Bead on a Wire Blog

I received the following feedback from the bride who received her custom bridal set on Monday.

Oh, Jen! The set arrived earlier this afternoon (the 19th), and it is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous! My fiancé picked up the delivery from my doorstep and said he thought it was gorgeous, brought it to me when he fetched me from work, and then I put it on later because we both wanted to see how it was! I will DEFINITELY send you pictures after the wedding, but I have to thank you over and over again for the lovely set!

It doesn’t get better than that.

*happy sigh*

We’re 8 days from our vacation and I’m so very ready. I’ve said it before, but I really need the break. It cannot come soon enough for me.

I am taking an extra day off before our departure day next week because otherwise I’ll be up all night before we leave doing laundry and packing for the week away. There’s just no other time to do all of that because I’ve got plans for most of the weekend (including a stop at the International Gem and Jewelry Show tomorrow), we have friends coming over for dinner on Monday evening, Tuesday evening I’ll be cooking three dishes for a pot luck farewell luncheon at my office for Wednesday, Wednesday evening we have our regular small group Bible study meeting, and then we’re at Thursday.

The cool thing is that since I need to take work with me, the extra day off will be a wash in terms of time off. I know - it’s bad that I’ll be working when I’m on vacation. However, there are some tasks that only I can do and there is one specific task that needs doing at the end of the month, every month. I can’t do it a week early. So I’ll have to do it one evening after we get back from one of the Disney parks. Not a big deal since I’ll be hanging out in our condo in the evenings anyway. I can work while watching TV or a movie - it’s what I do when I work at home anyway.

And the added benefit to having the laptop is that I’ll be able to check my Etsy shop during that week, too. And my mother’s for that matter, since she is a more consistent seller.

Our power went out the other night. Morning. It was at about 3:45am that the power went off. It was weird because I woke up just enough to be aware of the change - the ambient light from the alarm clock and cable box wasn’t present and the general hum of working electronics (like the ceiling fan and the air conditioner) was absent. At the time I didn’t know what time it was that the power went out, I didn’t much care so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Now my dog (Annie) is an alarm clock of sorts. She’s very old (19 years old) and had regressed to some behaviors reminiscent of her youth - a lack of house-breaking and waking up very early. (Stay with me, this is related.) Because of the house-breaking issue, we started to crate her overnight about a year ago. It means I have a daily crate clean up, but that’s better than the alternative. When she’s awake in the morning, she barks to let us know that she has befouled her crate and it’s time to release the hound. In the beginning her barking started at a reasonable 5:30am or so. But now she’s barking as early as 4am. And because I love my husband, who inherited the dog when he married me, I’m the one who gets up before the sun has risen to deal with Annie.

So getting back to the lack of electricity - Annie barked promptly at 4:30am and I got out of bed. And because the power was out, I stumbled in the dark to my husband’s side of the bed where I know he keeps a flashlight. There was more stumbling in the dark, with the flashlight, to the basement to release the hound. Then still more stumbling around in the dark backyard with Annie on her leash and a flashlight and poop bag - I have mastered the art of leash/flashlight holding with one hand while I scoop poop with the other, bagged, hand. I usually use a lantern style flashlight with a handle - makes it easier to loop both handles over the one hand to leave the other free for scooping.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking we need a stronger light for the dog walking and the blackness of the other morning brought the thought to mind again. I’m thinking MagnaLights since I’ve heard great things about them. They seem to have a great variety and selection of hid lights.

First, I finished and shipped the Elizabeth bridal set this week. I really hope the bride is pleased with her custom bridal jewelry. Here’s the finished necklace.

Second, remember the key fob bracelet that I made for my sister a few weeks ago? She likes it so much that she sent an email to all of the ladies that she works with and generated four orders for me. One has since canceled her order (no reason given - no worries, that’s her prerogative), but three custom orders is still pretty good! I am waiting for supplies to arrive and then I will make and ship them to my sister to hand deliver at her office.

Third, my mother and I are working on a cross-promotional package to be listed in both of our shops. I have made a beaded tea infuser for breast cancer awareness (I have one made, still need to photograph it. And I need to get more of the pink ribbon charms to make more so that we each have one in stock for our individual listings). She has a tea for the same. So we’re going to each create a listing for a combo of the tea and infuser and we will donate 10% of the profits to the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. We think it will make a great gift for a woman who is dealing with yucky treatments for breast cancer.

So you all know that I post for pay here at this blog. You see the occasional post that usually has nothing to do with jewelry or crafting, but they do pertain to my life for the most part, so it works. At least I hope you, dear readers, think it works!

IZEA, the company behind PayPerPost, has started another creative way to monetize your blog for minimal effort called SocialSpark. But it is not just about blogging for money; it is also about building a sense of blogger community and helping to increase traffic. We all want more traffic. We all want more readers. It is a combination of per per post and social networking and it seems to work well. I know that I have added to my blogroll here through SocialSpark and I know that others have found me as well.

I like that they have requirements standards and a code of ethics:

-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

I also like that there are different kinds of opportunities for earning income and increasing traffic through outright posting for pay, sponsored posts, and links trades. The social aspect means that you can identify “friends” and search for new blogs to read much as you would through some of the other social networking sites. It is one stop shopping for bloggers. And for a busy blogger like me, that is a good thing.

So go check out SocialSpark. I bet you will sign up for a membership today after you see how cool it is. If you do, let me know so that I can “friend” you.

I’m almost done with the latest bridal set. I think it’s really beautiful - the addition of the deep crimson crystals with the cream rose pearls makes it special. I hope the bride is pleased with the finished products.

The necklace is still to be finished. I’m just waiting to hear back from the bride about the layout of it and also for a decision on which pendant drop she wants to hang at the clasp - she opted for the red instead of “something blue.” She asked that the necklace be 15″ so it will lay more like a choker around her neck.

I’m really curious to know what her dress looks like. She said she’s going to wear red shoes as well, which is a bold choice.

So knowing there’s always a chance that my husband will get the job that would involve a move to the Dallas area, I checked home listings in that area on Realtor.com.

They have several lovely single family homes in our price range.

I could definitely live in this house.

Or this one.

Or many of these, really.

If you are a bit squeamish like I, then you’ll be happy to know the following bedbug facts to prevent an infestation in your home. I have never had a problem and don’t plan on having the problem, but you never know what can happen.

I itch just thinking about it. Gah.

I found the how did I get them page most helpful. And now I’m completely paranoid about our vacation next week. Timeshare bed meets bed bugs meets luggage meets my house. I’ve made note about the used furniture thing, too.

*shudder*

I joke that I’m borderline OCD. This stuff doesn’t help my personality quirk.

I’m so glad I logged on to Etsy early this morning. I know that they’re changing the front page Treasury selections more often now, so I may have missed seeing my mother’s shop featured on the front page if I had waited to get on the computer for another hour or so.

Congrats, Mom! It’s nice to see that you get featured that way. I have no doubt you’ll appear on the front page again.

And you have the potential to become a Top Seller. We have long known that you have a great product. We just needed to get the word out to others. Now they’ll spread the word as well…

House hunting is exhausting and way too stressful. After a week of pouring over listings, we narrowed down the hunt to about a dozen houses before we met with our realtor yesterday. She then eliminated about half of those listings because they’re short sales. She said short sales are a waste of a buyer’s time since they can take several months to sort out. So a buyer could put in an offer on a house in short sale, but the seller/bank won’t even touch your paperwork until the short sale is completed. The buyers wait and may lose out on a better house they could have found in the meantime.

That left us with about 6 or 7 houses to look at yesterday. But we only actually looked at 3 because the listing realtors weren’t answering their phones and we couldn’t get the codes to get in to look. That’s a shame, because a couple of them we were really interested in.

Of the three we walked through, there was one that was in excellent condition and ready for immediate move in. However, this is one that is nearing the end of the short sale process, so it could still take some time to complete. And it doesn’t meet all of our requirements in space needs. But it is lovely and definitely moved into the top slot for the day.

The second one is vacant and in pretty good shape, but the kitchen is in need of remodeling and there was an inspection notice by the front door that showed two inspection ratings in the past several months of “poor.” We’re curious what that means. And it’s in a location that would add at least 30 minutes to my already long commute.

The third one I didn’t like at all.

The really disappointing thing is that all of the houses with realty signs in our neighborhood that are in our price range already have contracts on them, including the house next door. Oh, we did look at that one and it’s a disaster. It’s actually in worse shape than the super cheap house we looked at the other night (which has a contact pending already). My husband is very bummed that we lost out on the super cheap house.

On the cute single family house I wanted to look at - we got some intel from a long time resident of our town that that neighborhood isn’t the best. So we didn’t even go look at it or any other houses in that area.

Our realtor has sent a bunch of new listings to look at and I have taken a deeper look at the ones that I ruled out because of their location (mostly because of they would lengthen my commute, not because I didn’t like the house/neighborhood). We’ll see about taking a look at them later this week.