Time to Blog again!

Summer is here – do you know what you’re doing with your children???

My son will be a counselor at a local day camp, a wonderful opportunity for him and he loves doing it.  Cracks us up to hear him telling us about “his kids” at the dinner table.  He still can’t take his final test for his driver’s licensed for another 3,4 weeks…which means I have to schlep him to and from camp, roughly 2 hours plus of driving time every day.  I’ve been feeling kind of whiny about it, but finally realized it’ll get me up, going and motivated to make the best of my shortened day, well worth it for the opportunity for him.

As for jewelry, I finally have a revised schedule for that too, arranged around my summer driving requirements.  I’ll be taking some pics on Friday, so look for some more goodies after that.  Actually have lots of new things in stock, just have not gotten to the shooting and editing pictures part.

Enjoy your summer!  They go by all too quickly, as do the years it seems.

PMC Class

Well, I recently took a PMC class and decided it was not my thing.  I took a class because I don’t have a kiln and thought I should know what I was doing before I dragged pieces to my bead shop and used their kiln.  The class was fun but my pieces did not come out that great.  I’m sure I’d get better with practice but I’ve got so much other stuff going on that I’m going to table it for now.

I have three jewelry shows scheduled for next week.   It’s funny but no matter how many pieces I have completed in my stash, I always feel like I need to make more for these events.  Oh well.  It’s a good excuse to put everything aside except for making jewelry!

Happy Friday!

Thought I’d start with a bit of eye candy!  This bracelet features lampwork glass  beads from Donna Millard of Fyrebeadz fame.   I made the Egyptian coiled links with Argentium Sterling Silver wire.  Argentium is amazing because it is very resistant to tarnish.  I am slowly switching over so that all of my work will be done with Argentium instead of sterling silver.

I finally got through a pile of tasks I was determined to finish early this year and got upstairs to the jewelry table.  I made several very simple bangle bracelets…just a lampwork glass focal with a few silver beads and a couple of “Smart Beads” to anchor them in the middle.  I still have to photograph them but when I do, I’ll post some pictures here and put them up for sale on my website.

I’ve been struggling a bit with defining my business strategy and direction for this year.   Have dumped some “opportunities” and am focusing on my own web presence.  One thing I have to do, and will do later today, is link my website to this blog!  In fact, my next step is to go add a link from here to my website…

Have a great weekend!

Where did the days go???

Wow!  I can’t believe that my last post was on Friday the 13th.  My business really grew and changed last year and I’ve been trying to spend the first weeks of this year getting organized.   I spent several hours over the past couple of weeks, getting my loft studio organized.  I mean chances are if you look in your closet and realize there’s stuff in there you have not touched in a year…or more,  it’s time to clean out.  Two garbage bags later and I’ve got a lot of empty space.  I can finally move some of my beads off the floor and into the closet.  I could not go another year constantly having to pick through stuff on the floor and on the counters, trying to find some little bead I needed.  Now I can start creating!

Happy Friday the 13th!!

What a busy day.  I sell Biagi beads on my website and on eBay.  Got a new shipment today and spent a couple of hours sorting through everything and getting it all online.  I need to link this blog to my website and will get to it one of these days.  I’m also trying out this new niche site software.  Gotta spend some time with that to get it all set up and then I can cruise a bit.  I gotta lot of irons in the fire!

My lovely husband brought home some flowers for Valentine’s Day.  I’ve got a gift for him but I’ll wait ’til tomorrow.  Hope you all have a lovely Valentine’s Day and a great weekend!!

What Happened to January???

Did I pass through some black hole wormy time warp?  What happened to the month of January?  I love to make jewelry and have my own handcrafted jewelry business.  I also sell the Biagi jewelry line on eBay.  I kind of stumbled into that.  I started to buy a few of their beads because with the large holes they would fit on the wire bangles I make.  A lot of the beads are just plain cute and just adding a couple to my piece would add a bit of whimsy to the look.  Someone went from a few to a LOT and started selling them.  Anyways, this all translates to paperwork at tax time.  And that’s where January went.  First, got everything totaled up so I could pay my sales tax.  Then, since I was on a roll, I finished everything I needed to do for our personal taxes.  Then…decided it was time to load some new pictures onto my website (www.jhayssen.com) and now here it’s February 12!  I have not made a single piece of jewelry in 2009!!  Definitely time to change that.  I’ve read several articles on running your own business and how much time you have to spend on marketing and paperwork.  Can’t remember what the percentage is but I remember it was a lot higher than I wanted it to be.  Have definitely demonstrated that percentage so far this year.  Time to get back to creating!!

Thought maybe I should include a picture of one of my creations.  I love lampwork glass and use a lot of it in my work.  Will write more about that another time.

Pink Satin Roses

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog!  I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a while and finally just sat myself down and signed up.   I will be writing about the trials and tribulations of running my own handcrafted jewelry business (for example, who ever knew I would wind up spending so much time on the computer…) and my crazy family life.   More later…have to go finish setting this thing up!