Hectic Week

Whew I have had such a busy week! I don't even quite know where to start. I have made a lot of sales, trades, and purchases! I have also spent the week improving my online presence. I joined some etsy teams, and worked on joining some of the social network sites like Facebook, StyleHive, and Talent Database. I know there were others that I joined, but it seems silly to list them all here. They are all linked on my main site though.

The day I signed up for RME (Revolution Money Exchange), I order a lot of supplies from other Etsy sellers. And I do mean a lot. I have been wanting to add a lot of new inventory to my shop, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some new materials. I have also shown a few of my friends RME. Besides using the RME money, I also traded for supplies, and spent every penny I earned on orders ordering supplies. On Saturday I got 6 bubble mailers jam packed with goodies! I haven't been to the mailbox yet today, but I expect at least that many, if not more, today. So I have been making a lot of new things these past few days. I am also trying to expand the materials I use, and I recently fell in love with using pearls, and I have ordered more.

As far as "life" is concerned this week, I guess I haven't really noticed. I am putting 100% of myself into this business, and I am afraid I have been neglecting other things. I told Paul that I will start taking Fridays, and Saturday during the day off. Those are his two days off, and we really love spending time together. So now I just need to start planning my weeks better. Or maybe lighten up on myself somewhat as far as inventory is concerned :p I made a lot of sales this week, and my inventory is down to 99 items right now. And it is totally freaking me out!

I think that I must be manic right now. I am not sleeping well, and my mind is racing. It seems like I am always trying to get a hundred things done at the same time. So today I am trying to calm down a little. I am making a list of the things I want done, and I am going to try and work down the list. This is really something I should do all the time!

Featured Etsy Artist

In this blog I want to talk about etsy artist RKGJewelry. I ran across her in a chat room on one of the first days I entered etsy chat. I started browsing her store because her avatar caught my attention. I was instantly blow away by her shop. Not only was her jewelry beautiful, but her photographs showing off her jewelry were stunning. Unfortunately, I have not yet bought anything from her. But she is on the very top of my wish list, even my fiance knows her work by now! I encourage everyone to take a look at her shop. Here is just one example of her work:

Take a few minutes and check out her shop :)

Well I should go and get some work done on my site now.

:w

Etsy Buy Handmade RKGJewelry

RME

Well it happened, I signed up for RME! I wasn't going to, I was standing strong. But the more I looked into it, the better it looked. And the best part...they gave me $25 just for signing up!

Don't know what RME is? Well it seems to be an alternative to PayPal, although they seem to be a bank. And best of all, they don't charge for online transfers. Which means that I can receive money from my customers without paying the fees to PayPal. So it is available at my shop now.

If you want to sign up, you should!! Use me as a referrer and send me a conversation on etsy about it or an email, and I will give you a 20% discount at my shop! You can use the link in the top corner of this blog.

I need to go and get some beading done. Tomorrow will be a full blog entry with featured Etsy artist and all :)

:w

Let's try a restart

Hello! After using Blogspot and myspace to blog with, I decided to add my own to this site. It will probably primarily focus on Etsy and my beading, but I'm sure I will slip in a few other things too...like my pain in the butt cats :p However I will also be posting this same blog onto blogspot to allow for comments and such things :)

To start off, let me do a quick introduction. My name is Bethany, codename Raevyn :p I am 31 and I live in Lubbock, Texas with my wonderful boyfriend, Paul and our two cats, Oopsa Daisy and Bo. I am actually new to Texas. I lived the first 29 years of my life in Brattleboro, Vermont. I really do love living here, but things are so very different from the world that I knew in New England. I also miss my family a lot. I am very close to my Mom, Stepdad, younger sister, and my Aunt Judith. It was hard to move away from them. But we keep in touch a lot with
emails, phonecalls, and yahoo messenger. I downloaded it just to talk to my sister. I also left behind my friend Jenn. We have known eachother for 22 years and have been inseperable. But we talk a lot too. And about twice a year since I moved here, Paul and I have made the trip North to visit everyone. Our first trip up there was Paul's first trip to New England, so that adds extra excitement to our trips. And I am hoping that one day my family will decide to visit me down here. Jenn already did visit, and I hope that she does again!

Now about my site, Simply Raevyn!. I started this site in order to sell the jewelry that I make. In actuality I started beading about 5 years ago. When I first started I primarily did necklaces, bracelets, and drop type earrings. Then as I do with most things, I stopped beading for a few years. When I first moved to Texas I decided it was finally time to learn the part of beading that I have wanted to do since I was a very little girl, and that was brickstitching. My mom always wore these elaborate brick stitch earrings when I was young. I fell in love with how they looked and the color possibilities, and I also wanted to be able to make them for her. So I made it my goal to learn. And I did! Now that has become the focus of my jewelry. I still do other types of beaded jewelry, and I hope to learn more beading techniques as well.

Okay I think I have gone on long enough for one. I am going to try and blog daily, and I will be adding new features. The feature that I am most looking forward to is going to spotlight some of my favorite etsy artists! So here goes my first try at this.

Featured Etsy Artist

In my short time on Etsy, I have come across some great artists! With that in mind, I have decided to start featuring some of my favorites in my blog. For the first one, I want to introduce you all to Craftysteph! I met her in the Etsy chat rooms. After about a week of looking at her scrunchies, I decided to order them. Although it may seem silly, I am always on the
lookout for scrunchies that can handle my hair. It is very long (almost to my butt), the strands are baby fine, and I have a ton of it. So it tends to be frizzy, tangled easy, and can destroy any scrunchie in a very short amount of time. So once craftysteph reassured me that she used high quality elastics in her scrunchies I decided to go for it. I ordered these:

And boy am I glad I did! I absolutely love them. They are very strong, and of course beautiful. She has great prices too! Of course Craftysteph sells more than just scrunchies. She has some candles that I am really eager to try out, incense, jewelry, crochet, custom graphic art, and more!

I highly recommend her shop. She is very friendly and extremely talented. Her prices are fantastic and she ships fast. Don't see the color of scrunchies you want? Convo her!

That officially wraps up the first blog post. I hope to do this every day, or atleast on a regular basis!

:w

Etsy Buy Handmade Craftysteph