I can't believe it's been a whole year since the Southern California Bead Shop Hop! At the same time, I can't believe it's only been a year, because so much has happened. When I attended the bead shop hop last year, I had just signed up for school after 37 years of raising kids and being a wife, mother and grandmother. I blogged as though I would be busy with my jewelry making business. I learned very quickly that I can't handle even two college classes and the rest of my normal life. I let almost all of my listings in Etsy go dormant, and in the weeks leading up to our 32nd wedding anniversary decided to skip the summer semester of school and I expected to start with a bang when we got back from our Anniversary trip.
April 1st, my husband, Gene, was "invited" to retire effective immediately. We were able to forget about it while we were on our trip, but from the time we got home, we've been in a tailspin. I'm really glad I had already decided to skip the summer semester of school. Gene has been searching the country for a job working in COBOL programming on a Unisys mainframe computer. Just about the only jobs like that are with State and Federal governments. I feel like we are in Limbo. I've been on a roller coaster ride waiting for government people to hire someone... anyone. The first job he applied for back in May or June still hasn't been filled. I had a hard time believing that we would be going to the Bead Shop Hop this year. Good news/Bad news is that Gene doesn't have a job yet, so we are going to the Hop!!!
click here to see more of the earrings that I made from last year's charms from the bead shop hop
Having experienced last years hop, we come into this year with more of a plan. I'll outline my advice based on our limited experience last year.
- Start inland, and go to Beach shops later in the day.
- Last year we found that we got pretty hot some of those days, and we overheard another hopper sharing this advice, so I'm now sharing it with you.
- Check and see which stores are having trunk shows, and make and takes that are limited to certain days.
- Last year we stumbled upon a few great trunk shows, and make and takes, and learned that we were missing out on things that we hadn't planned for. I'm in the process of researching this information before we head out this weekend.
- Decide what your priorities are.
- Last year I figured that I would be going back with Cloe and Mary so I didn't need to get to all of the shops on the first weekend. Gene on the other hand got into it, and wanted to hit all of the stores. He ended up winning one of the runner up prizes with a $250 gift certificate and a gumball machine full of beads! This year I prefer to take a little bit more time. Instead of just a scavenger hunt, which was fun, I'd like to soak up a little bit more of the ambiance of each store.
- Plan your route.
- Last year we were able to get 20 stores in the first two days. For religious reasons we didn't participate on Sunday, so we returned the following week to get the final two stores. This year there are only 20 stores. I think Gene thought that it'd be great that we could finish in two days, and just hang out on the beach the rest of the time. But, he's got us someplace to stay booked for all three weekends, so after I find out about the trunk shows and make and takes, we'll plan our leisurely route. If you have a limited time frame, and aren't planning on actually doing any beading, you can easily (sort of) complete all 20 stores in two days.
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#beadshophop #beadstores #orangecounty #sandiego #losangeles #ventura #riverside #sanbernadino #beads
I'm sorry I am so slow getting this posted! I found this draft that I wrote In October, and never posted it, because it wasn't good enough yet. I never finished it, and I won't. I will post any old drafts with an explanation at the beginning of each.
I feel like I've spread myself a bit too thin for the last few weeks. Between the traveling, starting college, my phone going bad and needing to be replaced, and my poor husband breaking one of his ribs, I haven't finished a lot of the things that I had planned to accomplish.
Before I share our experiences with the Las Vegas Bead Shop Hop, I want to share that there were a couple of people who drove up from Southern California because they read my blog about their hop, and I shared that we were having a hop in Vegas.
We started the Las Vegas bead Shop Hop at our home store, Sweet Beads. We got a charm for hopping, and an extra charm for starting our hop there. Shae had arranged with to have a trunk show, so I spent a bunch on some pretty sparkling things that I couldn't leave on the table. I got my friends into trouble when I found a charm of a scooter. Heather and Kristen both ride scooters. That's all it took. As soon as they looked at the table, they spent a bunch as well.
We then went up to Bead Haven. This is the first time I'd been in that store. Gene and I both made the make and take there, and it was fun to watch Gene learn right angle weaving. We had fun using a hammer and punch to put rivets in the leather. It was fun.
We waited until the next morning to continue our hopping. We started at the Gem and bead mall. They were nice enough to give us some pretty good discounts because of the hop, and I used my daughter's membership, and the final discount was really good. I've always thought of this store and one in Henderson as being so far away, but after hopping in California, maybe I should rethink that. Bead Jungle was part of the hop last year, but they weren't involved this year.
Next we hit Discount beads. I have a couple of friends who work there, and it was fun to see them. There were some good specials on the semi-precious and mother of pearl strands, so I have lots of materials to make more earrings in the future. They also had drawings, and we hung around for a few of them, and we didn't win any. We wanted to do the make and take that Sweet beads had that day, so we headed over there and Gene did his second beading project ever! We made a couple of pairs of cute pumpkin earrings! We turned in our cards that we got stamped at each store, and got another extra charm! Yay!
Our tiny bead shop hop may not be as huge as the Southern California Hop, but it was still great. We don't live in an area large enough to have that many stores, but our four little stores are great! I was there when the drawings were done for the main prizes and the Sweet Beads store prizes, and one of the people who came up to our hop from California won the grand prize!
It has been a really long time since I've taken the time to blog.
I'm really sorry. In September, I had the mistaken impression that I
could add going to college to my everyday life without having to give
anything up. I'm too old for that. I only took two classes each
semester, but I learned really quick that it takes a lot of time! I
dipped my toe in the water, and decided not to swim through classes this
summer. It's a real good thing I decided that, too. Our lives have
been turned upside down, and I may not even be living here by the end of
the Summer Semester.
April 1, my husband Gene, was invited to
retire or be fired with no warning. Two days later we were gone on a
vacation that we had been planning for the last year. I'll blog a
little bit about that trip later, but for now let's just say that even
though we never would have taken that trip had we known that Gene would be returning home to unemployment, it was both a very relaxing and fun trip, and we're glad we went. (These earrings to the right are a clue to where we went. The earrings below are a clue to what he did his first day of officially not being employed.)
I had fully expected to come home from vacation and devote my full
attention to building up my business. After considering my prospects
for income vs. Gene's prospects for income if he got a new job, I
decided to spend my energy focusing on helping him decide what we want
to do and where we might go. Gene has been a Database administrator,
and has worked with Unisys Mainframes for 30. He specialized in the
Cobol programming language. Knowledge of this language is a dying art,
and he probably was the last of his kind here in Las Vegas. There are
however many companies and Government entities that still use it, so we
have begun a worldwide search for a new job. As of two weeks ago, he
hadn't even written his resume, and some time over a week ago, he lost
track of how many places he had shared his Resume. Yay, Gene! I asked
if he could at least keep track of the general locations that we could
possibly be moving, to, and he wrote me out a list of a handful of
places. I'm really happy that what I've chosen to do will be portable.
Now that you know the back story of where I've been all this time, let's move forward. When I thought I'd have loads of time this month I set myself a goal (and I made the mistake of sharing that goal with others) that I would fill my Etsy store with 100 items for sale by the end of the month. Since today is the last day of May I'm ready to admit that I will not reach that goal, but if I had not set a goal, I would have done nothing. I went from having 7 active listings to having over 50 right now. I have others that are drafts that are nearly ready to post, and dozens that need to be photographed. So I am going to renew that goal of 100 listings on Etsy, and give myself one more week to accomplish that goal. My next blog posting should be announcing that I have 100 items for sale in my little Etsy store!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/235329292/empire-state-building-earrings-i-love
https://www.etsy.com/listing/235312060/gone-fishin-earrings-fun-full-moon
