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?