Spreading My Wings

I have been working my way through the Building a Creatively Built Business 2.0 courses in my free time. It is a series of videos made by Jeanne Oliver, Jennifer Rizzo and Miss Mustard Seed {aka Marian Parsons} and the information these ladies have to offer is incredible. Really. Like make you break down in tears incredible because you realize that you are not the only one that has ever faced whatever growing pains you may be going through at that point.

You can click here to go directly to the website to find out more about this class as well as all the other wonderful classes Jeanne Oliver offer {I have my eye on a few other ones at the moment!}.

I just finished the chapter about diversifying your business and that is one that struck a chord with me. I have always felt that because my signs sell so well, I should just stick with making and selling signs. But the creative person inside of me isn't happy. There are so many other things that I would like to try, so many other things that I enjoy making, so many other items other than paint and wood that I enjoy working with. And at times...well...I've thought that I would be perfectly fine with never having to paint another sign. And that, my friends, has lead to quite a few periods of being burned out and even more periods of not being able to create new designs because my creative side feels trapped.

 In the videos the ladies talk about how branching out, creatively, has helped them fall back in love with what they originally started making. Yes, it was another one of those tears streaming down the face moments.

So I've decided, I'm going to do more of these.

I've always enjoyed making wreaths and they actually help me decompress and relax when making them. {I'm weird, I know, I've accepted it!}

I'm going to play with paper more.

I have always wanted to try making cute tea towels. I've been working on a line of vinyl wording to go on your front door.

I may even get a little crazy and try sewing some things...maybe...like really easy things.

But don't worry, I'm not quitting the sign business. The funny thing is that just working on some other things has sparked my creativity again and for the first time I sat down and started designing again. So be on the lookout for some new signs coming as well as lots of new stuff! And maybe even some pictures of some flops, I have lots of those from time to time!

Fixer Upper and Chapel Rd.

If you follow any blogs about home décor, chances are you have heard at least one of them talking about HGTV's new show, Fixer Upper. I decided to see what the fuss is about and I am hooked. I spent a whole day, while working, watching any episodes that were On Demand with Time Warner. The best part? The show is filmed in Waco, Texas which is an hour north of where I live. (My friend Kristi from I Should Be Mopping The Floor and I may or may not be planning on how to stalk meet Chip and JoJo.)

Why is this the best part? Because so many shows that I fall in love with for inspiration, for my own house, always seem to be on the other side of the country. I have come to believe that the New England/East Coast area and the Oregon/Washington area have the most fabulous areas to junk in and that it is hopeless to decorate my home the way I want, within the budget I have. To see a show that is filmed an hour away with the style I would love to have in my own home, that gets the creative wheels spinning.

And did they start spinning.

A while back I bought an old street sign that caught my attention.

It wasn't as old as I would have liked it, so I took a sander to it, roughed it up and then lost all inspiration and it sat in a closet.

After my Fixer Upper marathon I decided to pull it out and dig through my scrap pile. After I found the perfect piece I decided to give this stain color a second chance.

I want to love this shade, I really do, but it has too much red in it for my liking. I let it dry a bit and then started sanding it down some.

One of my favorite things to do with stain is to layer it to either get a custom color or make it look like an older piece that has been handed down. Before the first coat dried completely, I added a coat of a new shade called Weathered Oak, hoping that it would make it look like I had found the wood out in a field.

Nope. I think every bit I put on rubbed right off after letting it sit for 5 minutes. I knew I had to break out Old Faithful...

Dark Walnut. I don't know how many shades I have tried and I always go back to Dark Walnut.

Now I have the shade I want and layering it over the Gunstock gives it some of the depth I was looking for. I even used the stain left over on the rag on the street sign to give it an older feel.

My original plan was to screw the sign directly to the wood, but when I laid it down on the wood I decided I didn't want to lose the rippled shape it had developed over time. I dug through my husband's collection of hardware (I hoard wood, he hoards screws and building hardware...it's a match made in heaven) and found these black plastic pieces that were the perfect height for how high I wanted the sign to sit off of the wood.

Now if the sign was made out of wood I would have used regular screws. Since the sign is metal I had two options, drill a hole for the screw or use these...

Self drilling, or self tapping, metal screws. The funny tip on the end basically drills a hole as you are screwing it in. They are made especially for when you are working with metal and are a lifesaver, especially if you don't have a set of metal drill bits on hand (or you can't remember which set of your husband's is for metal.)

I first drilled the screws in to each end of the sign and then placed the black riser under each screw and attached it to the wood backing.

It's hanging right by our French doors that will at sometime lead out to a covered patio and deck. My plan is to make a collection of signs, as well as some unusual antique finds, to hang on the wall. I'm also working on a fun coffee bar/patio drink server idea to put underneath!

Ramblings For 2013 and 2014

I've been struggling with getting this blog up and going the way I would like. That seems to be a theme in my life, hard to get something new started but once it becomes part of my usual routine my true inner self shines through. So I'm going to experiment with this for a while. I have so many blog post started but they feel so forced. I apologize in advance for the randomness and ramblings that may occur for a while. {p.s. This post will be one of those rambling post.}

December went by in a blur. Thanks to Thanksgiving being later than we are used to meant that people began shopping online later and there was a sense of urgency all around.

This was on the downward slide of Christmas orders to be done and shipped. My husband started a new position in the company he works for and had to travel off and on so I would take advantage of having the garage to my self and cut and sand as much as I could before I felt that the neighbors would call the cops for the excessive buzzing sander noises.

December 1st brought back Elvis, our Elf on the Shelf and boy did he make an entrance!

Luckily he wasn't as mischievous as he has been in the last few years.

I also took advantage of some tutorials on Pinterest and had some fun with my camera.

And I just realized that this is pretty much the only photo I took during the holidays that has any type of holiday feel to it! I don't think I touched my camera at all after taking this. If I couldn't snap a quick photo with my iPhone, I didn't get a photo of it.

Major news that I shared quietly on my personal Facebook page, but left me feeling like I had hit the big time also happened in December...

Sale #1,000! It has always been on my list of goals to accomplish, I just never thought it would happen as soon as it did. I did a quick little happy dance in my head, shared it on Facebook and then got back to work.

I also turned 34 in December. Growing up my Nana would call every year and ask if I felt like I was however many years old I turned that year. This year she was here {along with my Grampie} and I was ready for her to ask because my answer was yes...yes, I feel every single day of my 34 years. Luckily I didn't have any big plans in place. My day was spent with this sleeping beauty.

She had finally succumbed to the stomach bug that was being passed around at school. 

Christmas was the usual chaotic day for us, but the girls enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

New Year's Eve came and went quietly. Kind of. We managed to stay up past midnight {Yay!} to ring in the new year, but I spent most of the evening in bed with severe back pain that went down my leg {Boo!}. Turns out sitting on a hard floor for hours putting together desks from Ikea doesn't agree with my sciatic nerve. Add my already bad posture to that and it didn't help at all. For days ibuprofen, a heating pad and YouTube videos on how to massage areas that were sore were my best friends!

Now we're in to 2014 and I've been thinking about my list of resolutions things I would like to continue working on. The word resolution seems so overwhelming to me so I'm going to focus on areas that need improvement and work on them gradually. Like I mentioned before, one of them being this blog.

I have so many things I want to share and Facebook used to do it for me, but as we all know, Facebook has been frustrating the past year for businesses. I want to share news about my business and tutorials for DIY projects but I also want to give you all a glimpse in to my day to day life. I follow so many other blogs that share all of the above and I truly feel that if I was to meet one of these lovely ladies, I would immediately feel like I was reuniting with an old friend {once I got over the school girl giddiness of actually meeting them!} and I know there may be some awkward phases as I figure all of this out and find my happy medium.

But most of all, I am so happy that you are here to watch me go through it. I'm hoping that 2014 will be my year to inspire you in to trying something new!

p.s. I would really love to be able to add the thingy in the side bar that allows for you to sign up for email alerts of new posts {and so many other things} so if you have any experience with blogging, any help is greatly appreciated!!

Update on Last Year's Acorns

If you have followed me for a while on Facebook you may remember these...

The German glass glitter acorns.

If you haven't followed me on Facebook, here's the quick back story. We have a tree in our front yard that my parents planted when they owned the house. It's a type of red oak and has grown to be massive. So big that the most common response when I'm giving directions to our house is "Your house is the one with the massive tree? I LOVE that tree!"

Here's the thing about red oaks...they make acorns, lots of acorns. My dad would research if there was a market for acorns, he knew there was a gold mine sitting on his front yard.

Flash forward to fall of last year. My husband is losing his mind over the acorns all over the yard. My youngest decided to help dad out and collect as many as she could. She would collect bags full of them and bring them in for me. I was looking for something new to use my brand new German glass glitter on and grabbed a few and got to work covering them with glue and glitter. 

I snapped a few photos and put a photo on Facebook and people loved them. They loved them so much it even got me an invite to our local news station to share how I made them on a mid-day show for moms. And I may or may not have had a few day dreams about becoming the newest Texas millionaire off of glitter acorns.

I had my game plan set for this year and had the girls ready to collect them as soon as they saw them. So far this year I have made...

Zero...

Nada...

Zilch...

An interesting fact about red oaks, they will work their way up to record numbers of acorns and then take a year or two off. We have not seen a single acorn. It doesn't sound like my husband is mowing a field of rocks. And we have some very sickly squirrels hanging around waiting for their winter stockpile.

Growing Pains

Things have been painstakingly slow here lately at block.paper.scissors.. (Sorry for the false advertisement of my title if you were expecting to talk about one of my favorite shows growing up!)

One secret of having a great online presence is having great photos. I got my DSLR camera for Christmas which helps, but doesn't guarantee great photos. I have tried reading websites and the manual to the camera but after the first few sentences my eyes glass over and everything looks like it's written in a foreign language.

A few weeks ago I found this blog post written by Miss Mustard Seed. If you have ever been interested in amateur photography, trust me, this blog post is worth your time. It's written for those of us that are trying out photography for the first time. I finally broke out the tripod, switched that camera to the big M and started messing with the different buttons and dials. 

It helped me take this:

(The color of this sign is butter pecan but it leaves you to wonder if it's beige, maybe gold? And what's with the super bright center?)

To this:

A butter pecan that actually looks like pecan! (And it doesn't look like it's radiating light on it's own.)

And what kind of pink is this?

Bet you didn't guess dusty rose!

So, I am now retaking photos of items in my Etsy shop which slows me down quite a bit. No pain, no gain. Right?!

Has It Been A Year?

What?! It really has been a year since the last time I even signed in to Blogger. This time I am determined to keep up with this, especially since it's getting harder to keep in touch with fans on Facebook. I have so much that I want to share about this crazy little business and life in general and this will be the easiest way possible!

Please hang in there as I figure out all the tricks to this. I just now figured out how to add my favorite blogs on the right and would love to add a link to yours if you have one. Next thing to tackle? Getting everything set up for you to get notifications by email when a new blog post is up! (If you have experience in this I would greatly appreciate the help!)

Let me know what you think of the new look, or the look if this is your first time visiting, and if there is anything you would like to see me write about!

It was in the stars...

If you have been a Facebook fan for a while you may remember this lovely piece...

The layers of paint. She started out at wood, then white, followed by yellow, then green, which was covered by cream and then back to white. I loved the story that it told so it had to stay. And those hinges. I remember the man working at the ReStore offering to knock them off for me. I gripped that cabinet door like it was my child and politely told him that the hinges were why I loved it so much.



And when I found this new "old" cabinet pull at Home Depot (love you Martha Stewart!) it was like icing on the cake. But she wasn't always this pretty. Here she is with her sibilings I got that day...

She was pretty dingy (be on the lookout for the tall one soon!) but when all work was finished I just knew she would be scooped up in a second. I took her out to my booth and checked at the end of every day to see if she sold. Secretly, I always was relieved that she didn't. So when the shop I was in closed and she was still there I was giddy. A few days later I admited to my husband that I was glad it didn't sell because I wanted it and he agreed. That was all it took...

The chalkboard has found a home! I always had big plans of what I would write on a chalkboard in my kitchen and this is all I could think of at the time! I blame the heat, it's sucking the life out of everyone right now.

Do you craft? Have you ever had one thing that you made and loved so much that you secretly wished no one would want it? It's ok, it just means you have passion for what you do. :)

On a side note: Do you have a blog or love a blog? Leave a comment below for me to check out. I noticed my sidebar is a little empty and would love to share that space with you! ♥

Therapy

Therapy...the word can scare some people but truth is we all need some type of therapy from time to time. This journey that I'm on with my business can get the best of me some days. Add the stress of kids home for summer break, a messy house, deadlines and an upcoming holiday, I'm pretty sure it would break some people. Don't get me wrong, I love this. I love the deadlines, I love my customers and I love the sometimes chaos that is my life and wouldn't trade any of it for the world. So the other day I found myself staring at this.

My half empty cup of coffee from that morning, used rags, empty paint bottles, a bunch of stuff. A little voice told me that if I sat down here I would go crazy and for once I listened. Cue the therapy...

But it gets better...

Me, my camo chair, the $40 dresser, paint and a bike using the back of the dresser as a parking spot hanging out in the hot garage with Pandora blasting from my iPod. Yes, I do live in Texas and yes it was HOT, but at that time it reminded me that I love what I do. Yes I was surrounded by junk still, but it was new junk. Finally getting that dresser painted in the middle of the chaos of orders was all the therapy I needed. That and knowing that my singing at the top of my lungs was probably causing people walking past to walk a little faster just so they didn't have to witness what was going on behind that door if it opened!

So my question to you is, what's your therapy??

Ready, Set...BLOG!

Heellllooooo!! If you just read that in Mrs. Doubtfire's voice, you are awesome.

Welcome to my blog. Just like it says above, this is about my business, block.paper.scissors., home renovation, the good and the bad, and a little bit of life in between!

First, I would like to introduce you to my support team. My biggest cheerleaders, motivators and sometimes delivery people. :)

My two beautiful girls and my adoring husband. (The woman he is posing with him is my Great Aunt. Love her to pieces, she is one of the strongest women that I know.)  Please note that aside from my husband who styled himself, my girls are not always this polished. The photos are from my sister's wedding. I didn't want to scare you away the first post. You can catch a glimpse of me in the background of the top photo. Again, no photo of me yet because I didn't want to scare you away!


Now on to what I do. Here is a smidge.

I started out with the photo blocks and things took off from there. I opened a shop in Etsy soon after and have just started with my booth at Snickelbritches. We have plenty of time together, so I won't bore you with the details of every single thing right now.

One last thing, I am not a computer/blog guru so things will be changing around here as I figure out what I'm doing, or finally give up and have someone else do it for me. I'm looking forward to sharing with all of you. I hope you enjoy it!!