Anne of Green Gables

Because I love Anne of Green Gables and all her wonderful words (written of course by Lucy Maud Montgomery), we have created several Anne of Green Gables Scrabble items.

I was fortunate to be able to visit Lucy Maud Montgomery's home site and the Anne of Green Gables Museum on Prince Edward Island a few years back.  My mother was out visiting me when I lived in Ohio, and we took a magical trip up through Concord, Massachusetts visiting Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House and Ralph Waldo Emerson's House, as well as others.  Then, we headed north into Canada and up to P.E.I. - a dream come true for me.

Following are links to the Anne of Green Gables Museum on Prince Edward Island, as well as the home site where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived with her grandparents from 1876 - 1911.  There isn't much left at the home site, but it is still worth the visit!  There are placards that describe places around the property and a little gift shop.  Anyone familiar with Anne of Green Gables, will be able to walk around the property getting goosebumps seeing what she saw.

Museum link: http://www.annemuseum.com/index.php

This is a photo I took on our visit to Green Gable Museum on Prince Edward Island

Lucy Maud Montgomery Home Site Cavendish: http://www.peisland.com/lmm/index.shtml

Lucy Maud Montgomery Home Site

Here are some of the Anne of Green Gables Jewelry items we have created:

Anne of Green Gables "Kindred" Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables - Prince Edward Island Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables Scrabble Bracelet

Anne of Green Gables Scrabble Pendant

Anne of Green Gables Scrabble Pendant

For those who haven't had the opportunity to read the Anne of Green Gables books or watch the movies, here are a couple of links to them if you'd like to check them out.

Next time...some of our new bracelets!

 

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.