Golden Snail Designs

Katie and cookies

2008-10-12T12:06:00.005-04:00

I finished my sister Katie's afghan just the other day. I spent most of the afternoon and evening putting the scallopped edge on it, then it took me over an hour to weave the ribbon through the edges. Quite an undertaking! In the end, however, it turned out really well and quite pretty. (It's a little girly for my tastes though, lol.) Below are two images of it. In the first, I didn't have enough room to lay it out completely, so I folded it in the middle to show the overall pattern. Just imagine that when it's unfolded, the length is just over twice the width. And the second picture is a detail of one of the corners to give you a better view of the pattern itself.

I packed the blanket yesterday in a big box (the blanket itself weighed about two and a half pounds!) and walked to the post office with it to mail it to her. It wasn't heavy to carry, just bulky! She should get it Tuesday because Monday there's no post (Columbus Day). I think she'll really like it. :)

On an unrelated note, I was having a conversation via text messages with my younger sister Sarah about something I'd seen in the news about her former state of residence when the conversation wandered off to cookies. Somehow, the idea of crocheting a cookie came up, and after she went to bed, I grabbed some yarn and started playing around. Using a design I'm really familiar with, I just changed it up a little and then added lots of French knots as chocolate chips. The result of the experiment is this:

It looks burnt, but that's because the only shade of brown that I currently have is "coffee." Black coffee, I might add, lol. But for a first attempt, I'd say it turned out really well. I'll have to try again when I get some different shades of brown. Maybe I'll come up with sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles next, lol. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Katie's blanket

2008-10-08T00:16:00.003-04:00

A while back, I decided that I was going to crochet afghans for my family members. I even posted about it on my blog asking each person for their preference of pattern and color. Since then, I've finished a green blanket and pillowcase for my sister Sarah, a dark blue blanket for my brother Tommy, a black pillowcase with a white skull on it for my youngest brother Simon (he's a teenager; don't ask), a pillowcase for my sister-in-law Leslie, and a pillowcase for my Aunt Pamela. I have a granny square afghan in the works for my parents, which is coming along pretty slowly. I've had half of it done for about half a year now, and the squares for the other half have been done for several months now, but I haven't gotten all of them sewn together yet. Slow going. I've got about a foot done on a dark green afghan for my in-laws, and come to think of it, I can't remember if I even told them I'm making them a blanket. Oops. And I'm about twenty rows until the end of a blue blanket for my sister Katie, the target of this rambly post, lol.

So the Katie blanket. In order to keep the various projects straight in my head and to make it easier to talk about them to non-crocheters who wouldn't understand what I'm talking about when I describe them via patterns, I just use the person's name who'll be getting the blanket. I got the pattern out of a paperback called Our Best Afghans A to Z, which I really like because many of the patterns are nice or can be adapted to where I'll like them. Oddly, despite the fact that I like many of the patterns in this book, Katie's is the only one I'm making from it. The rest came from various other sources such as a Crochet-a-Day calendar and other books. At any rate, it's not a full-sized blanket in the sense that it could cover a double bed or anything. It could probably be used on a twin bed, but I don't think she has any of those in her house, lol. No, this is what I refer to as a halfghan, something you can drape over the back of a couch or have folded at the foot of a large bed for especially cold nights when the other person in bed doesn't want extra blankets piled on. It's a nice thick pattern that will have a large ruffled border and ribbons woven along the edges as well. I think this blanket will be mostly decorative, and I hope she uses it as such. :)

I originally started this a while back (in July, I think), but have put it off periodically for other projects like starting up my Etsy store and making products to put up there. Now that I've got a number of products on Etsy, I'm taking a break from making little ball decorations and pillowcases to work on something larger for a while. I decided to work on Katie's blanket because the pattern is pretty basic and I can work on it while watching the political debates or old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. A while back, I had to frog seventeen rows because of a mistake along the edge. Normally, I wouldn't mess with a single stitch mistake, but this was going to screw up the ruffled edge and weaving the ribbon in and out! So I frogged the seventeen rows and soon after put the blanket up to work on other things. Since picking it back up again a couple days ago, I've made all those rows back plus some! I've added thirty rows in the past couple days, putting me at row 69 of 84. Then it's the border, adding the ribbon and being done with it! I think that if I have the time and opportunity this week, I can have it finished by Saturday or Sunday. I'll have to make sure to take pictures of it to post here. I should also find my pictures of the other two blankets (and maybe the pillowcases as well) so I can post them all as well. I'd like to start making afghans for Etsy, but I'm going to wait on that until I finish the ones for my family. :) I'll post my progress to keep you updated. It's nice having a blog where I can just blather about crafts, lol.

The jack-o-lantern revisited

2008-10-06T01:21:00.002-04:00

Behold the cuteness of the turnip jack-o-lantern!

I was playing around on Etsy, looking at various Halloween decorations, and I remembered from school how we all learned that the Irish actually used turnips (because they didn't have pumpkins, duh) to turn into lanterns. Now, it's under dispute as to whether the turnip lanterns were originally associated with Halloween, and no one's completely sure how jack-o-lanterns got their names, but one thing is for sure: now that jack-o-lanterns are here, they sure are cute and fun to make! I already made a bunch of pumpkin jack-o-lanterns, and after a quick search on Etsy, I realized that there were lots of those. So I looked for turnips. There were a couple crocheted turnips, but those were part of vegetable groups, not jack-o-lanterns. I texted the husband to tell him I was going to make turnip jack-o-lanterns, and he sounded less than sure about the sanity of that. But when he got home and saw the first one, he had to admit it was cute. I'll leave you with a picture of the first turnip I made. Enjoy!

Eye extravaganza

2008-10-03T16:27:00.004-04:00

After about four days of near-constant crocheting, I've finished making all the eyeball toys for Golden Snail on Etsy. I made two of each of the following colors: brown, blue, light blue, gray, red, green, and black. That's a lot of eyes! The nice thing about eyes as compared to all the other Halloween toys I've been making is that they're pretty simple to make and aren't nearly as intricate or time-consuming as the spiders or jack-o-lanterns. Once I figure out the bats, they'll be just as complicated as the latter two toys, and the eyes will stay the simplest to make. Below is a picture of the eyes in a large pickle jar that I used on Etsy:

I thought the jar would be a fun idea as a display. On a recent trip to Wal-Mart, I picked up some fall-colored leaves to use as background for future Halloween toys. I think they'll look good with the spiders. I wish I'd had them for the pumpkins because they would have looked really cute with them. But I have them now for future projects. It's time to work on arachnids!

Jack-o-lanterns

2008-09-28T10:59:00.005-04:00

I've been spending the past couple weeks trying to find a job in the area, so I haven't spent that much time crocheting or working on other craft projects. I'm waiting to hear back from a temp agency, and in the interim, I've made a bunch of Halloween toys to put up on Etsy. They're little jack-o-lantern balls--around three inches in diameter and just a little taller--and they're so cute! I made ten in three days, and I've already put them up on Etsy. Pictures below.

It's a pumpkin pyramid! :) I am going to take a break from making jack-o-lanterns and switch to making eyes. I have a lot of colors I can make: light blue, bright blue, green, brown, and grey. I don't have any yarn that I would call "hazel," unforunate because most of the people in my immediate family have hazel eyes. I have dark brown and the husband has blue. I think it'd be interesting to get some varigated yarn and make eyes with that. Until then, I think I'll just try to make at least two of each of the colors I have now. The eyes won't take nearly as much time as the jack-o-lanterns because I don't have to make leaves, stems, or vines for eyes. Just an eyestalk. ;) At any rate, I'm going to go crochet and probably watch a movie. Have a great day!

Been busy!

2008-09-10T17:17:00.006-04:00

Phew! Posting again after too long a break. I've been busy organizing all my craft stuff as well as making several pillowcases and lots of Halloween toys for family members. At some point, I need to start making the toys to put up on Etsy, lol. At any rate, here are the four most recent pillowcases that I've made.

I'm also trying to make a pattern to create little bat toys like the other ones I've made. So far, I haven't had a whole lot of success, but I'm still working out the bugs. Today I need to keep working on organizing my craft stuff, and if I get to it, I'd like to finish the dream catcher I started this past weekend. If only I could teach my cat how to clean for me, lol.

Aren't they cute?

2008-08-30T21:18:00.004-04:00

So I finished the snail magnets that have yarn as their shells. They turned out much cuter than I could have expected! I think I'm going to follow my aunt's advice for the next batch and use beads for the eyes or use the end of a paintbrush to create dimpled eyes instead of just using marker. Still, they're adorable! Below are some pictures of my little yarn Golden Snails. :)

Pictures!

2008-08-29T13:14:00.006-04:00

I've got pictures of my more recent snail-related products as well as some of the other things I've been working on. I don't have the greatest pictures in the world; pretty much everything I take a picture of looks ten times better in real life. The husband says it probably has something to do with the difference between digital and real film, and I think I might try playing around with the flash to see if that might have something to do with it.

At any rate, the first picture is of stitch markers I made a while back using shrinkable plastic paper. I traced my logo onto it a lot of times, colored it, cut it out, punched holes in the tops for the metal rings, and after they were all baked, I attached the metal hoops and lobster clips. They're pretty cute, but because they all melted in a convex fashion, taking a picture was hard because the flash bounced off them at funny angles.

Next up is a mix of Halloween-themed toys (or decorations, depending on how you use them) that I've made for family members. I'm still working on getting the pattern down right; they turn out a little too cylindrical for my tastes. Still, they're cute and I'm going to make some more today.

The last project with the snails that I have completed (and have images of) are little charms I made. I used gold-colored wire to make a little mesh sphere for the shells with a bead inside. Then I made the eyestalks with more wire and beads. I put the whole thing together with Fimo clay and baked it. They are a lot larger than they should be in proportion to their shells, but at least my first batch is successfully cute. :) Now I just need to get pictures of them on a chain to show what they'd look like on a necklace.

I do have other snails that I've recently made, but they're not quite done yet. I made a lot yesterday using yarn and Crayola Model Magic, but they're drying. I also made leaves and bodies for more snails that will be magnets, but I'm letting them dry before adding the shells later today. I'll take pictures, of course! The snail magnets made with yarn balls for their shells? Extremely cute!! I can't wait to get pictures of them up to show people.

At any rate, it's time to get back to watching my World War II documentaries and working on pumpkins and spiders. Since my cat doesn't seem to want to go outside today (I think it's going to rain, and she knows it), I guess I'll just have to do all this from the comfort of my couch instead of my porch. Have a great day!

Oops!

2008-08-28T06:26:00.003-04:00

Well, rather without realizing it, I've stayed up until six in the morning again. I became aware that it was becoming late when all I was finding on TV were infomercials. Whoops. Well, I was immersed in what I was doing, so I didn't care much as to what time it was, though now that I've slowed down, I'm getting groggy. Too bad the husband has fallen asleep on the bed on the diagonal with all my blankets under him. I guess I'll just have to clear off the couch and sleep here.

The reason why the couch is a mess and why I'm still up is because I've been crafting. I finished the crocheted spider for Tommy, and was debating between crocheting some more or working on another project. I opted for another project and pulled out the Crayola Model Magic modeling material. I had figured on just making a few little things to test out the material (I've not yet decided what modeling material I like best), but the packages say that once opened, you have to use the entire container because it won't keep at all. So I just opened the green and grabbed some round magnets and began working on making leaves with magnets in the middle. I can't remember how many I made (somewhere around eight or nine, I think), but I put those aside to dry and started playing with yarn again. This time I was making tiny balls of yellow yarn, about an inch in diameter with about three or four inches of tail on each. After making about ten or eleven of those, I put them aside and grabbed my gold-colored wire and frosted glass beads and began toying with them. I made about half a dozen small spheres with a glass bead on the inside as well as a half dozen Vs with matching beads on the ends. I also made a number of small hoops with the gold-colored wire. Then I got out the Fimo polymer clay and assembled the spheres and Vs into snails, adding the hoops at the end of the tail. I put those in the oven to bake for thirty minutes. While they were heating up, I made a couple more leaves on magnets using a different type of modeling material called Hearty Super Lightweight Modeling Clay. Like I said, I'm experimenting with which one I like best. While the Fimo has to be baked for thirty minutes, the Crayola Model Magic and Hearty clay have to air dry for twenty-four hours. The Crayola stuff has to be used all in one shot whereas the Hearty stuff can be stored in an airtight container like the Fimo clay. Pros and cons all around.

(Random aside: my stupid spider-bitten toe is at that "I hate you" phase of the night and is thus driving me to distraction. If I lose my train of thought completely in this rant, it's because I'm cursing my toe and probably pausing to try and find something to relieve the annoyance.)

So the plans for all these disparate parts is to make the following items:

The green leaves made out of the Crayola and Hearty modeling materials will eventually get snails on top of them once I make them. I'll be using the Crayola stuff (since I haven't any Hearty stuff in blue) which means using it all in one sitting. Oddly, the blue package is twice the size of the green or the yellow, the colors of the leaves and the shells, so I'll be using half the blue with all the yellow to make snails to air dry and later glue onto the leaf magnets.
The other half of the blue Crayola modeling material will be used with the tiny balls of yarn. I'll sculpt the blue around the magnets, run the long end through the back of the clay as a trail and probably figure out some way of attaching eyes as well. In the end, it'll be a leafless magnet, but it'll be one with an actual ball of yarn on it.
I think you've already figured out the Fimo snails I made. They're charms for necklaces or whatever. The way the sphere is, it's like a webbing of gold with a little spot of color in it on the back of a snail with glass bead eyes and a hoop in the tail where a necklace chain goes. The next batch I make need to be shorter in length though. The ones cooling in the kitchen are proportionally too long for the spheres attached to their backs. I'll have pictures of those up once I can move them from the pan and take some shots to upload.

A snail project I've long since finished a couple weeks ago involved shrinking plastic paper and some lobster clips. I traced my Golden Snail logo onto shrinkable plastic sheets of paper, cut them out, punched a hole in the tops of them, baked them until they were about an inch long, added metal rings and lobster clips, and essentially made stitch markers for crocheters. Crochet stitch markers have to have some sort of opening or clasp because it's the only way they can be removed from the work in progress. Knitters can have solid rings because once going back over a row, the stitch marker comes right off the needles. I think I have pictures of the stitch markers somewhere, but I'm not sure if they're on the computer. I should take some pictures of them as well.

So tomorrow I hope to get the snails made for the magnets, though they probably won't be assembled until sometime Friday when they're all dry. Maybe while I'm waiting on them to dry, I'll come up with a crocheted version of my Golden Snail. Maybe I'll work on that right now. I'm suddenly less tired. Maybe it's the cold ice packs I put on my foot to stop the insane itching sensation in my big toe. It sure as hell isn't the infomercials keeping me awake.

Progressing

2008-08-24T11:17:00.006-04:00

I think I'm finally getting pretty decent at crocheting. One of the major reasons why I picked up the hobby in the first place was because of these little toys my grandma used to make, which were basically just little balls with long strings attached to them. We used to use them as yo-yos or as projectile weaponry. :) There were a lot of us (there are about fifty to sixty grandkids on that side of the family; I lost count long ago), and the little spiders (Grandma often put legs or eyes on them and called them spiders) were toys that Grandma could make quickly. With all my fond memories of Grandma's little spider toys, I desperately wanted to make my own.

So I learned how to crochet and then looked up lots of patterns on-line for making ball shapes. I messed up the first, oh, fifteen or so that I made mostly because I was always trying to make them with other people around or while watching TV which meant I lost count a lot and therefore had to frog them over and over again. Finally, I decided to give it another shot just last week, and lo and behold: balls! The first one I made was this eyeball:

I'm fairly happy with it. The stitches for the bottom and upper halves didn't match up quite right, so it's a bit lumpy. I tried again, this time being more adventurous and attempting to add legs to the ball. I came up with this spider, which you can see I put on the cat to pose it:

I also made a pumpkin, and while I have photos, for some odd reason my jump drive is not cooperating with my laptop at the moment, so those pictures will just have to wait. I've alreayd made a second pumpkin (technically, jack-o-lanterns because they have faces) and am halfway through the third. These do go pretty quickly, provided I'm paying enough attention to keep from losing count of my stitches. :) I think after this pumpkin, I'm going to go back to eyeballs for a while. They don't have leaves or stems to be added, just optical nerves. Have a great day!

Indescribable feeling

2008-08-19T19:56:00.007-04:00

It's odd, but part of me just can't believe that I've actually put items up for sale on-line. In the past, I always kind of thought about doing something like this--selling my crafts or other works on-line as a way of supporting my hobby addictions--but I never really put much effort into actually getting to this point. Now that I've actually put several items up (I'm up to nine at this point; I still have a pillowcase to finish by sewing buttons on), it's kind of unbelievable. I'm not really sure what I'm feeling: anxiety, excitement, exhaustion... Lots of words with the letter x in them, I guess, hehe. (Maybe it's from watching the X-files on DVD while crocheting all the time!) Whatever I feel, I think it'll die down once I get used to the idea that my on-line venture is finally started.

So far today, I've sewn the elastic and/or ribbons and buttons into two hats, and I've sewn buttons on one of the pillowcases as well. I hate sewing zippers in, so I've worked out a way to use buttons instead, depending upon the pattern. The same pillowcase I sewed buttons to, I finished crocheting its border on this morning. I've spent most of my day on-line, actually. Since this morning was my first launch of items on Etsy, most of my time has been spent uploading images and writing descriptions rather than crocheting or sewing. I'd really rather be crocheting than playing around cropping images and trying to come up with something interesting to say in the item descriptions, but the time spent at the computer is a necessary evil.

I also spent the better part of the morning browsing what other people had for sale on Etsy. My sister told me that a good way of getting favorable feedback on the site is simply to buy things from other merchants. Most people apparently don't pay attention to the difference between buyer feedback and seller feedback, so it all just gets lumped together as feedback. I figured there was probably a lot of really neat stuff on there anyway because I know that crafters tend to be very creative people, and you can buy supplies there as well. Since I'm planning on starting to make dream catchers again, I figured I'd look for beads and notions to use on the dream catchers. Needless to say, I found a lot of neat stuff! I probably spent about thirty dollars on beads and bangles and the like, mostly just because of shipping fees. So for the next week or two, I should be expecting a lot of little packages of beads and charms and such. I just need to get out all my other supplies for dream catchers, get it organized so that construction is easier, and then get cracking. I just did a search on Etsy, and there already some dream catchers for sale, so the sooner I get to making them, the sooner there are some of mine up for sale! :)

At any rate, the mosquitos are out in force, and while I prefer to spend my time on the front porch in the open air and sunshine, I don't like mosquitos (though they are very, very, very fond of me). I guess I'll retire to the messy living room and try to clean up my yarn mess so I'll have room for my dream catcher mess. Have a great evening!

I've done it!

2008-08-19T12:53:00.005-04:00

I've finally uploaded my first two items to Etsy! I took a lot of pictures last night, edited them, and talked on the phone with my sister for quite some time trying to get all the particulars taken care of, and today I decided I was just going to go ahead and upload my first items. I decided to start with the pillowcases because they're much prettier than the hats. I'm still nervous about the whole thing, and I've still got some uploading to do (as soon as I take measurements of the hats so I can make an accurate description of each) and probably a lot more worrying to do, but my first two items are officially on Etsy. Wow. Madness. It's a funny feeling, that's for sure.

There's still a lot of stuff I'd like to do yet with the site and with my little business. The husband has just about finished my banner (currently I'm using the one I'll post at the bottom of this rant), and I'm making laundry care cards for each thing I sell because I think it's something important to the buyer. I'll print them on cardstock, and I'm thinking about covering each with a layer of Contact paper to make them a little more durable. I need to make business cards too at some point. And I just purchased a bunch of beads from Etsy, and I plan on using them for dream catchers. I need to start making those because they're great gift items, and as much as I hate to think about it, the holiday season is approaching and many people are starting to get gifts already. Madness!

I could type more, but I'm really in need of something to eat, some caffeine, and probably some time away from the computer to get things organized around here in the living room. It's a bit of a yarn nightmare, and if I'm going to start working on dream catchers, I need to get out my supplies for that as well and then get it organized too. Madness, again!

A lot of progress

2008-08-18T11:18:00.007-04:00

I know I should be working more on the actual Etsy site itself if I'm ever going to get anything sold, but I still feel like I need to make more items before actually posting any on their site. I guess I just want to have more than three things up there when I finally do launch all this. So that being the case, yesterday was a whirlwind of crafting.

First off, I decided I really needed to finish a lot of the floppy hats I'd made. I had crocheted several of them last week, but I didn't have the elastic sewn into any of them. As an embellisment, I also wanted to sew buttons to them as well, and that needed to be done too. So I sat down on the front porch while Kitty slinked around the yard, and I sewed the elastic into several of the hats, adding buttons as I went. I still have three more hats to complete, but at least now I have four hats that are ready to go.

I also have been working on making pillowcases since they're pretty quick and pretty easy to make. I have a lot of one color (forest heather), which is what I've been using to make all of these. I really need to run out and grab a few other colors so I can start making pillowcases in something other than green. So far, I've totally completed one pillowcase; it has its border and has the buttons sewn on. I've nearly completed two others; they have their borders but don't have their buttons. I started a fourth pillowcase as well, but I don't even have the front side completed on it yet, so it'll be a while. All in all, it takes about six hours to make a pillowcase from start to finish. Once I start making afghans to sell on-line, it's going to be interesting keeping track of how many hours those take me per blanket. That's going to be a lot!

So the plan for today is to do some quick shopping (I need water for my fish tank) then try to finish up the other three hats and the other two pillowcases by sewing the elastic and/or buttons on them. I'd like to spend some time on Etsy's site as well to get the rest of my storefront filled out. The husband spent some time working on my logo for me (since he's the graphic designer), and he might get around to finishing it later when he gets home from work. So far this is what I've got:

It's cute, but it needs some cleaning up. I think that living with a graphic designer has made me pretty critical when it comes to looking at designs and the like.

At any rate, I need to grab some lunch and get out the door if I want to get back to crafting any time soon. It's hard to crochet and eat at the same time, after all. :)

Loads of shopping!

2008-08-17T02:21:00.003-04:00

Generally, I'm not the biggest fan of shopping trips. I'm a homebody by nature, so hours spent wandering around where there are dozens if not hundreds of other people isn't exactly my cup of tea (and since I own about seventy different varieties of tea, I know my tea). Sometimes I think it's a touch of agoraphobia (fear of crowds and wide open spaces), but mostly I figure it's because I have difficulty finding exactly what I want. It's part of the reason why I shop on-line so much, I guess.

So at any rate, I did a lot of shopping Friday. I hit Staples and picked up a scale so I can weigh things for shipping and handling prices as well as a ledger to keep track of the stuff I'm buying and then how I'm using it. I like to think it's some form of organization, but it's likely to not last long. I hit Wal-Mart for some more basic things like ribbon and wire cutters and safety goggles. You know, typical crafting gear. :) I was hoping the store would have Fimo polymer clay and Shrink-it plastic paper, but I could find neither. I swung by the local Ben Franklin's and found both. Hooray! Then since I was two doors down from True Value, I ran by there to see if they carried an attachment for our Dremel, but they don't carry it. After all that, I came home and recorded all my pertinent purchases in my new ledger.

So I've gotten more of the basic supplies and tools needed for Golden Snail Designs. I even made a bunch of little Shrink-it snails by tracing my logo and coloring it before shrinking it in the oven. I'm going to turn them into charms for stitch markers or keyrings. I think I'm going to have to spray them with a clear coat though because the marker I used to color them comes off when scratched hard enough.

Back to crafting though, I crocheted a pillowcase today and am halfway through a second. I still need to sew the buttons on them for closures then take pictures of each with and without pillows in them. I won't be selling the pillows; they're just for modeling. I still need to sew the elastic into the hats I made as well as the button embellishments. To take a break from crocheting pillowcases, I worked on the heather blue afghan for my sister. So I took a break from crocheting to...crochet. Go figure, lol. I've noticed that a lot of crafts are simply addictive. I do, however, need to get some more yarn because so far all the pillowcases I'm making are green because that's the yarn I bought in bulk. Also, one of these days I need to start getting my products up on Etsy!

Making progress

2008-08-14T17:40:00.004-04:00

I'm slowly making progress towards getting my first items up on Etsy. So far what I have are a number of little girl hats that I crocheted in a very short amount of time. They would probably have been more appropriate in the spring or early summer, but I just now designed the pattern, so it's now that I have them. I think that once I have the elastic sewn in and the buttons sewn on, I'll take a lot of pictures, crop them to a smaller size then upload them to Etsy. Once they're on the page, I'm going to start work on pillowcases. There's a pattern I have which goes very quickly and which, I think, is very cute. I figure I'll alternate between making pillowcases and working on the afghans for my older sister and for my in-laws. I like to work out on the porch, but with larger projects like afghans, it's just too hot. I need smaller projects for the front porch while I'm watching the Girl (a.k.a., Kitty, our beloved ten-year-old tabby), and pillowcases is probably the way to go. I'll probably also work on figuring out how to make the little spider toys my grandma used to make all the time. My sister said those would be a good idea because Halloween is coming up, after all. So at least I have project ideas to go up on the site, and now it's just a matter of everything else!

I'm going to have to buy a scale so I can figure out how much each item weighs to be able to determine shipping prices, and I'll also need a white sheet to use as a backdrop for the pictures, unless I can figure out some other place to snap photos. The husband and my sheets are all blue, black or green. Not the best backdrops, especially when some of the works will be dark colors as well. So a white sheet, a scale, and soda. I'm out of Mello Yello! It's hard keeping up with a caffeine addiction, lol. At any rate, the husband is here so it's time to go shopping. Whee!

Beginning of a lot of work!

2008-08-14T01:43:00.003-04:00

Wow, I've done quite a bit since this afternoon when I decided to launch my on-line plans for selling arts and crafts. I mean, I probably spent several hours just trying to come up with a name for the business in the first place (the one I really wanted was already taken, unfortunately), but then the hours and hours after that have definitely accumulated quite a bit. First, I got myself an e-mail address with the name of the business to make it easier for people to contact me. Second, I got this blog going so I could post about progress and new projects here instead of on my personal webpage where I post about literally anything (I have posts about umbrellas and fish in addition to posts about my day-to-day life--all in all, very random). And besides, I'm sure my regular readers on my personal page probably get bored reading all about what crochet projects I've been working on for the past week or about yarn or about finding random patterns for unique things on-line.

Third, I went to Etsy.com to create a storefront. So far, my storefront is pretty bare and boring, but after about a week, I'm sure it'll look much more presentable. Technically, I already have a storefront for an item I'm selling on-line. It's a paperback copy of my Master's thesis over on Lulu.com, but that's where I plan on selling things I write, not things I create with yarn or thread. I alreadyhave some book ideas for publication there, but that's pretty much non sequitur. Long story short (too late!), I created a storefront.

What I did fourth is what took the longest. I got a PayPal account a long time ago (going on five or six years, I guess) and pretty much stopped using it a long time ago as well. I had a lot of problems getting my password for my account. My e-mail service was acting up to where I couldn't get the e-mail to reset my password. After about an hour of fighting with it, I finally got into my PayPal account and changed it from a personal account to a business one. There's a lot there that I still have to mess with, but at least it's started. I'm going to have to have my sister help me out a lot with both the Etsy site as well as the PayPal stuff. She's been doing this for a lot longer than me. She even has her own website for her business, after all, even if she isn't yet using it solely.

So it's now just past two in the morning and I've spent I don't know how many hours playing around with setting up my business. It's going to take a lot more work, but I've definitely got the time. The husband and I aren't planning on moving for another six or seven months, and if I find a job in this area before we move, it'll likely be part-time or temp work, leaving me the free time I need to crochet and manage my sites. I'd love to be able to make arts and crafts my livelihood, but that's still a long ways off. For now, I'm happy to say that Golden Snail Designs is off to a good start. :)

Beginning of a Venture

2008-08-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

Since learning to crochet in October 2006, I've become addicted to the hobby. Starting with scarves, I've moved up to hats, cell phone covers, pillow cases, and afghans. I'm always on the lookout for fun and creative designs, and I'm willing to try lots of new things. A former university and high school instructor, I've devoted the summer of 2008 to crocheting projects I didn't have time to work on before. It has taken over my living room, and I'm running out of relatives to create artworks for. In the footsteps of my older sister over at Blue Kitty Designs, I decided to start making my crocheted projects and other crafts for a larger audience. I'm going to start an Etsy.com storefront and begin selling my crocheted projects and eventually my other crafts such as dream catchers and counted cross stitch. After all, I love making them so much, why not share them? :)