Well, It most certainly has been a while! Today, (in a couple of hours) I'm going to be doing a jewelry sale at the Doctors Spouses luncheon in Reno Nevada. I hope all well wishers will wish me well!

I have been working on a few new things, mostly jewelry in nature but I also fell in love with a few non jewelry creations I have enjoyed making. I made thirty Fall and Christmas tree napkins over the weekend. They are so elegant, and very festive for the well dressed table. Watch for them soon on my web site kathieanncollection.etsy.com as well as childrens embellished socks that have been a lot of fun to make and people seem to really like. I promise I will get these up on my site as soon as possible!

So Check in with me now and again, cause I am truly attempting to work blogging into my schedule and will do a better job in the future, and will get those new items on my site as soon as possible!

Thinking about the holidays

As all of you who do this yourselves know, as soon as it gets really hot it's time to start thinking about the holidays! It usually catches me by surprise by around Thanksgiving that OMG I'd better get some holiday jewelery together. This year I'm trying to be smarter, I have two great projects in mind to add to my repertoire. You'll have to watch for them, they will be in addition to items I have created in the past as well.

My jewelry is my passion but I have had too many ideas for other things that I just can't pass up!

Two more of the items are for home decor and I have had a hankering lately to return to my crocheting roots.

My favorite crocheting items are baby stuff and little girls, so watch for those items as well.

Of course the only problem is time, time, time!

I do create all year around, (I have, to it's the air I breathe), but I do find that when the weather starts to feel like fall, which around here means the Canada geese just fly around the town and land in the same place as the majority of them are imprinted right here, but I digress, that is when my juices really begin to flow.

My husband goes off to his Alma Mater football games on Saturdays which leaves me hours of uninterrupted TIME!

I love the crispness of the air and being cozy indoors with absolutely no reason to be outdoors so I can just create!

My favorite time of year is fall,winter, and spring, although here in the Reno/Sparks area we really only have two seasons, Winter and under Construction (filling the potholes made by the snow removal systems).

Aah! This feels so good to be thinking about snow and burning fireplaces instead of the 100 degrees projected for today!

All you winter creative types, right now, lets pray for snow!

Ooh! got an idea gotta go!

Weekend with "Laura"

Here I am with my beeutiful little "fur baby" Puck. She is our only child and we love her something crazy

My weekend was spent with my mentor, (who happens to be in love with my baby brother). We had a great time doing all our girly crafting and catching up thing while the guys spent the weekend playing golf. My mentor (who shall now be named and hear after known as "Laura") was the person who dragged me into the 21st century, teaching me all things computerized that I know so far. I thought she was coming for the weekend to help me polish up some of which she has taught me but as we sat side by side with our respective lap tops working a bit and talking a lot I heard her giggle. Of course I asked "What's so funny? to which she replied... look, you are now on facebook! So facebook also has been added to my computer repertoire!

All of that was in preparation of explaining why I haven't blogged for a few days. I am having a blast with all of this, but I'm not quite up to speed yet so bear with me.

She, "Laura", took a lot of photographs of my sweet loving husband and myself, which is why you now have a picture of myself and "Puck". Once I learn a bit more about how to do it, I will add more pics of the whole family.

Jewelry wise, I have added a few more pieces to my Etsy site, so please drop by and take a look.

I am always open to suggestions and feedback.

Puck and I relaxing at home

Here's a fun picture of my bootiful Puck and I.

crazy Post-it lady?

I have had quite a week. I had lunch with my very dear friend who also sells jewelry for me, and got a nice little bulk rate contract from her for earrings for a spa package. Should be fun, I can be as creative as I want to be. It is always great to be with her because she likes my work so well, this time she actually said ,"Oh I love the one around your neck, let me take that as well" ! I am a real girly girl and hate to be without accessories but anything for a sale, right? We went on to have a lovely day, she showed me her new yarn shop in the town she lives in (about 1.25 hours from me) and shopped a bit, which of course always makes for a great day!

Saturday I got a couple of orders from some regulars as well, one piece is very specific how it is to be done, and the other is specific as to style but other than that I have carte blanche!

I also have so many ideas backed up in my head, of course they go on post-its because the back of my head can get pretty cluttered at times, but now my desk is totally cluttered with post-its.

I have this method I use for post-its , I can be anywhere in the house, when an idea strikes, (or it can maybe just be for a grocery item) but anyway, I keep post-its and pens in EVERY room in the house and when an idea hits I write it down and post it to my chest. Well throughout the morning I may have up to 5 post-its sitting all over my chest, It has not been unheard of that someone from the neighborhood or delivery men have come to the door and I have forgoton to file the post-its in their proper room or desk. Do I really have to wonder why my neighbors affectionately? call me the crazy lady?

See my new pictures!

So you can all see I have managed to slip in a few pictures of what it is I mostly do. Eventually I will show you some of my crocheted creations. (I specialize in thread crochet) I love to make Christening gowns with thread and also tablecloths. They take a lot of time, but they are great for keeping my hands busy in front of the T.V. at night (the goal had always been to keep my hands busy and out of the potato chip bag!)

I splurged and bought myself a professional light box, we were flying home from a trip to Texas (hot and muggy and buggy!) and I was going through sky mall magazine and saw this great light box. I had been using a homemade box that while functioned OK really wasn't giving me the best photos that I knew I could get. Long story not so short, I am in the process of replacing some of my pictures on my site which is of course kathieanncollection.etsy.com.

My very second blog ever!

Well here we are again. I have been thinking about the kinds of things I can do in the future, but for now I thought I would let you get to know who I am. My name is Kathie Ann of course and on my last posting I did tell you a bit about how I came to be a jewelry artist, and Oh, I forgot I was going to tell you how I got started on the internet.

To begin with I haven't had anything to do with computers for probably 20 years. My poor husband has tried in vain to teach me and to drag me into the 21st century (It is a bit like husbands trying to teach wives how to drive! A very bad idea). I had pretty much given up on the idea of ever knowing what LOL meant or OMG or any of that very popular lingo, (or is that stuff only used on the cell phone?), but anyway I have a good friend that told me that if I ever had a great enough need for it then I would be able to learn it and she was absolutely right!

So back to how I actually got here. I have been making my jewelry and selling enough through word of mouth , family and friends, and craft shows/home shows to keep myself afloat and to make it worthwhile. I really do love it so much though I probably would make it even if I had to pay someone for the priveledge of doing so, which is probably not a good thing to divulge and I guess it shouldn't go into my mission statement right?

So in the midst of my happy little world of "just enough" along comes my "little" brother with a precious beautiful new life partner. She, as it turns out is also an artist and a mighty fine one I might add, ( see www.laurapallatin.blogspot.com) and we just really hit it off and she has become a very special lady in my life! She is many things, family, friend, coach, cheerleader, etc. So, she calls one day and says she and my brother will be up for the weekend and she has created an Etsy site(KathieAnnCollection.etsy.com)!

So what was that again I was saying about when the need arises you will learn? She had gone to all that trouble, and truthfully I was a little tired of packing all my stuff and lugging it around to craft shows and home shows so I really was excited to see if I could do this.

Voila! All that worrying for nothing, Etsy is so much fun and sooo easy to do.

Well she wasn't done with me yet! All that was a couple of months ago, and recently she started talking about blogging! I thought she said blabbing and heaven knows I can certainly do that! I haven't been called Chatty Kathie and motor mouth my entire life for no reason. So that brings me to now as to how I got on the internet.

Today I just got a new portable photo lab and I will be playing with that to see if I can improve my Etsy site pictures. I will let you know how that goes.

My very first blog... ever!

Well since this is going to be the very first day ever of my blog, let me tell you some of how this all came about.

Five years ago, (don't worry it won't be a blow by blow of the last 5 years), I was an avid crocheter and had been for the majority of my adult life. I was at my local yarn and craft store looking for new patterns under the usual crochet title when I ran across a book all about Bead crocheting with wire! Needless to say I was very intrigued, looked up what I would need on the spot, bought some very cheap acrylic beads (in case it really wasn't for me) and ran home and spent the entire evening playing with this new concept. The final result looked fairly promising so the next day I went back to the craft store and bought some less, but still very cheap, glass beads. I showed the necklace to my neighbor who worked in a very large facility and she wore it to work. After that for a year solid I could barely keep up with the orders that came in from just that facility!

I have been making jewelry ever since and have come a long way since those first crocheted necklaces. If you would like to see my work I invite, nay implore you to visit my online shop at KathieAnnCollection.etsy.com, I hope to in the future share with you some projects that can get you started on your own journey if that interests you as well.

I hope you will check back with me for my next blog, where I plan to share how I went from selling my jewelry and crochet items at craft shows, to opening an on line shop especially because I never even knew how to use a computer. (This involves a very special person in my life who I will tell you all about).