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Discouragement

Did you realize that discouragement can be a valuable tool for your business? It forces you to do three things, look inward, look outward, and make decisions. Today I am discouraged. It has been a long week of work and family. Somethings have been great and other things not so great. I have prototyped many several about 12 new items and very, very few have worked out. I have had a great time with my family. This is awesome. So, why am I discouraged.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/183258934/scripture-wall-art-instant-download-wall

This is the looking in part.

I am tired and not just tired but weary. We are still recovering from that bad cold. I have put in 2 – 8 hour days at the sewing machine. My house is messy, because I have put in 2 – 8 hour days sewing (funny how it works like that). I have stretched my thinking and planning by being creative and trying new things. I have failed, gotten up and failed again!

  1. Tired
  2. Messy House
  3. Failed creatively

Here is the looking outward part!

I haven’t left the house in several days. I keep comparing myself and my business to other people and their businesses. Blogging has been really, incredibly hard the past week or so.

  1. Not left the house
  2. Comparing self to others
  3. Comparing business to others
  4. Writing is hard.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/154470577/comparison-is-the-thief-of-joy-print-a

Here is the decision making time.

I am tired and I haven’t left the house in several days.  This is simple to fix as I need to make a supply run and run some errands.Comparison is a horrible thing, not fair to myself, not fair to others. It completely sells everyone short. So the only comparison I should do is to see how far I have really come. So, I need to track the business and see if it is growing, stagnant, or failing. The writing part will come easier when I get out and about. Feeding the creative juices is critical and rest is a part of that. I will take Friday off and have fun with a close friend. I really feel much better except for the tired part. I think I can beat that with an early bedtime and some much needed rest. The failing part on making the prototypes is simply to go back and make things that I know how to make!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/151464198/do-what-you-can-with-what-you-have-8×10

Talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. You will notice that not much was said about the messy house. I will take care of that in small bits and pieces of time, which makes it easier to swallow.

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Date Night…

Date night….was wonderful. It is years since planning a date was a simple as a phone call. Planning date nights was as complicated as planning a cross country move and required just as much cash to pay a sitter. I was also not quite comfortable leaving the kids for long as they were mischievous. Last night was a wonderful time; listening to live Jazz and eating Mexican food with my brother. He lives out of state and it could only have been better if more family had been there.

2014-06-006This was parked out in front of the restaurant. Street legal and ready to go! The music was played by Grady Nichols. You can find out more about him here. http://www.gradynichols.com/ It was a lovely night to sit and listen to jazz.

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I have been sewing quite a bit this week and my new fabric came yesterday. I can’t wait to show it to you.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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June

It was a quiet day yesterday and I pulled these out to work on.  I love the bright colors and simple design. I embroidered the stems and leaves of these teeny tiny little flowers.  I choose the smallest buttons in my button box to sew on as the flowers. The bunting was cut from my smallest scraps. I guess this is why things are always in an uproar in the studio. I have an extremely difficult time throwing any of these little scraps away.2014-05-31 21.58.00-1I just have to finish up the machine sewing and then I can give you a better picture of what this is! It will end up in the studio eventually. We are in the midst of getting a child ready for camp and another child is at urgent care with his Dad. The cold/cough has gotten worse. He needs a letter from the doctor for his job as he is not ready to go back to work tomorrow. He has been off of work for a week and we would appreciate your prayers that he would feel much better super quick! Talk to you later, Karen

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Saturday

It has been a long week. Everyone in house has been sick… I mean everyone. It is some kind of toxic cough thing that spread like a wild fire. I was one of the last to get it and it is just dragging on and on. I haven’t done much with any crafty stuff this week but lay around and try to get better. I did put this fringe on…

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It is so incredibly soft and fluffy! It was exciting to feel like I accomplished something.

I took some pictures of yarn, but that is about it. I have thought a lot. I have thought about getting up and doing something but then I decide that it is ok to rest some more. I think I am headed back to the couch and crawl back under an afghan and do some more crochet blanket planning and other thinking and possibly take a nap.

See you later,

Karen

 

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The laundry

I remember going to my Granny’s house for a week or two in the summers. Once a week we would gather (I say we, but it was mainly my mother and Granny) all the laundry in the house. Loading it into the car we would take it into town to the laundromat. It had a screen door that had a broken spring. It smelled clean like soap and heat like the driers that were stacked on one wall. There were all kinds of ladies at this laundromat. They would load all of the clothes into the washers and the last load would be my Grandpa’s overalls. He was a tractor mechanic and his overalls and work shirts would always go in their own washer with the Oxydol detergent. Then they would sit and wait for the washers to finish. There was usually a chance to drink a pop out of the machine in the corner. It was cold and sweet and very bubbly. Granny didn’t put her clothes into the dryer we would take them home to her house and hang them on the line. ALL the clothes on the line, even our underwear, though Granny would put them on one of the middle lines of the clothes line. As kids we would run through the cool wet laundry feeling it flap on our arms, but not too much as it would pull the clothes down.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/23974833/clothes-pins-hancock-maine-4-x-6-fin

My grandmothers would never let their clothespins stay on the clothes line. They were kept in a bag like one of these. They would bring the clothespins after their laundry day.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/187700151/clotheslined-floral-print-clothespin-bag

My other Grandma, we called her Gran, would also dry her clothes on the line but hers was an umbrella style clothes line and she could stand  in one place and hang all of her clothes. The queen sized sheets fit on the outside line and the socks on the inner lines closest to the middle pole. It turned around and she would hang and turn the line and keep hanging the clothes until the basket was empty.

When our children were little I had a clothes line and we hung our clothes to dry. It was a way of saving money. We had a clothes dryer for wet laundry days. It seemed that the kids created laundry for fun. If we didn’t do laundry; at least three loads every day. They now do their own laundry and it keeps that monster under better control!

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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Business matters

Easy Business tips

Here are some things that I have learned recently that are helping my business and might help you. They are quick and easy to do. I have been trying to fix one thing a day and I feel a little overwhelmed with two online shops, twitter, facebook, Instagram,  and the blog to take care of everyday.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/70675339/business-hours-store-window-vinyl-decal

If you remember this blogpost: http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/04/05/overwhelmed/ you will remember that one of the words was Automate and the other thing to do was to hire a virtual assistant. While I can’t hire a virtual assistant at this point in my business life I did sign up with HootSuite. It puts all of my social networking stats in one place and keeps me from hopping all over the internet. It also has some neat automated services that I am taking advantage of. You should take a look at it and see if there is anything there that will work for you.

The simple thing I did today was change the name on my Pinterest account to ChocolateDogStudio which makes it easier to find my shop. The other simple thing I am doing is to start a time log to see where I really am spending my time!

Talk to you later,

Karen

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Looking Back…

I wrote this about a month ago. Believe it or not everything that I was worried about has been handled. All of the things that I thought were worthy of worry are now solved, resolved or handled. Shall I share the outcome of each of these worries.

I am starting to push the panic button. In the next month we have a ton of things happening.

  • The college girl comes home with all of her belongings  She is home and everything is great!
  • Sr. recognition Sunday at church for our graduating senior Done and over!
  • High school graduation for our youngest son Graduated!
  • Our 26th wedding anniversary Celebrated and wonderful!
  • Memorial Day, a day which we now try to put flowers and remember those who have passed away and those who have served in the military. Done
  • I need to get a child ready for camp
  • send her to camp
  • I have two kids needing to find summer jobs They both found jobs on their own without my interference!
  • feeding all of the people that will be here this summer I have two extra cooks and meals are getting accomplished daily!
  • find out about my foot in the boot and what needs to be done. The boot is gone. I am mobile and taking up the rhythms of life again!

I guess I am discouraged by the busyness of life. I need to take time to remember that these busy times are sweet family time. We will once again all gather around the table and share stories, insights and food. It seems that my family places importance on food as it gathers us all together.

Yes, we do place importance on food as it is hard to get all of us together at any other time.

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I hope you and your family find some sweet family time this summer!

Talk to you later,

Karen

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The May Garden

I love perennials in my flower beds. These grow in the raised flower bed at the front of the house. I am transplanting an off shoot to the new flower bed.2014-05-23 15.18.55

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Aren’t they bright and sunny. I can’t remember the name of them. We also have Russian Sage growing in this flower bed. The sage was planted in the middle and has migrated out to the front edge.

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It has bright blue flowers that the bees love. It is tall and ferny and simply lovely and yes I cropped this photo so you can’t see the tree growing in the bed at the back. Here is a good shot of reality. It is the area around the corner from the front garden bed.

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It is pretty wild and needs a lot of work. These are the new flowers that we added last week.

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English daisies and Purple cone flower both of which we had at our last house. They seem to love hot summers and the so- so watering job that I do.

I have too many projects going right now and I feel really stretched thin on the creative side of things. I am in the process of adding some new to the shop and I feel really pretty overwhelmed and terribly forgetful. I am tending to skip around from project to project during the day and not seeming to accomplish much.

I guess I need a new challenge and there is one I am thinking about but I just can’t decide if I really want to participate. It is a daily listing challenge and I am wondering if it would be wise to try it. I would have to list something new in the shop everyday. Summer, has been a little crazy so far. We have three of the kids home. One is working a full time internship with regular working hours and the other is working almost full time hours at Arby’s. This means that he has crazy hours. So I am not sure about the listing challenge. The other challenge is a one hundred Granny Square block challenge. I am still thinking about this one. I have been tossing it around since we lived in Iowa, which is close to 2 years ago. The other challenge has to do with more scrap busting! I am still thinking about this one, but I know that it wouldn’t be wise to totally stop buying supplies like I did for the 100 items in 100 days challenge!  http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/01/17/1-thing-for-100-days-challenge/

I do need to use up some scraps so we will see!

talk to you later!

Karen

 

 

 

 

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Jam, Jelly and a little Pickled Peppers too!

We worked really hard this weekend. Two of the kids mowed the yard which is huge and the other one helped me to create these goodies.

Strawberry jam and Jalapeno jam…

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and we also made some pickled peppers. I have never made them before and was a little nervous. The color isn’t as good as I had hoped for but I will know better next time. We still have apricots to work with but that will have to wait for another day. Why did we have so much produce? We picked up our order from Bountiful baskets. We had ordered in  a flat of strawberries and then our regular order came with a huge amount of sweet peppers.

Talk to you later,

Karen