October 1st - Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux

Today the church celebrates the Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux for this is the day she was Born to Heaven, having died September 30th 1897.  She is also well known as "The Little Flower of Jesus. 

Therese is known for her "Little Way." In her quest for sanctity during her illness, she realized that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts, or "great deeds", in order to attain holiness and to express her love of God. She wrote,

"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

She lived a very short life (1873 – 1897) but has had an enormous impact on Catholics worldwide because of her writings and unending love of Christ.  Therese was beatified in April 1923 and canonized on May 17, 1925, by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death. In October 1997, Pope John Paul II declared her one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Universal Church, one of only three women so named (the others being Teresa of Avila (Saint Teresa of Jesus) and Catherine of Siena).

She is the Patron Saint of flowers, the ill, missionary workers, especially those on missions to Africa and the African AIDS crisis.

It is said that those who ask for her Saintly intercession will receive a shower of roses. 

Novena to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus, please pick for me a rose from the heavenly gardens and send it to me as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God today to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands... (mention specific request)

Saint Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God's great love for me, so that I might imitate your "Little Way" each day.

Amen.

The Hermit is coming out of her shell.

Today I'm going to meet other Etsy folk and do some crafty stuff. This is organized by the peeps of EtsyRain - the Seattle Etsy team.  The event is called "Crafterhours" and is held after regular business hours at  a store called Venue in Ballard. They open their shop and craft space to our group once a month for gathering and crafting.  I'm looking forward to it!  However...

I'm getting nervous just thinking about it. I feel like I'm going on a blind date. LOL!  This is actually a big deal for me. It's not easy for me to meet new people.  Except for going to work and church I am quite a hermit.  I have two close friends and I rarely go outside of my comfort zone and meet new people. 

Being a seller on the Internet is comfortable because of the relaxed interaction with people via email, blogging, Twitter and such.  Online social networking comes easy to me.  Meeting people in person...err, not so much.  My nerves get the better of me, I don't talk a lot, so I tend to avoid most social situations or become a wallflower.  Typing this out I see I'm coming off really awkward - LOL - but it's true.  I'm a little awkward.

Last week I decided I'm going to just go for it so I RSVPed for the meetup and it's happening tonight. These are people I might be selling with at future craft shows. It would be smart of me to network with them a little, right? Right. I need to be more active in this local group because it will be good for business and maybe I'll (gasp!) make a few friends. I'm sure it will be a good time and I hope to make it a monthly thing and perhaps be bold enough to go to some of the other meets when they happen.

Anyone else awkward in social settings or are you all enthusiastic go-getters?

Cleaning my virtual crafthouse

Today I spent a lot of time cleaning up my virtual craftshouse.  I reorganize my actual craft supplies regularly at home (and I even have some things stashed at work!)  to keep inventory up to date and items their proper places.  I rarely think about cleaning up my virtual world.  But since my business is online it is very necessary to dedicate some time every now and then to making sure all my ducks are in a row and my shop is up to date.  Since I just got back from a nice vacation now was a good time to reorganize and get ready for the busy months ahead. 

First I started by removing some items from my Etsy shop that just aren't selling - I am going to take some new photos and relist those another time.  Gotta work on the descriptions and think about why they have so many views but those views are not translating into sales. 

I also removed a couple items that I want to keep available for my upcoming craft shows because they are real stunners in person and I want them on my table purely for visual purposes.  If someone wants to buy them - great! After the craft shows are over for the season I will relist any items which are still available.

Next I went through my Flickr site.  I use my Flickr for personal/vacation photos as well as my crafty photos.  (I need to consider opening a second Flickr account for my crafts only but that decision will come at a later time.) 

I have all my craft photos in different "Sets" - One for Listed Items, one for Not Listed items, and one for misc things like promo pictures, craft event pictures, and everything else having to do with my little business.  I specifically needed to clean up the Listed and Not Listed folders.  I started off moving items from one category to another.  I don't always remember to get things in the Listed folder after I list it.  Next I started deleting old pictures of items that have already sold.  I did keep some of the old pictures for promo or jury photo needs.  Deleting duplicates and blurry pictures was also necessary.  Some pics will just never get better with editing and you just have to start from scratch. 

I also finished editing/cropping some pics of items waiting to be listed.  Flickr is finally clean and all up to date.  After that was said and done I took a few items in the Not Listed folder and put them in my shop.  Those are the photos you see throughout this post.

I updated Twitter a few times, showcasing the new items I've listed and caught up on some Tweets from my favorite folks.  Tried not to spend too much time (or money!) browsing all their goodies. 

Before starting this blog post I went through and caught up on my blog reading.  Again, tried not to spend too much time and money browsing and buying everything I saw.  Made a few comments here and there.  

I also went through all my blog posts and LABELED all of them!  This is something I frequently forget to do.  I love it when I read someone's blog and want to see more posts on the same topic and they have their little handy label cloud/list for clicking.  This is such a handy tool.  If only I remember to label!!

And now this!  This is my last task on my Virtual Cleanup.  Blog about cleaning.  LOL!

What am I going to do now that my Virtual Cleanup is complete?  Probably make more crafty messes with beads and trinkets.  Thinking about making more car mirror rosaries today and taking more pictures tomorrow.

Wishing and Hoping!

Back from vacation!  Reopened Etsy shop and ready for business - sorta.  It's always hard getting back into the swing of things after a relaxing vacation.  I need to renew a couple items today and resume editing/croping pictures of product waiting to be listed.

I'm hoping in the next 4 days I will have the decisions on the two big craft shows I applied to.  One said they will contact the vendors on October 1st and the other said the announcements will be made "late September". 

I'm feeling very hopeful about one of them (Big Show #1) because they extended the application deadline, which leads me to think they didn't get as many applicants as expected so perhaps there was room for more. 

I'm half-way hoping I don't get accepted to the other Big Show (#2) because the booth fee is a little intimidating. More than double the cost of the fee at Big Show #1. Given the fact that I've never sold at such large events before I have no idea if I will make enough to cover costs.  However, gotta stay hopeful.  Even if I don't make a profit I would still come out ahead in the marketing department since this is a heavily sponsored and advertised event.  Getting the word out there about my little shop and my little trinkets would be a wonderful thing and worth the price of admission.

Vacation - Viva Las Vegas!

Etsy shop it set to Vacation mode for a week.  I'm going to be in vacation mode myself on Wednesday but wanted to close up shop a little early so I didn't get any surprise orders I needed to rush out.  I'll reopen the shop on Monday 9/28.

Where am I going?

Just a quick get-away to Vegas for some R&R.  Going solo but will be meeting up with some people there for fun and frolic - within reason, of course.  I'm not a party girl.  I'm mostly just looking forward to relaxing in my hotel room, maybe at the pool, and simply NOT being at work. 

Yay for vacations!  Viva Las Vegas!

Make Your Own Rosary Kits!

Premiering on Etsy today - I have listed my Make Your Own Rosary Kits!  I've been very excited putting these together and getting them ready to go.  It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time. 

Everyone will recieve enough beads, spacers, string and other parts needed to make one full 5-decade rosary.  Complete instructions and a pamphlet on how to pray the rosary will also be included.  No tools are needed to make the rosary.  If you can string a bead and tie a knot, you can make one!

These are especially fun for children (under adult supervision, of course!), parents who homeschool or anyone who needs a rainy day project.  I would have loved to do something like this when I was in RCIA!

I've priced them very inexpensively, at $3 each.  With materials, free shipping & shipping envelopes, etc. this is zero profit for me.  I am offering them at such a low price because I want them to be affordable for those who want learn more about their faith and the use of sacramentals in prayer.

I have lots of these little kits available.  If you want more than one just send me a Convo through my Etsy shop and I can create a custom listing for you.

Blak/White Rosary Treasury

A lovely Etsy user, BeadedTreasuresEtc, created an all-Rosary Treasury featuring black and white rosaries.  My Black/Silver-capped rosary was selected to be featured among the other beautiful beads fro my fellow Rosary makers.  How nice!