Coupon Code

I am trying out a new coupon code on Etsy for my blog readers. This code will be good through the end of the year and will take 20% of your purchase. The code will be "stamps". Happy shopping!

Craft Fair Season 2010

I have been doing shows since the beginning of October and my last one of the year is this Saturday. I have noticed a sharp decline in attendance this year at every show. I don't know if it is the economy or people just aren't getting excited about going to the shows. Even at my best shows I have made far less money this year over last year. It is very discouraging. I will be doing fewer shows next year because I have barely made my table money back at most of them.

I don't know what the answer is but I truly wish that I did. Hopefully my last show of the year will be more profitable even though it won't be able to make up all the lost income and time from the previous shows.

One Wild Year

I can not believe that it is November already and that I haven't posted since January. It has been one wild year since my last post.

My son had brain surgery and that was quite an ordeal as you can well imagine.One of my daughters had to make a very quick last minute move to another area and I actually lived with her and her family for a month. And I have been very sick for most of this year.

Now fall craft fair season is upon me and I have a show every weekend until the middle of December. Never a dull moment.

I have been able to make new items for my shop. I started a line of journals that I had been wanting to do for a long time. New cards and calendars. I have much more that I want to do but it will probably not happen until after the holidays.

I am going to try to post more often and hopefully life will let me.

New Year

A new year and a new beginning!

I have not been well since my bout with the swine flu unfortunately. I have had no voice since November which is very frustrating. Good thing I work for myself and don't have to do a lot of talking.

I have been working on lots of things and getting them posted in my shop. The fun things are the Valentine cards that I have made and sold already. I think that Valentine cards are my favorite type of card to make. I think because it reminds me of being a kid and giving out valentines to all my friends and classmates. I loved getting all those little valentines and I would hang on to them for months.

I've posted a couple of my favorites here. The images come from Penny Black and I just love the fun hedgehog line that they have.

Will be back to blog more soon.

Sidelined by the Swine Flu

I have been hit hard by the swine flu and strep. Not a pretty combination at all. I think that I caught it at my craft fair on the 7th because I was fine before then.

It has really put me behind for my biggest craft fair which is this Saturday (the 21st). I'm still feeling quite poorly and don't have any strength or energy. I guess I have to hope for a miracle so that I am well enough for the show.

I hope that none of you out there get this flu because it really is awful.

The New Tent

I know it has been awhile since I have written yet again. So much has been happening here on a personal level that it has been very difficult for me to keep up.

I wanted to share with you my experience with my EZ Up Dome tent. I really like it. It is very easy to put up and take down. At the craft fair it was raining all day and it did a good job keeping the water out and of course the domed top kept the water from pooling.

Because it was raining so much at the craft fair there wasn't a lot of customer so a lot of the other venders came by to talk about the tent. Most had never seen one like mine and were impressed by it. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I didn't get a picture but I hope to remember the next time it is set up.

Envelopes!

First I apologize for the absence from my blog. I had a period of illness that left me unable to do much of anything. I'm hoping that I'm on the mend enough to keep on top of things.

Another note is that the craft fair tent has arrived. Haven't done the trial set up yet but will be doing that soon to see how difficult and how long it actually takes to set up.

But this entry is actually about envelopes. Now I make and sell mostly cards as my business and it is something I really love. Now along with all the supplies needed to make the actual cards themselves I need to have envelopes.

So I have been making lots of cards and putting them up for sale on etsy and artfire and also making lots of cards for my upcoming craft fairs. I wasn't worried about envelopes because I had an unopened box of 250 sitting up on my shelf.

Today I decided I needed to start packaging some of my craft fair cards so I wasn't doing them all at the last minute. So I took the box of envelopes down from the shelf and opened it up only to find that there were no envelopes in the box at all. The horror of it all. So instead of packaging up my cards I had to spend time searching for a supplier to buy envelopes because my last one went out of business.

So I ordered 1000 envelopes today and that should last me quite some time. I guess the only real plus that came out of this was that I did decide to try to do this early and did discover the problem in enough time to get some shipped to me but it looks like I will be packaging everything at the last minute because I ran out. I will however be marking the boxes when they are empty so I know in advance if I have envelopes left in the future.