Simple Joy Sunday

It's important to notice the things that make us smile, no matter the size or shape.  Here's some of my happiness from this past week.

The majority of this week was spent creating new chain maille, shining it all up, and working on my display for yesterday's Women Riders Event.  The event went really well for me, so much better than what I was anticipating anyway.  I really thought that it was going to be more about just promotion for me, but in addition to giving out some business cards & getting names for the mailing list, I also made a few good sales.  I'm not sure if I would have gotten those two bigger sales if I didn't accept credit cards: I am really in love with the Square app and reader for my phone!  Scott was my wingman, keeping me company (traffic was in spurts), and helping me with set up & tear down.  I am so happy that I made those sales!  Not just because it feels good that someone loves my work enough to purchase it, but also because I can now reinvest that money into my shop to order some more rubber rings (I'm all out!) and oil to make soap (I'm nearly out !).

I sold another one of my Jeep accessories!  I still have a few more ads posted on Craigslist, but this stuff has been a good start & I'm grateful.  Work is going to be slim this summer, so anything helps!

I can tell that 3 Day walkers are starting their training for this year's events: I'm getting even more requests for my sore muscle salve!  After plenty more requests for my soap, too, I'm going to add some limited supplies of both into the shop this week.  The packaging/labeling may not be perfect but it will be available to those that need it.  Why is this a simple joy?  Because I am so terribly flattered that people are requesting my products.

This week, I attended a webinar with Kiva Rose.  She's such a smart, caring herbalist and so generously shared her knowledge.  I really learned a lot from her in that short webinar and continue to be inspired by the plants and our Earth.

What were some of your simple joys this week?  Share below or write your own blog post (we can exchange links!).  I'd love to hear!

From Yesterday's Blues to Today's Excitement

Sorry about that downer post yesterday, but I now have some excitement to counteract it!

First of all, I woke up to an overnight Etsy sale: my Chain Maille Rosette Watchband. Sales in general still have not gotten old and, for some reason, waking up to them is even better. I just think it's so much fun knowing that someone was mysteriously scoping out my goods overnight and some kind of magic happened thus creating a sale. The selling fairies were with me during the night!

Next, a past customer has contacted me about doing another custom piece for her! Our first collaboration resulted in an amazing (if I do say so myself) purse which I need to share with you in another post.

And the last bit of Armoury excitement: a girl I work with has commissioned me to make her a chain maille ring. We first started talking about doing a European weave similar to the one at right (available in my Etsy shop or my Artfire shop), but using gold, sterling, and copper and making the weave a little denser. The design changed drastically today when she saw the diamond shaped Japanese 12-2 ring I'm wearing. I showed it to her as an example of something and she loved it. So, now we're going with that in gold and sterling. It's going to look amazing in those metals. Plus, this is the first opportunity that I have had to work in gold, so I'm very excited.

On a personal note... As you probably gathered from my last post, I'm kind of desperate for a little bit of fun. Work has been dragging me down for a while and it's been a long, long time since I've been able to get away (we bought our house two years ago and have spent every extra dime we have dealing with some stuff). After looking at our finances, it just didn't seem like it was going to happen again this year, but I didn't give up looking. Today, I found some hotel rates over in St. Augustine that I think we'll be able to afford for a nice long weekend away. There's a beach there, a fort, a fun walking around area, and supposedly a really nice museum. Then Scott came up with a fun idea: we've been talking about getting bikes for a while now and this might be a great opportunity to get a couple to tool around the town. I probably shouldn't get excited yet because we really haven't made plans yet, but I can't help it!!

Busy, But Boring

I'm playing a little bit of catch up right now. I realize that my blogging kind of ebbs and flows according to what's going on in my life, but I guess that's only natural. Things have been busy for the past month, but with nothing too terribly exciting. With Scott having been home on worker's comp and my renewed commitment to working out, it seems I haven't had time for much else so I feel like I haven't had much exciting news to share. So here are a few little recent tidbits:

This past week was Scott's birthday and we took up Disney's come for free on your birthday deal and celebrated with Scott's parents in Epcot. He had never been, so we decided to eat our way around the world for his special day.

He's doing better, too. His shoulder still hurts now and again, but the doctor cleared him to return to work on light duty starting this week and his physical therapy will probably continue for another couple months.

I recently hit the 40 sale milestone in my Etsy shop! Thank you so much to all of my wonderful customers that helped get me there.

I also recently surpassed 500 Hearts on Etsy: I'm now at a whopping 515! Thank you to all of you heart givers out there, too.

Back in the beginning of April, I thanked all of the folk who used me as their Artfire referral, thus granting me the opportunity to earn a Free Ride for Life and never ever have to pay any fees of any kind. Artfire doesn't actually tell you who used you as a referral, so I was kind of going by memory with those thanks and mistakenly left out Kathy from Gypsy Goods. Oops. Sorry, Kathy and thanks for letting me know!


Lastly, Scott and I are trying to think of a fun weekend get away for this summer. I love the beach and he loves to keep busy. We're also on a bit of a budget. Any ideas?