Hiding out....

I've been more than just a bit sporatic with my blog.  I'm still buying clay and thinking up ideas for my next little project I want to do.  I've even bought some website names and hosting for some of the ideas I've come up with... why?  Because I would like to be able to sell some of my creations so I have that extra money to buy more clay... do more creating....

I've just been wanting to get creating again and I've just found that my life in the last little bit was just wallowing in discord... which made it really hard to take a break and get creating because my mind was all over the place.  I hate that when that happens.

Over the last couple of days I've been cleaning up around my place - which was my major discord... I just stopped caring, which then led to a massive mess and I'm soooo not good when things are messy and I was just getting sad and mad - why... I still don't know why I let things get so messy.  I just stopped.  I was ... am ... tired.  So anyhoo, rather than wallowing in my blah-ness I decided to get tidying and in turn I started to feel better and now that I have a clean kitchen table I got back into claying.  I wanted to make a name for my new neice that made her appearance earlier last week.

I made her name out of clay... I hope to have a photo of what I've done tomorrow (see, I'm being optimistic with getting back into blogging!)  I'm still trying to figure out a good way to take pictures of what I've done that looks good as my lighting leaves everything a bit yellow... which doesn't make me very happy.

I think I need to figure out how to make my own lightbox.

I have to say that I really enjoyed working on my little project today for my niece, it's been a long time since I actually set down to do anything with clay or anything creative - It just felt good.  I hope they like what I've put together, I'd made one for my nephew when he was born... that looked like this:

Now that I'm looking at this picture... I'm hoping that the squares I've made are small enough to fit in the frame (I got a great deal on a 3 pack)... I've also made a little flower in a clay pot to add a little more dimention to it.  Fingers crossed it all fits.... or I figure out a "creative" way to make the squares fit!

I'm glad to be back and blogging about what I've been doing and I hope to also get my websites up and running so I can share with you my little adventures in that as well!



All Business Weekend

That sounds pretty important doesn't it!  I finally decided on a name for the website that I'd been contemplating making for a while now and I set up my Etsy store too!  It's been busy - and I managed to get some absolutely fabulous images for the Etsy store from Erin Bradley Designs.  From the experience I had with her, I would recommend her and her quality of work to any one thinking of sprucing up their Etsy store or if you would like a unique look for your store, check out her designs!  I think I must have spent hours looking through the different templates she has available and what really caught my eye (and there were a lot!).  I just want my store too look as friendly as possible and give the look that I'm serious about my work.

So that also spilled over to me working on my bead website.  OMG.... I have been so long out of the loop of web design it is seriously hard to get back into it.  I have that feeling of "I've forgotten everything!" and I can't say that it feels all that comfy.

So today I've spent the last 3 hours working on my jewelry website and I feel like I've not really accomplished as much as I had wanted.  The site itself will be running through WordPress and I am using the Jewelry theme I found a bit earlier.  Holy crap there is a lot to this theme and setting it up... as it has ecommerce in it - so PayPal has to be configured, shipping and handling... and all the not really fun stuff that goes with it.  Unlike the more creative part of writing up a bit of a story to go with the beads that will be on the site and taking the pictures, which I like to to WAY more than the back end stuff.

At the end of the day it will come together and when it's finally up and running I'll share with you the website and the Etsy site that I've made.

Phew!

Hunting down a Domain Name

For the past couple of days I've been on a search to find a domain name for me to put up a website and add my little crafts.  Am I having any luck?  No.  Not so far.  I've tried:

• LovelyLittleCreations.com
• Anything that has to do with the word "Clay"
• I've even tried some with "Raven" in it because I like Ravens... and then added "Clay"
• Anything "Clay" with the words "Cottage, Studio"
• "Doodle Bug", "Doodle Bug Studio" was taken

It's been frustrating to say the least.  Then I went to Etsy to see what other lovely clay artists have done... and it's been mostly their name and clay beads, or some cute concoction of their names/beads/studios/etc.

I'm frustrated... can you tell?

Maybe I'm over thinking it a bit, but I would like something short-ish in a name, no dashes in the domain name and something cute I can put on my cards when I'm selling my bits and bobs.  I really do feel like I'm overthinking.... and I think my mind went to the birds when Lovely Little Creations was taken.  GAH!  So it's like starting all over again and then I'm in a bit of a panic... do I now start another blog.... keep this blog for the stuff I'm doing... am I going to lose it all and close shop before I even try opening one.  SIGH!!!!

Well, I'm not going to give up... I'm just going to have to put my thinking cap back on and come up with something that I like.