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!

Graduation Gift - SCRABBLE Jewelry

Graduation time is upon us!  High school, college, kindergarten...whatever the stepping stone...always a celebration.

My nephew is graduating from college in two weeks.  Hard to believe.  We are looking forward to attending the ceremony.  My two nieces are continuing their college education with a couple more years to go.  I'm always so proud of their hard work.  It has not been an easy journey for all of them, but they stuck with it.  Hats off to them.

In honor of this special time of year, we have created a unique graduation gift - actually a few different styles.  One can even be a personalized graduation gift if desired.

Here they are:

Graduation Scrabble Bracelet

Personalized Graduation Gift Necklace

Graduation Scrabble Bracelet

Graduation Scrabble Bracelet

Congratulations to all 2014 Graduates!

Quarterly Taxes

Wonderful news!  Taxes are all paid!  Done...finished...and off they go.

This is the first year that we paid quarterly taxes.  I checked last year to see if we needed to and, surprise, surprise, it was a bit confusing and we were supposed to pay quarterly taxes last year.  So, unfortunately we got a penalty this year.  Bummer.

At any rate, we have paid our 2013 yearly taxes and our 2014 first quarter taxes.  I feel like a "real" business now.  I've been working at keeping good records.  I have spreadsheets that I enter information into and we use an online bookkeeping service for our Etsy business.  That helps a lot and saves so much time.

Business has been good the last few weeks.  Thankfully, since we needed the money for our taxes.

I do really need to work on our vintage art picture frames now.  Our inventory is down.  That is on my schedule for next week.  I've been trying to work on bracelets about three - four days a week and then one or two days on either the frames, Scrabble pendants or our vintage shop.  It definitely keeps me busy.


We've listed a few new bracelets.  That's always exciting.  We created a Sea Turtle bracelet, a couple of Mother's Day bracelets, and a Wizard of Oz bracelet.

Here is the new Mother's Day bracelet...

Mother's Day Bracelet with Victorian Art

Mother's Day Bracelet with Victorian Art

It was so much fun because we found oodles of Victorian heart postcards and art to use!

Here is the Sea Turtle bracelet...

Sea Turtle Bracelet

Love the blue colors in this bracelet!

Finally, a Wizard of Oz bracelet...

Wizard of Oz Bracelet

Wizard of Oz Bracelet

Until next time...we're off to see the wizard!!

Shakespeare Quotes, Wassily Kandinsky and Beach Bracelets!

It's been a great couple of weeks!  Even though business has picked up again, I was still able to create quite a few new Scrabble bracelets!  That always makes a good week!


Here are four of our new Scrabble bracelets...

Shakespeare Quote Bracelet.  Quote bracelets are always popular and I enjoy making them.  They take more time because the tiles are made differently from our normal image files, but they generally turn out well and people seem to like them.

SHAKESPEARE QUOTE BRACELET

Shakespeare Quotes

Shakespeare Quotes

Shakespeare Quotes

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet.  Considered the father of abstract art and a modernist.  He was originally from Russia, but spent the latter part of his life in France.  His art makes fabulous bracelets, but I found it was more challenging than some of the bracelets to figure out which beads to use.  You wouldn't think it would be an issue with all the colors he used, but with the nature of the art, it was really east to overwhelm the bracelet with the beads.  In the end, I opted for a nice smooth round black bead with silver spacers.  Nice!

WASSILY KANDINSKY BRACELET

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet

Wassily Kandinsky Bracelet

Two Beach Bracelets.  We had fun creating these two beach bracelets.  One with vintage art of different beach scenes the other of seashells from the seashore!  So many fond memories of the ocean beaches!

SHELL BEACH BRACELET

Shell Bracelet

Shell Bracelet

VINTAGE BEACH SCENES BRACELET

Beach Bracelet

Beach Bracelet

More next time....