Anything Worth Doing is Worth Overdoing

I had to wait until the week before Christmas to decorate, but I went all out when I finally did the work.  I am rather pleased with my results and currently planning to leave it up until spring.

You Bloody Bastard Spam Commenters, Stay the Hell off My Blog

I write this basically for me.  I have a few followers, maybe 5 if I'm lucky.  I am so tired of removing crap comments from jerks trying to use my blog for their advertising.  Go away, you rat bastards.

CRAZY Busy

This has been the busiest Christmas season ever on eBay, I have been packing and shipping every day, so unlike the last few years, and oh, do I hope it keeps going this way!  My own decorating and shopping plans have been put on hold, and I am just now getting the trees up and the Santas are still in the cupboard.  Once I get done, I am pretty sure I will leave it up until April.

Here are two trees done, and today I tackle the music room and possibly shoveling out the dining room, which has been an antique disaster zone for two months now, as all my craft work has escaped the craft room and found a new home on every empty space in the dining room.  My husband is no help, as he keeps going to antique shops and just piles his finds on the floor in that room.  Hard to complain when I am just as bad, but I am going to do it anyway!

A Word from our Sponsor, the Color Blue

The mountain of Christmas projects has not diminished, but I took a time out to re-style some of my blues...

Neither the Best of Times Nor the Worst of Times

I spent Thanksgiving week setting up and tearing down my antique and craft sale in Clarinda.  I had over 50 people, so that was better.  It was much too exhausting to be worth the effort still.  All my family was home so we got to have a real Thanksgiving at my sister's house, so that was nice.  Another surprise was my sister sold her house about the minute she listed it, leaving them homeless in 30 days, so she is going to move into my house in Clarinda.  This is really good, because I don't have to worry about burst water pipes or other disasters this winter.

Here is a sampling of my show.  I do think I do good work.

Put the Paper Dolls Away

I had paper doll creations left from last year, because once I start, I can't stop making them.  This year, I told myself I wouldn't even get the dolls out, I did not need any more.  All it took was one doll looking at me and I have spent two entire days doing nothing but making paper doll Christmas trees.  Fortunately, I have run out of trees and blocks, so should be able to stop...

Some Early Blue Calico

I scored a tattered late 1800s blue quilt that I have spent the last week taking apart to get at all the lovely faded blue calico.  This meant everything gets blue calico added, I think it is some of my finest work.

I need the soothing blues, I had two ridiculous returns this week, one, a $250 bread board that they said "rocked" when they tried to use it.  Why in the H-E-double hockey sticks are you USING a $250 bread board?  Go get a $10 board at Walmart, these early boards are for display.  The second is another of the "I had no idea the item you listed with the title "SMALL" and the description, "this is very small, 4" tall" would actually be small.  I expected a full size item."  What is wrong with people?

Christmas in the Heartland

I have been creating Christmas goods for almost two months now, but realized that I haven't put much up on my blog about it.  I have this idea that I am going to decorate my own house right after Halloween.  This will involve much scrubbing of floors and reorganizing my creative chaos that has escaped the craft room, crept into the dining room and starting to edge its way into the living room.  I will just have to see how I cope with that.  I do feel the need to have a sparkly tree on the premises, so will just have to make myself get to cleaning.

I have been putting out a plethora of little trees and assorted Christmas goods, here is a sample:

I Had Low Expectations, and I Was Still Disappointed

No surprise, Clarinda show still only 25 customers.  I did newspaper ads, 250 flyers mailed, facebook ad--reaction was "meh."  Here are some photos:

The faithful 25 seemed really happy with the show,  and also excited that I would be back for a Christmas sale, so I will.  I am contemplating trying one here in Iowa City, where the biggest problem is that there is no parking on my street and all customers would have to walk a couple of blocks to get to my house.  I will have to ponder.

 Also, what is the deal with the weird spam comments that I get on my posts?  I keep having to remove them.  News to the spammers--I have about 5 readers, your time is wasted.

Negative Self Has Come Out of Hiding

My positive attitude that anything is possible and that having a show again would be wonderful is starting to fade and negative me is yelling "You must be out of your damn mind."  This is certainly true, but also true that I have to go to Clarinda anyway and maybe, just maybe someone will show up this time.  

My ebay store is certainly full to overflowing, I don't think I have ever had over 800 items listed.  It is much more normal to have about 400.  Sales are uneven to say the least, lots of no sale days, but others have my car filled with packages I have to post.

This weekends offerings will include:

Darkness in the Primitive World

I finally got my Halloween goods photographed today and am off to list tonight.  I have also decided to do two Clarinda craft shows this fall.  My optimistic self is planning beautiful displays and getting all excited about what I can create in the next month.  My pessimistic self is being uncharacteristically quiet.  I am still pretty sure I will be back here next month saying "but no one came to the show!"  

The reason for the shows is this:  we have a downtown building that we re-roofed and gutted when we bought it, but then life got in the way and nothing else got done.  The city got all pissy about it needing paint, so James has been working on weekends, putting in windows and scraping paint.  Since we have to be there anyway, I figured I might as well make my $5 profit.  Here is the building in progress (the one with James on the ladder):

Here is a little bit of blackness:

It is a Trudging Kind of Day

I have been working non stop and finally have things photographed--today I think I took 300 pictures.  So much editing, so much listing to do now and I am having to force myself to do it.  Every thing is really cute and are all my favorites.  I worry about not selling them as much as I worry that they will sell and then I won't have them anymore--and I know that is nuts, but very true.

Here is a portion of what I need to list today: