New In The Shop

Yay! I've finally been able to buckle down and get some stuff done in my shop. It's been a busy year so far and I have a feeling it will only get worse! I'm displaying in more and more boutiques and stores now that I seem to be neglecting my online life! I'm trying hard to get more buckled down, but I don't want to wear myself too thin! I have my kids and husband still too!!

So If you get a chance, please peek in and take a look at all the new treasures! I had a blast making them, so I hope you will love wearing them!

Can you believe that Spring is here already? I swear I was just downng a glass of bubbly and toasting to the New Year, wearing a crazy party hat. Now I look and it's time for hiding eggs and visiting bunnies...gahhh...somebody give me my 2008 back!

Mondays Are Sometimes Good Days!

My husband is the forever optimist and yet he still has the worst of luck! However, he sees all these bad things that happen as learning ventures. So I am hoping to go into this Spring season thinking that not everything is the end of the world.....or at least I will try! haha! Now look, Monday is here and weekend went by fast, but I was FEATURED in a TREASURY! Please be sure to click on the treasury, in any combination of 12 clicks and make a comment! We want this treasury to be HOT HOT HOT! That's my Pink Tea Party Bracelet in the treasury!

My Pink Tea Cup Earrings were also featured in a treasury! Don't forget your clicks and comments!!! I would like to take the time to thank all the people that dedicate so much of their time to snag and create treasuries! I've tried, but i'm always stepping away right at the most crucial time! haha! Hopefully someday soon I will be able to get it right!

I have also been featured in the Teen Gift Guides! That's my Movie Camera ring! Have a looksie and maybe even buy something!!! If anyone purchases this ring, I am throwing in a free pair of earrings!

How to Throw away 150.00

So we went to Disney World last year and had a blast! We went the original intention of purchasing these really neat strollers we had seen the previous year. They were umbrella strollers that reclined! We had yet to see something that lightweight with the recline feature. PERFECT, we figured for evenings at the parks! We only ended up using them a couple of times since the kids wanted to actually walk! On our next trip to Mexico, we only brought one for our 9 month old. As he was sitting in it being pushed down the sidewalk (not curb, not potholed street, not speed bumps) the seat suddenly became loose and our son was hanging out the side as though it were a HAMMOCK! My husband was able to put his hands on the underside while I got the baby out, but the stroller was DONE! Look at just how the bar just broke?! The hardware popped out, nowhere to be seen! Not only were we on vacation, we were on our FIRST day of vacation! So on that trip we had to buy another stroller. Oh well these things happen, and we had the other one still at home. Husband figured he would save this one and see if it was fixable. (not at all now that he tried! haa)

We are strolling the mall now several months later with our now 1 yr old, he's in the non-broken stroller and suddenly he is hammocked AGAIN!?!? I mean it happened in the EXACT SAME SPOT! look at the strollers side by side! This cheap piece of junk broke in the exact same spot on 2 different strollers! They claim it holds 35lbs and my son now at 1yr old is not even close to 30lbs, at 9 months old he was even smaller. So what is the problem with these? I have sent notices to Disney World in hopes that they will check into these strollers a bit more and my next letter is to Kolcraft directly. What a poorly designed stroller that started out with a great concept. Stay away from the kolcraft brand if you actually want your child safe in a stroller!
Now if you want to move on and talk about a FABULOUS stroller, we replaced CHEAP with functional, Chic and AWESOME all for a decent price! We fell in love with the sleek look of the Mia Moda Cielo stroller, I will be posting the photos of our son in this stroller soon, but let me tell you it's a HUGE difference. Retails for just under 180.00 and it's AWESOME! The look has people turning their heads and the ease of use ixs amazing! It just glides! The storage? OMG! It's TINY when folded! it's the size of a large beach bag! In fact, I bet it would fit in one! I will have to try it out! I will share photos in my next post!

Thursday!

Goodness! These days are just flying by! I swear one day I am just going to collapse! I have been working hard in the studio and finally got some new work done! The shop is slowly getting stocked, so come on in!

After a full day in the studio, I took a break and headed off to my favorite place in the world! Starbucks of course! Well actually I went to Barnes and Noble and bought some new books and magazines and had myself the best drink ever! I'm slowly savoring it and don't want to finish the last drop at the bottom! haha!!
This bag is my newest desire! I am in LOVE with this bag by Sondra Roberts! I'm hoping that husband will see it in here and it will somehow miraculously end up at my front door somtime next week???

Please Join Us!

The Eclectic Artisans Team is having their first ever Trunk Show!
*****************************
Please join us Wednesday 25th at 6pm central, 7pm EST
in the GALLERY!

We have MANY new member who will be joining us and ALL participants from EART will be offering specials and discounts!
Don't miss out!
Mark your calendar and join us THIS evening!!

Hope to see you there!

EART TEAM is having a TRUNK SHOW!

The Eclectic Artisans Team is having their first ever Trunk Show!
*****************************
Please join us Wednesday 25th at 6pm central, 7pm EST
in the GALLERY!

We have MANY new member who will be joining us and ALL participants from EART will be offering specials and discounts!
Don't miss out!
Mark your calendar and join us tomorrow eve!!

Hope to see you there!!

Featured!

YAY! What a great birthday I have had today! I was featured on Cuteable!

That's my tea pot brooch. It was a nice surprise to see!!

New Cuteness

So i'm slowly getting into the swing of things in my shop right now, it's been forever! I have listed new treasures and will be listing more throughout the day! Please keep an eye out and drop in!

On a lighter note, does anyone watch LOST? I swear the goal of the show is to LOSE it's viewers! I am getting sooo frustrated with the show, but well of course, I keep going back! I loooves me some Sayid of course! Last nights show was great, then Sun ends up in a DIFFERENT time zone than Jin, so there is no fabulous, romantic, sweet reunion. THEN Sawyer (oh wait Lefleur) sees Kate and there is this awesome, hot, steamy tension, but that's it. I definately wanted more. This time travel thing has me more than confused and I swear I am missing so much more than what we see on the surface. Husband and I have been watching the episode on the computer the next night just to see what else we may be missing. Not to mention Sayid had like 3 lines in the episode!! My number 2 man Mr. Hurley there had like 4 maybe, but they were classic as always! It's amazing how he can manage to make you laugh no matter how serious the event! I caught myself holding my breath so much this episode, I wish they would have just made it a movie so I would know what happens already! haha! Oh and the black smoke? Totally Dinosaurs ;) They are actually on the Jurassic Park island! Yup...totally.

Big Sale and a Late Reminder

Ahhh..Springtime...so I'm guilty of Cabin Fever. Being inbound all winter has had me just living outdoors these past 2 weeks and as you can see, my shop is basically bare! I'm under 200 items and my blog is much neglected! I apologize to everyone and wanted to let you all know, that I am trying to get my rear in gear! My monday reminder is a day late! It's time to refresh your shops and change up those featured items! It gives it the Spring Clean look! Fun, easy and cute way to change it up!!

POP into the SHOP today for an INCREDIBLE today only sale! Get 50% off your ENTIRE purchase! Use code: Blog50. My subscription clubs DO NOT qualify for the discount. Now head on over and SHOP! SHOP!! SHOP!!!

A Public Service Announcement From Me!

Carol Stream Toys R Us Saturday, March 14th 2009Dunkin Donuts Cup.

Everywhere you go in public, will have a trash receptacle somewhere near by. If you insist on taking your drink, food, etc. into a store, there will be trash cans scattered throughout the store, park, arcade...At NO TIME EVER is it necessary to put your trash on a shelf at Target, Toys R Us, WalmartAt NO TIME EVER is it a complete emergency that you much leave your half eaten HAPPY MEAL in the fitting room at Ann taylor. (Cherry Vale Mall in Februay of 2009)At NO TIME EVER is it okay to leave your DIRTY DIAPER on the floor at ChuckECheeze because you are TOO LAZY to pick it up after you threw it towards the garbage can and it missed.(Batavia, IL January 2009)This is a repulsive behaviour that just seethes ignorance. Hold onto it a couple of extra steps until you find that trash. It's not that hard!

Get Creative!

New coffee shop inside our new library

It's time to get creative in your advertising! Desperate times call for desperate measures! We can't all afford billboards and television commercials, but there are other ways! We've discussed papering towns with your business cards and fliers, social networking sites and the like.
So I started thinking about how I do ALOT of work at coffee shops, book stores and the library. I'm always at a little table with my drink of choice in hand. Sometimes when I get in a rut, I find myself looking around at the other people sitting there, many with their own computers. I make eye contact with so many people doing the same thing as I am, people watching. Then an idea started brewing. I go EVERYWHERE with my laptop, I am a wi-fi junky. I also noticed that there are so many people that lug theirs around too. So my thought was.....I wonder what all these people are looking at behind thier screens. More ideas in my head and I went to research what would work. I finally found something that would work and I ordered it straight away! Now I am subtly advertising to people wondering what to check out next.

I had a decal made up for my laptop back!! I am constantly staring at little apples on Macs and whatever other brand laptops are out there, so I thought was a PERFECT space to put up my little Ad! It's eyecatching, informative and PINK! To get your very own just look up Custom Window decal, that's all this one was, it is supposed to go on your car window. MAKE SURE that it's not one that is mirrored to go INSIDE your car window! haha! Otherwise you will have a backwards ad on your computer! So, if you were bored at a coffee shop and had your internet on, wouldn't you be curious enough to check out my site?

Just a Stay At Home Mom...

So here I am, the stay at home mom to 3. I've been out and about to several soirees recently and I am finding that I am most often thought of as a nobody because I stay at home. I often find people when introducing me saying something along the lines of....This is Michelle, so and so's wife. As they reach out to shake my hand their mouth opens, but then the introducer says something like....Oh, she's JUST a stay at home mom. This has happened more than once, more than twice...many times. It actually has me thinking that not only has it become me, but I have allowed it to become me. I'm an artist, I work hard on my jewelry and yet, I don't speak about it as much as I should. I'm never given the chance. Once they hear SAHM, their eyes glaze over, they seem to want to get out of there as fast as possible. I'm often left wondering if I have puke on my shirt? A dirty diaper in my pocket? A pacifier in between my teeth? What makes me so uninteresting before i've even said a word? The WHAT DO YOU DO question has often times become a question that makes me cringe. Maybe I should just start introducing myself? Just walk right up to people and say hello first! Get that word in, let them know me a bit before they judge me. If only they knew Stay at home mom, pretty much meant never at home mom. I'm far from super mom, but I try hard and I love what I do, I love the mix of work that I do on my shop and with my childrens lives. I may not be the most fascinating person at the party, but I am in fact a person. So hello blogging world, I'm Michelle, Artist and not-so-perfect mom.

Meet a Member of my Street Team!

Hello! For todays blog post, I would like to introduce you to a member of our street team. Fotogeeni has the most amazing photographic style! Such beautiful scenes are captured for you to see and share!

These are just a few of the wonderful shots found in fotogeeni, be sure to stop in and take a look around! She is adding a wonderful new line of key rings to her shop and they are fabulous!

It's Here Again!

OMG! Where did Monday come from? What a crazy week we just had. We took a last minute trip up to Wisconsin Dells and had an absolute blast! It was great to just have a little get-away from reality! We stayed at Great Wolf Lodge and boy is it fantastic there! So now coming back home i'm pretty behind and of course tired :) did I mention that my wonderful and loving and sweet and most wonderful man in the universe-husband allowed me to sleep in until noon yesterday? hahah! It was a much -needed rest! So now back to work!

Monday means it's time to change up those Featured Items in your Shops! Choose something eye catching and fun! Today I chose to go with items that will help with the Spring Forward changing time ahead that we did this weekend! Coffee and Waffles help us start the day out right!

I have been featured in a couple of treasuries this week! They are fabulous! First up is a feature from PnkGeeni, check out her shop and then head over to the treasury. Don't forget to click on the items in any combination of 12 clicks and then be sure to leave a comment!! That's my dessert tray necklace in the top row of the treasury.

This beautiful treasury is curated by Peaches4Me and it's so pretty and full of fun! My Wellies Necklace is in the bottom row. Let's get out there and make this a fabulous week everyone!

Random Thoughts...

So being all business all the time is taking it's toll on me, i'm running out of things to write about and often times neglecting my little blog, because I just don't know what to say! So here I sit at almost 2am thinking awww forgetaboutit! I'm going to just write about business when I have a topic and otherwise just post whatever I feel like chatting about at the moment!



Todays post is going to be 20 Random Things About Me....if you are lacking things to blog about today, I encourage you to pass this post on...only make it about yourself ;)

1> I love the color Pink.
2> I spent 50.00 at the resort gift shop on books.
3> Disney World is really my happy place
4> I think I need to start taking Sleeping Pills
5> After my husband falls asleep, I yank all the covers off of him and burrito myself up!
6> Sometimes I just want to open my front door, hop in the car and just drive for days.
7>I sometimes fear the world my children are growing up in.
8> I dream about seeing my jewelry on the glossy pages of a popular magazine.
9>I'm a cheezy romantic
10> I love chick flicks
11> I went through a phase where I watch Runaway Bride everyday for a month straight. (not kidding)
12>She's Like the Wind is my all time favorite song in the world. (totally serious)
13> I eat my 'Chicago Style' hotdogs with only <> ketchup.
14> I would love to have more children, but 3 kids is all my sanity can handle.
15> My grandmother died 11 years ago this month and I still cry when I think of her.
16> I think the world of my father who must be one of the greatest men alive.
17> I would rather have bags and shoes than jewelry any day.
18> I'm 4ft 10
19> Highschool is a time I would like to have a second chance at.
20> we missed garbage day this week and it's driving me nuts.

The Feedback Phenomenon...

Ice Cube Tray Ring by MCW 10.00

Sooo....feedback right? I am constantly wondering if it's really a helpful tool or just the bane of my existence. I want it to work similar to Ebays where blank spaces are NOT allowd for Neutral or Negative feedbacks and most importantly, I would love if it would have a POP UP window when someone wants to leave Negative or Neutral. I would love if the pop up window could tell them to CONTACT THE SELLER FIRST! I am sooo 100% make that 1000% flexible and willing to work with someone. But without communication, how will I know what's wrong? I don't pester people for feedback and since over 50% of my customers sign up JUST to buy something from me, I don't get that feedback, so that also makes it a bit of a pain to deal with. So please remember to leave feedback when you receive your item OR contact the seller if you are upset about something. I am thinking of including a little note at the bottom of my stationery that will say something like Don't forget the feedback or something along those lines that also tells them to let me know if they have any problems. I will be working on a mock up of this today and tomorrow.

Donut Tray Necklace by MCW 12.00

Then it moves onto my other problem with the feedback system. It's not monitored properly. There is so much vindictive feedback it's not even funny. There are time when I have seen people only leave neutral feedback and with no comment!! There are times when I have seen someone leave feedback for something that had NOTHING to do with the transaction itself and there are times when I have seen someone leave feedback for something they didn't even pay for. I've given a heads up to many of these sellers, that if requested, Etsy sometimes will remove them depending on a case by case basis, I only hope they make the attempt to contact Etsy!

Donut Bow Brooch by MCW 14.00

Which of course brings me to my final problem with feedback. Fear?! Yup, fear! I'm a seller on Etsy and i'm terrified of leaving honest feedback. I don't want them to complain about me in the fora, litter my inbox with negativity, or worse yet be totally upset with me. I find myself just ignoring leaving that feedback and letting it sit there and not leaving it haha! I know that I need to be as honest as I want people to be with me, but it's hard. It's hardest being a seller on the site where my feedback actually matters. I wouldn't want them leaving me a neutral in return just because I was upset with something. As a side note I do contact the sellers with which I have problems with first. Customer service goes a long way and unfortunately not everyone has picked up on that yet. Oh well, until feedback is eliminated, I guess I will just stand proud and confused by my 7 unexplained neutrals :) Have a great day everyone! Remember to jump into my shop and look around! This post features all the new goodies found in store!

Monday Monday...

Watermelon Earrings by MCW 10.00

I have a total case of the Mondays! I miss the weekend already and the next one just seems too far away. It''s been a rough week with alot of business going on and I even got 2 wholesale orders last week! Which of course means more work! I've been thinking of opening up a new shop that will only hold my wholesale items that people can buy in bulk. That way I have everything made and don't have to worry about making them all on the fly. It's still just in the thought-process mode and I will keep you all informed if I decided to go through with it.

Remember it's MONDAY! Time to freshen up that shop and change around your featured items! Today i'm going with a cofee shop type of theme. Fun, Sweet and Yummy! The last 2 wholesale orders have allowed me to slim down my shop to right around where I want it. I'm thinking 10 pages works well for me. I will be having an online 'yard sale' of sorts soon to slim down the rest of my stash and reorganize my shop some!

I'm featuring these 2 Eclair pieces on my blog this week! The eclair brooch is super cute dangling under a vintage silver tone bow brooch. This pistachio eclair looks so sweet hanging in the clutches of a pair of ornate silver tongs. The Strawberry Eclair Necklace dangles oh so elegantly in another pair of silver tone, detailed tongs. The pair together is so cute and fun that I am offering a special sale for my blog readers! Buy the pair together (regularly priced at 24.00 for the pair) and I will give them to you for 17.00!! That's a savings of 7.00!! use code; BLOGFAN when you check out and wait for the revised invoice. Hurry up, it's the only pair i have in the shop!

Have a great week readers!