Halloween 2016

The kiddo and I had a pretty successful October this year. Early in the month, he lost his very first tooth. He'd been nervous about it falling out, so I put out a plea on Facebook for toothless pictures of his friends. That post blew up! It was so great to see everyone's responses and encouragement. His cousins even recorded videos telling him that losing teeth was no big deal, not scary at all. <3 I couldn't get a shot of him with his gap showing, so we did a video instead.

Showing off!

The tooth!

Mid-month, we went on the annual AuSM trolley ride to the pumpkin patch, for the second year in a row. No pictures on the trolley this time, but we did take a few with the pumpkins. At first he thought a short, wide one was his favorite, but later abandoned it for one that was a little taller. And easier to carve. (We carved it after we got home, but forgot to take pictures and it got moldy before the big day anyway, so it was tossed.) It was still a good time! And he got a balloon puppy!

Cheese!

On my head!

New pumpkin, and my puppy!

Next bit of kid-related excitement was the fall fundraiser at school, which was a fun run. It was really just a small oval track, with half of the first grade and all of the second grade at his school. He "ran" with his para and a new favorite classmate. They did about 21 laps, which I was extremely impressed with. He kept going for the whole hour! Of course I was there for a hug and a high 5 as needed, each lap. ;)

My little ninja turtle

Last but not least, Halloween itself. I carved a second pumpkin, using our "kids" pattern book. I think the little dude liked it. He certainly liked playing with the rest of the plastic eyes that came in the kit. Of course the squirrels ate it almost immediately.

boo!

His class had a fall party the Friday before, which I attended with him, but which was mostly just being herded around classroom-to-classroom for activities he wasn't particularly interested in. Can't win them all, I guess. I didn't take pictures of that.Then on the day of, he wore his new Pikachu hoodie to school and loved it. We went trick or treating at the local zoo's members-only party, all three of us, which was substantially successful. He said his trick or treats, walked the entire path, and didn't melt down when he became overstimulated. We were in and out in just over an hour, got a happy meal on the way home, and spent the rest of the night chilling out and pretending not to be home. We don't actually get trick or treaters, aside from maybe a handful of teenagers after 8 pm, so we just skipped it this year.

Cheese!

What's going on over there?

My pikachu!

I love my pikachu!

That's kind of it for October. We had a blast. Ready to move on to the next holiday.

Another year gone by

Hello, world. Thought I might go back to updating my blog for the month of November, at least.

I've been busy, but mostly not with bloggable stuff, unfortunately. My craft room is now Dan's home office, and his former space is a sensory room for Sam. My desk moved to our (ridiculously large, don't get me wrong) master bedroom and I am still in the process of getting it organized.

One thing I have been trying to do more of since school started is cook at home. I've made my Rotisserie Chicken a few times, as well as my favorite Pork Roast, and a few others that I am probably forgetting. Tonight's docket is Fajitas. Later in the week I have loose plans for Chicken Stroganoff, but that may or may not happen. I also have a couple of newer crock pot recipes that I have never blogged about, so those will be on my list the next time I make them.

I also did a few small batches of canning over the summer. It was nowhere near as crazy as the summer of 2014 where I canned several times a week, all summer. This year, I made some strawberry jam, rhubarb syrup, bread and butter pickles, garlicky dill pickles (I made spears though), and a couple of batches of applesauce. (My applesauce recipe contains nothing but apples, and if I make another batch soon, I will try to blog about it.) In the spring I made a couple of citrus curds, and plan to make a few more nearer to the holidays. My goal has been to give away as much as possible as soon as possible after processing. I have a few more pickles on hand than necessary, though. I wish I had done some diced tomatoes, since we really do use them up throughout the year. (Literally everything else I preserve is consumed by no one in our household except me. Maybe Dan will have a pickle. Maybe.)

Everything I have left: 1 half-pint jam, 2 half-pints syrup, 2 pints applesauce, 4 pints pickles

Ruffle Scarf-o-Rama

I finally found an item that I can craft in 30 minutes or less, making the labor cost minimal. Honestly, when you buy and sell handmade, labor is almost always going to be the sticking point. The formula recommended is (labor cost per hour)x(hours to make)+(overhead)+(materials cost)=cost per item. Multiply cost x 2 for wholesale, multiply wholesale x 2 for retail. A lot of crafters out there sell at or below cost. I'd venture to say most do, because they are trying to compete with mass produced items. It's OK for a hobby, I guess, but it really doesn't make sense to sell if you're not going to charge a reasonable price. It's essentially giving your time away for free.

For example. Each coaster I make takes me 2.5 hours to physically make it. That doesn't include time I spent creating the pattern, or time I spent photographing and listing the item, packaging and mailing the item (not shipping costs, just my time), or money it costs to list and sell the item. Minimum wage in my state is $8 per hour. A skilled artisan should make more than that, but we'll start there to begin our formula. For now, I'll add a half hour of time and 20 cents to my overhead, which is the cost to list an item on Etsy. There are more fees involved, but it's hard to calculate them out in advance since they are a percentage of your sale price.

3 hours times $8 per hour is $24.
Plus about $1.50 in supplies
Plus that $.20 in fees
So my cost should be $25.70 for a single coaster. Wholesale should be $51.40. Retail should be $102.80. That pesky transaction fee is 3.5%, so it would add a cost of $3.60 up front. Which bumps my cost up to $29.30, so wholesale becomes $58.60, and retail is $117.20. That $3.60 becomes $4.10 and I am sure there is a formula which would help in this situation but I didn't feel like doing the algebra. You get the point, though. My eventual retail price comes out to $119.52. Cost including labor is $29.88. For one single coaster. Even if I sold at cost, with fees it comes out to $26.63.

Want to guess what I'm listing my coasters at right now? $25 for a set of two. Not sustainable, but again, this is my hobby. I'm not thinking about scalability in this case. I make them slowly, and I sell them slowly.

On the other hand, these cute little ruffle scarves are fast, fast, fast. Price for the yarn has ranged from $4-$6 or more. But check out the formula:
1/2 hour times 8=$4
Materials=$6
10.20 cost, 20.40 wholesale, 40.80 retail. After jumping through all of the fee hoops I get $47.44 retail. I'm currently selling them for $20, but at least $50 for a scarf isn't unheard of as a concept.

So. I found some grab bags of four skeins each of neon colored ribbon yarn, to start with. I made these 4 and a purple one, and am considering getting some more in neon yellow.

Next, I got some sporty colored yarn, two different types.

Then I found the glittery holiday type yarn, which has been my favorite to work with so far.

Lastly, some purples. Meant for people who like purple or red-hat-ladies. Either/or. There's a whole crew of them who go to Baker's Square on pie day. I'm thinking of crashing sometime. I've been wearing the multicolor purple one around just as a test, and I love it. I still have it listed for sale as I have materials to make a new one immediately if I get an order.

Anyhow. Yes, I know my product photography is worse than ever. It's a space/light/camera issue. I hope to have it sorted out soon. Next time: adventures in needlepoint.

Back in Crafts

In the last couple of months, I've been busy making new coasters and scarves. More specifics on them in a later post.

I made the decision to attempt to clear out my backstock of crocheted items made (mostly) prior to 2011. All the old scarves and baby blankets are on a steep clearance (think 75-90% off) while they last. Luckily, they had all been carefully stored in a dust-free location, so they are all as fresh as the day I put them away. I'm at a point where I'm kind of done experimenting with specialty fibers, at least in non bridal crochet pieces.

Then, business being business, I had to up the prices of my coasters. They still aren't where they should be, for the time I put into them, but I think they are still reasonably priced for what they are. They also seem to last forever--my first one ever has been on Dan's desk at work for 7 or 8 years now. All it needs is quick rinse in the sink whenever something gets spilled on it, but other than that, it's just holding on and looking great. I realized though that by pricing at a bare minimum, I can't ever offer discounts. And I love a good discount! So I immediately put up a 10% off coupon. Good through Christmas. Details in every listing.

I finally got on Instagram, which has been fun. I'm still sharing it all on Facebook, too, but it's fun to tap a potentially new audience. I'm still working on remembering to hashtag things properly. Photography is still my nemesis. Considering recruiting a few friends as models and photographers to get better product photos for my new line of scarves. More on that next time.

Coming back?

Tap. Tap tap. Is this thing on?

Ahem. It's been awhile. I had about 7 draft posts partially written, and I just deleted all of them without even reading what was there. Suffice it to say that I was stuck. Slowly, bit by bit, I've been coming back. And I think I'm finally ready to write again.

Sam started Kindergarten this year. It's full day in our state, so he is gone from 9 to 4 every day of the week. I'm slowly getting back on top of my housework after a difficult summer. And, I'm back to crafting regularly as Auntie Mel. More about that next post.

In the meantime, here is Sam in his Halloween costume. He was Toad from Super Mario Bros this year.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a nice spooky holiday. Sam played with his Halloween themed sensory bin, as pictured below. Dyed rice, black beans, and stuff from the dollar section (and seasonal section) at Target made a decent bin in an old cake pan. Originally I was hoping to have all the characters from this song, in the appropriate quantities, but I had trouble finding small witches and black cats. (Why couldn't it have been bats? Those things are everywhere!)

I made Sam's costume from a cheap t-shirt and puff paint. He is the villager from Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS. I tried to get a butterfly net for him to go with the shirt, but ended up with a minnow net instead, that was barely used. It was pretty much too cold and he was too cranky to trick-or-treat. Here he is, first thing this morning, looking a little out-of-it, but it was as still as I could get him for most of the day.

For reference, here's a video of what his character is supposed to look like in Smash Bros. Here are a couple of videos of the Animal Crossing games he's played. Lately he's more into Kirby and Yoshi games, but I don't think he could handle that much of a costume yet.

31 Day Challenge: Pantry

Step 12 was the pantry, which followed after the kitchen cupboards quite nicely, as I filled a laundry basket with unopened staples that belonged "not in the kitchen". We designated two three full bookshelves in the basement office for storage of unopened staples and off-season or rarely used cooking canning equipment. I ended up using one of them for the home-canned foods I made over the summer, and one for empty jars, gear, and other supplies.

The other has more store-bought things that it just didn't make sense to store in the kitchen proper. One issue we have with Sam is that he gets a little obsessive of his snack foods, and will pester us relentlessly if he can see that we have one of his favorites and we aren't allowing him to have it right at that moment. For example, chips and cookies have to be stored out of sight, since otherwise he will eat a whole bag over the course of a day and nothing else. Or, worse, he dumps things out on the floor or the furniture and we end up wasting a lot of food, making a mess, and possibly attracting pests! Ugh!

Pictures! [Please note that once again, the office is a work in progress. Home office is step 22 and craft supplies are step 27. We'll get there!]

Before: Canned foods shelf, with two bags of lids and Certo and Sure Jell.

Before: Pantry shelf with empty jars and a lot of things that don't belong!

Before: Food removed from the kitchen

After: Canned foods shelf with nothing on it but canned food! I couldn't quite get far back enough to see the whole thing, but top of the shelf is whole fruit in syrup, relishes, mustards, and some of the applesauce; first shelf is tomatoes and a couple of stray applesauces; next is syrups, next is pickles, next is jams, jellies, and more applesauces, and the bottom shelf is a quart jar holder with tomatoes, pickles, and possibly even more applesauce. You can tell what I canned last and didn't leave room for. I might use some small risers to make room for applesauces on the syrup shelf.

After: Canning equipment with food mill and other straining gear up top, lids and staple ingredients on first shelf, two shelves of jars, and bottom shelf with quart jar box with empty jars and the canner with tools stored inside it.

After: Food pantry with surplus food storage bags and wrap up top; pastas and rice; chips and bagged snacks; cereals, bars, and boxed snacks; baking stuff ingredients; and jars, cans, and bottles.

I had to kick Dan out of the office for awhile to finish this up and write this post, so I better give it back. Onward! #LWSLClutterFree