Summer's End

Labor Day is upon us.  It's been a busy summer.  We try to get ahead so we will be prepared for the holiday season.  It's right about now that I start feeling the pressure to have more inventory of Scrabble jewelry and Vintage Art Frames completed for the holiday buying season.  As anyone who has a crafting business knows, it takes a long time to create products.  We hate to lose out on the sales during that time of the year, but we can only do so much, and quite honestly we sometimes need a break from the long hours it takes to get everything made.

At any rate, we had a couple of big orders come in the last couple of weeks.  That was good because with the end of summer and the transition to starting school, it always slows down for a few weeks.  Always scary to see those revenue dollars drop, but at least it is somewhat expected.

I made a set of frames that last few days.  Our frame inventory is quite low and will be limited this holiday season.  I did enjoy making them.  They were a nice break from the Scrabble bracelets.  Even though I love how the Scrabble bracelets turn out, they do get tiring to make at times with the precision that is needed.

Well, the next time I write, it will be September and fall will almost be here.  I do like that our summers here in Washington tend to run into September and even part of October at times with warmer weather and little rain, but the leaves will still drop and the daylight hours will still get shorter.  By October and November the rains will be back and cooler temps will move in.  That's okay though.  I love fall and the start of the holidays season!

Here are a few of the frames that I made last week:

Brittany Dog Photo Frame

Border Collie Picture Frame

French Bulldog Frame

Looking towards the fall, here are a couple of bracelets just for the season!

Fall Leaf / Autumn Scrabble Bracelet

Halloween Scrabble Bracelet

Till next time, we hope you have a safe and fun Labor Day!

Home Business Challenges

The Christmas buying season is well on the way.  Fortunately, people seem to like our Scrabble jewelry and dog frames for Christmas presents, so we've been busy.  Cyber Monday was especially good for us.  That was a nice way to start the week.  We didn't offer any Cyber Monday sales because we try to keep our prices as low as we can anyway, so we don't have a lot of room to play with our prices.

We are, of course, still finding challenges to running our home business - time management and space issues, just to name two.  We find that we have to be well organized with our space constraints, which isn't a bad thing (the organization that is), but we do bump into each other once in a while and have to watch where we're walking.

Time management is always difficult.  Not spending so much time working is a great goal, but it doesn't always work out.  Actually, it rarely works out.  Even though, I wanted to work less after moving to our new home with less expenses, but it is the holiday buying season, so we have a small window of opportunity.  Business drops off about December 12 - 13, generally, so we work long and hard for these few weeks.

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Thought I'd show a few pictures of the space in one of my work areas.  The following photos shows bracelets in various stages of being completed.  I have all the beads handy.  The other supplies are in the drawers directly above the containers of beads like our elastic .

Below shows the storage for some of our bracelets.  We separate them by dogs, holidays, music, etc.  It makes it easier to find them when getting ready to ship.

Some of our biggest sellers this season have been our...

vintage art dog frames...

Border Collie Frame

scrabble bracelets

 like our Elvis Presley Bracelet

"The King" is popular this year

Elvis Presley Bracelet

as is our Jane Austen Quotes Bracelet

Perfect for book lovers!

Jane Austen Quotes Bracelet

Right now, we're just trying to make some of the bracelets as they sell.  We won't keep up with all of them and by Christmas, we will be out of many.  Then, the whole cycle will start again as we start the New Year, but next year we won't be moving to a new home, so maybe we'll be able to get even more inventory made for the next holiday season!  Oh, no, this season has not even come to a close and I'm already planning for next year.  Not exactly living in the moment...well time to stop for the evening and get a little shut-eye.