Sneaking Up On some Milestones....

So much to be thankful for this week!

I am steadily approaching my 500th sale on Etsy and I am excited!

When I made the move from Ebay to Etsy in February of this year, I set a goal to make 500 sales before the end of the year.

Now before you get too impressed , most of the items in my shop are small ticket and customers usually order more than one set of tags at a time.

So it was much easier for me to hit that objective than it would be for higher ticket sellers.

Even so, I am stoked to be so close to the objective.

Extremely thankful for my Etsy customers too, and I want to celebrate! What do you think?

Here's what I am tossing around:

* maybe free shipping (over a set $$ purchase) over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend?

*A special Giveaway for my very special 500th sale?

What would you like to see?

Hopefully there will be another milestone this week:

Lollishops is in Beta Testing this week, shooting for a soft opening on November 28th...

Sounds like another reason to celebrate! I think my first customer over there will definitely feel the SunshineandRavioli Love!

I'll decide exactly what I'll be doing to celebrate within the next few days. I promise you'll be the first to know...

Until then,

Poppytalk Handmade...

Have you heard of Poppytalk Handmade ?

It's an awesome and  beautiful gift and home decorating marketplace run by Jan and Earl, which changes themes monthly. I have been participating for the past few months and December was to be no exception. Except that it started on November 17th and I not only forgot, it was never even on my radar! 

Again...Lists, must start keeping lists and quit relying on the noggin!

Anyway, I made up some brand new holiday  tags in honor of my forgetfulness...errr Poppytalk's Holiday and Gift themed Market... They are all also now available in my Etsy shop....

Go visit Poppytalk Handmade for your daily dose of eye candy...even if you think you've already had your quota for the day (and really, when can you ever get too much eye candy?). I promise you won't be sorry. 

I'd bet you will find a few new favorites in the process...I do, every single month!

Have a great weekend all!

Until Next Time,

Another "Just Because" Kind of Post

Things are so busy right now....

I am feverishly trying keep up with orders, and, you guessed it, that leaves very little time for old-fashioned creativity. And that little problem begets another...a good portion of the things I share with you here are new items or pictures of my kids, the weather, critters outside my door, etc (which I haven't been lucky enough to get good shots of lately)...
I try not to bore you with re-runs...

So what's a blogging girl to do?

Will you settle for some miscelaneous snaps of things that are inspiring me to at least think about being creative this Christmas?

I love this tinsel package ribbon. Looks enough like the old stuff to make me happy (but instead of being crinkly and stiff, it's soft and wired- fuzzy and controllable- a perfect combo)...

And while I may not get to craft with it for the upcoming holidays, I scooped it up anyway...Valentine's Day is coming hot on the heels of Christmas and I can realistically ponder making something sweet and Love inspired come January....I plan to have plans for this stuff (so organized, aren't I?)....

More vintage looking tinsel, this time from Bethany Lowe instead of Wallius Martius...paper flowers, vintage buttons, German Glass glitter , which I tend to "oooh and ahhh" over more than I use (but it does inspire me!). If it were fuzzy I might even pet it...and yes, I did actually pet my fuzzy tinsel, just a few times....

And my favorite find this year....

...this simple ( Hey, there's that word again. "Yes Virginia, sometimes the simplest things really are the best things.") Sugar 'n Cream Green Twist crochet thread...100% cotton...it reminds me of a faded wintergreen candy cane...perfect for tags...I have got to see if I can find these twists in other colors because they are, for some reason, calling my name....

Maybe it's that upcoming Lollishops opening that filling my brain with confectionary inspiration....

Until next time,

STEPH

Simple is Almost Always Better....

Simpler is almost always better...

I really have to keep telling myself that.

Case in point, I am not a scrapbooker, but I obviously have some serious paper addictions. It's the whole reason I started making gift tags...it was a justification for the growing rubber stamp/ card stock collection I was accumulating. Which leads indirectly, kinda sorta, to my next confession...I am a gadget junkie. I am the one the shamwow guy is talking to (I YI YI, did I say that out LOUD? And NO, I have not made that purchase....yet....).

So imagine my fascination with a certain large, bulky scrap booking gadget (rhymes with Crocodile-wink-wink-nudge-nudge), which in my house, has lovingly become known as the

$30 hole punch/paper weight ....

I won't show you my eyelet setting efforts with the pink handled monster, let's just say they rarely came out the way I liked. Having never used a traditional, old fashioned, and yes, comparatively cheap, eyelet setter (because I just blindly jumped all the way in and bought the most expensive gadget ever for such a simple task), I just thought that's the way the eyelet fell. That or my artistic "gifts" did not extend to squishing tiny little metal rings in to perfect little circles (my sister is the jewelry maker in our family)...shrug it off and move on....

And then I went to a gathering of all of the wives from Mr. Sunshine's unit. We were getting together to stuff stockings and filling goody boxes for our guys, who will be far from home this Christmas. One of the girls made the cutest little bookmarks and candy wrappers to put in the stockings (I am ashamed to admit that as crafty as I am, I did nothing like that). You guessed it...she rubber-stamped them all and used eyelets on the bookmarks.

I was fascinated (yet again)...her eyelets looked as good on the back as they did on the front. And what was this? They weren't lopsided. They were perfect little circles. How on earth did she achieve this?

You guess it again (you're good at this!)..an old-fashioned, metal eyelet setter and the ultimate old-school tool, a plain ol' hammer....

Now why didn't I think of that?

You can bet I high tailed it to Michael's and got myself the necessary equipment. I even had the hammer already(wooHoo!)...and it works like a charm....of course....I think I will be adding eyelets to more and more of my tags- I love the finished look it gives....

Not to mention the stress relief factor...forgot how fun it is to squish things with a hammer...much more fun than squeezing those giant pink handles together (which were too wide apart for my hand anyway)....

I'm sure it's a perfectly lovely tool if you have catcher's mitts for hands....but for me I will pull out my old mantra...Simpler is always better....simpler is always better....

Until next time

(which will come much sooner this time, promise!)....

STEPH

Remember Me

November 11- Veteran's Day...

Just a quick reminder to remember your favorite Soldier/Sailor/Marine or Airman...

And I will get back to regular posting this week- promise! Last week was crazy busy!