Seriously?? MORE SNOW?

As you can see by the picture we have having loads of fun with all this snow! We got around 30 inches on Saturday and have been playing ever since. What is amazing is that starting tomorrow night into Wednesday we are supposed to get another 18-24 inches! I have no idea where they are going to put it all to make the roads passable in our neighborhood. This is a kids dream world with no school until next Tuesday for my kids between days already scheduled to be off and snow days.

For ACG business, orders from this past weekend will go out tomorrow and if yours is included a shipping notice will go out from paypal in the morning. I don't expect to be able to ship again until Friday at the earliest. I will just have to see how things go with the snow and I can't work as fast when all the kids are home. I have to build a few snowmen myself as well as sled down the driveway or I am just not being a good mom. :)

Anyone want some Snow??

I don't know about you guys but this is what it looks like outside my house today and it is still snowing! Last I looked they were reporting 20+ inches for us but we have not ventured outside yet. I have Chili in the slow cooker and the hot chocolate ready for after snow warmth. Surprising enough, I think I have the only kids on the planet that are not big fans of the snow. I know when I was young we would have been out there the minute we woke up!

As far as ACG business goes, I have all my orders caught up for once! I thought I would be playing in the snow with my kids today and worked hard to get them caught up so I could play without feeling like I needed to be working. I have been working on the blog and updating the header and slide show. Next up is to add the new Simply Sweet Clip sets I have created to the website. I also need to update all the dreaded color lists for each item. This is one task I truly do not like as I have to go into each item to update them. It is so frustrating that there is not an easier way to do that.

Hope you all are enjoying your families on this wonderful Saturday!

North East are you ready?? For the SNOW!

I am super busy here at A Crystal Garden trying to get as many orders shipped out tomorrow morning as possible. Depending on the snow it could be Tuesday before I can ship again. I know some of you way up northerners are saying. Puh - what is 12+" inches?? We handle it pretty well here too but it could mean no school on Monday and Tuesday which means I wont get out to mail my packages. I also want to get lots of orders done so I can play in the snow. :)

But the real purpose of this post is to let everyone know shipping may be delayed a couple of days while I hunker down, drink hot cocoa and build snowmen.

Our newest customer cutie!

I was so excited to get these photos today. It has been a dry spell for sharing pictures of my wonderful customers kids! Ok, break over back to making bows.

Whew!!

I was finally all caught up on orders for the first time since well before Christmas and was enjoying some time to do other things. I love to make hair bows but a break once in awhile is nice. Usually the last two weeks of January are a bit slow according to the last couple years of sales figures so I thought I was going to have a bit of time to spend on my messy house.

The weekend was spent cleaning out the basement and while that wasn't fun boy did it feel good when I was finished. All the junk is cleaned out and what is left I either need to keep or felt like it could be sold on Ebay.

While walking through Target yesterday with my mom (it was her birthday) we were commenting on how free we feel this week with no appointments, cleaner houses and bows all caught up. We planned another day of shopping. When we got home we had both lost power so that meant eating dinner out too. Yeah!

So this morning I sign on to find 11 (some rather large) orders all from one day! What a shock for one of the normally slowest weeks of the year. Today I am back to making hair bows. It is such a shame that I suppose that attic clean out will just have to wait. Ah.....too bad. (giggle)

What's in a Name?

I have been asked how A Crystal Garden got it's name since it has nothing to do with hair bows? When I made the decision to start my own little hobby (wasn't supposed to really turn into a business), I found that I enjoyed making beaded Swarovski Crystal Bracelets. Along with that I made a few little basic hair clips to sell on Ebay. The bracelets did really well thus the name A Crystal Garden since my bracelets were made with crystals.

While making the bracelets, I found that I had an obsession with ribbon. :) I started making the flower bows, basic clips and other small bows and they also began selling well. As time passed the hair bow part of the business dwarfed the jewelry part and I changed my focus onto the hair bows.

At this point I have stopped making any jewelry and now have a business name that has nothing to do with hair bows. Although I have considered changing it, I still like the name and think I will stick with it. :)

A Crystal Garden and Etsy....

I am so fickle! So I thought expanding in Etsy was a great idea and then during a car ride with my mom she has helped me see the light.

Her question was Why?

Hmmm...so I can get more business...

She says Don't you already have a hard time keeping up?....

Hmmm well yeah, I guess I don't really need to be doing that.

SOoooo I will not be expanding into Etsy. I was thinking I could put some easier to make items or premade items on there. But she is so right. Aren't moms great? I will add the sets that I already made for Etsy to my site.