10 on Tuesday

1. There was some crazy thunder last night. Seriously one clap that I could have sworn was a bomb going off in the house. Not something I want to experience at 1:35 in the morning.

2. I have a 3 Packet Roast in the Crock Pot! Can't wait to eat dinner tonight. Found the recipe here.

3. Audrey is still loving gymnastics. I can see improvements in things already.

4. I will have Christmas cards in the shop this week!

5. This week is book fair at the kids school. They love book fair week. They know I'm a sucker when it comes to buying books.

6. This week is also Parent/Teacher Conference week at school. Shepard does an amazing job and getting pretty much every parent there. I look forward to conferences.

7. After my printer died a long and slow death, I got a new one this week. Mark's parents bought it for me. Well they gave me the money to go buy it. I was going to go with another HP printer, but decided instead on a Canon. I love having a wireless printer and so far it is working great.

8. With my new printer, I am looking forward to adding cupcake toppers to the store. I did some today for an order to match a banner for a baby shower and had a blast with them. The new printer prints so much better.

9. Already working on my 35 before 36 list. While most of the time I come no where near getting them all done, I do love the idea of having the list. I think this year, I'm going to approach it a little different. Still working on it though.

10. I've spent some more time this week on Google +. I haven't done much more than just post something and read what others have posted, but I am anxious to try out their business pages.

Custom cupcake toppers I made for a baby shower. I also made a banner to match them. I LOVE making these so look for lots more soon! Will be offering them to match banners of all kinds too.

Treasury Love

My "Lonely Tire Swing in Winter" isn't feeling so lonely these days. I think tonight it was featured in it's 3rd or 4th treasury this week.

Another great one tonight. Here it is.

To Do this week

On the to-do list this week:

• start handmade holiday shopping series on the blog, which means I get to spend some time "screen" shopping on Etsy for awesome gift ideas. If you have something you are looking for let me know and I will see what I can find.
• 3 banner orders
• cupcake topper order
• Christmas tree shadow box for a friend for her school Christmas party
• new banner for my blog
• Thanksgiving cards
• edit a friends pictures I took 
• edit sisters wedding pictures
• pictures of new items
• list something in the shop everyday!
• work on more product

A friend is having a Holiday Open House on December 3rd and I will be taking my stuff. I'm hoping it will go better than this last one did. 

Mizzou

after months and months of flirting....

it is official, the relationship status was officially changed from "it's complicated" to "in a relationship"

I am so glad this is finally over!!! Not sure what the future will bring us, I'm sure we will go through a rough period of change, but now at least we can get back to the things we love; the games, the athletes and the fun!

Random Musings

• My "Lonely tire swing in Winter" was featured in an Etsy Treasury today. Please check it out here.
• I spent my morning at a very disappointing Holiday Shopping event. I had a booth with cards, American Girl clothes and some other stuff. There were a total of 5 shoppers the entire time. Thankfully it did not cost us anything to do it, but still disappointing.
• I'm interested in what your thoughts are on what makes something "handmade"? Does it have to be completely handmade from scratch type thing or does say a card where the maker has stamped an image, cut the image out and adhered it to the card count? What about stamping on a card and coloring the image in? Just something to think about. 
• Who is the most difficult person to shop for on your list? What do you usually end up getting them?
• One advantage to the bummer fair this morning is I have lots of stuff made now so the shop will be getting stocked over the next week or so! 
• My craft table is buried in junk right now. It is scary! 
• Watching "Finding Nemo" right now! Dart LOVED this movie when he was little.
•  I found out today we are getting a "new" JoAnn's!!! I'm so excited. It won't be HUGE, but when you compare it to the one we have now anything will be an improvement. Ours now is awful. Fabric section isn't horrible, but compared to my mom's it is bad and the scrapbook section is PITIFUL!! I say "new" because we already have one and it's not going in a new building, which makes me happy because at least they are using some of the empty buildings in town. 

Update on my to-do list from this week:

• Rag coasters(will post pics when I get a set done) still need to take pics
• Christmas cards
• headbands
• American Girl clothes
• Holiday Planners(if I can get them to come out the way I want) still trying to get them to work
• mini books
• Thanksgiving banners
• Christmas tags

 Don't forget to "Fall back" tonight!!!!

November Mini-Goals

I really hope I can do better this month than I did last month. I'm not even looking back at last months because I know it was bad. Moving forward!!!

Here are my goals for this month:

• 10 orders at Shopapalooza. I'm really not sure how many people will be there, so I'm shooting for this. Would LOVE more, but will be very happy with 10.
• Get Elf plans made for December. The kids have elves who spend from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve with us and I want the plans made ahead of time this year. Tired of scrambling to figure out what I want to do.
• List something new in the Etsy shop every week day. Will try for Sat and Sun as well, but week days will be awesome!!
• Start Christmas gifts. As I said in a previous post, most of the adults are getting all hand made gifts so I need to get started. Kids are getting a few handmade gifts as well. 

In going with listing something new each week day here is what I listed today:

Great for Santa gifts. Available in red and green! I think they are adorable!

Update on my 34 before 35. Only 2 months to go and I know some of the things on my original list will NOT happen and I am okay with that. Some I've just lost interest in, some I don't have time to do and some I think if I'm really honest with myself I put on there because I thought it was something I should do. I think next years list will be done different.

4. Have 100 sales in my Etsy shop. I've got 2 so far! 40 so far. Not sure I will hit the 100 mark, but I'm going to work hard to get as close as possible.

6. Maintain 50 items in my Etsy shop. I have so many things I want to make and hopefully it will be hard to have 50 items in my shop all the time because hopefully things will be selling! Currently have 20, but have about 10 things I need to photograph to get up and also some that just need to be listed.
7. Do more sewing. I want to make doll clothes, clothes for Audrey and lots of stuff to put in the shop. Made lots of things this past month include 2 pillow case shirts for Audrey, 3 headbands for Audrey, 2 pillowcases for the kids, coasters and a few other things.
 
9. Create digital cards. Think the cards you get at Christmas. Great for birth announcements, birthday invitations, Graduation open houses, wedding save the dates and more. Working on a few designs right now.
 
10. Declutter. I am tired of all the junk we have. I have started with my scrapbook stuff and actually look forward to creating because I don't get caught up in the stuff. My room is so much cleaner than it has been in months. You can actually see the top of the dresser!!
 
11. Be proud of me. I have always had a hard time when someone tells me I create beautiful things and I'm talented. Need to learn to accept it. I made some big strides in October. Still a struggle, but I'm doing better than I was at the beginning of the year.
 
18. Procrastinate less. I have been working hard on this. I am horrible at procrastinating and then doing everything at the last minute. I decided to journal when I was procrastinating to see if I could figure out why it is such a big issue with me. I think the biggest reason I came up with was fear. Fear of putting myself out there. This was a big eye opener for me. 
 
27. Read 1 fun book a month. I love to read, just have a hard time making time for it. Hopefully this will force me to read more. I'm pretty sure I've read 12 this year already. I am currently forcing myself to go to bed a little earlier and read at least every week night. I try to read on the weekends before bed too, but it doesn't always happen. I look forward to that little bit of quiet time before going to sleep.
 
34. Do more to encourage Handmade Items!! I don't care if it's jewelry or cards or what, I just really want to do more to encourage buying handmade. I'm probably going to drive people crazy with this one the closer to the Holidays we get. I challenge you to try and buy or even make more for the Holidays this year than you have in the past. Most of the adults in my family will be getting nothing but handmade stuff for Christmas. The few that might not be will be pictures of the kids and I'm pretty sure I will do something with them to add that handmade spin to it, whether it be doing something to a frame I pick up at a thrift store or making a little scrapbook with them. 

I'm participating in a Shopapalooza this weekend and I can't wait. I was killing myself trying to get a ton of things made, when I realized I should take orders of things instead. I don't know how many Christmas cards people are going to want in a set, so instead of killing myself to try and have that many pre-made I am taking orders. I'm hoping next week at this time I'm up to my eyes in orders. If you could cross your fingers that this weekend goes well I would appreciate it. I'm really nervous and excited. The last craft fair type thing I did was HORRIBLE!!!! It was at a grocery store, which would have been great, but they put us upstairs, hello who is going to go upstairs!?! And the spot I got placed was just as bad. Not really in the flow of the room. This one is free, we just have to donate a door prize. I'm hoping to put together a little "gratitude" basket: a Thanksgiving banner, a little gratitude book that they could fill out on Thanksgiving with family and possibly a little minibook!

Off to work and watch Cars 2 with the family. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Cars so I can't wait to see Cars 2.