Etsy on Martha Stewart

Today, the founder of etsy, Rob was featured on the Martha Stewart show. Now, I've never watched this show before and was definitely underimpressed. I guess if I were really really really bored I might watch this again someday. Really really really bored.
He was on for just a few minutes with a table of things from some of the top sellers on etsy. I just jumped over to the etsy forums because I fully expected to see some 'it's just not fair to always feature the top sellers what about us that don't sell so much?' type of threads and was kind of surprised not to see any. A lot of the sellers on etsy are quite inexperienced in business and look at etsy as a 'feel good life is always fair and nobody should actually make any money, it should all be art for art's sake' kind of place. Some even go so far as to make anyone who actually makes money at their craft feel kind of guilty like they are 'selling out'.
Huh, not me, etsy is my place of business, not my social circle, and if I weren't making any money at it, I certainly wouldn't be hanging around.
I've been trying to stay away from the forums lately, they are starting to irritate me.

But, back to Martha. I thought it was kind of strange that at the beginning of the show she was eating frogs legs in a French restaurant and then halfway through the show she featured a man with a bunch of endangered frogs in a portable pond. Hmm, did she invite him to bring his little friends for lunch??

Road Trip Part Two

No more Motel 6's for us! Maybe they should be called Motel 666's since you are surely spending a night in hell when you get a room at Motel 6.

We stayed at the Marriot a few blocks from Ventura's beaches in the Pierpont/Seaward section of Ventura, just up the road from the harbor. It's a real resort type hotel with valet parking and the boys who will actually load up your luggage onto one of those gold colored luggage cart things. They even had a jug of lemon water by the check in desk if you were thirsty after your long trip. The restaurant looked nice, but after checking out the prices we decided to go to Snapper Jack's Taco Shack for dinner, one of the many things we miss about Ventura.

Our room was nice, with two big comfy looking beds, lots of pillows, a coffee pot in the TV armoir, a chair for reading, desk for internetting, and even an iron and ironing board in the closet. The only thing I didn't like was if you left the bathroom door open, you could see yourself sitting on the pot in the big huge mirrors on the closet doors. Not a pretty sight.

Keith can sleep anywhere and was out in about 3 seconds. Me, I don't sleep well unless I'm in my own bed, and even then have trouble sometimes, so I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked. But, if you liked your bed, linens, mattress, shampoo, coffee, or whatever, you can order genuine Marriott linens, mattresses, coffee, shampoo, or whatever, from their full color catalog available in every room. The mattress is only like $1200.00. Then you could feel like you are living in a Marriott!

We were going to try and hook up with Keith's kids for breakfast, but I wasn't feeling real good and Keith kind of wanted to just get back home, too, so we left town after checking out. We stopped in Frazier Park and went to Rocky's Bar and Grill for breakfast. There were already people in the bar for their Sunday morning bloody marys or having a hair of the dog. Not the best breakfast I'd ever had, pretty darn greasy.

We got home to full cat boxes and kitties that kind of looked at us, like 'oh, were you gone?'

Look How Big We've Gotten!

From little tiny sick kitties back in June of 07, to healthy kittens in Aug of 07, to these big huge almost grown cats in Feb of 08!
Buddy, Mimi, and Lucy have brought us so much entertainment and pleasure every day since we found them. Keith says all the money we have spent on them has been worth ever penny for all the smiles and laughter they bring us each day. Soon they'll be big and lazy like the other three, so we're going to enjoy each day of them running around, getting into the trash, tumbling and playing with each other, constantly being underfoot, always stealing things off my workbench, and having to clean those cat boxes while we can!

2000 Items Sold in my Supply Shop

Well, the title says it all. Over 2000 items sold in my supply shop on etsy. Here's to 2000 more!
I'm really glad that I started the supply shop last summer, it's been a steady source of sales and income, even with the average price of an item around $1.50. I've got lots of satisfied customers, I try to ship quickly and everyone seems to appreciate that. Nothing like having to wait weeks and weeks for your new supplies when you're just waiting so you can create that perfect thing that's been on your mind for those weeks and weeks of waiting for your supplies. I ordered some supplies from an etsy seller once that didn't even get shipped for 2 weeks. Needless to say, I've never returned to her shop.
February has been pretty slow in my geelizzie jewelry shop, not bad, but just not that great, so the supply side of things has helped keep the bills paid.
I did get a huge order of raw brass charms that I am slowly cleaning, antiquing, and painting for sale in my supply shop and also to make a few necklaces for my jewelry shop.
Now, I need to get back to work, I'm still getting that 100 brooches order ready to go to England!

Road Trip Part One

Last Saturday we took off for the coast to go to my sister's going away open boat/dock party celebrating their upcoming escape to go live in La Paz-on their boat. How's that for moving, just sail away in your house?
Road trips from Bakersfield to the coast are really really boring for the first hour or so. The freeway from town to the interstate is straight and nothing much to look at but farmlands and the occasional house or cow. Soon after you join up with the interstate you go up into the mountains which for the first few miles are pretty and very steep. The hills are starting to turn green with the recent mountain snow and the pass going up 'the grapevine' as the road is called is narrow and pretty. That is until you get past Frazier Park and the view is just hill after hill. No trees, even thought you do pass through a national forest, just bare hills that are still brown from the hot summer. Once you come down out of the mountains, you get onto Hwy 126 which goes through 'Heritage Valley' with lots of lemons, oranges, fruit stands, ranch houses, and Piru, Fillmore, and Santa Paula, three historic old towns founded back in the early ranching and railroading days of the late 1800's. Much more pleasant of a drive than the interstate.
Ventura is a really pretty town with a mission downtown, nice pretty beaches, and a backdrop of hills and mountains. And trees.
This is the boat that is soon to be on it's way to Mexico, and a view of all the party goers. I also included a view of the mountains as seen from the dock. Notice that most people have beer or wine in their hands, dock people are pretty big partyers and don't need much of an excuse to grab a beer and have a party.
Stay tuned for Road Trip Part Two

Kittehs

What is it with fresh cat litter? Does the smell trigger that 'I gotta go and right now' thing in the kitties? We were adding some cat litter to the pans last night and Mimi just couldn't wait. She couldn't quite squeeze herself into the litter box but she was trying really hard, just digging away in there.
We always buy this brand of litter, it has a nice smell and the house doesn't stink of cat peepee.


Buddy likes to crawl under our bedspread and sleep all covered up. This lump is Buddy.
You have to check the bed before you flop yourself down on it to make sure you won't squish a kitty.

Fatty Fatty Two by Four

In my next life I want to come back as a naturally thin person-you know, one of those girls that can eat whatever they want and never gain weight? And I'm not talking about the ones that throw up after eating, just the naturally effortlessly thin and trim ones.
All of my life I have been overweight. I love to eat and really love to eat sweet things and bready things. One of my earliest candy memories is of sneaking into mom's change purse-sorry, mom!-when I was about 4 years old for a penny. We lived in Scotland and there was a candy truck or maybe a bakery truck or some kind of truck that came down the street like the ice cream man does that sold candy. After studying how the bigger kids did it, I learned that with one of the big English pennies-about the size of our half dollars-you could ask for a penny lolly from the truck man and get a big sweet sugary lollipop in return.
I remember having to wear dresses-no pants back in my grade school days for girls-that came from the 'chubby' department. What a horrible name for little girl's clothes! Chubbies-why not just say 'Butterballs' or something? And I remember how uncomfortable those dresses were sometimes. They were the shirtwaist style so popular in the sixties, with the big skirt, sashes, and sometimes puffed sleeves with the little bands that cut into your upper arms. I was forever ripping out the armholes of those sleeves because of my chubby butterball arms.

This picture shows the typical chubby dress that I wore.
I'm not sure when this was taken, sometime in the early
sixties. I'm the fat kid on the left with my dad and my skinny sister Donna in the picture with me. Do I look like a fat kid? Not huge, but I was what people referred to as 'pleasingly plump'. And look at that haircut! After five kids my mom didn't want to have to brush too much hair so we all had short hair. Good thing we wore dresses or people may have mistaken us for little boys!

Anyway, back to the candy and sweets thing. I loved any kind of candy when I was a kid, especially licorice but now my tastes have been refined to where if it's not chocolate candy it's just not worth eating! I also like ice cream a lot, especially if it's chocolate! When I was about 10 I got 50c allowance each week, and before that money got cold, I was on my bike riding to the drugstore that had a soda fountain and a comic book rack. I could get two comic books and a chocolate ice cream soda for that 50c! I still remember how good those sodas tasted and how much fun I had reading those comic books.

So, anyway, back to the fat issue. I did lose weight about 15 years ago with what I called the 'Ethiopia Diet'. Basically, I counted every calorie and was hungry ALL THE TIME! It worked, and I lost a lot of weight, but at a few pounds gained a year times 15 years, it's all come back. It was fun being a sort of thin person for a while and being able to shop at normal sized people's stores for once in my life. I was never smaller than a size 12 which is still considered 'plus size' but it was the only time in my life that I ever saw daylight between my thighs. If you've never had fat thighs, you've never had the pleasure of rashes between them caused by sweaty thighs rubbing together. Or heard that whuff whuff of your pants when you walk.

So, now it's time to try and lose some weight again. I just had to put on my pajamas because my pants are too tight and I just couldn't take it anymore!
I did eat a light dinner but I am STILL HUNGRY!

Romantic Valentines Day ?

I was going to bake some lovely valentine heart cookies for Keith-yeah, right, who am I kidding?-but thought maybe I could fool him with these.

Nope, didn't work, but it's the thought that counts, right?

We didn't go out for a romantic dinner because of course we had no reservations for anywhere, so we went to Los Hermanos which is like a fast food/sit down Mexican restaurant all in one, but they don't serve margaritas.
The food is always really good there and they do bring it to your table on real plates but you order at the counter like Taco Bell.

Then, after we get home, this is how Keith spent the rest of the evening.


He woke up a few hours later to the smell of Buddy butt in his face.

More Random Stuff

I was reading theblackapple.etsy.com's blog the other day and I just don't know how this girl does it. Her shop is probably the most successful shop on etsy, with over 12000 items sold. Yes, 12000! And she keeps up with her blog and is always busy with new things for her shop. Maybe because she is only 24 and still has lots of energy.
I sometimes feel overwhelmed with just my 2 little shops what with trying to keep up with shipping and finding time to create, photograph, and list new things. But, it sure beats the heck out of going to a 'real' job each day.

So, I saw Merle Haggard on the news last night for the dedication of his newly named street. The ceremonies were held at the new Harley Davidson bike shop. He looks like he's been rode hard and put away wet all his life, that's for sure. Apparently he is a native son of Oildale. Oildale is our 'wrong side of the tracks' part of town.

Why can't Keith put a new trash bag in the trash can after he takes the trash out? They are kept only about 12" away from the trash can. And why can't he put the food back where it belongs after he makes a snack? I guess it's that old 'just don't see the milk sitting there on the counter' thing.

And why can't I get my ass in gear and clean the bathroom? I am so tempted to hire someone to come in once a week and clean this house for me.

Our kittens seem to have finally grown out of the sucking on each others bellies thing. They would root around in each others bellies and suck up a flap of belly skin and just suck away. Kind of like a kitty version of a pacifier, I guess. You'd pick up one of the girls and her belly would be all wet and sticky. And every time I pick up Buddy I'm just amazed at how big and solid that kitten has gotten. When we first rescued him his whole body was about the size that his head is now!

We are actually taking a very short vacation this weekend. Sister Heather and her husband Jim are moving to La Paz-I think that's the right place, anyway. They live on a boat and are sailing away to Mexico here in a few weeks and are having an open boat/dock party this weekend. We are staying at a nice hotel Saturday night and visiting with Keith's kids the next morning before heading back home. Our last trip to Ventura was when we stayed at the horrible motel 6 and then had our car break down on the way home so we're hoping we have better luck this time.

I'm still re-working my shop, trying to take new pictures and re-list everything so the shop looks fresher. So, back to work!

Random Stuff

So, they are naming a street after Merle Haggard tomorrow here in Bakersfield, and apparently he will be in town, too. Funny, I thought he was dead. No, wait, that's Buck Owens, and we already have Buck Owens Blvd here. Plus Buck Owens Crystal Palace. And we have Peanut Street here on my end of town, that's one of my favorite street names.

I have an order for 100 pins for lapinandme which is a UK website with lots of cool stuff. She started buying these pins from me almost a year ago and apparently they are popular over there in the UK. They call them badges, not pins.



This is what the brooch looks like on the website. Cool, huh?

Let's see, what else.

Oh, I took this picture of Lucy tonight in this odd sleeping position:






















She looks like the headless cat.

It got up to 72 degrees here today. Then tonight I watched the news of all the snow and ice in the midwest. I don't think I could live where it gets so so cold.

Some kid got shot at an Oxnard school today, the town next to my home town of Ventura. The news said he was in 8th grade. That's what, like 12 or 13 years old? Unbelievable. Or maybe not, considering the gang activity that town is so well known for. A kid was shot to death right in front of my mother in laws house in Oxnard a few years back. And her neighborhood was not exactly the ghetto.

Bakersfield is just about as bad, it's unusual to have a day go by without someone getting shot somewhere in this town.

I bought some drawer organizers to organize my kitchen drawers yesterday. They are sitting on top of the washing machine.
And the load of laundry from yesterday is still in the dryer.
But I did clean the toilet today. But not the rest of the bathroom.

I'm in a Treasury List on Etsy

I usually don't get too excited about being in a treasury list on etsy-after all, there are hundreds of them now, like 23 pages worth and it's just not so special anymore. I was on the front page the other day and didn't know how to take a screenshot until today. So, just thought I'd try doing a screenshot and post it here. I like the theme of this treasury, the carnival and some of my favorite sellers are on it.
Actually, I'm in another list too, so let me go try and screenshot that one. Hold on!

There it is. This one is fun with lots of bright colors.

So, what's a treasury list all about and why is it so important? Well, the front page is frequently chosen from the treasury lists and being on the front page means lots of free exposure for your etsy shop.
I've never made a treasury list and forget to even check it to see if I'm on one, but to some etsyers it's like a day without sunshine if they can't make a treasury list. Before they expanded it the forums were full of threads complaining about how sellers could never snag a list. So they expanded it and now some threads complain about how there are too many lists now.
Just can't win.
Oh, it's hard to see the individual pictures since I know nothing about image size and jpeg and all that, so mine are the ones with the pink polka dot paper background. I won't be using that paper much longer, though, once again I'm redoing all my pictures with different colors of solid paper backgrounds.

Clean-well sort of clean-Table

I did it! I finished cleaning my 'studio'-still love using that word even though it makes me sound kind of pretentious. My stuff is organized and I can walk across the floor without fear of tripping over something.
Here is my work table ready to go. And I even cleaned it back up after soldering some pendants today.

Below-these are the storage bins that Keith got for me and installed in the closet to keep all the stuff for my supply shop on etsy-insert shameless plug-geelizzietwo.etsy.com. So much easier that having everything in plastic bags stuffed in a box in the corner.
And now for today's kitty pictures. This little blue trash can sits behind the printer on top of my desk and Mimi is fascinated by it. She climbed up there and went head first into the trash can. They used to play in it when they were really little. One would be hiding inside and batting at the other ones and then all three would squish themselves inside.

I still haven't gotten in the mood to clean the bathroom...

Time To Clean

I actually got in the mood to do some much needed cleaning in my studio today. I get to working on a bunch of different projects and end up with a nice big mess in there.
This is my work table. It almost always looks like this.
This is all my baskets of finished pendants, earrings, unfinished pendants, chains, beads, etc. on my vintage wood ironing board. Makes a handy little extra table. The walls are freshly painted and I put my collection of art and oddities on the walls all around the room. No carpet yet, still concrete, but that came in handy today when I stepped in the middle of a stray cat turd next to the cat box. I'm glad I had socks on. I think Pepper is the one who doesn't finish before leaving the cat box, and she also is lazy about covering up her poo. Nothing like the smell of a big cat poo poo to get your attention.
This shows the new cabinets that Keith put up all around the room-he still hasn't put the handles on yet even though I keep nagging.
And this is the big mess in the corner. No place to put all this junk until we finish the carpet and closet door. Keith made the window seat out of an old headboard-it's perfect for all the kitties to line up and look out the window-that's their pillow and towel that you see.

So, I did get about half the room done today, sorting stuff out and throwing away a bunch of junk. I found a lot of supplies that I'm listing in my supply shop, things I'm not going to use or have a lot of. Hopefully tomorrow I'll still be in the mood to clean and finish the other half.
Now, if I could just get in the mood to clean the bathroom...

Me!

I wanted to post some of my favorite pictures of my favorite person-ME-and remembered about the photo disc of all sorts of family photos that were shown during my dad's memorial service almost two years ago. As far as funerals and memorials go, his was one of the best-if you can call any of them good-that I've ever been to. We chartered a boat for a sunset cruise and dinner and scattered his ashes at sea. Thanks to Heather and her good friends for putting it all together and putting all the photos together, too.
So...













This was always one of my favorite pictures of the three of us-before those 'other' two kids just had to come along! That's me on the right with Gary in the middle and Linda on the left. This was probably taken around 1957 or so. Weren't we cute!













These two were probably around the same time. These were taken at my Grandfather's ranch in Ventura Ca-he had horses and my mom said that he really liked taking the grandkids to get them new cowboy-and cowgirl-hats.














I guess they couldn't cram all three of us on the same horse! Looks like we were really proud to be cowkids for the day riding and roping!

Made In China

I got a shipment of made in china jewelry boxes in recently.










Mimi wants to know what's inside.












It's Lucy!