Treasury 4

I'm on an etsy.com treasury roll! Treasuries are where someone else picks stuff they like and posts it. It's sort of an honor to have something chosen because there are thousands of sellers to choose from. Mine is the first column, third down handbag.

New name, for a while

I have changed my blog's name for a while. It's very clever. You see, it's called Robyn's Nest, and my name is Robyn. Get it? Like the bird robin, who has a nest, only spelled like my name? Get it? I've been quite fond of birds' nests lately. I also made that nifty logo in Photoshop. I was going for the "4-year-old-drew-it look."

In honor of robins, here are some things I think are super cute:

I am massively in love with robin's nest jewelry. Check out these necklaces by Relish Dress:



and this one from Adorn Jewelry:



I also love this ring by Moxie Rings:



And this teeny-tiny pin cushion that holds maybe 3 pins by Robin's Bird Nest:



Lil Fish Studios makes this pin:


Or, if you're feeling extravagant, this brooch by Wired:



And, finally, I just really like this birdy, though it's not a robin. It is the color of robin eggs though and it's made by Rain's End:

Bursts, bursts everywhere

Now available at Henrietta's Handbags (which seems to get a lot more traffic than my site!):

Shop for a good cause

Now available at Crafters for Critters:



This Web site accepts donations from crafters and then sells them and uses the proceeds to help animals. Different animal groups are chosen throughout the year. Shop for the precious pups and the cute kittens.

A few new items

I made this as a custom order for a co-worker.



These two are for sale at Burst of Happiness:

Peach/brown/yellow/pink sorta square things with striped interior:


Blue and brown checked zipper-top handbag. Spacious and secure but not too big!

Mental illness: It's not just for humans anymore

We have a veterinarian columnist for the paper who attributes every animal issue to anxiety problems in need of medication. I often scoff at this. But lately, I've been wondering if there isn't something to the idea of pet mental health. I don't want to become one of those freaky pet people who rushes their animal to the pet psychiatrist every time it goes doody in the house on accident, but I've been thinking that my cat Suggs suffers from depression.

Suggs is 14, and I've had her since she was 8 weeks old. I have been very protective of her and have never seen anything bad happen to her, but since day 1 she has been afraid of men. Men are loud and clompy, so I can see why. As a matter of fact, T-shirt face is the only mad she's not afraid of, and though he's tall, he's not loud.

Because she hates men, life has been hard on her the past five years that we've lived with Mark. She has her ups and downs. Recently, she decided to hide under the back corner of the bed in the spare room, where I could never reach her. She'd stay all day, then finally wander into the hall looking really beat, and then head back.

All of a sudden a few days later, she was a new cat. She hasn't returned to that spot. She wants to go outside. She INTERACTS WITH US! Usually, she won't come downstairs when Mark's around, but since she got past her bout of depression, she has been hanging out in the den with us every night.

It's a miracle! And it didn't take Prozac.

ANOTHER treasury!

This time I remembered how to capture the image better:



Mine is second row down, on the left.

Another treasury

A reminder: Etsy.com has "treasuries" where people can list their favorite items, often with a theme. It's exciting when someone picks you for their treasury out of thousands of sellers. My item is the peachy-Ohs one, second one down in the middle. I did a terrible job of a screen capture, but click below to see the item.

The hair flip

The Hairflip.

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Now available at Fusion Hair and Skin

My handbags are now for sale at Fusion Hair and Skin in Downtown Albuquerque, N.M.

These items are there now:




I'd also like to share this purse that I want to keep sooooooooooooooooooo badly. This one is available on my Web site.

The Pleats That Were Born of Hell's Loins

Look at my cute new dress! It was $220 and I got it for $70. What a steal! Isn't it adorable?



Oh, look at the beautiful pleats at the bottom! How do I properly care for this garment? Let me read the label:



"Cool iron IF NEEDED"

Here, let me wash it. Oh my, what has happened to the pleats? Post-washing pleats are to the left on the photo. Is it possible to wash this dress and NOT need the iron?



How, oh how will I get my pleats back? I'll tell you: I will fold and pin every damn pleat to the ironing board and press. It will take an eternity. I will never, ever wash this dress again, no matter how bad it smells.

A Burst in Every Bite!

Over the past several days, I have revamped my Web site.

Burst of Happiness.com now features:
* an improved custom order page with instructions and lots o' fabrics
* a "styles" page that compares and describes different styles, along with their features, measurements and more.
* a new front page (photo will be swapped out with another as soon as my husband and I have a few minutes together where I'm not wearing PJs.)
* a separate "shop" page
* a new "about me" section, partially lifted from my blog.
* a few items moved to the sales section.

I've also raised my prices a touch. I've had to do this gradually because initially I barely covered my supplies. I didn't make anything for my time. Eventually, I realized that if I'm going to make a successful business, I need to actually earn something for my work. People would tell me that for one-of-a-kind, or few-of-a-kind, handcrafted items, people are willing to pay a little more than for something mass-produced and sold at Target because they understand the time and care and creativity that goes into it. I've had to learn to respect myself and my work and see value in it. I still cringe when I see bag sites where people charge $125 or more for a purse, and I think my prices are fair! I sure can't get rich off of them. The process is time-consuming and the supplies must be factored in.

That said, I like to give personal friends and family a discount, so let me know when you are interested in something so I can help you out a bit! You are the people who have really gotten things going for Burst of Happiness! Thank you!

I don't just sell, I also buy

I bought these awfully adorable earrings from etsy.com seller RayvenRenn the other day. Not only did I get them in two days, but they were only $6 and so cute. I think she should raise her prices a bit, personally.

Git yer tumbleweeds right here

If you've lived in the Southwest, you know tumbleweeds as those irritating, prickly, dead plants that get caught under your car, poke your legs and nearly cause you to crash on windy days because they keep dodging suddenly in front of you on the highway. Not that a tumbleweed will hurt your car if you hit it, but it scares you. I always think it's an animal, and I'd rather crash and die trapped in the burning wreckage than hit a rabbit.

Apparently, in some parts of the country, tumbleweeds are seen as a decoration -- a lovely centerpiece for your dining table that your guests will ooh and ahh over.

Luckily, New Englanders don't have to drive all the way to New Mexico to spruce up their homes. Just visit Curious Country Creations, where you can get your tumbleweed display for only $15.99! For the more dramatic look, you can get a size large for $42.99. If you prefer to grow your own, you can also buy tumbleweed seeds. Another handy site is Prairie Tumbleweed Farm, where they have a photo of a tumbleweed centerpiece that's actually pretty cool! They also assure you that your tumbleweed is organic, quality tested and 100% Y2K compliant, which probably isn't as essential today as it once was. Their tumbleweeds range in price from $15-$25.


This post got me to thinking: What IS a tumbleweed, exactly? They must be alive at some point. A tumbleweed is born as a Russian thistle.

BEFORE

AFTER

EATING A MAN!

Not trying to undermine hardworking and clever entrepreneurs, but we have tumbleweeds aplenty, and if you'll just pay for shipping, I'm happy to pull one from under my car and mail it to you.

Magic Mushrooms

I have this plant in my living room:


I noticed some yellow things in there the other day -- they looked like packing peanuts, but smaller. I left them alone and now look!


We don't overwater this plant and we live in the driest place on earth, so go figure! Maybe it was the washing machine flood.

UPDATE:
Upon searching for an answer to my situation, I found this blog post from last year. In the comments section of that post, I also found this link. Mystery solved.

Consignment

I have yet to go into the world of selling wholesale or consigning because it's generally a 40/60 (60% to me) or 50/50 proposition. I am not very good at business, but it's hard to justify only getting half of the money an item sells for when I could sell it myself and get all of the money.
I can see the benefit of exposure. If I have to depend on people finding my site, I won't have as many sales as if my items are spread out in different locations. Someone may buy something from elsewhere of mine and then look up my web site and buy something else. Or they may just see my business name and then look it up and buy from me. So, you sacrifice some of the profit for a chance to be seen, and at this point in my business, that seems like a decent idea.

One general rule of thumb seems to be that your stuff needs to sell for the same price no matter where it's bought. So if I sell a style for $40, I can't wholesale it for $40 and have them mark it up to $80. That's not fair to the customer, who is getting ripped off by not buying straight from me.

Today, I took my first step in a new direction. I went to have my hair cut. I go to a nice salon with an Asian feel to it called Fusion Hair and Skin in Downtown Albuquerque. I am not a pushy person, but I asked my stylist, Deborah, if she'd consider letting me put a few bags in her salon and she could keep 40%. She was very nice about it and said I could.

She also said I should charge more, but I'm not sure about that for the reasons stated above. I'm excited for the opportunity because LOTS of women go to this salon every day and most of the time I have to depend on photos to sell things. I think being able to see them in real life will help.

The good, the bad and the ugly of Thursday

Here is a long post about my day:

Started off nice. I was supposed to have lunch with a friend, but she couldn't make it. So I went to the bank and then worked "in my studio" (I'm going to start saying that!) until it was time to go to the chiropractor. Since my copays just doubled starting this month, I just went for the $16 25-minute therapeutic massage. Basically, I have mega neck troubles and she worked on that for me. Day's still good!

I then go to the fabric store, which is always pleasurable. I met my mom, her boyfriend and my Grandma for dinner. We went to Bravo at ABQ Uptown, which is a really nice, newish open-air shopping center. We ate on the patio and it was really nice.
Still good!



My mom gave me a huge load of clothes she was getting rid of. My mom and I are more or less the same size and she has good taste. She also buys nice clothes. To me, Banana Republic is something to get really excited over since I mostly shop at Target. I really needed some clothes, but couldn't afford to go shopping. I was so excited as I looked through them but was a little sad because I doubted I'd fit in them. They were one size bigger than I have ever worn. On the other hand, I'm a bit on the flabby side right now and all my clothes are tight.

Highlights include this suede skirt!!!


and this cute orange dress:



and then there were lots of pants and stuff. There's this really cute orange top and pants that are the exact same shade, but I feel kind of like a sherbet in them if I wear them together.



I tried them on and they fit! So is this good or bad? I have a whole new wardrobe of nice brands, but I also am fat. This deserves an emoticon :>(
My emoticon has a big nose, like me.

My day is still great.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Sad that I have grown in size, I decide to take a walk. It's getting late, and Mark is too exhausted to go. My neighborhood is one of those kind that has a few main streets and all the neighborhoods are sort of circular and meet on the main streets. One day I discovered there are little walking paths between the houses that lead from one neighborhood to the next. This time, I just started walking and walking and walking. But soon it was dark and I realized I had no idea where I was. I started going back and found that I was lost. At one point, I found the main road and thought I knew where I was, though I was a ways from home.

Then, Mark calls. He says to get home right away, something bad has happened. He said the house was flooding. I start to rush home, but get even more lost. And it keeps getting darker. I start to run, even though I'm really quite tired. I also start to panic. I'm lost, it's dark and there's an emergency at home. Eventually I come out on the main road again, but it's a different main road, and I'm close to home, but I can't for the life of me figure out how I got to this area. I was sure I was walking the other direction. Anyway, I get home and ...

... Mark had thrown some clothes in the washer. Then he got in the shower. There was no hot water. He then got out and walked back to the laundry room. The washer had not understood when to stop filling.



It was overflowing -- straight down into the air conditioning vent. You see, our laundry room is upstairs. This is the evil vent:



So Mark stops the washer and goes downstairs. It was raining in our garage. It was raining out of the lights and out of the ceiling outlets. It was raining out of the middle of the ceiling.



Our garage is always messy, but we had to put buckets everywhere to catch the water.

THEN, I hear my cat getting into a fight outside. Rewind to this post. A few weeks ago, Roady had an abscess that had to be drained. It was a nasty experience. She came home and bloodied our house. She got better, but now I hear her out there carrying on. The thing about cats is that it doesn't take much of a bite or scratch to create an ugly infection. I've known people who were hospitalized for cat bites! So I really don't need another vet bill right now, but she's not in my yard. I can hear her, but not see her.

A little later, she comes in. She looked alright, but then she starts barfing everywhere. Lucky for you, I didn't photograph that.

I think we either need a new washer or a repairman. Can't wash clothes, though. We called my dad --er -- T-Shirt Face, who knows everything. No, he really does. He gave us some advice.

Now I'm going to watch TV. I hope that's the end of my adventures today.

Too bad for you

You missed out. I am keeping this purse for myself. You had a month to buy it and you didn't. I like it very much:





I also made these two today. The first one was an experiment to put a divider in. For the most part it worked, but there were some difficulties. I don't think I'll offer this feature in the future unless someone begs. There is a different type of divider that works better. It's got cherries all over it!



This one is a black brocade with pink flowers and a silky pink lining:

Feel-good site of the day

My mom told me about this site called Build a Nest. My understanding is that artisans donate items to the site, which sells them and uses the proceeds to provide loans to women in third-world countries to start small businesses with their arts and crafts and actually make a living. Sometimes they pay it back by giving goods back to Build a Nest.

Again, the benefits are two-fold. The obvious benefit is to the struggling people that are helped by the group. The less-obvious and more selfish benefit is getting your name out there, business-wise.

I'd like to give it a try, but I haven't heard back yet.

I can do anything! (sung to "Reading Rainbow" song tune)

I have these great little labels for my bags. I got them from etsy.com seller Custom Couture Label. They are very reasonably priced, and they iron or sew on. They are just printed on -- woven custom labels cost a ton.



The thing is, sometimes it takes a while to get the labels (and actually the store is on vacation right now) and I'm a cheapskate on top of it. So then, I found this awesome tutorial by Allyson Hill on how to make your own. You just go get printable fabric from JoAnn's and design them on your computer. I have already done that because I had to design it to send to the other label maker. I am going to give it a try!

The other bonus is being able to make them into different shapes. I like the square ones for my bags, but for the occasional scarf or garment, I prefer a rectangular one.

Sold! To the lady with cute taste

Remember when I went to the market and didn't sell anything? Well, since then, I've been on a roll!
Here are things I've sold in the past few weeks:



Plus, I have orders for two more bags.