Organization - Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Happy February!

I have been staying on track with my motivation, organization and expanding my jewelry line to sell in more local stores. Everything is running right on track!! 

The organization has been a bit of challenge, not gonna lie, and here I am going to bear it all!  It takes guts to show the bad with the good, and I am showing it to you. I work better in a jumbled chaos - it sparks my creativity and the ideas flow. What this chaos doesn't do, is allow the creativity to happen in a timely manner. This meaning, to be cost effective when pricing my jewelry, time goes into that formula. When I spend 20 minutes looking for my hole punchers, so I can package an order, that is 20 minutes lost in profit!!! When this revelation hit me, the organization began with a fury. As I rolled up my shirt sleeves and dug in, I realized I have been wasting a lot of time. 



Here you can see, holy cow!!! that is the only way to say it :) I dragged everything to the middle of the room, swept the floor, and started putting everything back. This process let me go through things, find things I haven't seen in years, and evaluate what I really need, and what is just hoarding. The purging is happening!!  I still have a ways to go, and it feels good!!

As we all know, February brings Valentintes Day, a day set aside to show love to those special someones in your life. A fun way to show someone your appreciation and love, is to enroll them in the Earring club! Choose, 1, 3 or 12 month membership, and let the fun begin! 

Friday is going to be an awesome night, with the Snow Moon (full moon), lunar eclipse AND a comet!! Grab your binoculars and see natures splendor! 
Talk to you soon!!!

And as always..

I send you love and peace.
Be blessed!

Storage and Organization

I was excited to go to The Scrap Exchange yesterday. I had braced myself for the creative e-pif-any of all e-pif-anys that I knew would hit me as soon as I walked into the door.

Did it happen?

No, but it was so much fun. It was overwhelming. So much to look at, and so many things to touch, and ponder. I need to schedule an entire day there just to poke around.

I also was on a mission. My friend stores her beads in pe-tree dishes. (I spell SO  bad there is no spelling suggestions for me on this word, I tried 4 different times, and it always gave me Peter..) Brilliant!!! I got a couple stacks while I was there.

They stack nicely, they are clear, the are wide and shallow, so I won't tip them over.

The lids don't lock. That is tolerable, I just won't use them for traveling.

Coffee 'cans' - can we still call them cans? Tubs? Containters? I can't tell you how many I have.

They are great for storing, the lids stay on, they are durable. They have become a collect all........

The classic jars. Love them! They have their uses, but I will say they can be a bit cluttered. One thing I plan to do with baby food jars, is follow my grandpas lead. He nailed the lid of the baby food jar under a high shelf, then screwed the jar into the lid. The jars were at eye level, they were hanging out of the way, and you could see the contents. Love it!

And I have hardware boxes. I use these for travel, when I do shows, or classes, and I need a good sturdy case. They stack, the lid locks (but I broke this one already) and the yellow containers on the inside are removable. These stack up under my work table. Draw back - when I pack them for travel, I get back, slam them under the work table and leave them there. When I need something out of them, I lug them out, dig around, and I have no room to work, because this case takes up the whole table top.  *sigh*

I also have your classic craft store options as well. The small stackable round containers, compartmentalized boxes, tackle boxes and an assortment of tupperwares.

This is my effort to get organized.

What do you use for your storage and organization? I would love to hear!

Question for you

How do you stay organized?
How do you stay on track?
Do you have a daily schedule that you stick to, or do you wing it each day?
What tools do you use?
Do you set goals?

Trying to keep it together

I have been up since 3:30 pacing with Newd. He has been restless all nite and has a more pronounced limp than usual. I did take him on his first walk yesterday and he may just be sore. He has been kenneled for nearly two weeks now and I am starting to add more exercise back into his routine.

I microwaved towels and made him a heating pad and he settled in for a while.

Now I am pacing. I have an interview in a few hours for the Associate Producer position. A great move up into the company from where I am, and good solid career move. I am nervous. I am always at a loss for words, have a tendency to make jokes and act a clown when I am nervous, and I can't do that today. I have to be on target and give them what they are looking for.

*think* *think*

I need to channel this energy into something, something positive.

*snap*

I am going to give you an inside look at my creative process. How my pieces go together and how my thought processes work when designing a piece.


I grab my books and begin to do some looking - I have it! I am making a new necklace to wear to the interview. I necklace charged with positive energy, creativity, organization, and communication. Just what I need to get me thru the day. I chose moonstone, labradorite, quartz, blue lace agate, jasper, rutilated quartz, and carnelian for my base stones. The bulk of the design in seed beads,crystals, some chain and a few buttons for focals.

I chose -
moonstone, blue lace agate, labradorite and quartz for communication.
jasper for organization.
rutilated quartz and carnelian for creativity.
The buttons are a representation of me.
The chain is to show how each link is needed for the fluidity of the movement. Just like a team has to depend on each other for the outcome.




I was going to document the process but I chose to go with my 'tantrum' style necklace, and it is difficult to do. I chose the tantrum because order has to come from chaos in the position I am applying for. What I can show you is one of the draw backs to making this style of necklace and how you can fix it with no one the wiser.

During the beading of the 'tantrum' you weave the tail of the beading wire in and out of beads randomly. You have to keep the beading wire taunt during the process or you will have gaps in your beads after you anchor it like this -




What do you do? it is a pain to take the crimps off , pull in the slack, and set a new crimp - most times, I end up snipping the cover of the beading wire and have a fray. Not good.

So for a random tantrum style necklace like this, all you can do is go with it. You can create a coil. For this necklace I created a coil in copper, bout the same size as the 'slack'



Once the coil is made - 'screw' it onto the beading wire




Close up of the coil






And the finished product -


Keeping my Thoughts