My First Tropical Storm...

So far Andrea isn't quite as exciting as I had hoped it would be. 

It's raining a lot and my puppy is refusing to go to the bathroom due to his immense dislike of water. He's just sitting downstairs right now with his puppy legs crossed, staring out the window, waiting for the rain to let up.

Today I spent the majority of my time indoors besides leaving to have a bicycle race with myself to get to the post office before my t-shirt became soaked with rain. 

I won. 

I also had the pleasure of working on and packaging up a custom order for a lovely bride and her lucky bridesmaids. 

 

During my lunch break, I spent an hour knitting while watching a rerun of America's Funniest Home Videos. 

Does anyone else love that show as much as I do? 

 

I started working on a wool hat for John (I know that June doesn't seem like an optimal time to knit a wool cap, but I do what I want). 

I found this pattern and had the yarn on hand to recreate it, and hats are my favorite thing to knit, so there ya go! 

Wool hat being knit in June.

That's how this knitta rolls. 

Lastly, today I started a massive storewide sale in my etsy store, My Sweet Nomsa. Everything is marked down 15%!

Sale ends June 17th at Midnight!

Hope everyone is having a great day and staying dry if you are on the East Coast.

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

Tax Sale!

Hey Everyone!

So I currently have 2,478 excel spreadsheets open on my lap top and mounds of receipts all over my office floor. 

I am doing my accounting and taxes for 2012. 

Hooray!!

Worst thing about being a small business owner (besides having to deal with health insurance) is the whole accounting/taxes aspect of it all. I am terrible at it, I put it off and I beg my husband for help with creating various formulas that supposedly calculate things for me.

I have a busy two weeks ahead of me with trying to figure out this stuff so I decided to go ahead and have a sale in both of my etsy stores while I sit here, eat some dark chocolate and cuss to my puppy about how unfun math is.

I recently added a lot of new things to my stores, and right now you can get the new items as well as the rest of the items for 15% off!

First up - some bright, hand painted, color block brass earrings in various shades of spring and summer.

Find them here!

I have some new chan luu inspired wrap bracelets which feature some fun new buttons. Is that elephant not adorable?!?

Find them here!

Lastly, some sweet cameo lockets. Blush pink, cornflower blue and classic black are all available. 

Find them here!

Check out both 'My Sweet Nomsa' & 'Nomsa' on etsy to see all of my items that are 15% off. 

Everything is on sale right now, so if you have had your eye on something, now is your chance!

Have a great evening everyone!!

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

Monday, Monday, so good to me...

Well goodness. 

Anyone else feel like vomiting up a few sticks of butter after this past holiday weekend? 

No? 

Well, let's just say I made Paula Deen pretty proud. During the cooking process on Thursday, I had to ration the amount of butter that we were cooking with because EVERYTHING called for butter and we simply were going to run out. 

Four sticks and one tub of butter later and I look a few months pregnant.

But what is Thanksgiving without butter? And what is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend without shopping till we drop. Or shopping online until your wrists are a little sore from the odd angle of your laptop. 

As most of you know...I am an artisan. I make jewelry for a living and have been doing so for over three years. I love creating new items and sharing my handmade goodies with brides, husbands looking for anniversary presents and ladies just treating themselves. 

Get your holiday shopping started off right with awesome, well-made, handmade jewelry. I use sterling silver, 14K gold, freshwater pearls, swarovski crystals, gemstones and lots of unique vintage charms and lockets. Everything I use is nickel and lead free, so you won't turn your skin green or get a rash. 

Until Tuesday night, I am having a 20% off sale on everything in both of my etsy stores!! 

You can buy this sweet monogrammed necklace with you and your loved ones initials. 

Only $22.00 after 20% off!

 

Or perhaps a personalized wax seal necklace charm is more your style?

$18.40 after the 20% discount!

So please, take advantage of this great sale and support me, an artisan. 

Happy shopping!

Spring Cleaning!

God. Doesn't the term spring cleaning just make you ill??

Me neither!!!

I love it and all the fun reorganizing, dusting and cleaning your walls that comes with it. I get a thrill when I bust out my Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and start scrubbing coffee stains off my cabinets (that is all my husband's fault fyi).

So to celebrate the spring cleaning season, I have two things to share with you. 

1) I have a lot of jewelry supplies. Like .. a lot, a lot. Every January when it is time for me to do my inventory, I curse at myself for two weeks straight as I meticulously count the tens of thousands of beads I have (no joke. Tens of thousands!!) So, I am trying to make a lot of jewelry right now to condense my stash. 

What does this mean for you?? 

Massive sale. MASSIVE. 

I am having a 15% off EVERYTHING sale right now if both of my etsy stores. It is lasting until Midnight on 3/28/12 and a lot of jewelry in my store is the last of that design. 

Click on the photos below and if you see something you like, grab it now because once it's gone, it's gone!

2) I am trying my darnedest to get reorganized and focused. I feel like lately I have had a lack of focus when it comes to my business (and life. Who am I kidding). So what helps one get focused?? 

That's right, a ginormous bulletin board!

Huzzah! Floral fabric, a flag bunting and pink everywhere! It's perfect.

So I thought that I would share how I made this guy and write out a little tutorial for you if you find that you need a little organization in your life as well. 

First, start off with a large size bulletin board and enough fabric to cover it all the way around each side with a few inches to spare. You also need some fabric pins.

Lay your bulletin board in the middle of your fabric with the back of the bulletin board and the back of the fabric facing you. Start folding and pinning your fabric to the back of the bulletin board. Go in with your pin with at least a 45 degree angle, and slide the pin in parallel to the bulletin board. You don't want the pin sticking through to the other side at all.  Go around all the edges and make sure the fabric is being pulled taut on all the way around.

 Easy peasy right? Now onto the fabric flag bunting. I made mine out of felt and yarn. I made a triangle shape out of cardboard and just started cutting bunches of triangles out of various colors of felt. Once I had enough triangles I laid them all out to decide on my color pattern.

Once the pattern was decided on, I laid my triangles out in a row, and applied a small strip of fabric glue onto the back, just near the top. I then pressed my yarn into the glue. I just keep doing these two steps until my bunting was enough to wrap around the sides and the top of the bulletin board.

Once it was the right length, I just stick it in place with a few pins. 

After I finished with the main construction of the bulletin board, the rest was easy!

 I divided my board into three sections with little bits of yarn pinned to the board. I also made headers for the different sections with various pieces of felt and paper. Lastly, I cut up strips of cardstock to use as the notes for my board. I can just write down what I have to do, pin it to the appropriate section and viola! 

Well....I still have to actually do the things I wrote down, but at least the tasks look beautiful in their new home. 

New Items In Stock!

As many of you know, I have been having a 20% sale for the past few days. The sale officially ends at Midnight tonight (EST), so if you want to get take advantage of these never-before-so-low prices, you better act quickly! The sale is going on in both of my etsy stores - www.mycellardoor.etsy.com & www.nomsa.etsy.com.

I added a bunch of new items to both of my stores. I have oodles of new designs that I still need to add, so check back often in the next few days for a lot of new items! If you want any more information about any of the items below, just click on the photo to get all the details!