Blood, Sweat, Beads & Travel

Those who follow with some regularity know that I make and sell beaded jewelry as a way to help cover the cost of our travel and this website.

What you don’t know is that we’ve had trips to the Everglades, Big Bend National Park, and the Grand Canyon all in the works. Two of these trips we’ve already taken in the past couple of months and you’ll be reading about them in the future. We have one more planned and we’ll be heading west (hint) later this year. Needless to say, it’s been a very busy three months and progress on my many projects has been all but halted as a result.

In between excursions hubby is (and has been) doing his part to make sure we save enough to cover our expenses by working as much overtime as possible. I, on the other hand, have been slacking and I really need to get it together.

In all honestly I got overwhelmed with the planning process and started overthinking everything. Many state and National parks are REQUIRING reservations due to Covid restrictions. That means no travel at will. EVERYTHING has to be planned and executed without hiccups. It’s been challenging since this is not normally our method of travel. I don’t know why I let these sort of things stress me out, but they do. All this extra brain work put my “business adventure” on hold. That said, things are finally returning to normal and I’m back to the creative life and more than ready to focus on sharing my creations with you.

I looked at several sites trying to find the best place to showcase my handmade jewelry and I’ve even considered opening a second website. But no single plan seemed to fit with my needs exactly. So when it came to making a decision on how to move forward I measured my available time and money against the need for exposure. I decided it was best to keep things simple for now even if my exposure ended up being limited. I know it will take longer to build momentum this way, but I’d rather follow the proven method of slow and steady than a fast and furious failure.

The travel series will continue as always and I’ll be adding a series called Tinker Tuesday where I’ll occasionally post and discuss all things beaded and created. This will include progress on larger or artistic works like my beaded canvases…

and odd projects like these beaded travel rocks.

Pieces that I produce for sale will be showcased and placed on our merchandise page where our stickers and links to our t-shirts are already available.

(I apologize for the shaky video – I guess a gimbal purchase for these aging hands is in our future.)

We are pretty excited about these upcoming changes, so if you are a regular reader we hope you will find something in these additions to our website that you can value. If you’re not into all the creative stuff, simply ignore it and join us on Wednesdays when we continue to tell the story of where we came from and where we are headed.

Who we are, What we do, How we got started and How you can help

If you are new here and you would enjoy hearing about our journeys and learning along with us, please consider subscribing and if you want to know how it all began read our first post.

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