Monday, July 16, 2007

Great big sale going on now!

Today I started my big sale. It's not actually a moving sale -- got at least a few more months of saving up to do, as it turns out. It's more like a "Making room for my awesome Autumn collection" sale, because the website was getting a little, well, over-stocked.

Things are very busy for me right now. In a little over 2 weeks, I'm leaving for my annual visit to NY to see the in-laws. My first two days there will be spent at a wedding. I still need to buy a dress for said wedding, and then make gorgeous jewelry to go with it. And before I leave, I need to photograph all of the 2008 LL-BFAC projects I've received and mail them back out. I don't feel comfortable with leaving other peoples' artwork in my home while I'm gone for a couple of weeks. And of course, I have lots of other little things to take care of, including jury duty on the 30th. Never a dull moment...

Because of this, I'm taking a small hiatus from weekly updates. During this time I will be putting more of the current stock on sale, doing general maintenance, and probably adding some items to the Gallery. I will also be beading new jewelry. On August 25th, once I've had a little time to recover from my trip, I will unveil the start of my Autumn collection. Expect to see soft neutrals and rich earth tones.

Coincidentally, my big sale will also run until the 25th! I kicked it off today by marking down all of my Crystal Bracelets to $45 from $60, and discounting some assorted necklaces. I intend to put a few more things on special, but there was a thunderstorm overhead so I had to shut down ;) I'll certainly post sale updates here.

Today's Cool Thing is the Vintage Indie blog. If you love the vintage aesthetic, and you love supporting Indie businesses, then this is the blog for you!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Hot, hot, HOT!

No, I'm not talking about fashion trends or foxy celebrities. I'm unfortunately talking about the temperature in my apartment. Apparently the motor in my evaporative cooler overheated and shut itself down. Thankfully the maintenance guy here is pretty fast on the response, but while he was up there he discovered that the cooler needed new bearings, too, so he had to take off for the hardware store. It should be fixed within the hour, but I've already been sitting in the heat for two hours, and the oscillating fan can only do so much!

It's too hot to sit under my Ott-Lite, so I'm going to have to wait until later to finish my current bracelet. I've already completed the Autumn-hued one from earlier this week, and am now working on something in black, lime, and aqua, a combination I always enjoy. Not sure what I'll start after that.

On Tuesday, we learned that we were approved for the home loan we were trying for... Hooray! This means that I'm going to have a HUGE sale to try to clear out some of this jewelry. I'd rather package it up and mail it off than pack it up and then unpack it! I'll also be trying to weed out my bead collection a bit, which means I may be selling off some supplies.

Today's Cool Thing is a Bloody Brain Bowl! Although it appeals to my love of the macabre, I'm not quite sure that I could eat cereal out of it. I'm pretty easily squicked-out in the morning!

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Something Magical.

There's something magical about the first nice day after a stretch of bad weather. Over the holiday weekend, our monsoons blew in, and it was unbearably hot and humid. I didn't do anything last week because of it. Every time I would try to get motivated to do anything that took more energy than watching DVDs, the heat would just sap the energy right out of me.

The storms were rather fierce for this part of the country. On Thursday, we had very strong winds, which picked up the dry dirt of the shared front yard of the apartment complex and sent it everywhere. The swimming pool was full of dirt, which didn't get cleaned up until yesterday. All the doors and cards had layers of dirt on them, and it had also blown into the laundry room, making quite a mess. Debris was strewn about. And the half-dead tree which stood next to the mailbox, which had once been beautiful, with delicate branches reaching down towards the earth, blew over. We had little rain, and the thunderstorm didn't even linger for long, but the wind made itself known.

But then yesterday came, and suddenly things were better. Oh, it was still hot and overcast, but not to unbearable levels. It was like a weight was finally lifted from my shoulders, and I felt like myself again. I was able to do a lot of the housework that had built up over the weekend, and start a bracelet (which I almost finished by the time the night was over), dance, and even start to think about working on a book again.

It's good to be back.

I know I promised a Independence Weekend sale, and I totally flubbed that. This weekend I'll have a big sale to make up for it. I'm about ready to start clearing things out to make way for new designs for Autumn. The bracelet I'm working on definitely has a Fall feel to it, and will go well with several of my existing necklaces and earrings.

Today's Cool Thing is Insect Lab. My husband's been on a bit of a steam punk kick lately (not that I can blame him, I enjoy a little steam punk myself), and this link is what he sent me this afternoon. The artist beautiful juxtaposes clockwork gears against insect specimens... My personal favorites are the beetles because not only do I love beetles, but their wider bodies allow for more added gears.