Checking off Life Goals List

by CZeitler

I had the amazing opportunity to visit my cousins in New Jersey for a long weekend. Though the primary goal was to spend time with my family they also planned events that accidentally checked off two of my life long ‘to dos’. First and foremost, it was amazing to spend time with that part of my family, I have not seen them since last July and one of my cousins has had a child since then. The first full day I was there started off with a High Tea, my cousins children were just adorable, then visiting another cousin to see their children and feed baby goats. I have always wanted to experience a high tea, and it was just as amazing as I thought. This also reinforced my knowledge that I love Chai tea. The next day I was able to see another cousin and have a picnic at an arboretum, as well as visit a Raptor Sanctuary. All of these events were punctuated by amazing snuggles with my cousins children, playing games, catching up, and generally having an amazing time. On my final day, after the children were off to their respective schools, my cousin and I each took a nap (though mine was accidental), then they took me out for an amazing Dim Sum lunch before dropping me off at the airport. The Dim Sum was another check off of my life long list. I am sad that I had to get back for work and missed a show that my cousins child was going to be in, however I love how much time I was able to spend with them. All of this ties into crafting, I swear!

Aurifil has partnered with several artists and other organizations to bring about a summer project where you use particular sheets, assign colors to specific topics/events, and document your summer by creating shapes that look like sea glass in the colors that represent that event/topic. I think this is an amazing idea…that I would never follow through. With the exception of my past weekend I tend to keep my life relatively low key, though that might change a bit in the near future given how much fun I had. Instead I like the idea of documenting my year in 10″ squares with highlights or particular circumstances represented in each square. June would probably be a 9-patch with sections that explore the amazing aspects of my vacation. This is just a conceptual project for now, though I am eyeing my fabric stash and trying to figure out the major events of the first half of my year.

I am still working on getting photos ready for my etsy shop, I will have those ready to show off (and a link to my shop) in the next post. Until next time remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!

Time Consuming But Fun

by CZeitler

I guess I did not realize that the most involved part of creating an Etsy shop is putting up the listings. Since each item I create is pretty much one of a kind, though I do have some rainbow bottle necklaces that are going under one listing, each item has to be put up and described individually. Not only that, there is nothing like putting up photos that are supposed to show how amazing your work is to make you realize just how bad your photographing situation is. I ordered a light box and hope to create better photos this week for my listing already up then work on putting up new listings.

Part of what I really need to do is create a general phrase for my stitch markers/progress keepers, resin pieces, and quilted work before adding in additional deatils about that particular piece. I hope to have a new shop update and listings updated by Sunday June 18, 2023.

Other than figuring out the problems with my etsy shop I have been busy getting ready for Summer Reading at the Library, and dealing with vertigo from my allergies. Fortunately I was able to get the correct medicine and now that there is less fluid behind my eardrums the vertigo has gone away, being dizzy is not fun at all.

Sorry there are not any photos in this post hopefully I can add some into my next post with my new photo setup. Until next time Remember to Live Life A Little More Abstract!

Personalized Bookcase Quilt

by CZeitler

Welcome Everyone!

I have always loved the look of bookcase quilts. I have decided to make a personalized spin on a bookcase quilt. It is one of my annual goals to try to read 100 books each year, I have recently started to allow rereads to count. Otherwise, I will never make that goal. What is more fun than combining those two goals? To do that I have started embroidering what will be the book spines with the titles and authors that I have read. I discovered that I can fit eight to ten spines on a fat quarter. I used a peel and stick wash away stabilizer so that the fabric was stable enough for the embroidery machine. I made sure that the stabilizer was on the far side of the fat quarter, so that there was plenty of room to cut the spines a part down the middle.

Since I do not like changing the thread, I decided to ensure that there were at least one or two other books in between each so that I will not have a huge chunk of the same color spines. There are a couple of series that I decided would be OK if they are the same color, so that is why all of my Shelly Laurenston books are on this fat quarter. I have decided to give myself about half an inch to an inch around each spine so I measured that out and cut each one out individually.

Since we have not even reached the halfway mark of the year, I am not going to worry about sewing the spines together quite yet. It’s probably going to be a couple of months before I do another batch of spines, so that I have enough titles to avoid embroidering a whole batch of titles right next to each other, on the same kind of fabric. When I do assemble the quilt, I plan on assembling the spines in the order that I actually read the books. I have trimmed the tops and bottoms of the spines, so that there is plenty of room just saw them together yet the books are not all the same height.

For a few of them, I have experimented with adding a different color to sort of look like fancy spines. Right now I have them in blocks 14 inches wide and I will eventually add a background color to the top so that the actual block is the same height. This is as far as I’ve gotten planning this quilt, it has been put on hold for right now, until I have read more books and until my Etsy shop is open. My Etsy shop will be opening June 2, 2023 and I hope to see everyone there.

Until next time, please remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract.

Promised Update Post

by CZeitler

This post my contain affiliate links.

I know, I promised you an update post a couple of weeks ago, but here we go. There will be crafty content, most of this post will be around how I am monitizing my crafting.

The first two steps I took, after getting in contact with my local small business association to figure out how to legally set up my business, were to obtain a Federal Employee Identification Number (this cost over $300 if you are looking into the startup costs for a new business however they do state that it is deductible on your next tax return), and to obtain a New York State Tax ID. The New York State business website has a checklist of the other steps you need to take to start up a small business. In total it took me over 3 hours, and a few phone calls, to make my way through the paperwork. I still have to send in the ‘Doing Business As’ paperwork to my local county if I want to sell at craft shows. Another aspect is that I will be filing business tax papers quarterly starting in September since my business will open June 2, 2023.

The next steps were to set up an etsy site, which I still have to complete this weekend to open on June 2nd, and become an amazon affiliate. For now the amazon affiliate links will be primarily on my book review pages, ayearofbooksinreview.wordpress.com , though as I start putting togeter tutorials I will be linking to the supplies so that people will be able to complete them with similar supplies to what I will be using. That is a another surprise for this site, I am going to begin posting tutorials for various types of crafting with step by step progress photos. Some are going to relate to items that I will have for sale in my etsy shop, but some are just going to be FYI, this is how I do this, type posts.

To begin promoting my business I set up separate Instagram and Facebook pages where I have been posting updates and some photos of merchandise I have been creating. Now to the actual crafting!

I have been busy creating Ear Cuffs and Progress Keepers. Right now each ear cuff and progress keeper is going to be completely unique, as I see if some styles are more popular I may be expanding into some items as production items.

This is not all, have you ever known me to stick to one type of craft?

I have also been making some lovely book page holders out of resin.

Also I have been experimenting with my brand label for a special product I will have coming out when the store opens, the version that Instagram decided they like the best is shown below, though the final product should be on spring green fabric.

Until next time, remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract!