Color Me Lately

Oh wow what a crazy few weeks it's been!! I feel like I've been running every which way and doing 17 things all at the same time.  I kept telling myself, 'Just make it to May! Things will calm down then!' which of course they haven't! Here's a snapshot of my life lately:

Craft show

I did my first craft show! I was at the DC Meet Market last Saturday.  It was a beautiful day and there were lots of people at the market.  Unfortunately, those lots of people didn't all stop at our booth. We only had a few sales, but I learned so much about doing a show.

Etsy store

I spent a lot of time updating and refining my Etsy shop this weekend.  There are a ton of new items in the shop! Beautiful coasters, napkin rings, face scrubbers, and soap saver bags are all new.  Keep an eye out for new washcloths to do up in the next few days too!

Creative Bug course

Aside from all the crafting that's been going on, I've been taking a few courses! One is this Creative Bug class on Building a Creative Brand.  I'm really behind on it, but so far it's been really good.  I just finished the episode about writing a business plan.  Thankfully, my business plan draft was pretty close to what they recommend, but I definitely need to work on budgets and that kind of thing more.

Designing

And of course, I'm keeping up with creating new products! I have a list of things to create just for the summer that I think will be amazing and I'm so excited to start working on them all.

Here's to growing!

Color Me Lately

Here's a snapshot of what's been going on in my life lately: Look! It's not a mystery! Ok, he's a mystery writer. BUT! This one is not a mystery.  I've read his Ladies' Detective Agency series and I'm not a huge fan of them.  I love his non-mystery writing so much more.  This series, his 44 Scotland Street series, and his Corduroy Mansions series are my favorites.  Whenever I see a new one at the library, I snatch it up.

I've been working hard on getting ready for the craft show! Last night, I laid out everything I had ready to go so I could get a sense of what was left to work on. There is a lot left to work on. But I feel good about how many things are finished or are works in progress.

See? Lots of works in progress on my coffee table at the  moment.  These will all become soap saver bags. Eventually.

Studying for the Food Manager Certification Exam.  I got a new job at a candy store (as the Assistant Manger! Woo! I'm a grown up!) and the state of Virginia requires that anyone works comes into contact with food much be certified. Which means I will be spending my next few weeks studying how hot meat must be to serve to customers. Even though I work at a candy store.

I have been craving muffins lately! So I finally went out and found a recipe (ok, fine, I bough a mix) and made myself some for breakfast this morning. Possibly the best part of having days off during the week.

Maybe the muffin craving is coming from needing comfort food. I think I have taken more medicine in the past month, than I have in the last few years. My thumb has been sore from all the crocheting (hence the wrap) and my teeth have been a mess. I had a crown put in a few months ago and something went wrong and it's continually hitting the bone in my jaw and causing all sorts of pain. (Seriously, I handled the pain from wisdom teeth better than this. This is just awful.).  But this should soon go away with some scheduled (minor) surgery. Yay!

So that's been my life lately. What's on your camera?

What I'm Doing

What I'm Reading

I'm a big mystery lover. 5 out of 6 of these are mysteries, which is less than normal (I'm trying to branch out a bit). I've read the bottom three so far.  I watched all of Inspector Alleyn on Netflix, and it inspired me to pick up Ngaio Marsh's books.  I had tried to read her before and didn't get through it, but now I'm zipping through her books. A good rival for Agatha Christie, I think.

I just started on Due or Die and I'm thrilled to discover the amateur detective is also learning to crochet! What a great surprise.

What I'm Working On

This is a new project, just for me.  I wanted to work with just a single color doing a new stitch pattern.  This will  be a yellow baby blanket, using a triangle stitch.  So far, I am loving the new stitch.  It's fairly easy and I love the way it's lacy without being too loose - there's still some weight to the fabric.

While I was at Michaels picking up this yarn, a woman stopped me and said 'You look like you know what you're doing - where can I find knitting needles?' Kind of made my day to look like an expert in yarn crafts!

What's New To Me

Alright, so this isn't new to me, but it's being picked up again after a long hiatus.  Husband made the controller for me as a Christmas present a few years ago, and I love it.  Granted my Xbox skills are limited to Lego games, but I'm totally ok with that.  Currently playing Lego Marvel.  While I loved the old Lego games that didn't talk, this game is great! The comments are really funny, the plot lines are intricately woven to include any and all Marvel Universe characters, and the game play is pretty good.  My only complaint? I still get stuck on jumping challenges, and I wish there were less things to jump across.

What I'm Learning

That's right! I'm learning how to build a website from scratch AND attempting to learn some business techniques.  I've put myself on a one chapter a day schedule (failed at that for most of last week...so only about 7 chapters behind?) and have been enjoying it! I've got some really great ideas for things to add/re-do on this site and I can't wait to get to the end of the book and actually play around with what I've learned.

Who'd have thought I'd be reading about business??!