Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2011

For those of you who were around in April, you may remember that I did a special for Autism Awareness Month - 50% of all Autism Awareness sales were donated to the Canadian National Autism Foundation. I also had a pair of earrings up for giveaway through their blog.

There are a lot of causes I like to support, and breast cancer awareness is one of them. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so of course I plan to do what I can to help!

This time I'm going to do something different. Every day (well, hopefully... nearly every day) there'll be a Daily Deal up for grabs on the facebook page! It could be a necklace, earrings, a hat, anything... But it'll be pink :) This item will be some percentage off - it could be 15%, it could be 50%! Shipping charges won't change, however. And then, at the end of the month, 20% of all breast cancer awareness sales will be donated to the Susan G. Komen For the Cure!

What are some of the items that will be on sale, you ask? Here are some!

And matching earrings!

I also have ideas for a couple different hats, hopefully some reversible headbands, small zip bags, all kinds! Hopefully I'll have the time...

What would YOU like to see?

48th Annual Maine State Firefighter Convention

For starters, sorry for the cruddy pictures, they were taken with my iPod :)

So, as you may have seen on the facebook page, I was a vendor at the Maine State Firefighter Convention in Waterville, Maine the weekend of 9/11. I went in not really knowing what to expect, having never been to any craft shows before, or anything like this.

It turns out, I was the only vendor with handmade crafts! That didn't make me as popular as I thought, and I went back and forth on how much business I thought I was going to get. At first I thought I wasn't going to get much, then I was afraid I was going to get too much, but it ended up being a very good amount.

Friday was registration day, though I did get a lot of business. I had my roommate with me helping out (though she was also Staff helping for the convention) until she went back to our college to pick up two of our friends.

On Saturday, I had my two friends and Mr. Man helping me, with my roommate off and on. I don't know what I would have done without them! We had an hourly drawing that people could enter for $5 off their order, future or during the convention, and one of my friends was the reason it was done half the time haha, because I would lose track of time, and she'd pick it for me. My two friends got very good at explaining the details of the products and taking orders, and didn't mind jumping up to talk so I didn't have to all the time.

I had a few items from Anchored Heart Designs,  a friend of mine, to show off too!

It was my first time displaying stuff, so I played around with how I wanted stuff displayed. I had a bunch of stuff to display, but it wasn't so much that it looked crowded, which was good I think.

Mr. Man got a few pictures of me helping a customer and standing at my table...

On Sunday, we moved outside with the vendor table that sold the convention items (shirts, hats, etc.) so we'd be by the fireman's muster so we could still see it. We had a fair amount of sales on Sunday too, so over all it was a good weekend!

Need Help Naming!

So I made a LOT of new items this weekend, including two bracelets that I'm not sure what to call! A lot of my items have very boring names, albeit descriptive, but these ones are a little fancier looking and I want them to have a name that matches :) Here they are...

The bottom one is a little bit fancier than the top one, I think, and has genuine Swarovksi crystals. Both have Preciosa glass beads. Either one can have one charm added to the toggle clasp to personalize them even more!

So think people! What would be good names? If I really like someone's suggestion, there might something in it for them ;-)

New Charm Labels!

It's been forever since I've posted, much too long, but I've been really busy. I've got a few new things up my sleeve that I want to show everyone as soon as I get a chance to make them, buuutttt for now, I'll show you the new way I have to label charms.

I've been thinking about labeling stuff for a long time, jewelry items and what not. Through Storenvy, I can give each item a "SKU" (Stock Keeping Unit) which I hadn't bothered with, but if I gave each item one like "NK34" for a necklace or "ER13" for a pair of earrings. I've realized it is a pain in the butt to come up with names for items! Which is why most of mine are boring haha. I have this thing with organizing, so I try to make the name descriptive, which makes them boring, and long... But, if I give items just a SKU, then it doesn't matter! If it's something I'll be remaking, then I can name it, too. But if it's a one time piece, a SKU would be easier.

Also, in getting ready for the Convention, I needed an easy way for people to tell me exactly what charms they want on their items. So, I started labeling them like I was thinking of doing with items. Some have just general charm SKUs, but a lot are grouped by theme so the numbers don't get huge. Like, the firefighter charms are CFF then the number, and the Air Force charms are CAF then the number. The numbers don't all go in numerical order across the pictures, because some charms come in each military branch but I just don't have it in each branch.

These are what the pictures look like now:

I think it will be much easier this way!