advertising

You have to do it. Advertise, that is. Even though it may seem sometimes like you are throwing money down a great big bottomless hole, if you want people to know about your store you still gotta do it. We spent enough money on advertising last year on our stores and website to buy a really nice car and I still have folks come in to the store and say 'oh, I am so glad there is finally a bead store in Raleigh.'

So here is our Ornamentea.com ad for Bust for December...nice, eh? Well, it is supposed to be less blue, but otherwise that is what the ad looks like. I like advertising in Bust, mostly because I like reading it and so it makes me happy to see my ad there, kind of a vanity ad I guess. But we also get folks that want to order stuff from that ad and they seem to spend larger amounts and buy my favorite weird stuff not just jump rings. Not that there is anything wrong with jump rings but they don't exactly get me up in the morning, if you know what I mean.
I just wish I knew what advertising to do, when and how often. The ad reps all want to tell me that secret, but somehow it usually involves spending more money with them. It really is a crap shoot, you just rolls and see what you get. Them's the breaks, kid.

messy pile update

Well, I tackled the pile and now have six smaller piles, one to go to recycling, one to go to others at work, one for my hubby (yikes, I had an insurance form in that giant pile!), one for my daughter Cleo (she likes to open junk mail and fill out the forms and reply envelopes), one pile of magazines I need to go through and one pile of stuff I must attend to this week. Pretty good. I found three messages from folks I didn't want to call back anyway. No, thanks, I don't want to advertise with a commercial on the WB network! Now my giant pile has been divided and conquered. Pretty good for a day of working at home.

this mess is a place

Today I am tackling the mess on my desk in the studio. It is layers deep and includes a pile that is 34" (thirty four inches) high of mail I have been ignoring. I measured it. It looks like a lot of mail but I have found that if you ignore unsolicited not-quite-junk mail long enough you can just drop it in the recycling pile without a bit of guilt. That information about the gift show you should be going to but don't want to (packing, flights, hotels,tight shoes, too much coffee, bad food, bleah!) for various reasons? Gee, that was last month so now you can just toss the registration packet. That solicitation to buy advertising in the program for the American Association of Cloggers annual meeting or the Dental Assistants of Wake County fundraiser that they want an auction item for? Hmm, those were last week. Good, throw those out too.

I have a cup of hot chocolate and am ready to tackle the pile!

At work...

Well, I was at work late last night
with Nora...again. She was at a class on Sunday night where she was a real sweetie, you would have never known that she doesn't care at all
about odd-count peyote, and then last night she was at Panopolie with me while I played with a group of friends.
We worked on books and she slept for a brief time under the table. Then they all took turns holding her while I frantically tacky-taped my book together. Here is a picture of her at Ornamentea sleeping on the couch. I think I was putting out new stock or something while she napped and the nap lasted
until her big sister decided to 'check' on her.


My mom was in town this weekend
and I stayed up late and made earrings one night with her. I think she would have liked to stay up late every night and make stuff but I was
exhausted. She is definitely where I get my tendency to craft. Oh, that might make a good book title, Tendency To Craft. What would that book be about? Projects? no, maybe just pictures of peoples studios, unfluffed, just all messy and busy. Anyway, the earrings were fun to make. I made five pairs in about an hour or so. I made all those earrings as I need some new ones since I was wearing the same old pair every day, but since then I have worn the same (new) pair every day.
What does this say about me?