Summertime. . .

It is about to be summertime, June when it gets hot, kids are out of school, and I used to do lots of in-person events. However, not this year, this year I get to move again, ok so not until July but . . . that's not really better. 😅 I will be buying cases of water and hiring movers. 

In the meantime, the packing has begun, but not with my shop. I started with the photo set up and moved to the bookcase, I really want to clear my bench before packing my shop, so I scaled the spines. 😉

Now I just need to make them heads and legs and tails. I have the whole month of June to pack so plenty of time, especially considering this was a rental house and I never fully UN-packed here. 😇 

I will say after months of indecision and lack of direction it is nice to have a solid plan. I am actually really excited about the new place, house in the country, super peaceful and quiet, no neighbors, no park, no bus stop, no junior band members next door, no jackoff in a sports car thinking the neighborhood is a drag strip. 😌 We sat in the driveway on the truck tailgate talking to the realtor and there is no way to describe the peace that I felt in that open space with the breeze, watching a rabbit across the drive pay us no mind. I also found a frog on the deck, and I think there are mice for Jaspurr to chase. 

If you're not a country person, if you didn't grow up barefoot in a creek, running fields at your grandparent's house, if you've never been in countryside so quiet all you hear are crickets, you wouldn't understand.

There is a rabbit in the middle of this photo, you may not see him well because he is small and far away, but I'm sure we will make friends. 💗💗

 

Oh wow. . .

The "Weekly" part of the updates has been missing lately. 💩 

I had not realized just how far away from "weekly" I had gotten, sorry. Life has been weird lately and some big changes are coming which is time consuming and distracting, so I guess it's not surprising that I have lost all concept of time and just stopped posting. 😶

Unfortunately, for the curious types I'm not going to blog details, I will just say it is Husband, job, location related and you can probably guess the rest. 

In the meantime, the rainbow baby still does not have a tail, and his brethren remain bench bound and incomplete. 😒

though I am over my frustration with his legs so he will be getting a tail as soon as I have time to decide the pattern, the colors, the length, and attachment 😅 

I am also kind of excited about the other color-brothers, but sadly, they are still just bits of spine at the moment, seriously I haven't even attached the scales to the chain yet, maybe today or tomorrow I'll have some time.

Happy Memorial Day holiday weekend, Happy Indy 500, happy whatever makes you happy. 😇

This week. . .

I have made things!  😁 

Although, I need gold clasps, I didn't realize I was out of gold, so ignore the current placeholding mismatched clasp. 😅 Plus those bracelets aren't the only thing I made. I also made a super cute little "pet" I have no idea what I'm going to do with him other than hold him and admire him, he's not jewelry. He's not big enough to be a bracelet but he's a little too big for a hat/lapel pin 😇

He is totally adorable. I tried 3 different types of beads for the eyes and I'm still not sure about these, but they are growing on me. 

His front legs move more than his back legs but that's ok. The stiffness of the base weave has caused his "spine" to curve with the addition of the scales, but I really like the look of the edge with the square rings. 

Yesterday. . . .

The title is not at all related to the song, but I meant to write and post yesterday I just didn't. 😅  

So, my Momma is very happy with her birthday gift and I am very happy about that, but he didn't turn out quite the way I planned. I'm just gonna be honest it was supposed to be a lizard and he looks a lot more Eeyore 😏 however, my Momma loves Eeyore so it's fine.  

As per usual, I'm nitpicking my design choices, the wrong pattern for the legs, I left the legs too long, attached too loose, etc. He won't stand on all fours, but he does sit in a variety of positions. 😇

He is cute and a total one of a kind, which was the overall plan so I'm calling it success even if he's not exactly what I imagined. 😅 I'll just try something else next time. 😉

Spring is sprung

Things are green and growing, spring has sprung, the weather is changing, outdoor events should start soon but I have no desire to register for any. 😅 Trying to plan in a world of uncertainty is impossible.  

However, I am happy with the new website, it is starting to get traffic, I know because I finally got google analytics to connect. I've been fighting with pinterest code and pinterest in general because well they are not easy, I had to "unclaim" my goimgagine stuff and do a new "claim" my website and even though it says it worked pinterest is still misbehaving when I try to pin products. 😒 Like it literally works for one listing but not another and it's random and frustrating, so rebuilding the pinterest boards will take weeks with this 3-5 pins a day when I have over 120 listings. 💩

Not that I have a very high priority on that project. My current focus has been my Momma's b-day present. 

I make my Mom stuff every year, she's already got several pieces of jewelry and a full set of Christmas ornaments. 😎 

This year's gift is a super special, it will be a total one of a kind. I had a dream and now I'm trying to make the thing I imagined. I have high hopes and only a few days left, but so far, it's going fairly well, I have managed several "firsts".  Right and left handed 1/2 Persian, which has previously eluded me, scalemaille, which used to be really intimidating. 😅 

And if I'm honest still kind of is 😏 I mean I made a thing, but even after adding the "stabilizing" rings it's not super stable and I'm not sure it lays right but for the thing I'm making it's kind of perfect. 😌 So I'll worry about correct next time. 

Just a few more "I've never tried *that* before" to go and it will be finished, hopefully it comes out as cool as it looks in my head. I've been posting limited photos because I don't want to give away what it is, so . . . shhhh don't tell Mom. 😉

April showers and all

Wow, it's April now and goimagine is gone, but rainbowmaille.com is properly directing to the new square site, which doesn't look too bad 😅 actually, I am mostly happy with it. It took some tweaking and there are a couple of things I'd like but I don't want to pay for the upgrade and if I'm honest I don't really "need" those things.  I plan to re-do the story/welcome into a proper about page in a couple of weeks and add a full policy page, right now the shipping and refund policies only show on item and in checkout and I need to add a privacy policy statement. 

In good news I did find the right place in settings for "tracking" codes, so I was able to connect pinterest and google analytics. 

I had a recurring error while trying to update the links on my previous pins, it just wouldn't let me. I tried un-claiming goimagine and claiming my new site, but it still didn't work, maybe I didn't wait long enough for it to connect. 😏 Who knows . . . after a group chat and some advice from more experienced pinterest people I just went ahead with a mass delete of old pins and plan to rebuild my boards all properly linked to the new square site. 

I am finally working on something new, although it's a gift for my Mom's b-day so it will not be listed for sale. I'll be posting some in progress pics but I do not plan to explain or say what the final thing will be in case my Momma sees the posts. 😉 

Published!

I have completed the new site, well as complete as I need it for now, there are paintings not photographed, there is some jewelry not listed because I can't find the photos. I'm sure there are things I missed but I have listings, policies, a welcome story/about, a contact page, enough basics that I published it this morning. 😎

Of course, nothing is perfect so I will continue to work on it, especially the backside SEO stuff and extra settings, etc. but I am happy to have it published and available again. I have updated the .com to redirect to the new square site, I'll need to add a link on the side of here and go update some other things as well. 😏

The biggest pile of "updating" will be my Pinterest because I didn't delete all the art pins like I considered previously; I will now need to go update the links on each pin. 

Migrating a business is a lot of work. 😅