Say what?!?!

72 Days!! You’ve got to be kidding me!! 72 days to Christmas?!?!

How has that happened? That’s just slightly over 10 weeks!!

I already feel the pressure. I’m rushing to get my shop ready, get my own shopping and gift making started and get all the other things that happen this month and next together, too. My life is further complicated by a two week vacation which starts in just over a week. I need to gather and pack for that, hopefully have some great goodies baked up to take with us for the family, get things together here at home for those that aren’t going with us and prep some birthday gifts we’ll need within the next three weeks, too.

So, what needs to be done to get my online shop ready? Silly question. Everything!

As always, I am frantically trying to get more stock done and listed between working on orders and making for our personal gift needs. It’s also not too early to start an online promotional push. Folks have begun to do their holiday shopping. I can tell because I already have a number of Christmas orders coming in.

I’m trying to be prepared for a sales onslaught. (Keeping my fingers crossed for one, at least!) Since my most popular items are infant through size 2 onesie-style infant bodysuits, I’ve set in a full stock of each size in that range. As many of my items are hand-dyed, I’ve also stocked up on my dye supplies and pre-washed a number of the bodysuits so they are ready to dip as ordered. I usually maintain a reasonable stock of my fabric paints at all times but I have doubled my extra bottles as I have found they are not always available in the most popular colors as the holidays get closer.

As the holidays approach, I’ve also found the shipping materials are not always as easy to obtain. Most of my merchandise ships in the free Priority Mail envelopes and boxes available at the Post Office. My normal routine is to grab replacement envelopes and boxes as I mail shipments so that I always have a few on hand as orders come in. This time of year, I try to pick up extras on each trip to the Post Office as I have found in the past that they often run out of the most popular sizes very quickly as the general public begins shipping gifts. I’ve already purchased a healthy supply of tissue paper and ziplock bags that I use in my shipping.

I’m taking time now to print extra large supplies of my garment hang tags, cards and inserts that go in every package. I do thank you notes to each customer on special paper featuring designs compatible with my product. I have stocked up on several more packs of that paper than I normally keep on hand. I generally enclose a thank you gift with my larger orders so I have prepared a fair amount of these so I can simply grab an appropriate one and drop it in as I pack. (These are “bread & butter” items that are generally available for sale at my live shows so I need a large stock on hand anyway.)

Now, all I need is the customers! If you find any wandering around in search of something to buy, please send them my way.

I’ll leave the light on.

New Bits'n'Pieces

WARNING : The pictures illustrating this post have absolutely nothing to do with today's subject. They just make me feel good !

Okay, I watched the live feed very closely when that rocket hit the moon’s surface this morning and I saw - nothing. Absolutely nothing!! So, I’m confused. What were all those NASA folks applauding?

Congrats to Barack Obama for wining the Nobel Peace Prize. All of America should beam like proud parents. I only wonder if the significance of the award is diminished when it is awarded for “potential” as opposed to “accomplishment.” Were the European powers-that-be performing one last comment on the former administration?

One has to wonder about the sheer amount of air time dedicated to the Letterman events this week. Has it impacted your life personally? Hasn’t had any effect on mine but I am tired of hearing about it. Isn’t this really between those couples directly involved?

Now, this item is worth noting. Bertha Church, of Baltimore County, Maryland, turned 100 in May, this year. She’s been crocheting since she was a child and some years ago decided to put those skills to constructive use by crocheting little caps for the newborns at the local hospital. She’s still making and donating about 12 caps per month and, since 1990, has donated approximately 2700 hats to that hospital!!! Go, Bertha!!!

In a personal note to The Retired One, were you in NYC this morning? Someone in the crowd on The Today Show was holding up a sign stating “Yooper Women!” Actually, the holder of the sign appeared to be a good looking young man! I thought maybe you, or another of my UP friends were doing a NYC tour!! (LOL) P.S. If it was you, we expect pictures!!!

I read an obituary for a gentleman recently that put a new twist on the concept of a “Celebration of Life.” He knew he was in the last stages of a long illness and threw his own party a few weeks before his death. His “Bon Voyage” affair was attended by over 100 of his family, friends and colleagues and was a real blow-out which his family claims he enjoyed thoroughly! Happy trails, my friend!


I’m not a big fan of the current Mayor of Baltimore. (Thankfully, I have not lived there in many years.) However, I must give her kudos for creatively instituting the furloughs necessitated by budget cuts. All non-essential City employees there are facing a number of furlough days in the coming year. She has tried to take some of the sting out of this by attaching those unpaid days off to several holiday weekends. The reasoning being: If you’re not being paid for the day, hopefully, you can at least do something fun and exciting with your extra-long weekend. This week, they are getting a 4-day Columbus Day weekend!

Hey, did you hear about the Faux Zebras at the Gaza zoo? Seems the zoo, the only last family attraction in Gaza, lost all of its animals except one lioness to starvation or escape during the military offensive. In an effort to restore the facility, zoo workers smuggled dogs,cats and monkeys in through tunnels from Eqypt but, at $15,00 per animal, they simply could not purchase a zebra. They could, however, have a local artist paint donkeys with stripes to look like zebras!! The Faux Zebras are now the main attraction at the zoo with little ones clamoring to have their pictures taken with them!! Talk about creative solutions!!!

I spent a little while last night playing with the layout of my Etsy shop. Etsy instituted the ability to rearrange your listings a few weeks back but I hadn't done anything with the new feature until now. With Halloween rushing toward us, I wanted to keep my Halloween items at the forefront but didn't want to devote the entire Featured Items section to them. So, I used the new feature to place them at the top of my listings, followed closely by the Christmas line-up. I'm happy to report, the new feature is super simple to use and does give us a chance to display a bit more effectively. If you have an Etsy presence and haven't tried this feature yet, jump in and play with it. It was definitely a long time coming.

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***In case you were wondering, I took these pics at the Freedom Festival in Simpsonville, SC in May, 2008. It was the first balloon festival I ever attended and I was impressed! I took a tremendous number of pictures so I have tons to choose from. They really make me happy just to look at them!

"Tomorrow is another day..."

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

I had decided I would begin super-promoting my Etsy shop again beginning May 1st as I had allowed those efforts to drop off in April and my views had dropped accordingly. Like I said, it was a good plan. Today is the 5th and I really haven’t done a lot in that direction. I had good intentions but just didn’t act upon them. I seemed to get distracted very easily these last couple of days. Maybe I’ll blame it on the cool, gray and dreary weather.

So, I’m setting a new date to begin. I swear I will begin working at promoting again tomorrow. I feel like Scarlett O’Hara, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” Or maybe, I’ll just burst into song and do my imitation of Annie. (Don’t worry, I won’t risk shattering all the glass in my house by singing.)
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*** TRIVIA QUESTION***Quoting Scarlett tonight made me think of this question for you, dear readers, - do you know what other fairly common phrases came directly from Gone with the Wind? Think carefully. (You’ve got to be fairly familiar with the story.) **The answers are at the end of the post.
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Back on topic:
All was not wasted. I did work on some new designs today and I’m working on painting some new merchandise to list within the next few days. I also computerized my inventory list. I’ve been doing it on paper until now. It took me until this evening to figure just how to design a list that allowed me to add the promotional notes I have been adding on the handwritten list. It needed to provide flexible notation areas but still maintain an orderly, easy to view listing. It was like a light bulb suddenly went off and the form suddenly flowed easily. I guess that will be another month-long experiment to see how well this new form works for the long-term.

I have one more brainstorming session to work on - I have a piece of merchandise that I would love to list but haven’t figured out the shipping angle on it yet. It is fairly large and I’m having trouble finding an appropriate packaging method. I hope to resolve this soon as I love creating that particular item. It sells well in live sales and I’d love to be able to put it online. It also has a fairly decent profit margin. I’m still working on this thought.
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***TRIVIA ANSWER: “Fiddle-dee-dee!” and “Great balls of fire!” Both were phrases also uttered by Scarlett.
FUN FACT: Not a common phrase these days, but probably the best known Scarlett quote is, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”
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Okay, y’all go out there and be creative today. Maybe make some great outfit from a heavy set of drapes or something.

Maybe it's my mojo coming back - slowly.

Late last night, I finally took time to revamp the Welcome Page for my etsy shop as well as my Profile and Shop's Policies pages. It's basically all the same info - just rearranged, I did add a little language about the safety of my merchandise. I've been meaning to do this for quite a while now.

With the CPSIA threat out of the way for now, I've begun to add new children's merchandise to my shop. The two newest additions are my Fun Frogs Set, featuring a onesie and matching pants, and a Tool Man In Training Onesie. I've offered the latter as a 2 pc set for a while but keep getting requests for just the onesie so I've finally listed it by itself.

If you're looking for something different for a little one in your life,

please check out these and others in my shop at www.splashin.etsy.com.

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Today went a lot better than yesterday. I'm not sure I've actually recovered all of my mojo but I did find some energy. Since the creative juices hadn't started to flow, I threw myself into the mundane necessities of life like laundry, grocery shopping and cooking.

The Big Guy took pity on me last night and fixed dinner so I decided he deserved a decent meal tonight. He thoroughly enjoyed his pork enchiladas and black beans this evening. The best part (for me anyhow) is there's enough leftovers to constitute a second dinner from the effort.

I've never learned to cook for just two people. When I worked 45-50 hours a week, I used to spend one entire day cooking and stockpiling a bunch of meals for the freezer. Favorites have always been things like jambalaya, pulled pork, chicken parmesan, stuffed shells, etc. I'd do that like once every six weeks or so. Since I've been at home full time, I haven't stopped that system I still appreciate painting all day and then being able to produce a quick home-cooked meal by simply heating something up.

Here's one of the recipes I like to use for such meals:

CHICKEN PARMESAN (without breading)

**When I make this to stockpile, I simply prep the chicken and then freeze it in a freezer bag. It only takes a few minutes to assemble the chicken with the sauce and cheese before putting it in the oven.

4 boneless skinned chicken breasts
Salt-free lemon pepper
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 jar tomato sauce of your choice (I usually use Prego)
Italian seasoning
Garlic powder
Shredded mozzarella
Spaghetti
*Generously sprinkle chicken with lemon pepper. Coat a non-stick pan with just enough olive oil to cover the bottom (1-2 Tbsp.). Brown the chicken slowly over low heat. (The slow cooking tenderizes the meat.)
*When chicken is cooked through, place the breasts in a baking dish and cover with tomato sauce.
*Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and garlic powder to taste.
*Top each breast with a handful of shredded mozzarella.
*Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, until cheese bubbles and browns.
*Serve over spaghetti, cooked as directed on the package.

Add a salad and garlic bread and you’ve got a meal!


I hope to get some new painting done tomorrow. We'll see.

Till then, think creative thoughts.