Change is coming….hopefully.

I last posted, I don’t even know when, about wanting to blog more now that Bean is a little older and I was able to put the Blogger app on my phone.  We see how well that went! 

I really do want to blog more again.  I want to be able to make something of this space again.  But, I also think I need to revamp things a little.  I started this blog before we had Bean (who will still remain nameless and be called Bean, for now).  I titled it “Steph’s Creative Life” because it was meant to share my life in general, my homemade crafts, my photography, and anything else creative I could come up with.  However, since having Bean, I don’t get out to take photos, my beads are shut away in their container in a cabinet, all the crafts are out of sight.  With extra time that I have, I focus on my new Scentsy business (that’s been almost a year now since I signed up to be a consultant!).  Yeah, never got around to telling you all about that.  If you’re interested in Scentsy, you can check out my website – https://ssgherza.scentsy.us  (Enter shameless plug…)

So, I believe some change is necessary for this blog.  And I think changing things will make me more motivated to post more often as well.  Also, making time for it at least once a week and utilizing the little “Schedule Post” button will hopefully be of help.  I’m looking to do a new background (if you actually come to the blog page and don’t just read through Reader), and even a new title!

Here’s my issue – I don’t want to change my blog name suddenly and lose any readers I may still have left (thank you if you are still reading this and have stuck around, or if you are new and checking it out for the first time!).  Other Blogger peeps – is there a way to change the name of the blog and make it automatically change in everyone’s feeds/Reader, does it do that automatically on it’s own, or will I completely break and screw up everything??

Thanks for the input and keep your eyes open for some new things!!!

My Ventures

I know I have gotten a few new followers recently, and I’m guessing at least some of my followers read my posts through Google Reader and don’t actually see my blog page often.  I don’t typically like to “brag” as I might call it or really push things on people, but I guess it would really be considered “marketing”.  Since there are new followers and probably some Reader people out there, I was feeling the need to “market” myself and remind everyone of some of the ventures/sites I’m associated with to allow me to try to earn some extra income for my newly growing family.  We’ve been lucky with baby gifts so far, but there’s a lot more to buy and pay for as the year continues, and since I currently don’t work and will be a SAHM, I felt the need to try to earn a little something where I could.  So, for any of you interested in any of the following, here’s what I’m trying:

1. I have my own Artfire shop called My Style Crafts with my handmade crafts listed.  If you have never heard of Artfire, it’s pretty much exactly like Etsy, but without the fees for listing an item.  Right now I currently only have some jewelry pieces listed, but as soon as I try out a printing service, I’d like to add some of my photography prints, and whenever I decide to sew again I could offer items such as catnip cat mats, cat toys, and kitchen towels.  I currently do not have any candle making supplies, but I love to make candles, and at some point would like to add some of those to the listings or at least take custom orders.  I also decorate picture frames, but unfortunately due to some of the materials I use to create them, that particular type of item is on hold until at least summer since I can’t use those materials while I’m pregnant.  So, like I said, there’s currently only jewelry and one set of wine charms listed, but the other items mentioned are ones I’d like to add at some point when I have the supplies, ability and time to create them.  If you’re interested in something, or would even like to inquire about a custom order (which may or may not be able to be fulfilled, depending on the item), please check out my Artfire shop at http://www.artfire.com/users/MyStyleCrafts

2. I have 2 Cafe Press shops.  One shop is called My Style Crafts – Photography Gifts.  I have created a few different items with some of my original photography printed on them.  Items include coffee mugs, note cards, and tote bags.  You can check out the items available at http://www.cafepress.com/MyStyleCrafts

     The other Cafe Press shop currently only has one design on a few different products, but it’s called My Style Designs.  I created this shop during Breast Cancer Awareness month in order to try to raise some money for breast cancer research.  I would eventually like to create some different designs to add to products, but for now all items (which is still everything at the moment) with the breast cancer awareness design will have all profits from sales donated to The American Cancer Society.  This shop can be found at http://www.cafepress.com/MyStyleDesigns

3. I am a Say It On The Wall affiliate.  Say It On The Wall is a great place to find some awesome gifts or home decor items created using vinyl.  They have items such as subway art, wall vinyl sayings, door greetings, decorated glass blocks and so much more.  You can even create your own vinyl saying through their website.  If you are interested in seeing what they have and helping me out as an affiliate, you must go to their site via my link listed in my sidebar on my actual blog page.

4. I am also part of the Amazon Associates program.  I have a shop through Amazon.com where I categorize and list products that I think are wonderful from personal experience or would just like to offer potential shoppers because I think the product seems worthy of promotion.  The store is called Steph’s Creative Life Store, since it’s associated with my blog.  I currently only have a “Baby” category and “Music” category (all Glee mp3’s listed at the moment), but I plan to add categories such as electronics, household items, home decor, crafting supplies, and more.  Look for those categories and listings to be added over time, and if there’s anything at all you want to buy from Amazon.com and would like to help me out as an Associate, but don’t see the item listed in my store, please contact me through my blog and let me know what the item is so I can add it to the store for your purchasing needs.  If there is any issue adding the item to the store, I will let you know, and you will also be notified once the item is listed and available for purchase.  You can get to my store to see listings through the widget on the sidebar of my actual blog page or by clicking this link:  http://astore.amazon.com/stepscre-20

I have also been thinking about becoming an online Tupperware consultant.  I don’t like to do home parties certainly as a consultant (not even a host!), but they have a way you can just sell via an online store, or even create online parties for hosts so no one has to deal with the in-home party.  This is still up in the air yet, because in the past I thought about being a consultant/sales person for other companies (Avon being the major one), but I know a few people who already sell for the other companies and thought I might not succeed at it for that reason.  So, I found out about Tupperware’s opportunity, and I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I’d like some feedback from you.  If I had an online way of purchasing Tupperware or hosting online only parties, would you be interested?  Would you come to me for your Tupperware needs or do you already have a consultant that you buy from?

That’s all I have for now.  If you are interested in any (or all!) of my ventures above, please check them out and help me succeed!  Feedback about the Tupperware opportunity will be greatly appreciated!

Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

If you didn’t already know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Since I know people who have either conquered breast cancer or are currently fighting it, I decided I wanted to create things this month that I could donate profits from to the American Cancer Society.  I am currently working on some wine charms that I hope to have finished and posted by the end of this evening or tomorrow, but for now I opened up another, different Cafe Press Shop where I can put designs I create on other merchandise.  It is separate from my Photography Gifts site, and currently has 1 design related to breast cancer on a variety of products ranging from clothing to mugs to buttons/magnets.  Depending on the item, I will donate anywhere from $0.25 to $1.00 for each item sold (amount depends on the item), so the more I sell, the more I can donate!  I created this design using the obvious pink ribbon, the symbol for breast cancer awareness, but also with the yellow flowers because they were the closest looking flowers to Pear Blossoms, which is apparently the flower representing “hope”.   

You can visit the shop here:  http://www.cafepress.com/MyStyleDesigns 

And here is a preview of what you’ll find in the shop: 

   

      

So, hurry up and show your support for cancer research!  Cafe Press currently has a sale through Oct. 13th – get 15% off all orders $60 or more – so while your checking out my shops, you might find some cool Halloween stuff while you’re there! 

I would like to start creating more designs, so after October 31st, 2010, the items and designs are subject to change.  I will most likely keep a few “Think Pink” items in the shop, but I will be working on other designs as well.  Unfortunately, I only have a basic shop, so I can only have a product listed with one design, meaning I can’t have coffee mugs listed with 2 or more different designs (once a design is put on a coffee mug, you can’t create another coffee mug with a different design).

Check it out!    :)    More to come on those wine charms later…

Link Ups and Updates

So, I was apparently wrong about my new blog design.  In yesterday’s post announcing my new design I stated that it didn’t quite look like I thought it would.  I also don’t have a widescreen monitor on my desktop computer, so when I looked at it on the laptop, it did look like it was supposed to!   :)   That made me very happy, because I really liked how the whole background looked, and was a little disappointed when I wasn’t seeing it on the other monitor.  So, if you have a widescreen monitor, you will see the appropriate/full background design, otherwise you might only see a portion of it, which does not do it justice.

I linked up my Artfire shop and my blog today to this blog party/blog hop/whatever you want to call it (I get confused about what to call these types of things):

If you haven’t seen Sumo’s Sweet Stuff’s blog, check it out now.  It’s really cute, and she does a lot of cool, creative stuff.

I did get in contact with my doctor’s office today, and I got started on some antibiotics, so hopefully it helps and gets rid of this issue quickly.  I have never gone through this before, and really hope I never have to again!  And the last update is that this crappy rainy weather here needs to go – my knees have been sooo stiff and achy since the beginning of last week, and it’s really getting to be bad.  I know we needed the rain, but I think we got enough last week…now we have another 3 days of rain in store!

Hope all of you have nicer weather wherever you may be!

New design!

So, I finally picked, tested and applied a new design to my blog!  If you’re reading through Google Reader, as I tend to do, go check it out!  This one might not be permanent either, as I would really like to learn and figure out creating one from scratch on my own someday, but thanks to The Cutest Blog on the Block, I got this free background to pretty up my blog.  I always love seashore/seashell stuff, so that’s why I picked it.  It doesn’t quite look like it did in the sample they provided, which I really liked a lot, but some of it shows, enough to make it nicer than the kind of drab theme I had before.

I’ve had a pretty lazy weekend – but I haven’t been feeling my best, and even though today was much better than yesterday, I still need to call my doctor tomorrow.  I won’t go into it much more than that on here, so if you really need to know TMI, feel free to ask (but leave your e-mail address, because I won’t explain in comments on here either)!  I wanted to make these Caramel Apple Cookies this weekend, but that hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t now until I get in touch with the doctor tomorrow and figure that whole issue out.  I’m cutting down some of the calories though by making mine with the Splenda Brown Sugar Blend and regular granulated Splenda, as well as egg substitute, so when I do have them made and taste-tested, I will let you know how mine came out and will try to come up with the calorie counts.  Thanks Smashed Peas and Carrots for sharing this recipe – they made my mouth water and I can’t wait to try them!

So,  what do you think of the new design?  And how about those cookies??  If that isn’t a fall recipe to love…   :)

Scrapbook Saturday

I hope you all are enjoying your Saturday and are having just as beautiful weather as we’ve been having here.  I am at a yard sale until 2ish today, dealing with crazies and thieves (we actually had someone steal something once, right out from under our noses!). 

Back to the beach with this post.  I wanted to share more photos from our vacation to OCMD.

The top picture is one my hubby took with his cell phone camera.  We took a boat ride called the Assateague Adventure, and it took us over to the shoreline of Assateague, where it let us off for a short while to walk the shoreline and collect shells and such.  All I kept getting were rocks, and the shells I managed to find contained snails, so they had to get thrown back.  In retrospect, I should have left all my junk back on the boat instead of trying to carry it. 

The second picture is of the Ocean City beach from where we were sitting the first day we went to relax on the beach.  We went a little late that day, but it was nice because it was cooler and a lot less crowded.

The third picture is a tiny baby clam I managed to get a hold of down at the water’s edge.  Hubby saw something that looked like a shell when the wave pulled back to the ocean, but when he reached to grab it, it buried itself into the sand!  I managed to snag one before it could bury again, and it turned out to be the tiniest clam I’ve ever seen!  I did put it back in it’s home, but just had to snap that photo first.

I miss that vacation – it was so nice.  I especially want my daytrip to Ocean City, NJ now!  We go every year after Labor Day, so I’m hoping to get there soon!

Scrapbook Saturday

  I created my very first digital scrapbook page!   :)   I got this free program (Sarif Digital Scrapbook Artist) from Amazon yesterday, thanks to Fab Steals and Deals (link is to post that contained the link for the free program download – I do not know if this free download is still available today), so I thought I would give it a try, since I said a long time ago that I would try to do a Scrapbook Saturday post.  So now I at least have a program to create a page digitally if I have not been able to create a paper page, and hopefully I will be able to start to make this a regular post!  This post also gives you another photo viewing of some of our vacation for hubby’s birthday.  The big picture was taken on the beach of the bay behind our hotel, and from left to right:  hubby and I on the speedboat ride, a heart hubby drew in the sand for me (awww), and hubby relaxing on the beach. 

I can’t wait to try out this program some more and really figure it out.  Hopefully I’ll be able to start creating more elaborate pages, and maybe even make myself a new blog design!   :)

We are attending our first block party today!  Hopefully you all have something fun planned too!   :)

Tuesday and Wednesday Accomplishments

I have definitely been more motivated this week, in the crafting department anyway. I haven’t finished a whole lot of anything yet, but I’ve at least been working on things a little, which is certainly a lot more than other weeks recently! So, here are some of my accomplishments this week so far:

I booked our vacation to Ocean City, MD last night. We are going to get away and relax for my hubby's 30th birthday! We’ve never been there before, and I’m extremely excited to go. We have been on a couple overnight stays or weekend getaways (2 actually – NYC overnight for our 1 year wedding anniversary, and Baltimore for a weekend in Nov. 2007) since our honeymoon, but no real extended vacation since then. We’re not big ocean swimmers or anything, but it will be nice to just relax on the beach with books, take walks along the ocean, and just have nothing real to worry about for a whole 5 days.

I bought metallic silver spray paint. I had started to decorate a wedding themed photo frame over a year ago. The idea was to paint it silver, then use white ribbons, stencil some white words, and throw in some of the double heart charms I bought for a few projects from my own wedding somewhere on there too. I bought a better frame than my Snowflake Photo Frame, sanded it all down, and began painting it with silver acrylic paint. I can’t even remember how many coats I was up to with the acrylic paint, and it still isn’t smooth or consistent enough for my likings. I thought the spray paint would work better, but I was a little nervous about the silver part – the acrylic looked nice, and I was afraid the spray paint would look tacky. So, this week, I sprayed over the frame with the new paint. I like the silver look, but it’s still not quite smooth enough for me in some areas, so I’m going to have to re-sand and re-paint. I was going to do that today, but I prefer to do it in my garage with the door open, and it was extremely rainy, then extremely humid today, so I didn’t think the paint would dry very well. Hoping to get to that tomorrow.

I made myself a new earring/necklace set! I had some beads I bought a while back that I hadn’t done anything with yet, and I was finally motivated to create something with them today. It’s my favorite set so far! :) I’m calling it “Blue Beach”. It’s made from 2 different sized white shell beads and round light sapphire shell beads. My birthday on Saturday motivated me to create it, because I want to wear it that day and feel pretty. :) The upcoming beachy vacation was also a good kick in the butt too – I like to take all my pretty clothes and jewelry with me on vacation, it makes me feel even better. Here it is:

I found this new way of photographing my jewelry from looking at other people’s online shops and blogs, and I am so much happier with the result of my pictures this time. I even had the perfect dishes for this particular set! (Sandbar from Pfaltzgraf) This specific set is mine for keeping, but as long as the beads are still available, I will definitely be adding it to my Artfire site! So, guess what that means? Craft store, here I come!

I’m hoping to be able to at least finish all the silver painting on the frame tomorrow now, and work on some sachets for a friend who requested I help her make them for Christmas gifts. I haven’t tackled them yet because my very old and decrepit free sewing machine that I got from my parents started to give me trouble last time I used it. I almost broke the needle a couple times because the tension has decided to turn on me and not loosen up, so I may now need to take my grandmother up on her offer of giving me her old sewing machine, which is certainly in better condition than the one sitting here collecting dust now. Hopefully I will at least be able to start on them this week yet – I also have to make some jewelry that my other grandmother requested for a birthday gift for her friend (yet another excuse for a craft store trip!).

It might not seem like much to some of you crafters out there, but the rate I’ve been going lately, these are huge accomplishments for me!

Under Construction – Part 2

Well, I was at least able to revert back to my old design with my hubby’s help (thank you hun, you’re my hero!).  :)    I’m back to the drawing board with a new design for this blog though, but with the issues I had, I have learned a little from my mistakes, and will have to do some more research and learning before I can really make some changes.  I don’t want to be someone who changes my blog design constantly (even though I sometimes tire of things easily, and that might be fun…) because I feel your blog layout/design is how you’re recognized, sort of a signature.  So, even though change may be necessary every now and again with it, I’d like to keep those changes to a minimal number of times.  So for now, here it is again, even if it is a little drab.  I still like it better than how my attempt came out.  It will change someday though – keep an eye out for it!

Under Construction

Bear with me – I am attempting to create a new look for my blog! I created a new background all by myself, and I loved the look of it without the blog part, but when I applied it to my blog, it didn’t exactly come out as I expected. So, as I said before, I am new to all of this stuff, especially this part of it, please bear with me through my changes! It’s late now and I can’t mess with it much more at the moment, so I will have to work on it more tomorrow. Unfortunately, I also don’t quite know how to revert back to my most recent template, since it was a freebie I found online, can’t remember where I found it, and made enough changes that I don’t think I can simply “undo” to get back to it. :( Hopefully I’ll figure it all out and am happy with what I end up creating or choosing from someone else’s creativity. Any pointers or suggestions of great, FREE, blog designs, please share with me!