Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful holiday season. It's been busy here as usual and now the time has come to look forward to see what the new year holds for us.

First off, nothing new with the kids. They never stop going, going, going. At the moment all are healthy (knock on wood) and aside from the typical teenage angst, all are relatively happy. :)

Potty training continues to be a struggle but I must take the blame for that as I am not consistent. I definitely need to buckle down and help my child with this as she will be 3 on the 23rd. Geez! Where'd the time go?

Last month hubby and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary! It's been quite a journey --marriage that is, over the years but I am happy to say it's all been worth it. My guy is amazing and we've both grown so much over the years. Here's to many happy years ahead.

Business is good. I'm getting ready for tax season and organizing, tweeking and revamping pretty much everything. The biggest noticeable change is in the appearance of my etsy shop. I recently joined the Busy Moms of Etsy Team, http://busymomsofetsy.ning.com , and have met some wonderful ladies and received some much appreciated advice. In particular, advice on improving my photos. Boy do they need it. The past few weeks I've been learning more about photography and my camera and have been working on the quality of my pics. Every day I try to add new photos to my products on the etsy site. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the lighting and detail in the new pics. http://www.heathermgannon.etsy.com/

I have a few custom orders in the works as well and will post those pics as they are completed. But in the meantime here's some new bling:

Have a healthy, happy and productive 2010! ~Heather

Tis the Season

Happy Holidays Folks!

Where oh where did this year go? It flew by! Good news is that I've been super busy since my last post and if you've read that post from October, you may remember my comment on the economy. That weekend at the craft show in Leesport turned out to be a pretty decent show. I had another craft show in Leesport after Thanksgiving which was even better! Yay! My in-home jewelry parties have also been surprisingly successful. In fact, the 3rd annual HJD Holiday Show and Sale just recently took place in my home on Dec. 5th and despite the snow storm that just had to occur an hour before show time, I ended up with 15 guests in attendance! I am so grateful to my wonderful friends, both old and new, who braved the tretcherous roads to attend. We had a great night with yummy food courtesy of my friend Jess who sells Tastefully Simple and spiked jello jigglers courtesy of my friend Teresa who drove 45 minutes over snowy slushy roads to get there. I also must thank Miss Caitlyn, my 14 year old daughter who really came through for me that night with multiple shoveling trips up and down the driveway. We only had 1 vehicle get stuck in the snow but thanks to my hubby and Jess' hubby they were un-stuck in no time! Whew!

The kids continue to keep us busy. Zoe earned her first girl scout badge, Caitlyn's Rage soccer team made it to Nationals in Florida where they came in 2nd place and she was named to the All Tournament Team as goalkeeper and Zach was elected Senior Patrol Leader of his Scout Troop. Aeryn continues to surprise and amaze us on a daily basis but seems to be getting in less trouble these days. Following my last blog entry, Miss Aeryn managed to shave one of her eyebrows off. Fortunately she didn't hurt herself in the process and her eyebrow has grown in nicely.

So the holiday season is upon us and the kids are going nuts waiting for Christmas to get here. Funny how the excitement we had as children changes when we become adults. It is pretty cool to see the excitement in the kids but when did it turn into so much work? Christmas prep that is. I still have a few presents to wrap. Cards are finally in the mail. House is decorated and the trees (1 live, 1 fake) are trimmed. I had a bunch of last minute custom orders but they are done and ended up being really cool projects to work on.

A customer asked me to make Autism Awareness jewelry to give as gifts to the many specialists that help her autistic son. I immediately thought of a sterling silver puzzle piece charm to hang on a sterling chain and suggested we personalize the necklaces with an additional charm such as a crystal. The charm next to the puzzle piece is representative of the logo colors used by their autism management support system and consists of 4 Swarovski cyrstal cubes wrapped in fine gauge sterling silver wire within a sterling silver square. The initial order of 5 necklaces grew to 8 as we discussed details of the project. With the addition of a chakra balancing necklace and a pre-made anklet as additional gifts, I really had my work cut out for me!

Another fun project I recently worked on was custom grandmother necklaces and a custom aunt bracelet. Did I mention I'm accepting custom orders again? Yeah, give the people what they want right? Anywho...The grandmother necklaces consist of each grandchild's name hand stamped onto sterling silve sheet metal to dangle along side of a sterling silver wrapped pearl necklace. Each pearl repesents a child. The customer wanted something "funky" for the aunt bracelet. Again, I hand stamped AUNT onto a sterling silver disc that I cut out of sheet metal using my newest jewelry toy...I mean tool...and added crystals and a pearl for the birthstone of each niece and nephew of the Aunt. Fun Stuff. I also hand forged the sterling links of the bracelet.

Thank you to all my customers both new and repeat, custom and pre-made, life-long friends and new acquaintances, for all of your support and encouragement over the last year especially during these difficult economic times.

Well that's it for me tonight. Sorry this was so long but I had lots to catch you up on! If I'm not on here again before Christmas, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! ~Heather