Today only....

Free shipping on Jewelry today....

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(and the little secret is that the ten percent discount code THANKFUL10 is still good today! Stock up on gifts!)

I'm happy to ship directly to your recipient.... just let me know at checkout, I'll include a personal note and giftwrap.

Because I am Thankful....

The powers that be at ETSY have bestowed upon us the useage of cupon codes! Yay! Just in time for Black friday/Cyber monday...whatever the heck tomorrow is..... Anyway, we are having a party around here because the school district is giving everyone an emergency day = an extra paid day off because of the weather. We have several inches of snow, and the roads are a skating rink. More about the weather tomorrow. Today's post is to tell you that because I am feeling so very thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life----like you tatters all around the world--- I am offering 10% off purchases from my etsy shop now through Monday. Just use the code THANKFUL10 in your order. Yes, that includes thread! I don't have much in the way of HDT to offer in the shop right now, and Dr. Vonthreadmore has resigned herself to the fact that we probably won't be doing any more thread until after the holidays.....but she is content to sit and scheme...ehem, I mean plan for the grand opening of her own etsy shop. It's not often that you will find our hand dyed on sale, so grab up a little of what's available this turkey day season. And always know that I am ever so grateful for every bit of encouragement and support that you give. And my husband is ever so grateful that I have found an outlet for all of my tatting enthusiasm that doesn't involve him listening to me babble on about it all day :-) So thank you blog land! Happy thanksgiving my friends!

Let it.....oh no!

Well, so much for my nice temperate Washington weather.....

Dearest husband of mine is working an overtime shift today, there is a church that meets his school (he is an assistant chief custodian currently) and once a month he gets to work on sunday. 8 hrs of doubletime pay, plus, the girls and I go to that church when he is working so we get to say hi and see him a little. It softens the blow when he has to be away on a weekend day.

Anyway, my darlingest one called me early in the morning....."just checking to see if my alarm was set"....really he was too excited about the white stuff on the ground. Really, he forgot that the church has two services and I was planning on sleeping in as the children had a rough night and I find myself lacking in the zzzzz's department today.

So, as lovely as the snow looks, (this is the baby's first snow!) I now have the pleasure of getting it off my minivan so we can drive to church. Yay. Lol....I haven't pulled out any winter gear for the under 3 crowd around here, I guess that task is now at hand. After Coffee. And a shower.

Snow Snow Snow!

At least maybe now I will feel more inspired to get some more snowflake earrings made for the next holiday show in a few weeks.

It gets me through

Isdihara called it. In her comment on my previous post....

The last thing I wanted to do last night was tat.

(gasp!)

I absolutely love tatting, and I am sooooo thankful that it's providing for my family right now. But the factor that has changed, is the reality that tatting is no longer "me time". It used to be that if I needed some time off from the kids, or life,.........I would want to sit in my corner and tat. Now, there are good portions of the week where I have to sit and tat. It's no longer optional when an order has been placed for a custom item :-) Compounded by the holidays of course---it's a smart business choice to offer snowflake and winter items that are easily reproduceable.... but one can only make so many white snowflake earrings without going a little nuts (well, me at least lol). I think the biggest part of it is that all of this high production time that I am focusing on (I have another holiday show in three weeks) I am left without "creative" time. I haven't designed anything new lately because I have been busy filling orders. I thrive on the in the moment, the improvisational, and the unexpected. That's just my personality, probably where the performer in me comes from. Expression of self is key to my sanity.

Anyway, I was in a funk about it last night, until I made the realization that a little "me time" would probably fix me....... so I called upon an old friend.

His name is Gibson.

Most of you know that in my previous job I was the worship director for the church we were attending. For those who aren't used to the churchy lingo, that means that I led and directed the team that plays all our music on Sunday mornings at services.

Now that it's no longer my day job, I have teamed up with a friend of mine who has a home recording studio. We are working on some cover tunes, stuff we can play in coffee shops etc. and he lets me come dink around in his soundbooth and sing to my hearts content. So, my creative outlet has again taken a musical swing, and last night in my need for creative release I took out my Gibson ES-135 (for non-guitarists, that just means I'm a spoiled girl and daddy gives me awesome guitars). It's a sweet guitar. We were made for eachother really. (The inside of the case is hot pink after all...) After a mad and fruitless search for headphones, I resigned myself to an unplugged solo jam session on the couch. Headphones would have allowed me to plug in to some fun noisy guitar pedals. Although after a mention of my lack of headphones on facebook, several friends offered me a pair and I will be thankfully accepting a pair this afternoon so I can have some fulfillingly-plugged-in "me time" this evening.

After the orders are filled of course.

The show must go on

It's a crummy cell phone picture, but you get the idea of my setup at the first show.. I had two craft shows, the first on Friday night which I mentioned briefly in the last post. The weekend was quite a whirlwind, as I arrived home from fridays show at 10pm, and had to sort and price tag all of my hand dyed thread for the next morning's show. I don't usually take thread to shows, but this one was the guild's Lace Day event. I offered to be a vendor in hopes that maybe I would sell a few skeins of thread, and I took my jewelry along to maybe at least show a modern use of lace techniques. I wasn't really hopeful that I would bring home much bacon, cause that really wasn't why I was doing this event. Anyway, my expectations were GREATLY surpassed --- as soon as I sat down from setting up my stuff, I was swamped with sales.....both jewelry and thread! I was so honored and touched by how well my work was received. Several of the ladies who do wonderful bobbin lace work took home some jewelry as gifts. I sold almost all of my larger (more expensive) necklaces and bracelets... and a whole load of thread. It just blew me away! In fact, my sales total from the lace day event, is more than the past two shows combined. And after a very slow two weeks on etsy, things have suddenly picked up and I am doing custom work and filling orders and loving every minute of it! It's funny how success can bring it's own sets of problems, I have an aunt who sells jewelry at gun shows and she wanted to take several pieces on consignment......well,..... I sold all of those pieces....so now I am trying as hard as I can to fill remaining orders as well as do some larger pieces for her to take, as well as some more snowflake earrings. One thing I know, is next year, I will start making snowflake earrings in june lol!

Horray for the holiday sale---And the Dr. wants her own shop

I made enough at today's craft show to make the whole ordeal worth my while for sure. Yay! I sold a couple of snowflake items, and several of my flower necklaces. And some wonderful folks have pulled Dr. Vonthreadmore out of her funk by generously purchasing some thread.... in fact she is so far out of her funk that she INSISTS that she should have Her very own shop on Etsy. Her reasoning? Well, if I am doing craft shows more regularly, why should her threads then be unavailable to the rest of the world ? (I put the shop on vacation mode when I do sales for obvious reasons)..... after all I don't take my thread with me to shows. And, when I go to guild meetings once a month, I take my thread stock with me.... so I of course shut down the shop so I don't sell something that sold at the same time online...but that takes my jewelry out of the mix two, because deactivating a few listings for a few hours is a real pain. And, she argues, she only gets one category in our current situation... the jewelry takes up all the rest of the categories. There just isn't room she insists! So, I gave in. After the first of the year I said, she could move into her own Etsy storefront. Right now I just don't have time to make her a banner....do all the setup and move all the listings..... but we will be sure to inform you all, in the Dr.'s ususal insistent manner.... when she indeed has made the switch.

Gulp.

Thread sales seem to have dried up. And, admittedly, revenue from my HDT addiction is a big part of what keeps us afloat around here.

Dr. Vonthreadmore won't even speak to me right now.

She is sulking because I have been so busy making jewelry and whatnot that she hasn't been given the opportunity to work since our last batch called "velvet". It was a large batch for us, on the heels of much thread success in the past two months.....and so far we have only sold one skein.

I keep encouraging the Dr, and trying to reason with her..... really I am sure that tatters everywhere are just tightening their spending habits for the holidays. The hope is that jewelry sales will pick up a bit during the gifting season should hopefully (prayerfully!) balance things out, and her fans should be back in force in the spring.

Of course, none of what I said meant anything to her. But when she saw that I was making some flower hair pins in her latest creation, she insisted that I give you all a look at them.

(really the color is hard to capture....this is under my daylight lamp. The purples are deeper and more rich than I am able to show)

Tatted in size 10 "Velvet". These little bobbies are on their way to another Bazaar tomorrow evening/afternoon. I know, another weekday show----weird right? It's even in a dental office lol! But they sought me out, have been advertising well, and expect traffic of 300-400, so here's to hoping for the best.

I hope you all are having a wonderful time whipping up holiday gifts of tatted lacy love! As always, you are all sooooooo encouraging and I appreciate every comment and bit of advice or cheer that you leave for me here, My fabulous friends! I sent in my application this week to teach some jewelry classes at next years Shuttlebirds workshop, so hopefully I will have good news about that soon. Wouldn't that be a blast!!!!

Snowflakes are falling.....

I've been tatting up a flurry over here! Had my first Craft sale of the season last wednesday, and did pretty well! I sold two necklace and earring sets, a pair of snowflake earrings, one of my more expensive chokers, a bracelet, and another of my dimentional flower necklaces....and a couple other pairs of earrings. Not bad for a midweek, 10am - 3pm show. :-) So now I am gearing up for an evening show this friday....making up some of what was sold etc.

Pictured above is some of the result of the tatting craziness...I've done my snowflake earrings in vintage silk thread, an icy aqua blue and a silvery grey. I think they are kinda classy :-) So far I have sold 3 pairs of the snowflakes, which is great for the first week that they've been available. The crazy thing that has happened to my brain since I became a business....is I find myself thinking about planning for valentines day and spring designs already!!!!! That is out of character for me to be thinking that far ahead, in any aspect of my life. But I won't say no to positive change lol!

Brrrrrrr!

The snowflakes are here!

Now I know that snowflake jewelry won't be all that amazing to a bunch of tatters,

But I am definitely hoping to catch the eye of some etsy shoppers this season :-)

I started designing jewelry years before I ever learned how to tat, so my goal is to make wearable and updated pieces that appeal to today's fashionista.

Yes, these snowflakes are rather uncomplicated, but I took over three weeks and heaps of prototypes to get them to fit perfectly in the hoops, as well as be easy enough to make (I started with such a complicated desing that took an unreasonable amount of time for what I like to charge for earrings..... lol) that I will be able to fill orders in ample time as well as keep them affordable.

So there you have it, I also will be working on some pointssetta earrings....probably my Five Star design in red and white. Right now I have a date with my Cricut machine to make some earring cards for this weeks craft show!