TGIF!!!!!

Thank God It's Friday!!!!  And we finally have some nice weather to boot!!!!  I love the weekends in the summer.  We spend them at the lake in Northern Indiana.  So nice and peaceful up there.  The weather has been so bad this spring I haven't even gotten up there yet so this is my first official trip to the lake this year.  Sam is very excited.

Next week I will be starting another giveaway so stay tuned when I announce that on Monday!!!  This one is going to be fun.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and will see you on Monday!!!

Heather

How Does Tweeting Help You???

I am just now really getting into this tweeting thing.  I have been on twitter for awhile now but now am really getting the hang of it.  Have not had any sales from it, but am being optimistic over it.

I am finding out it is important to follow certain people who will retweet your stuff.  It is important to retweet what people tweet to you.  It is important to follow those who are following you.  It is also important to follow the people they suggest.  Unless they are celebrities.  I really don't care what Julianna Rancic or Mrs. Kutcher are doing today.  I wish they would stop suggesting me to follow them.  I strictly use twitter as a business tool.

I did realize today people are retweeting my stuff.  I am now up to 41 followers(yay) and I am following some people who have thousands of followers and hopefully my stuff is getting out there to thousands of peeps!!!

I keep hoping the hours a day I am putting into my shop are going to pay off.  I have really been at this for a month now and I can tell by my Google Anaylitics  that shop views are going up each week.  As long as people keep coming in, I think this can be successful.

I am going to keep working hard on this through Christmas.  If it doesn't pay off by then, well then I am doing something seriously wrong and I need to pack it in.  Craft Shows are my bread and butter and I will keep doing that but we will see how much longer I keep it going on Etsy.  Right now I am making enough to order more supplies and pay my fees.  I would really like to build up that Paypal account.  I am setting a goal to hopefully be able to buy some Christmas Presents with my own money this year instead of having to rely on hubby for everything.

I think that is the hardest part of going from an independent working woman, to a SAHM.  It's hard not having your own money anymore.  You somehow feel lost in the shuffle of everyday life.  No matter how hard I try to get past it, I still have the feeling of needing to accomplish something.  I think if I find a way to somehow contribute to the household financially, I will feel better about myself.  Do any of you have these same feelings???

Just wondering.

Til we meet again.

Heather

Happy Monday!!!!!!

Ok, so I am one proud mama after this weekend.  Sam won the silver medal at the Indiana State Judo Championships in Portland, IN!!!!  It was his first competition and he won one match!!!  I just watched the video I took and I am still tearing up watching him win his match.  It was a feeling of pride that I have never felt before.  I can't even explain it.  I thought my heart was going to burst with happiness and pride watching him fight.  It was incredible.

As I sit here and watch my son grow, I knew motherhood would be my greatest journey in life, but I never knew exactly how great.  How this little tiny bean in my belly would turn into something so magnificent.  I still look at my husband and say, "We made him".  How incredible the gift of life is.  How incredible it all is.

Having kids was a big question mark for me.  I have endometriosis and PCOS.  Having a period was rare for me.  Then my husband wasn't sure if he wanted kids.  After a long a serious talk, he decided he wanted a family.  Then came the trying to get pregnant part.  I worked at Bed Bath and Beyond at the time and it seemed like everyone was getting pregnant at that time.  A friend gave me a book to read about getting pregnant.  I read it from cover to cover.  Then we tried.  I missed my period, twice.  I took 8 home pregnancy tests.  All negative.  Told my doc and she thought it was endo again and I needed surgery.  On May 31,2005 I was all ready for surgery.  Had the IV in and everything.  Thank god they did a pregnancy test ahead of time.  Turns out I was 10 weeks along.  The best surprise in the world.  I almost passed out when they told me.  I thought Scott was going to have a heart attack.  And yes he was happy, just in shock as I was.  That was it.  We did it on our first try!!!  And I thought it was going to take forever.

And now here we are 6 years later, and I fall more in love with this little boy everyday.  I had absolutely no idea I could love this much, but the love I have for my child still bewilders me. 

I know I have kind of been off topic from business these past few posts but this is me and not every post is going to be about my shop.  There are other sides to me and I am going to show them to you guys. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.  It is truly from my heart and how I feel.

Heather

Friday The 13th....SPOOKY!!!!

Ah, Friday the 13th!!!  Supposed to be a day of bad luck!!!!  I can say my appendix ruptured on a Friday the 13th.  I've wrecked my car on a Friday the 13th.  But one of my favorite movies growing up was a movie called Saturday the 14th.  According to this movie, Sat the 14th is worse than Friday the 13th.

Today, I had a fairly good day!!!  Only bad luck was my email screwed up when I was supposed to be sending reminders for the Judo team for tomorrow's big tournament.  I am secretary of the club and that makes me email girl.  I really don't mind it at all.  I already send out big emails for the team every week so I am becoming email savy!!!  LOL

Speaking of tomorrow, my son Sam will be competing in his first Judo Tournament in Portland, IN.  I have a total mix of emotions.  I am very excited for him and happy and nervous and scared all at the same time.  He has been in Judo since last August when he was 4.  I decided to wait until he was 5 to let him fight.  He has matured alot in the short time.  I am afraid he will be terribly disappointed if he doesn't win a medal tomorrow so I hope he does.  I am keeping my fingers crossed. 

In preparation of this tournament I got me a new camcorder.  The Sony Handycam.  I had a Samsung that broke down and Samsung wanted $300 to repair it!!!!  That's how much I paid for it!!!  Give me a break.  I will never own a Samsung product again.  I did buy the 2 year service plan in case this one breaks and I need it fixed.  Worth the $20 I think.

I know this post has very little to do with business but all I can think about is the tournament tomorrow and I am not really concentrating on etsy right at this moment although I did list a few new items!!!  Check these out.  Loving the mushrooms right now!!!  I think you will too.

Announcing The Winner Of My Blog Giveaway!!!!!

Ok, guys we have a winner in our blog giveaway!!!!  Drum Roll Please!!!

Donna R, otherwise known as dmrhas2 is the winner of the blog giveaway!!!  :-)

She wins a $10 credit to my shop.  Have fun shopping!!!

Thanks to all who entered.  I really appreciate it!!  And keep reading for my other giveaways.  I will start another one next week.

I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day!!!  I know I did.  My son Sam is my miracle baby.  After being told I probably wouldn't have children without help I got pregnant with Sam on my first try without any help at all.  I took 8 home pregnancy tests(no kidding) and they all came back negative.  I went in for endometriosis surgery and they did a pregnancy test ahead of time and it came back positive!!!!!!  The absolute 2nd most memorable moment of my life!!!  The first is when he was born.  The absolute most perfect baby I ever saw.  And I knew right then and there that being a mom was what I was meant to do with my life.    I can only hope that in the years to come I make his life fun and memorable.

This week for Team BNRAA our weekly bns will be held Wednesday at 10AM- 4PM.  All are invited and welcome to come!!!

Have a good night everyone.  I will leave you with my new flip flops I designed today!!!

The Great BNR Marathon!!!!!

Let me tell you what can happen when a team works together.  We can get 65 sales in one day!!!  Amazing!!  I was told by a certain member of etsy my team would not be successful since I didn't want to make it a large team.  One other team captain came in to brag about how they have 700 members.  So what?  My "little" worked together and we achieved 65 sales for our first marathon bnr.  Awesome job guys!!!  I am so proud of you!!!!

We recruited some new, quality team members and I got 4 sales today!!!  People to make heathermaizy bow addicts!!!  LOL

I just wanted to report the results of the bnr!!!  I am burned out today.  Ready for bed.

Goodnight all!!! 

My Shop Is Coming Along!!!

Slowly but surely my shop is coming along.  I finally hit 100 items in my shop today which has been my goal for about 3 mos. now.  I have retaken alot of pics and redone the look of my shop.  I am hoping this is going to help me in the long haul.  I have been seeing alot more views and hearts but it has yet to turn into more sales.  I will keep the optimism going.


I kind of feel like I have promotion burn out.  I have been working at least 5 hours a day on my shop.  By making stuff, retaking pics, listing, relisting, and outside sourcing I feel burned out.  Does anyone else feel this way???  I feel like taking a couple week break and seeing what happens.  Maybe by backing away a little I will generate some sales.

Tomorrow is our first team marathon bnr.  I am very interested to see how this turns out.  I have filled just about every curator spot and the team is excited and promoting for it.  I have a goal in mind but I am not going to say what it is in fear I will jinx it.  In our regular weekly team bns we had 17 sales this week with sales around $80.  Pretty good I think.  We are growing each week.  That's all I can expect.

Off to bed.  Have to get up early and get the bnr ready.  Here are some new items I listed today.

Wacky Wednesday!!!!!!

Today was a wacky day!!!!  Sometimes I think I am spreading myself a little too thin trying to do all of this promoting and getting business to my shop.  I keep thinking to myself I should take a few days off from it, but right now I am obsessed with making my shop work.  I can say since doing my ad on craftopolis my views and hearts are definately up, but no sales as of yet.  Today I paid a woman $25.00 to put all of my stuff all over the search engines and get myself up to the top tier of google search.  I think it will be worth it because apparently there is a glitch with etsy and google shopping.  Etsy stuff is just not showing up there.  That is frustrating.  What the heck am I paying etsy fees for???  I am also going to be on 3 different blogs.  I have sent stuff out to each person to review.

I also did a team bnr which yielded some decent sales for my team.  I think the more we work at this the more successful our bnrs will be.  On Friday we are having our first marathon team bnr.  I am excited to see how that goes.

Well I am very tired tonight and I have stuff to list.  I will blog more tomorrow.  Here are a few new listings.  These are my new boutique hair bows!!!!  I love them!!!!