Jasper Moon Prayer Beads

My new Facebook page for Jasper Moon Prayer Beads has 52 'Likes'. Not bad for only being up since January 13th. I'm constantly trying to promote the page and get the number of followers higher. I sent out a bunch of personal requests this evening to people on my Friend List.

Jasper Moon Prayer Beads

Last night, I received a note from a lady in the Ottawa area who makes and sells chain mail jewelry. She has over 1400 'Likes' on her business page! 

Linkit's Chainmail and Accessories

When she hits 1500 followers, she plans to host a Fan Giveaway and has opened it up to a few select vendors like me. She wants to help others promote their pages too.

Here's how it will work. Each vendor offers up a couple of items for the giveaway. There will be individual draws for each item. To qualify to win, participants will have to leave a comment about the photo of the item AND they will have to 'Like' her page, plus the vendors' page also.

What a great idea! Hopefully, that will generate more traffic to my page. The more exposure, the more sales, right? It really is a numbers game and I totally understand that.

I remember when I was doing telemarketing, for every 10 calls you make, you 'might' get one positive response. The more calls you could squeeze into an 8 hour shift, the better you did. And it could be the LAST 10 calls out of 100 you make that will garner a 'hit'.

Naturally, I signed up to participate as a vendor. I made a couple of special pocket-size prayer bead sets to offer in the giveaway. All I have to do was send her photos of the two items and then advertise the event on all my social media networks at the appropriate time.

See photos of the two items that I made especially for this event...

Pocket-Size Goddess Prayer Beads
Celebrate the Sacred Feminine

Pocket-Size Tree of Life Prayer Beads
Celebrate the Seasons

As soon as the event dates are announced, I will let you all know. I think the whole concept is quite ingenious and perhaps worthy of looking into further if this one is successful.

To Do Or Not To Do - 7th Bead Soup Blog Party

I sat on the fence about it for some time. Did I or didn't I want to participate this time? The answer was no AND yes.

No, I am too busy trying to promote my business to generate my online sales. No, with all the pain I'm in and everything else I have to do, I don't have the energy for it.

BUT, yes I have enjoyed it in the past, even if I did agonize over my design longer than necessary. Yes, I want to because it will be the only one that Lori is hosting this year and I don't want to miss my chance.

I'd already sent an e-mail to Lori stating that I could not participate this time but as the hour drew closer to the end of the sign up period, I filled in my participation form.

So, I'm doing it. I've signed up for the third blog hop date (April 13th), hoping that things will be settled down a bit more by that time. I might not get a chance to visit many of the blogs or comment on the creations but at the end of the day, I could not pass on this fun activity.

At last count, there was just over 500 participating!! That's incredible, isn't it?

Focusing on Life - Week 4

This weeks’ photo prompt is CREATE ART. Think of the first medium that comes to your mind...beads, wire, fibers, paper, paint, clay or crayons. Push yourself to try something new.

According to the Webster’s dictionary, ART is ‘the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also works so produced'. So in light of that, what is ART? I think it's pretty hard to pin down precisely and that everyone has their own interpretation, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The first medium that came to my mind was paper. A friend of mine sent me a couple of beautiful, hand-made greeting cards last year and I have wanted to try my hand at card making ever since. The ‘thought’ of scrapbooking has intrigued me for years too.

As I was out looking for supplies this week, I recalled why I never actually did it. You need a lot of supplies for paper crafts. Different scissors, coloured pens, stickers, fancy papers, die cuts, ribbon, lace, rubber stamps, etc. And the supplies are expensive! Then you have to have a way to store all the leftover bits and pieces there would inevitably be.

That’s why I'd ended up purchasing a scrapbook page making software for my computer. It was relatively inexpensive and I had fun with it for awhile. I think it might be time to start playing around with it again.

Carnelian Tree of Life Pendant

So the paper crafts were not happening this week but I did CREATE ART with beads and wire and nylon cord. I’m continually making Tree of Life pendants. They are a popular item at events we attend and it's hard for me to keep them in stock. I made a couple of sets of meditation beads to sell on Etsy also. 

Sodalite Meditation Beads

Then I used my newly acquired Photoshop skills to add my company logo to the photos. Graphic ART is art too, right?

53 Days Until Spring

I've had enough of this cold weather! I'm ready for Spring. The widget I downloaded onto my blog (see right sidebar) is telling me that there are 53 days, 22 hours left until Spring arrives as I am writing this. By the time you are reading it, we will be even closer.

To cheer myself up, I created a few colour palettes to herald in the coming season. It's given me a chance to practice my new Photoshop skills too.

Is it Spring yet? Well, perhaps not...but it IS closer!

Old Dog, New Tricks

Who originally said that ‘you can't teach an old dog, new tricks’? E.C Brewer, who lived between 1810 and 1897, gets credit in the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable published in 1898. I’m convinced that some form of this idiom has been around much longer though, according to some basic research that I’ve done online.

I don’t know about dogs, but gratefully, the same does not appear to be true for people. It can be difficult to change a person’s habits as they get older or get them to accept new ideas and technologies, that’s true. They can learn, if they want to.

Remember the 5.25" Floppy Discs?

Take me, for example. Before I got my first computer, I was convinced that I could never learn how to use one. I told my son that I was too old to learn how to do that (I was 36 years old at the time). With his encouragement, however, I did try. Voila! I found out that I could learn how to use a computer.

My skills and confidence grew from there. And they continue to grow to this day. Just this morning, I learned how to layer pictures in Adobe Photoshop. I went to Google, typed in the question, and found the information I needed to figure it out. And I did it all by myself! Who knew?

Here is my first attempt. I wanted to add my company logo to a colour palette I created, and I did it! I was quite pleased with myself, I must say.

In my opinion, life is a continual learning process. We should never remain stagnant and unwavering. There’s a whole world of new possibilities out there. Look around, they are not hard to find. *smile*