Time Management in an Etsy Shop

Does anyone else have a drawer next to the computer that looks like this or am I the only one?  I also have a larger box with items I definitely MIGHT use, and a very large box of cables that I'm not sure I have the components to nor do I know what they go to!  I'm probably the only one...

Things like this make me crazy.  They eat up my valuable (to me) time searching for the right camera cable (one of the 4 black ones in the drawer) and just drive me nuts!  Let me tell you a story...

Last month, my 14-year old daughter was obsessing over the movie The Lion King.  We couldn't find our DVD, so we ended up borrowing a VHS from a friend of hers.  We no longer own a VCR.  We ended up going to the goodwill and spending $10 to see a movie ONCE.  She used her allowance to help pay for it.  The funny thing is that I had just a couple of days before just gone through my cables in the "garage box" and thrown them all out, thinking that I really will never use these RCA cables ever again with all the digital options we now use.  I sent them packing in the trash truck, about 10 cables or more. 

Guess what?  The Goodwill had NO cables.  Not one to check if the VCR (one among dozens, some quite nice in the day) actually worked!  I had to BUY AN RCA CABLE to play a borrowed VHS tape on a new used Goodwill old VCR that I wasn't even sure worked.

So I'm getting a bit behind, but the movie was great! =)

The almost daily story of my life.  After all, this was just one child one day.

Coming soon:  A work in Progress:  Ruby and Sterling Steampunk pendant...turned out so cool and I took photos along the way!

Thanks for letting me vent!
xo Cindy

A Few Studio Photos

Here's my studio when I got my new "wall."  It looks empty right now!  I'll think about updating my photos once I get the hang of regular blogging...  Below is my supplies cabinet, a repurposed school discard destined for the city dump!  Cindy to the rescue!  I have another in my laundry room.  It is great for shoes =)

Okay, so I figured out how to upload photos...now to make some jewelry!  Then maybe I'll add a live link to my etsy shop (but I think clicking on the top banner will work).
TTFN!

Baby Steps - I've gotta start somewhere!

Now what was I thinking when I thought I'd take the incredible leap from a safe, secure job as a registered nurse to a jewelry designer when silver prices jumped from $20/oz to (now) over $48/oz? I had just established a regular following in my Etsy shop ( http://www.hillcountrysilver.etsy.com ), was enjoying wireworking and custom orders, had some time available for my "hobby," super relationships with my regular customers, and had plenty of time to spend being creative. Now that I'm doing this full-time, I find that I'm spending most of my time meeting order deadlines and reproducing the same items over and over/ With the massive increase in sales necessary to pay the bills, the time I used to have creating OOAK items that kept me going in times of work-related stress is now spent meeting the demands of a small business. Isn't this what I wanted? I now have to delay the creativity for weekends, when it cuts into my family time.

I guess it is the same problem faced by so many creative people. How to earn a decent wage, take my 1 or 2 vacations a year, and still find the time to be ME?

I watched my mother do it. Gotta love Mothers! She took a business originally built with a wooden sign in front of our house on a busy highway that said "Quilts for Sale" to a multi-national corporation and lost a bit of herself in the process as well. LOL, my pre-teen sister and I used to show total strangers quilts in our living room while my mom was still a secretary at the local water district! Times have definitely changed!

After 4+ months of being on my "own" as far as making ends meet, I am ready to get a regular job and not deal with the hours of making, photographing, listing, editing, etc that goes with my own business...but not quite ready to give it all up.

Time will tell and things will change. Better than a stagnant existence, for sure! I'm ready for the journey I think. I love the solitude and quiet of being in my home studio an acre from my house after the kiddos are in bed (except for the constant hammering!). I love being available for my son's theater production set construction. I love it that my kids haven't had a terrible school lunch in over four months and that we eat together nearly every night now. I'm even a better, more organized cook these days! At least there are no guarantees (except for the hammering, it seems!) and it will be an adventure every day!

I'll sign out for now and not make this public until I really have something to say =) I'm loving it but scared to death that it won't work out. But of course it will. It always does and I believe that I am right here, right now, for the best reason possible. Whatever that is...I'm done with waiting for things to be perfect, something to change, something in that hazy future. I am ready for the future NOW!

xoCindy