Toot Toot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 My daughter is a very talented young glassblower in Vancouver. She's becoming a well-known up and coming artist in the glass community. Today she was telling me about her work and was humbled to say how good she is compared with others. I told her it was good to toot her own horn once in a while. She should be proud of what she does!
Well, I need to take my own advice. Like mother like daughter I guess.
So ... toot, toot!!
I am so honoured and thrilled to be asked to be a guest designer @ The Paper Passion for the month of June.
I will be featured on their forum and gallery as well as their Facebook Page and their Blog. Each Friday for the month of June, I will have a project using products available at The Paper Passion along with tips or techniques.
I received my box of goodies yesterday and the wheels have been turning ever since!
I am sooo excited and thrilled to be asked and look forward to sharing my work with you.
Be sure to check their Blog every Friday (as well as guest designer Zoe Newburt featured every Tuesday in June) as well as back here where I will also share my projects with you.

Card Club, Etsy and Life in General

Hi again. I hope everyone had a great week. I've been busy tweaking and adding to my Etsy shop. I'm getting discouraged but have been told by fellow 'Etsyer's' (if there is such a name) and Etsy Teams that I am doing everything right and to hang in there. Like everything else summer is a slow season and my items are more of a gift or special occasion item. So, in the meantime I'll just keep promoting and adding to my inventory.
Hubby bought me a cool lightbox/portable photo studio this week  (which is awesome!) so now I  need to go back and retake my photos. Whew - that's a huge job! I'll likely do an album a day until they're all done. The thing is that Etsy only places your choice of 5 photos in your shop but I take a photo of each page plus closeups to have on file in case someone asks to see more pics. So each book has 20 or more photos!
I did get some photos of new stickpins that I added this week. My daughter has been busy with moving and work so has not had time to set up her lampworking table and equipment. So I bought some beads from a wholesale bead store and made some new stickpins. I designed cards to display them on and grouped them in sets of 3. I added 2 of the sets to my shop. I made 7 sets but I`ll add a couple at a time as I want to spread my listings out a bit.
Here`s the 2 sets that I added. There are individual photos in my shop. Also, there's a photo here of my packaging.

I also went to card club this week after missing it for 2 months. No there is no shuffling of cards and no poker faces but just a group of girls who get together and make cards and chat and laugh. I'm not a huge cardmaker but I enjoy the night out with the girls and enjoy learning new techniques.

We made a card using sticky sheets and glitter. I love the look of glitter but gawd can it be messy!

We gave it a monochromatic look and added butterflies using the Beautiful Wings embosslit by Stampin' Up. The scalloped oval die was cut on the ever so handy Sizzix Big Shot machine and the centre of the oval was embossed with the Elegant Bouquet textured impressions folder. A birthday sentiment was added to the oval centre but I chose to leave mine blank so I could add one as needed.

It's a very pretty card but mostly it was nice to get together with friends again.

I also enjoyed going to the local 'May Days' fair with my little 9 month old grandson this weekend. I haven't  been to it in years but I must say that I was totally impressed. Although our grandson is too young to enjoy the rides or all the goodies, he did win 2 small prizes with a little help from his daddy. He was pretty happy. He had a smile on his face the whole time. He seems to be in his element when around people or activities. He`s going to be a going concern - but a good concern - especially when I am the grandma!
Well besides the above and normal household chores it's been a fairly quiet week.
I'm hoping this week to get more flowers in my planters and to enjoy our patio and barbecue some more now that the nice weather is here!
So, what are your plans?

I'm Baaack!!

Sorry - I got lost in my Etsy shop, my other blog, the BC Ataxia Society and life in general.
But, I didn't forget you! I'm back to stay so - BE WARNED!!
With ataxia you only have so much energy and have to decide where your priorities lie.
Of course that is and always will be with my family. My husband has not been working and with retirement age creeping up on him, he has decided to apply for his pension. He's looking for a small part-time job to give  him something to do and to keep peace between us! He is driving me friggin nuts!! LOL. Although it is  nice to have him do the laundry or make dinner. :)
Of course our adorable grandson is growing and is now 9 months old. I've never seen such a happy, determined little guy. And he's full of energy - goes from  morning to night - with hardly a nap! What baby does that!! LOL - glad those days are over and I'm happy to be his Grandma.
I have also been busy with  The BC Ataxia Society. I've  been the volunteer President off and mostly on for 12 years now and it's time for new blood. Unfortunately there are no takers so I have to decide what to do before our AGM in June.
I also have been busy making items for  my Etsy shop - SapphireNoteables. Wow, I never realized how much work an Etsy shop involved. I just thought that you made stuff, posted it and hoped to sell it - like Craigslist! But geez, was I in for a surprise!
It's like running a store - which I guess it is! Duh!!
There's the overall appearance (banner, titles,branding), store policies, shipping and packaging, photography, descriptions, tags, search engines, pricing, teams, circles, treasuries, making inventory (a chore in itself), facebook pages,  blog ...phew. It's been 3 months and it's still confusing but not nearly as overwhelming.
Oh yeah, then my desktop got sick so I switched everything onto my laptop which I'm not overly fond of. It's too touchy for these ataxic hands so forgive me if spellcheck misses something or I'm missing an 'f'' - the 'f' key sticks!
So there you have it - my excuse for not being here.
I'm going to share with you this week some of the projects that I have  been working on for my shop.
Please check back often and I promise that I'll be here!