pre Halloween blogging...

No more miracles today. We can partly blame daylight savings but I knew all along it was to good to be a true lifestyle change. So I am up at 6:30am brewing some strong coffee and working on my haggard old Mom having a bad hair day complete with a chin full of zits costume for today. The big day. We have lots of funfilled plans for a Happy Halloween. Hopefully there will be enough coffee and bathrooms to make this whole day possible without Mommy losing her mind. We are meeting friends in downtown Corvallis at 1 for trick or treating with the little ones. Most of the stores downtown give out candy and it's a wild scene with hordes of children and strollers cramming into the doorways of every store trying to grab their handful while their parents say "remember to say Thank You." Of course my perfect children always say thank you. In fact , not to brag, but Max said his first "Thank you" yesterday. It sounded more like "dat doo" but the point was well made.
I did put up one new Etsy listing this week but sales have slowed down again so my enthusiasm has too. Here is our Wide Flat Hanging Vase.

And here's a picture from the corn maze at the pumpkin patch just to give this more of a halloween feel.

Happy Halloween!

Miracles

A miracle occured this morning. Max (our 1 1/2 year old) slept in until 8:30. His brother Henry did too (never mind him waking up 3 times in the night.) That meant that I actually got to sleep until 8:30 this morning. I know it doesn't sound like much but Max normally wakes up between 7 and 7:30. This was an unbelievable and glorious experience. When Henry woke us up at 8:30 and I realized that Max wasn't awake yet I panicked and pictured him strangled in his bed . But I walked into his room and there he was just sitting there in his crib. He looked up at me and said "Jew".
Relieved that he was alive, I acknowledged that yes, I am a jew. But it's the juice you want of course. And so we began our well rested day.
The other miracle was that I sold a hanging vase AND a mirror last night on Etsy. This wonderful customer was our very first Etsy customer and she is back for more.
I finally took pictures of one of our bigger hanging vases. Here is the large swirl hanging vase with purple accents:

Autumn themes and more beads

Keeping with the autumn colors and Halloween orange theme this is my latest Etsy listing. The orange bubblestack hanging vase.The sun really lit up that orange glow as it hung on our rustic fence in the autumn light. I also posted this on the www.etsythemeshop.blogspot.com in hopes of more exposure.

Nothing much new here. I just received my order of earwires and new beads from one of my favorite wholesalers Abeada. They send out a simple updated catalogue every 5 weeks with hand drawn pictures. They have been my best source so far for sterling silver earwires which I have given up making myself due to lack of time and the complete mind numbing tedium which I can no longer bare.They also have some great bead prices. I took a risk and ordered sight unseen some stone and glass beads and they are awesome. I can't wait to use them. Now to get to work...

Hobo Henry the Cheerleader

This is my son Henry showing off one of my most pathetic half fast crafty Mom moments .(Nick is astounded that I used the words "half -fast" instead of "half -assed".I never knew that everyone was saying "ass" all the time. Apparently I'm not the only one.It's as if I've been singing the wrong lyrics to a song all this time and never knew it. Or perhaps I just had a shoddy education.)I refer to him as Hobo Henry the Cheerleader in this picture. The chocolate stain on his chin adds to the hobo effect. The paperbag vest will take you far in this life my boy. I must admit that I got these ideas from a book I recently ordered called "The Little Hands Art Book-Exploring Arts and Crafts with 2-6 Year Olds" by Judy Press. It has some great simple ideas and some awful failures. It did have this old newspaper tree "project" that turned out like hobo cheerleader pompoms that I remember my father making for me when I was a child.Perhaps it was one of my first crafting moments that is responsible for making me what I am today.
What I am today is a mediocre success in the the little world of Etsy.com where I managed to sell 2 pairs of earrings in one day. We won't be buying that new mini van anytime soon but it's encouraging.
Keeping with the holiday theme I listed these Orange Marble-y Frosted like Beach Glass earrings 2 days ago. They aren't what sold but perhaps they led my buyers to our etsy shop. Somewhat interesting is that I sold the very first pair of earrings I ever listed on Etsy .I guess people really do look at all the pages. I had given up on selling those.
The days go by with every second filled with endless tasks and needs to be filled, from sippy cups requiring more juice, to earrings needing to be made, with a poop change in between. Thank God for SpongeBob who gives me 12 minute intervals of free time between ads and some great laughs when I stop and sit down for a moment.

The Ornaments

The Spirals and Swirls Ornament

The Treble Clef Ornament

These are my 2 latest listing on Etsy. The Ornaments. Ta Da! I'm just like a big chain store gearing up for the holidays and pushing the holiday crap even before Halloween has come and gone. But really you could use these anywhere, anytime. Really.

They are made out of our lovely 9 gauge aluminum wire and hammered into perfection after the twisting is done. I have already had one inquiry about the treble clef from a perspective Canadian customer. Sadly I am such an idiot these days (which I mostly blame on lack of good sleep due to parenting) that I misspelled "clef" when I initially listed the ornament.I spelled it "cleff". Although it looked odd to me when I wrote it, rather than looking it up I put it into the search function of the Etsy site to see what other treble "cleff" items were out there. Sadly there were a few other morons like me that had it misspelled as well so I just assumed it was correct. Nick has now bookmarked dictionary.com for me so I have no more excuses. Maybe.

One of the reasons we are in the classic "who is more tired" contest today is that last night Henry fell asleep on the couch as 6:45pm. Now a "normal" almost 4 year old that falls asleep at that time who has had a full day of activities and no nap would probably stay asleep the whole night.I foolishly had hoped that Henry would do just that and Nick and I could have a glorious evening of quiet adult time relishing in our new reason for living -the new season of "Lost".So I put Henry in his big boy bed with the new Bob the Builder sheets and comforter that I scored earlier that day for $10 at the local thrift store. I even got the pull up on him without waking him up. Nick had his doubts about how successful this would all be. Once again he proved himself right.(Damn his ability to always be right.)At 9:30, right in the middle of "Lost", Henry woke up and could not be cajoled back to sleep. He was wide awake,refreshed and happy from his long late nap and ready for some good times. At least he was cooperative and in a good mood.We finally got to sleep at 12:30am without too much trauma. At least I made a bunch of jewelry while hanging out late at night while Nick entertained Henry some of the time with Legos.

Enough whining about tiredness.

Smoke and Mirrors

This is my latest listing on our Etsy "shop". It's called Whimsical Swirly Mirror. I really suck at naming these things. It's why Nick and I have always stuck to "Nicholas and Felice" for our business name. We just couldn't come up with some clever play on words that wasn't sappy or annoying.

Anyway, I like the way the picture came out with our rustic fence and hint of a rural barn scene in the mirror. It took a while to figure out how to angle it so that I didn't get the geeky shot of me holding the camera in the mirror. It was a great creative breakthrough for us to figure out how to mount the mirrors in an attractive yet secure way. I get a lot of compliments on them but the sales are slim. Some day our genius will be recognized.

This past saturday was unusually profitable at the market. The weather was perfect and most importantly it was the Narcotics Anonymous convention weekend in Eugene. There were lots of outgoing people who I guess have some extra disposable income these days now that they aren't spending it on narcotics. I did get my fair share of second hand smoke inhalation but it was worth it. It also helped that the U of O football team had an away game that wasn't put on TV until 5pm. Nothing like an early home game to kill the sales in October.

As I write this Nick has taken Henry out to buy more lego equipment and go food shopping and Max is asleep. I am overwhelmed by the quiet and activity options. The biggest question is do I do more work or take a luxurious nap? First things first. Eat chocolate.

Beads and Bottles

These are a pair from our dangly cloisonne "line" of earrings. This is the Etsy link for them.
I fell in love with the cloisonne beads when we first started making jewelry and they haven't let me down yet. I'm always finding new things to pair them with. Last night I wasted hours and hours of my life in between watching the kids play and take baths studying the Shipwreck Beads catalogue. We kind of fell into their shop in Olympia way back about 18 years ago when we first started traveling around the country making jewelry and wholesaling it to stores in between being young silly Deadheads and selling our stuff at Grateful Dead shows too. They have since grown tremendously and have an awesome NY telephone book size catalogue. They charge you $10 when you order it but they give you $15 credit off your next order. They also give your free shipping on orders over $50 on the first 10 pounds. They have become my main source for the cloisonne and most of my faceted glass beads. I decided to take a plunge and buy a whole bunch of other glass beads that I think I can whip up some sweet inexpensive colorful earrings for the Holiday Market that I'll be selling at in Eugene.
It has become apparent to me that I don't have time for making the more expensive, time consuming and somewhat less profitable wire bracelets, anklets and necklaces that have a prominent space in our display. I am an earring lady! I really enjoy making earrings and I make them quickly. So I will be taking the wire bracelets, anklets and necklaces out of our booth and just selling them on Etsy.
On the family front, Max had his 18 month check up today. He now weighs 26 pounds and is just about 3 pounds heavier than his almost 4 year old peanut sized yet big in personality brother which explains all of our various back and neck pains from hefting the cute monkeyboy around. The doctor also told me it was time to break Max of his beloved "Baba". That is a bottle for those of you who don't speak baby talk. So we went cold turkey today and he seems to be handling it OK for the most part. I'm the one sad to see my baby grow up into a toddler although I do look forward to his acquisition of social skills, particularly the ability to eat a meal without throwing it at everyone and using it as hair product.
My hand is now back to it's normal wrinkly, stubby size and is just a little itchy around the scarred sting wounds that the evil beast left on my finger. It was freaky fun using the play dough plastic shape cutters to imprint ducks into my swollen, fluid filled hand .
I also discovered that I am not cuckoo for Coco Puffs. I realized that I am over the oatmeal every morning phase that lasted a few years. But yesterday I just couldn't face it anymore. Something had changed. It was me, not you, you healthy sticky chocked full of vitamins and fiber breakfast food. When I saw the Coco Puffs my eyes lit up. I ate a handful and thought "mmmm. This is good." But then I realized it wasn't good enough. I need more. Maybe it's the protein that's missing. So I am looking for love in the morning. I need something new and exciting. I need breakfast passion. Or maybe just a muffin.

Blue Skies

Sometimes it's the little things that can really make your day. I arrived late to the gym today with both kids in tow and had the once again humiliating experience of informing them that I still hadn't found my member card so could they please check me in without it. I won't go into how I find it totally annoying that they charge $5 for a new laminated card like it's some sort of huge hassle and cost to whip one up for a customer that has paid a gazillion dollars to join their fine establishment. And that I had already shelled out the $5 a few months ago for being a frazzled space head. Well as I was leaving the very pleasant receptionist told me they found my card! Yeah I know this is about as minimal as you can go in the great moments in life but it was like a giant annoying hole in my life was filled with the missing card. Somebody probably found it lying on the floor somewhere between the gym and my car when Ithought I shoved it into my back pocket in another harried Mom moment. Cross that pain in the butt off my list. The icing on the cake of perfection was a perfect episode of All My Children today while I was suffering on the treadmill. All the answers revealed. Tad was purposely lying all along in a clever plan that even I did not see to save Dixie. Zach revealed how he got the disc. These are important things people! Unfortunately I had to miss the last 10 minutes of the show but don't worry, I'll catch up on the episode update site. As if life couldn't be more perfect I dragged the kids to the yuppie food co-op in town that just started carrying my jewelry last month after 20 years of me waiting for them to make room for my non essential non food items. They were half sold out and ordered a ton more.
But don't hate me because I am an annoying upbeat happy person with a perfect life. I did get to have an annoying conversation with someone at the park. In case you haven't seen the pictures of my family or know us yet, our kids are adopted from Korea and Nick and I don't look anything like them. I expect people to notice our family and be curious. I like talking about my kids and adoption. But is it really socially acceptable to ask within 5 minutes of meeting me if my kids are "real" ,"natural" or in today's awkward phrase, "blood brothers"? Is it OK if I ask you if your kids all have the same daddy and if there is a personal and private experience that they had early in their life that you would like to share with me right now? Oh , what's your name again? I mean if it is OK then I guess I'm just an oversensitive, uptight freak and I'll get with the program. Since this experience occurs only about once a month I am willing to believe that it may just be me and that the entire world is not made up of weirdos, but then again...
Well in the honor of my almost perfect day I posted my blue sky, shiny, happy, cheery and bright glass earrings.
Here is the link to them on our Etsy shop if you should feel the need to share in the joy and own them.

Damn %#$! bees! I would love to swear in full words here but it seems somewhat inappropriate so I'll stick to the lame and whimpy symbols of cursing that we now acknowledge as acceptable on the web. Anyway... Damn MF bees. I got stung this morning on my hand through my gloves while cleaning out the stupid cat litter. It really hurts and has blown up my hand to a deformed yet disturbingly wrinkle free freak show. So in honor of the yellow jacket which I am assuming it was I have just listed my awesome bright yellow glass earrings on Etsy. How's that for a lead in?
Here's a delightful picture and link.

Nick has posted some of the latest cute pictures of our boys on his blog The Mechanical Philosopher.

The market yesterday was quiet and boring and uneventful. The minimum adequate amount of money was made and I was able to make a lot of jewelry while I was there which always makes me feel like the day wasn't a complete waste.

I will now go back to whining about my painful, warm, swollen bee stung hand.I hate bees.