up early, again

Good morning, everyone! It's only 7:18 A.M. here, and I have already had breakfast and put yesterday's dishes away. Laundry has been started, my pot of coffee is half gone already (note to self: figure out how to get into the building where they sell the organic coffee and undercut the grocery store--the building has about eight doors, but where in the hell is the actual store?), and my plan for later is taking the crib in my daughter's room apart. Our babysitter returns from winter break today, so am looking forward to three hours of getting my own work done. That is, of course, assuming that she doesn't have a meltdown because she hasn't seen this girl in a month. We'll see.

For about two months I haven't been bending over backwards to make new jewelry and hair accessories. I had a lot of work to do for the co-op until the end of December, and for the last few weeks I just wanted a break. I am, however, trying to sort out which festivals I will be doing this season, so I wanted to start making some knockout pieces to draw people in, stuff that will photograph well and look good in applications. A craft supply store nearby is moving to another location, so I picked up piles of beads and chain for next to nothing. It's not super high-quality stuff, but for pretty costume jewelry, a person would be insane to pass up those deals. I've made some sentimental Valentine's Day-themed stuff out of these beads. My thinking is that sane people don't need to buy sterling heart charms to wear one week each year, so why not resin and base metal with sparkly bits thrown in?Below is a work in progress. I plan to add hot pink ribbon and bows. I'm nothing if not classy. . .




My favorite early Spring festival has been cancelled this year, which blows me away. I thought it was a great success for vendors and the community. It's the Kaleidoscope on Main event in Slippery Rock, PA, and it's part of the month-long Kaleidoscope Festival that SRU puts on. The reson I was given was "inadequate event staff." Um, hello? Bad answer! It's a university, full of young people grudgingly completing community service requirements, and you expect people to be satisfied with "inadequate event staff" as an answer? Grrr. I'm especially annoyed about it because it's 3 1/2 miles from my house and has been suprisingly lucrative for me.

I've made the decision to forego festivals over Memorial Day Weekend in favor of cleaning out my garage for money. What I mean is that after two years of having a little being in my household, I now have so much stuff in the garage and the attic that it's almost difficult to believe. It's insane! I'm only going to keep what has sentimental value, especially since it would take divine intervention for me to have another child at this point. That sort of thing doesn't happen on its own, you know. Anyway, my neighborhood has a big, well advertised yard sale every year that weekend, and while I'm okay with giving some of the surplus kid stuff to charity, some of it is definitely worth selling. I will probably have to do more preparation for the yard sale than for a festival and I will almost definitely make less profit, but festivals don't clean out my garage!