Yearly Christmas craft project

When my daughter was 2 months old I was extremely poor for her first Christmas so instead of purchasing a gift for my mother I started a tradition.  I traced out my daughters hand and put it on a tree skirt with her name and date on it.  Since then I have made a new hand print every year.  I actually make 2, one for my mother and one for my tree.

This isn't the greatest pic but this is what it looks like right now.

My crazy child is not 12 and I'm not entirely sure if her big ol' hand print will fit on the skirt for many more years but I will keep making them.

This year I decided to use bead and ribbon to represent the new business venture my daughter and I started this year.

Now that I'm only moderately poor rather than extremely poor I kind of dread the time and energy it takes to make these every year but I actually enjoyed making this years because I am just so excited about this new venture.

Do you partake in any holiday crafting traditions?

Big day

Today is the day!!!  My husband was up all night designing a logo and the tags for the store and he is about to print them off so we can put them on the jewelry.  Then we're heading over to the store after 10am. !!

Experiment

So it took me about 3 hours to perfect this new design but I really like it.  This ribbon is more whimsical but I think a solid colored ribbon will be attractive to people that are looking for a more understated look than some of my other pieces.

New Adventure

I'm embarking on an exciting new adventure and blogging seems to be the thing to do these days so here goes nothing.
About a month ago I made a necklace inspired by pic on Pintrest.  I put my own spin on what I saw and ended up with this 

I thought I had created other people might buy so I decided to look around for a way to sell my new creation.  I had heard of Etsy through my addiction to Pintrest so I started a shop.   Here's me: http://www.etsy.com/people/amitchell182  Now I have 25 products in my "shop."  I've also had over 130 views of my necklaces.  However, I have had zero sales except for a couple of co-workers.

I currently work full time in social services and consider myself a very patient person but when it comes to dumping money into a project that I'm hoping to make some extra money from I get a little nervous.  But, today I got some exciting news as well as did some scary math.

For the scary part first...I started using accounting software to track my expenses and hopefully income soon.  I have kept MOST of my receipts so I went to town adding $1.47 for ribbon here and $6.00 for a pendant there and found out I have invested a LOT of cash into this little adventure.  I really thought I had been keeping my spending to a minimum.  I used to have a part-time contract counseling job in addition to a full-time job but with the state's last round of budget cuts my contract was not renewed.  So, I've basically been living paycheck to paycheck and I can not to be throwing money around like this.  I know it takes money to make money but jiminy crickets this is scary.  So, I have been a tad bit anxious today which has caused me to pour my stress into making more jewelry :)

But like I said I've also had some exciting news today.  Due to an amazing husband who has been working hard to build up local contacts in order to expand his graphic design/visual comm. career he encouraged me to speak to a local store that is looking for local artists to rent display space.  So we made a trip to Edge Collectibles in the lovely tiny town I call home, Edgerton WI.  I spoke to the owner and have an appointment with her tomorrow to show her my jewelry and discuss the possibility of having it on display and for sale in an actual store.  From what I've gathered in my recent research this in practically unheard of especially for people who have no idea what they are doing.  So wish me luck!!!!!