn't like or want so that he isn't disappointed. Every once in a while he still falls into despair when he realizes that another day has gone by and he still doesn't have his trains (as if he doesn't have 30 other ones to play with right here in his happy home.) I think the Thomas company needs to compensate parents across the world who have had to deal with this psychological trauma with more than a free gift.

I'm thinking an all expenses paid vacation in Hawaii would be fair compensation.