Halloween!!!

October has been such a busy month. Today marks the one week countdown til my surgery. I’m nervous, but we’re preparing. The etsy shop will be “on vacation”  by the time I re-open I’ll have an action plan for the holiday rush.  I told myself I wasn’t going to decorate much because of the upcoming events but of course I didn’t listen to myself & decorated the house for Halloween. I do need to give myself credit though. I didn’t put out my Nightmare before Christmas village, I’m bummed but at the same time it would have been more work to put out & put back.  So I get points for that right???

So I just wanted to do a quick update.  It’s Halloween weekend, and with all the costume making and decorating, I didn’t blog AT ALL this month til now. I’ll be sure to make up for it, with  lots of pictures and descriptions in the next entry. I am so excited about this Halloween, because although I love Halloween, I haven’t dressed up in such a long time.  I’ve always focused on decorations. This year I have four costumes to make and only one done.  So I’m really pressed for time. Even right now as  I type this out I only have one done, and that’s only because today is Halloween dress up day for the school. We’ve got a few parties to get to over the weekend, so tonight & tomorrow is basically all I’ve got to finish the other three.

Wish me luck! Can’t wait to give you a “tour” blog-wise of the festivities of Halloween. Next year we’re throwing a party!  

shen 

Getting Legit..

So here I am. It’s already mid-September & the numerous incomplete blog entries are just sitting there waiting to be completed and posted. Oh, well…

I figured I’d have plenty of time when I’m on medical leave in November to do all the miscellaneous interwebbing task I’d like to catch up on. Read other blogs, put up some entries of my own, upload a ton of pictures on flickr… facebook…

I’ll stay busy.

So for now I’ll share what some of the main goals I’m trying to accomplish by the end of 2011. I’m going legit. Sellers permit, business license, and fictitious name papers will all be filed by hopefully October, but if it stretches out until November/December I won’t mind.

Why the push? Well, I want to be ready to sell & have a booth/ table.

I’m starting to be more confident of the items I make, and I’m ready to put myself out there a lot more. 

I recently attended (with the hubby & kiddos) the San Pedro Square Sign lighting ceremony, in beautiful downtown San Jose. We were able to do a walk- through of the whole floor plan, and I can honestly say I’m very excited about the vision the higher-ups have for this place.

If you’re interested here is their website.  http://www.sanpedrosquaremarket.com/

Well during our walk-through, I noticed a “rental table section- $20 a day” which got me very animated about the whole idea.  So excited that when I got home that night, I emailed to get more information.  So now I’m preparing…Sellers permit, I figured was the easiest, because that’s what everyone else wants you to turn in when you are doing a booth at a festival. Now I will have one of my very own.  Yay!

I also went out and got a PO Box for Girly Spazms. I figured with Christmas coming & the busy times I had last year, I’d like to mail things out from the new PO instead.  

So if anyone comes across this & feels the need to send some snail mail, send it on over.  I’d love some.

Girly Spazms P.O. Box 59661 San Jose, CA 95159

I have new business cards designed and ready to go, but I’ve placed them on hold until I get down to at least half of my other supply of the old cards.

I’ve been busy making lunch napkins & I am planning to add bento box sets to sell on my etsy shop as well as the table later.

I have my little brainstorming book that I carry around with me.  As much as I love my ipad, there is nothing like being able to write w/ good old paper and pen.

My cute little idea notebook.

 Quick update on Sam's elections. She didn't win, but to reward her for her bravery, we went out for some awesome udon & sushi dinner. We had a great time & over-all I think she's coping well with not wining. 

Now the kiddos (+ her bff) are asking for Halloween costumes & I'm slowly designing them.

Oh! Halloween is coming! My favorite! 

I also started commissioning Sammie (aka meowstachio) to start doing my graphic work on photoshop since she's such a whiz kid at it.

So that's it... 

I made another entry! yay me!!!

shen 

Learn to laugh at yourself..

Sometimes you just have to learn to totally laugh at yourself.

So with the kiddos back in school.(I still can't believe I have kids in high school and junior high) we're back to making lunches, (happy that my kiddos love bringing lunches to school) I had this wonderful idea of making cute little cotton napkins for their lunches. Reusable, washable, and did I mention CUTE! oh yes, I did... 

Well, I've made quite a few. Some for the kiddos (if you haven't noticed by now, I am keen on the word "KIDDO"), some for the etsy shop. Quite excited with my stack of cute little napkins, I decide to do a search today on etsy, and the number of hits sent my head spinning. Yes, I know, I know... Napkins isn't exactly an innovative idea, but I just thought this was an awesome idea. Turns out I'm not as genius as I thought.  It's okay though, the practice was good for my sewing skills, and now I'm on a search to find the perfect fabric to make into our dining napkins. So what can you do... Just laugh. I'm still going to put up my little sets in my shop. Why not right? I mean it's something else to add to my endless growing number to the shop.

In etsy shop news, I can't believe it's already September. One more month, and October will be a full year since I opened my shop. I'm excited!

Latest & greatest: Sam is running for Freshman VP, so she put her crafty mama to work & this is the results of that. Elections are today & she finds out next week...

380 mustaches to hand out

handcut

holes punched & turned into necklaces to handout

Silkscreened Sam's shirt for election day

 After I had been cutting out about a hundred, the hubby comes in & cuts 2 & says "out of all the machines you have, none of them can cut this?" So now I'm looking into either the "sure cuts a lot" program or cricut software as a gift for myself in the near future...

Again you just laugh...

It's finally the weekend! Happy Labor Day everyone! 

shen 

Scrapbook Expo- My First time

I've got a few blog entries saved that should have been posted over the course of the summer. Did that happen? Nope. So I figured I'd be able to get this one done quickly.

So I'm sitting in my craft room on my last day of my four day weekend, the kiddos are still at school. It's their first day, and to keep me busy I've got a long To-do list to keep me distracted.
So far so good, because when I sit to really think about it my stomach starts to hurt. It's a new school for both of them, oh well I'll find out in a few hours how it went.

To start off my first day of my four day weekend, I went to my first scrapbook expo held at the Santa Clara Convention Center. My co-worker (who has become what I consider a really good friend) took me. She has gone consecutively for 5-6 years now, and lemme tell you. I had so much fun.

So much to see, so much excitement. I even won a door prize of $10 to one of the booths at the expo.

Alright, here's my confession. I do not scrapbook. Yes, I shall repeat. I DO NOT SCRAPBOOK!

At least not yet. I just looked through the papers I have and whoa...baby. I need to stop getting some for a bit. I use the patterned paper as backdrops in my etsy shop photos. I just have a lot more than I need.

 I came out of the expo with a few cute sheets of patterned paper, some stamps, stickers, and a huge regret of not buying a pillow box die cut from a particular booth. But it's fine, I was able to look up the expo map layout & flip through the few business cards I took & ordered what I wanted online. So it'll be on it's way. Next year... My motto "JUST GET IT!"

Along with a nice lunch, and great company, I totally had a good time, and can't wait to go again next year. 

A blurry iphone pic of just some of the things I came home with.  From Left to right. 1. cute birthday clear stamp set, 2-3-4 things I found at the booth I won a gift certificate from.

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 Yay! I finally was able to finish an entry!

shen