Adhesive

I swear, adhesive is the bane of my existence!! I typically use a Herma Dotto adhesive roller, and although they work great at first by the time I'm half way through the roll the whole thing is so gummed up that it won't roll any more! I've tried every other kind of adhesive roller and I think the Herma works the best, but that's not saying it works very well!

As I work to create items to build inventory for my Etsy store I'm going through lots of adhesive and I feel like I spend as much time fighting with the roller as I do creating. There's nothing more irritating than being on a roll and have it coming to a screeching halt because of an equipment issue. Ugh!

Speaking of a pain in the neck, I have an actual pain in my neck! I think I've been spending too many hours bent over my work station making cards and tags. I'll have a week long break next week as I drive my daughter to college, so hopefully I'll be refreshed and ready to go when I get back.

I do have some good news today . . . I got my camera back! A I mentioned in a previous post, I left my camera in my cousin's truck in Las Vegas and I've been waiting for him to ship it back. He got it done this week (thanks Paul!) and now I can start taking pictures of items for the store. Yay! Now I just need to learn how to add pictures to this blog and my store . . . so much to learn!

Paper

I love paper! It's just ridiculous how much I love it! Yesterday I went to Craft's Direct in St. Cloud, which is about 40 minutes from my house. I go there about once a month and I need to go up and down every aisle in the scrapbooking/stamping/cardmaking section, which is about 6 aisles. I look at books, stamps, rub-ons, special project materials and then comes the paper. There's one aisle for paper, but it's extra wide with a section in the middle too so it's almost like two aisles.

I typically have a list of items I need based on the projects I'm planning to make, but once I hit the paper aisle it's all over. As I look at each paper design I start coming up with new projects, until I've bought way too many pieces of paper! I just can't help myself, it's all so pretty!

I spent a good hour in the store, and I could have stayed longer but I did have an anniversary party to attend so I finally left the store and drove another 1.5 hours to the party. My plan was to get back home and start making stuff for my Etsy store (goshery.Etsy.com) which I plan to open soon.

It was around 9 p.m. when I got home, and then my daughter and I spent way too much time on the phone with T-Mobile. At one point we were both on hold with T-Mobile waiting to see who could get through first! We have good service and reception with T-Mobile, but I'm telling ya, getting them on the phone is next to impossible. I have held for 45+ minutes before; very annoying. Anyway, we finally got through and ended up ordering her a new phone. Her phone was stolen about a year ago (it was brand new!) and since we had insurance on it we were able to get a replacement for a small fee. Unfortunately (read the fine print!) it was a refurbished phone, and we ended up getting 5 phones before we got one that actually worked. This phone has been nothing but problems and she finally has enough money to buy a new one. I'll really miss hearing her complain about her phone . . . yea right!

It was 11 p.m. before I finally had time to myself, and even thought I had to get up really early I decided to do crafts for a while because I wanted to try out my new stuff! I got some things made, and it would be really nice to add a picture here of what I'm working on . . . but I still don't have my camera. I talked to my cousin yesterday and he assured me it would be on it's way on Monday, so we'll see.

Inventory . . .

I'm spending lots of time building inventory to start my Etsy store, goshery.Etsy.com. It's a lot of work to create enough items to get started. I don't make many duplicates, so there's creativity involved in each step.

I'm also spending a lot of time researching other Etsy sellers; learning how to price items, how to manage the business side of things, how to package items, etc. I'm so excited to open my store but want to have everything ready before I take that step.

One roadblock is that I don't have my camera right now! I went to a family reunion in Utah in June and left my camera (agh!) in my cousin's truck. He lives in Las Vegas, and getting him to actually ship it back to me is taking much longer than I'd like! I know it's packed in a box, now he just needs to get it out of the house and on it's way to my house! Without a camera it's hard to open an Etsy shop!

Please keep checking for future updates!

My Etsy Store

I'm working very hard to make some inventory so that I can open my Etsy store, called goshery. I'll be offering handmade cards, tags, scrapbooks and other paper items. I almost have enough made to make my Grand Opening; I'm shooting for mid September.

I bought some new paper today and I'm so excited to make some cards and tags using it, but first I need to finish my current project which is an Autumn scrapbook that I'll be selling on Etsy. I'm having fun with it, but also realizing that summer is almost over. I love fall but don't necessarily look forward to winter that won't be far behind. Here in Minnesota we can get very cold weather along with lots of snow, and life just gets a bit more complicated with boots, coats, mittens, etc. It's especially hard with little kids, but since my daughter is now a sophmore in college I don't have that problem!

Speaking of my daughter and college, soon we'll be starting our 30 hour road trip to Oregon where she attends college. It's hard to have her so far away, but she really loves her school so that helps.

Please keep checking back for more information about my grand opening on Etsy!