I'm Back and Ready to Work!

I must say that this past weeks vacation did my body and soul wonders! I honestly had not realized how badly I needed to "get away" from my repetitive schedule and take a moment to breath. At home for the past few months I've been saturated in house duties, wifehood, motherhood and even my creative outlet of making and selling jewelry was becoming more work to me than fun. Especially the business part of networking and promoting my shop. As the holidays are approaching , I've been feeling the pressure to come up with some new pieces. Checking out the forums at Etsy and 1000Markets I can see that I'm not alone.

To make myself feel less guilty about leaving my shops dormant for a week to go enjoy myself, I vowed to do some type of self promotion. I packed cards to pass out to the boutique shop owners and put on my Boho Hoops to wear down there in Edenton. Once we got there all I wanted to do was sleep for hours. After I slept I just wanted to got outside, enjoy the weather (an average of 60 degrees the whole time we were there) and take in the scenery. I did no networking at all and I'm fine with that. Being down there in Edenton and doing things other than making jewelry allowed me to become inspired with brand new ideas for my jewelry line once I got home.

Some of the things I did:

1. Helped my Grandmother hand sew a quilt she had been working on. She's a very skilled and avid quilter and working on a different craft with her was fun.

2. Pecan picking. My family owns land there, right off of route 32N were there are pecan trees and a corn field. The pecans are just right for picking this time of year. I vow to make pecan pie with these before the year is up.

3. Visited historical Edenton. This is located downtown and along the main street are some mom and pop shops, boutiques and other retail stores. This street runs into the Albermarle Bay where there is a small park with a playground that has beautiful magnolia trees and a boardwalk.

Now my mind is all aswirl with ideas that will incorporate fabrics and natural textures and shapes (pecans and magnolias). I've already drawn up simple sketches but I'm pretty sure that I will not have these pieces done before the holiday rush. I'm still working on other jewelry items that I really am very excited about but I think these new inspirations will be worth the wait.

Here's a couple of pictures that I took of a cypress tree and a couple of magnolia pods. If you'd like to see more pics of our vacation, please click on the Flickr widget to your right☺