This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

Still clinging to our jobs (thankfully) amidst some minor (major for some) changes going on within, but so far no lay offs (yay!).  Though they do have us taking five unpaid days off before June.  I’ll take it though; better than anyone losing their jobs here.

Still working a bit with polymer clay but not being overly productive (quantity wise, anyway).

Still looking around our house at the clutter wanting to pull my hair out over it, but not feeling the energy to get up and do much about it.  The “I’d rather do’s” overtake the “I *need* to do’s” all the time… Then when I seem to get just a teeny bit of headway, more stuff just takes its place.  Gah!

Oh well.  Maybe if I just start using like two hours a weekend to pick up and declutter I’ll maybe start seeing some changes.  We’ll see.  Bleh.

We see these all over the place where I live. Short, tall, skinny, wide, no arms, dozens of arms… Did you know it is illegal do do any damage to these plants, even if you own one? You cannot just go out and dig one up out of the desert and plant it in your yard, not only because of how large and heavy saguaros are, but even if they’re teeny tiny and could put it in a small pot, if you have one without having purchased it through a licensed grower, you can find yourself in some very hot water.

If you decide to shoot one full of bullet holes in a drunken stupor, and get caught, you will be fined. I think you can even be fined if you hit one accidentally with your car!

Anyway, I just thought I would try out a new service I found via some other bloggers’ postings about a site that you can find licensed pictures where you can link to the blog images free for your blogs. I like this idea – I like being able to post photographs on my blog without the hassle of having to upload them somewhere, not to mention doing any resizing and optimization beforehand – this place does it all for you! AcoBox.com

It’s it funny how when you’re young, the year just seems to draaaaaag by, but the older you get, the faster it seems to pass?

I really need to get my hiney in gear this year with a lot of stuff.  Getting back on our Medifast diet (shakes are ordered and will get here next week).  Try to post more often here and on my other blog.  Get moving on my polymer clay play and start making beads to hopefully sell.  Maybe get back into making jewelry.

For the moment though, now that the Kiddo is napping, I need to dash off to the store and get her some more clothes, and pick up a few more card making things so I can finish making her b-day invites, while her dad hangs out playing games while she sleeps.

When I get back I’ll probably start my new Death Knight on World of Warcraft – he got my other character to level 55 last night so I can now create a DK!  Yay!!

Anyway, so far i like what I am seeing and am glad this went smoothly… Now to upgrade my other blog.

Unfortunately I did not install it using my host’s autoinstaller, I installed it manually myself, so I have to download everything and unzip and back up stuff, blah blah, and then upload it to my host before I can try it out.  I’d try installing WP from my host but then I’d have to install all my plug-ins and get everything updated just the way I had it before and that would be a huge PITA… so I’ll just update it manually later.  I think one of the features in 2.7 is being able to upgrade WP remotely like how their plug-ins update, which I am especially intersted in since I did not use my host’s installer.  Not only that but often my host is a little behind on the updates, so, say this update came out today, but my host will not get it for a few more days, if not a week or more.

Drat!! I just realized my husband and I have a show to go to tonight, and we won’t even be home until bedtime, so I won’t be able to update until tomorrow at the earliest. AAGHHH!!! 

Maybe if I have enough time I’ll see if I can update it via my remote connection to home… 

I decided to make the links in the sidebar pink so they’ll stand out a bit more and they kind of go with the periwinkle color I have for my background.  I may move around some more widgets until I get the sidebars balanced out better.  But I think for the most part I’m done… Now that I have a general idea of how these get put together I’ll probably work on making one for my other blog, probably the same layout but with different graphics.

The only coding I did was tweaking the CSS (a lot) to get the look I wanted, and a teeny bit of the HTML (to get the header and the navigation bar)… The rest of the code, the inner workings of the template, was already put together in a “blank” created by some genius person at WPThemerkit.com. Absolute genius, I tell ya.  Granted one does need to know a bit of HTML and a good amount of CSS to get the templates looking the way you want, but having the rest of the guts of the template already written is just priceless.  There are some minor things missing (like a date stamp on all the posts on the main index), but I can figure out where to add that later.

Now I just have to wonder how much of my template is going to break when WordPress finally releases version 2.7, which I am highly anticipating, by the way, for much of the “behind the scenes” changes that are supposed to be happening, to the admin panel.

The other day I came across this new site called Snapbomb, where you can get paid to blog about various different topics.  I have already tried a little bit of subtle blog advertising here but I haven’t had much luck with it yet, so I am hoping that with paid posting I am a bit more successful at generating some spare income.  I am going to try Snapbomb and see if they are a good fit for me.  With the state of the economy right now I’m sure you’ll probably start hearing a lot more buzz about this site, so if you’re looking for a way to make a few dollars here and there, I suggest you take a peek over there and see what it’s all about.

Please go to my jewelry e-commerce site, Positively Charming, look at my offerings, and provide your thoughts on what I have there. What is crap? What are my best pieces? Do you think I am over or under pricing anything? Any other suggestions or critiques?

Should I look into opening an Etsy store? I know Etsy has a small fee per posted item, which is partially why I have put off opening a store there. I have an inactive store at Hyena Cart, but only got interest in a lottery for a pair of earrings I goofed up on (and therefore I considered “seconds”, which is why I gave them away), and had no sales. The only sale I’ve had on my e-commerce site was from a member of a mom’s forum I am a member of, but otherwise, no nibbles. It’s quite discouraging to have looky-loos but no sales, and then I’m left wondering if my offerings are just awful? Or is it simply due to the economy? Heck even my 25% off sale didn’t garner any bites, although I only really advertised it here on my blog (which isn’t exactly overrun with traffic) and the few people who plugged it at their blogs too.

So anyway, spill it, please! I promise to take it graciously!

<a href=”http://www.thisisyoursite.com/”>Visit my blog!</a>

Otherwise it will just show up as highlighted words but won’t go anywhere.  And if I don’t already have you in my blogroll, I won’t know where to visit!

And whether you put in “nofollow” is up to you, I have my blog set up so if you include your URL tied to your name, it will leave it as a dofollow link so search engines will give you credit for it being a linkback.