Monetware!

“I enjoy a number of craft-related hobbies, but as you can see my two favorite are papercrafts and jewelry making. After much urging from family and friends, I finally decided to make my items available on-line….and now I’m wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. “

$25.00 USD                                     $3.50 USD

$5.25 USD                                        $2.75 USD

$6.00 USD                                        $20.00 USD

$3.25 USD                                        $9.00 USD

When I was younger, my mother taught me how to sew. My grandmother introduced me to knitting by giving me a book on it even though she didn’t knit herself. Around the time I got married, I begin to experiment with some paper and floral crafts. (I was outraged by some of the prices for wedding favors, flowers, etc. and decided to see what I could do myself.) 

What has been your favorite project to make and why?

Here are a brief reminder of the tips I talked about:

1. Create an easy work environment

2. Get all the daily chores done in the first few hours of the day

3. Use time wisely

4. Keep motivation up

5. Put yourself first

6. Keep track of your progress more than your to-do list

7. Take care of you

Now here’s the part where I talk about what I’ve done this week to improve on these steps!

Starting with number one: Create an easy work environment -I wanted to create a better work environment for my business. Since I work part-time as a child care provider, take care of my daughter all day, and sell handmade gifts as my job – sometimes its hard to put all those things in one room without freaking out! So I cleaned out my storage area and created a good temporary working space. I can open the doors during nap time, everything is easily accessible and ready for work. The things that aren’t great to be left out around children (ironing board, packing materials, paperwork in piles) I leave in my new area so all I have to do is close the doors and I am now child friendly again! This took pretty much most of my week to get organized and I haven’t had much time to use it yet but trust me – I will!!

Number two: Get all the daily chores done in the first few hours of the day – It seemed like by the time I got my chores all done it was lunch time, then nap time/work time, then dinner time. Where was the down time for me? Now that I’ve gotten in a better routine of getting things done I am finished my chores by 9 am! That gives me almost 2 hours to relax, reorganize my day, and spend quality time with my little girl.

Number three: Use time Wisely – Thanks to number three – I have more time!! Which makes it easier to use it wisely because I have that extra time to relax.

Number four: Keep motivation up – this is an awesome trick I’ve figured out. I get up, get ready, get Emma ready, eat breakfast then immediately turn on Pandora on my cell phone and put it in my pocket. My ear buds are free so I can still talk to Emma, the music travels with me so I don’t have to turn it up just to hear it on the other side of the house, it’s lightweight and fits in my back pocket so I don’t even feel it. Good mood follows me wherever I go!

Number five: Put yourself first – something I am HORRIBLE at! I’ve been trying to say no and concentrate on things I need to get done before others but this will be a learning in progress. I’m getting a little better at it but I still am easily distracted with helping everyone else!

Number six: Keep track of your progress rather than your to-do list! This is something I’ve been really great about. After I finish for the day I list of all the things I accomplished to my husband. Then when we are lying in bed I tell him everything I want to do for the next day. I make sure not to put more than three things on my list since I only have about 2 hours to get things done – no need to overwhelm myself!

Number seven: Take care of you – another thing I fail at miserably. Although I have been going to bed earlier, which makes me wake up earlier, which makes me get all my chores done earlier – leaving me with more time during the day. It’s amazing what a little shut-eye will do

Have you been using any of these methods throughout your week? How are they helping you?

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Always,

J

What you’ll want for this project is a serrated knife, an exacto knife, a cutting board, a cork and maybe a pen to mark where you want to cut!

You are going to want to cut one edge of the cork to make a flat side that’s going to lay down flat on the table. I used the serrated knife for this job!

Then I used my exacto knife to mark where I was going to cut on the opposite side. I cut with the serrated knife, then used the exacto knife to pull out the little pieces of cork that were still stuck.

And TADA you have a cork business card holder! I say this is a Work In Progress because I’m not 100% satisfied with how it came out. Two things I want to fix are the opening for the cards (there has to be an easier cleaner way to do this) and then the fact that the cork is so light that you can’t put more than two cards in it without it falling over. I’m going to try to add a weight to the bottom to see if that solves the problem! So more to come on this post

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Always,

J

Welcome to Tuesday Tutorials – where I find awesome easy tutorials for you – now go get crafty

This crafty tutorial comes from: TheSillyPearl

I know two piggies who will be turning FOUR in a few weeks! I thought I’d make a wreath to welcome all the visitors who will be coming by to see them.

I made the wreath with party blowers and two piggy birthday hats (edited: here’s how I made the piggy graphic).

I made the party blowers myself. No, I did not originally set out to make them! I searched high and low for the kind I remember from my childhood…made of paper, lots of fun colors, maybe some stripes or polka dots on them. But the only ones I found were made of this plasticy material in ugly colors and were themed after a cartoon. So I did a search and of course Martha had a tutorial. I skipped some steps and it actually didn’t take too long to make them.

Materials for the Party Blowers:

• Scrapbook paper
• Paper cutter
• Plastic straws
• Pencil
• Rubber bands (or in my case, hair elastics I bought that my girls rejected)
• Ribbon
• Xyron machine (optional)
• Craft glue
• Scissors

Materials for the Wreath:

• Party blowers (made or purchased)
• Piece of cardboard
• Something to cover the cardboard, such as ribbon (not shown)
• Hot glue gun
• Whatever other embellishments you want to add, such as the party hats and printed out stuff

Directions to make the Party Blowers:

For this wreath, the party blowers don’t actually have to work! So we don’t have to worry about making them perfect, or having to seal up any seams for air to escape.

Cut the scrapbook paper into 2×12 inch strips. I chose different patterns from the same pack.

Fold each strip twice so that the two long sides meet in the middle. If you were making a working party blower, you would put a piece of tape all along the seam to seal it up, plus fold down one end about 1/4 inch to seal the end before going on to the next step.

Then starting at one end, roll the strip onto a pencil.

Take a rubber band or elastic and wrap it around the roll. Leave it for at least 24 hours.

It surprisingly didn’t take too long to make all of these!

Now we’ll attach the straw and finishing ribbon. If you like, you can prepare the ribbon first by running some through a Xyron machine, then cutting it into about 1.5 inch strips. Or just cut ribbon into 1.5 inch strips and you can just use glue to adhere it later.

Put some glue along the end of the scrapbook paper roll. I found it easier to pour out some glue onto a plate and use a toothpick to apply the glue. Then cut a straw in half, resulting in two 4-inch pieces. Take one piece and insert it into the paper roll, about 1 inch or so. Fold in the corners of the paper roll end and dab on some more glue to close it up.

Then take your ribbon piece and wrap it around (try to actually stick the ribbon on both the straw and the scrapbook paper, unlike the picture below). All done with the party blower.

Directions to make the wreath:

I used cardboard to make a wreath form, with embroidery hoops as my template…one 12 inch and one 9 inch as the inside and outside of the wreath form. Trace and then cut out with scissors or craft knife.

I then dug up some wide ribbon and wrapped that around the wreath form to cover it up. This ribbon was from my wedding…only 6.5 years ago!

I wanted to add two party hats to the wreath. I found a great template from Creation Corner’s party hat headband tutorial, but I made them slightly bigger. I traced the template onto some cardstock, one color for each of my piggies.

I just stapled the ends together once the hats were shaped.

I also made some piggy printable rounds and stuck one to each hat. I’ll have directions on how to make these soon! Edited: Here’s how I made them!

Glue the hats at one “corner” of the wreath, and start gluing on the party blowers. And don’t forget to tie a ribbon up top for hanging before you cover that area with party blowers.

I’m not really sure if I left some gaps on purpose for the 4’s and the happy birthday sign, but it worked out!

This wreath was a lot of fun to make and I pretty much used what I had at home. Hope you enjoyed it and please let me know if you make one yourself.

If you haven’t already stopped by TheSillyPearl – click the link!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Always,

J

New Listings

        

       

       

       

       

       

       

Today was our Destash Bash and get together and I cannot even start to explain how much fun it was! We had a great number of people show up with lots of interesting things to give away! Of course I scooped up a few things of my own  It’s hard as a crafter to not think of a million amazing things you can make with other’s stuff. For those of you who missed it don’t worry I’m going to dive in to all the things we chatted about! But for now – let’s check out some pictures!

We had tables full of supplies from fabric, yarn, beads, paper products, and more!

It was a great way to get to know everyone and the materials that they use and don’t use anymore.

What better way to get to know someone than see what they are the most passionate about?

Of course I couldn’t resist showing off what I picked up

Coming from someone who has had a hard time finding my group of friends after moving and settling down – it really meant the world to me to be in a room full of people who share the same interests and common goals. Etsy has been more than just a way to show the world what I can make but a stepping grounds for who I am and thanks to Etsy Teams, it’s given me the opportunity to reach out to others and find who are just as excited about this road ahead of us as I am!

Once we all got settled we started talking about who we were, where we were from, what we make in our shops and our other interests. We talked about upcoming events that I’ll be posting in team threads and here on the blog that you might catch us at. One thing that was brought up for a future get together was critiques. I can’t think of a better way to get input on your shop then from people who are on etsy on a daily basis seeing what’s out there and what works – so keep your ears open for that one! Another thing I’m looking forward to is to find a “home” for or monthly gatherings. We’ll be looking into libraries and other places that we can book to meet up and craft or just hang out.

We talked about craft shows – the good, the bad, and the ugly! How do you know if the craft show will be a success? What can you prepare yourself for? Tips and tricks to make it benefit your store.

There was a great discussion about Treasuries, BNRs, and Marketing. All great things in order to boost sales, views, and feedbacks. This is something I’d love to talk more about with anyone if they have any questions.

One thing that I don’t want to forget to mention is providing and promoting for our shops! I’m really excited about expanding as a team and being able to support each other during this process.

I have to say this meet and greet was a complete success. Not only did I walk out of it feeling like I had just met an amazing group of people – but I am so excited about meeting up again and creating this group of people with such a wide variety of skills into a group of friends I’ll never forget!

Love Always,

J

I was reading his posts about tips on creating a less stressful life and also about setting yourself up on creating your own business. If you read Freshly Pressed you may know who I am talking about! There was something so intriguing about what he had to say that I ended up reading his entire blog in one sitting!! Now I know this is far from my usual posts about cleaning organizing and crafting but it’s been something I’ve been seriously interested for a while and this might just be the right time for me to reorganize my priorities and really make an opportunity for me!

So today I’m going to do a post about stepping up your game! This might not work for everyone but these are the steps I’ll be taking for the next few weeks to see if I’m headed in the right direction.

1. Create an easy work environment 

                   This has been something I’ve been continually working on. Being a mother to a young child it’s important to have my own area that’s uncluttered and easy to pick things up and put them down without worrying about it. Also having a very small area to call my own there are some things that just can’t be left out (for example: the ironing board – there’s just no room for it). These next few weeks I’m going to finish up my area to make it the most accessible to my lifestyle and still be a great place to get work done.

2.  Get all of the daily chores done within the first hours of the day.

Since I haven’t been doing my daily lists anymore I’ve gotten in the habit if doing a few chores each day without thinking about them. Getting all of this done in the morning will leave me with plenty of time the rest of the day to do other things like concentrate on getting this business up and running!

3. Use time wisely

                  I know I’m not the only person that spends a little too much time on the computer, gets distracted by TV, or something else around the house that doesn’t necessary need that much attention! For the next few weeks I’ll be organizing my time by importance. First thing on my list is getting my inventory up and completing projects, then listing, then working on my storefront. That means working on the computer is the last thing on my list – which in the long run I think will benefit the amount of time I waste since I’ll be doing it last.

4. Keep motivation up!

                  The worst thing that happens to me when I have the time to get things done is being in a not so motivated mood. I did a post last Thursday about this called Bad Day Go Away! Keeping a positive attitude is a serious must do and for those procrastinators like me out there – tricking yourself into getting it done instead of putting it off is something that is necessary in order to boost your mood. Procrastinators may be the worst when it comes to getting things done but when they do accomplish something they get this enormous boost of self-pride so motivating yourself and getting the littlest things done will create that boost to keep you going!

5. Put yourself first

This is something that I am TERRIBLE at. The blog I was mentioning about said to learn to say No more. He said he was easily wrapped into doing things he didn’t want to do just because he had a hard time saying no and that is clearly a huge problem of mine. Instead of immediately saying yes to something – check your calendar and make sure you are giving yourself enough time to accomplish all your goals. Owning your own business isn’t easy and it’s definitely not going to happen if you let other people take your time away. Now I’m not telling you to say no to everything. You do need some down time and to have fun but don’t let someone take up your entire Sunday when you know that’s the only day of the week you have time to dive into your big projects.

6. Keep track of your progress more than your need to-dos

                  This is a great motivational booster as well as helpful when it comes to keeping track of what you have already done is like a reminder of how far you have gotten. It is important to know what you’d like to get done in order to stay on track but don’t concentrate on that as much as what you have accomplished. A long to do list only leads to stress and anxiety!

7. Take care of you

                   Getting enough sleep, eating right, and taking care of your body is one of the most important things of all. If you aren’t doing these three things there is no way you can accomplish any of the above without struggle! Keeping a set schedule of going to sleep and waking up will help your body adjust properly and be prepared for whats ahead. Even if you are in the middle of working on something it’s important to put it down and eat at an appropriate time. Food keeps the body going and if you aren’t taking care of those needs it’s going to make it hard to work efficiently.

These seven tips are going to be my guidelines for the next few weeks and I’ll be letting you know how they are working and if I’d change any of these! Feel free to share tips that help you get through the day and accomplish your goals.

Thanks for stopping by!
Love Always,

J

Welcome to Tuesday Tutorials – where I find awesome easy tutorials for you – now go get crafty

This crafty tutorial comes from: sayyestohoboken

DIY PURPLE STRIPED MARKET TOTE

Last year I made a striped beach tote and this year I found some perfect purple striped canvas weight fabric at my local fabric outlet for only $4 a yard and knew I wanted to make another version.

Would you like to learn how to make one too? Okay! Keep reading!

1. Cut two pieces of striped fabric about 17 x 17, heavier weight fabric is better. Sew along the right and left sides (red arrows above).

2. Fold it so the seam you just sewed is in the middle, iron it flat and sew straight across the bottom

3. Pinch and fold the corners into a triangle, measure about 2 inches from the point and sew a vertical line at that point (where the red arrow is). Cut off the excess triangle.
4. Now you’ll do the same thing with a lining fabric (I just used a muslin type fabric) except leave about 3” open at the bottom to turn right side out.

5. Now put the two bags right side together inside each other and pin along the top, then sew them together all the way around the top.
6.Reach through the bottom hole, bring the striped fabric through and turn them both right side out. Now measure from the bottom to top including a handle to make the straps. Each of my straps measured 40 inches including seam allowance.

7. Cut two pieces of 40” (or whatever measurement you just came up with) x about 4”. Fold them each in half and sew the loooong way and one short way. Turn them each inside out.
8. Pin them on either side of the bag starting underneath and sew two lines as indicated up each strap stopping at the top of the bag.

9. Lastly, fold the handle on itself, starting about 1 1/2 inches above the top of the bag, pin and sew along the pins.

If you haven’t already stopped by sayyestohoboken – click the link now!

Thanks for stopping by!
Love Always,

J