Decorative Boxes Add Flair & Function to Your Decor

A collection of my decorative boxes

Decorative boxes capture my attention.

One type of decorative box that I really enjoy collecting is the paper ones in all shapes and sizes.   I find these at a variety of places.  My favorite places to find them are at antique malls, flea markets and garage sales.  Surprisingly, I have found many of these in perfect shape for rock bottom prices.  Sometimes I pay 25 cents, and sometimes $2.00.  New decorative boxes are also wonderful, and I sometimes buy them at gift shops. Joann's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's also carry beautiful decorative boxes in all shapes and sizes.

Here are photos of my paper decorative box collection.

These decorative boxes are displayed on the window seat in my bedroom.  I never sit in my window seat, so I use it to display some of my larger decorative boxes. 

  I love the blue and green color combo.  These are nesting boxes.  The small ones fit into the next bigger size until it looks like one large box.  I like to stack nesting boxes for the full effect of the patterns on them.

Blue and green nesting decorative boxes

This elegant soft green box with a black silhouette of a lady also sits on my window seat.  I found her at an antique mall in Fort Collins.  Tres Chic!

Tres Chic - silhouette of a lady and her dog on decorative paper box

 This decorative box features lovely hyacinths on a large square box.  It was one of the first decorative paper boxes I bought at a gift shop in Nashville, Indiana.  Nashville is one of my favorite places to spend a day, but it is no longer close enough to my home to go there on any regular basis.  I have used this for years now to store cute greeting cards that I use when giving gifts and sending out notes to people.

Beautiful hyacinths grace my decorative box for my greeting cards

The rest of my decorative paper boxes are used throughout my home.  Some contain things, and others are used purely for display. Enjoy looking at these and more on my Pinterest site.

Etsy Pocket Shop - Add One to Your Website

What is an Etsy Pocket Shop?

Have you noticed blogs and other websites that display a small version of the owner's Etsy shop at the side of the page?  Some people add what is called an Etsy mini to the page, and some use a widget developed by Craft Cult to add an Etsy Pocket Shop to the page.

Features of a Craft Cult Etsy Pocket Shop

The Craft Cult Pocket Shop has some additional features that I like.  There are tiny tabs across the top of it.  The visitor to your website can click on those for more information about your Etsy site.

• Shop tab - provides scrolling pictures of the items for sale in your shop.  The visitor may click on this to go to that item in your Etsy shop.
• Info tab - provides key information about your Etsy shop including number of items for sale and number of items sold.
• Hearts tab - provides access to a list of all the people who have hearted an item or your shop
• Feedback tab - provides your feedback comments from your Etsy shop starting with the most recent.

How to add an Etsy Pocket Shop to your Website

Take a look at my Pocket Shop at the right, and at the bottom left of it you will see the words "get a widget".  Click on that to go to the Craft Cult page that will give you the tools to put together your own Pocket Shop.  After you enter your Etsy username, you will see a variety of choices to be made for the style of your Pocket Shop.  Choose one of those.  I am using "vintage postcard".  Then you will need to select the style of animation you would like to use.  I am using "slide".  The next step is to specify how you want your items to display.  There are a number of selections available there.  Finally, click on Get Widget.  An HTML code will display for you.

Copy the code and paste it into the appropriate area on your website.  I am using WordPress.org so I paste the code into the side bar of my design using a Widget under Appearance.  If you are not sure how to do this, consult the Craft Cult Widgets page for instructions for your platform.

All of the instructions to create your widget are also available at the Craft Cult site  .

Breathtaking Color for the Senses -Holi Celebration

Be inspired by bold, brilliant breathtaking color this spring!

This morning I saw a small report on the Today show about a celebration of breathtaking color.  The celebration of Holi is beginning in India.

Origin of Holi Celebrations

This event is an ancient Hindu spring festival.  There are many stories explaining its origin. Various renditions of this do not necessarily match one another. One part of the story is of a dark complexioned boy, Krishna, who was jealous of fair complexioned Radha.  His mother told him to color Radha's face with whatever color he would like.  So this started a festival of breathtaking color that welcomes spring, and bright colors.  People throw brightly colored 

powders in the air and mix powders with water to paint their skins.

This grabs my attention because I love beautiful colors and am very visually oriented.  I have no desire to throw colored powders or paint my skin with them.  However, this whole celebration inspires me to take in the color and not to be afraid of bright beautiful hues.  Everything does not have to be subdued.

Web Resources for More Information

In the process of researching this holiday, I found a great website called Sensational Color.  I plan to spend some time on that site looking at all the information there.There is an excellent article there about the Holi Festival.

Another informative and graphic rich article is here.

Yahoo has oodles of wonderful images at this site.

Color Inspiration ~

I am always looking for good color ideas to use in my creative designs of beaded badge lanyards and other accessories.  I need to look beyond my usual color palette sources at all the breathtaking color in this world.

New in the Shop - Polymer Clay Beaded Lanyards

New Polymer Clay Beaded Lanyards

Beaded lanyards are popular, and I am always trying to catch up on my stock of these.  Since I hand make these, and many are one of a kind, it keeps me busy.  Polymer clay beaded lanyards are especially popular.  I purchase handmade polymer clay beads from various artists on Etsy.  So these lanyards are truly unique.

Here are the newest ones.  Each of these is available at my shop, Plum Beadacious.

Planting Seeds Indoors is Child's Play

Planting seeds indoors is child's play ...

when you get to do it with your 4 year old grand-daughter.  My grand-daughter spent the night with us on Saturday, and on Sunday she and I got to work planting flower seeds in preparation for this summer.  We had a good time together.

I purchased a variety of seeds, a large tray of starter peat soil pellets from Jiffy, and some plant markers.  Maggie, my grand-daughter, had fun pouring water all over these pellets so they could get moist and puff up.  We did that before breakfast, and by the time we had eaten our yummy pancakes, the starters were ready for us to plant the seeds.

Let the planting begin ~

Maggie took a pencil and placed a hole in each of the starter peat soil pellets.  I carefully cut open one package of seeds at a time.  We had a total of 72 peat soil pellets to use.  Imagine my surprise when I only had 8 seeds in the first package of seeds.  They are wave petunias, and were the most expensive of the lot.  I guess you only get a few because the wave petunias are still a newer variety of petunias (well not really, I think they have been around for about 10 years).  Anyhow Maggie planted those first and since I told her to place two seeds to a pellet, she didn't even get one whole row out of those.

We moved on to the other seeds which were much more abundant than the petunias.  Maggie and I marveled over all the different shapes and sizes of seeds.  The marigold seeds were long and skinny.  The coleus seeds looked like extremely tiny poppy seeds.  Each flower's seeds are unique.

Of course, Maggie got a little tired of planting seeds before we finished all 72 soil pellets, so grandma finished the job while Maggie munched on some popcorn left over from Saturday night.  It was still surprisingly fresh tasting.

Plants in their temporary home

The whole tray went downstairs to my family room to place in our big window there that faces west and gets lots of sun.  A plastic dome lid went over all to keep the moisture in. Now it is up to me to keep up with this every day.

Planting seeds is so much fun that my husband and I plan to start some green beans and sugar snap peas indoors as well.  Do you ever start seeds indoors?  Leave a comment with your tips and experience.

What is Creativity?

Celebrating 1000 Sales on Etsy

I am so excited!  I hit a milestone today.  I made my one thousand sales on Etsy!  To my wonderful customers, THANK YOU!

I started my current shop Plum Beadacious on Etsy in February 2008, so it took 6 full years to get to this point.  I was so green then, and lacked the knowledge I needed to be a successful handmade entrepreneur.  At that time I took some photos of my limited number of jewelry items, wrote what I thought was a good description, and posted them for sale.  I would go a month or so between sales, and I did not attend to it as well as I should have.

Yet it was a constant dream of mine to create beautiful jewelry and sell in on Etsy.  I bought books on the subject, read the information on Etsy, and constantly scoured the internet for help and advice on everything including identifying my market, taking good photos, writing good descriptions, pricing my work, and social media to get the word out.

Although I hit this milestone that seemed as though it would never come, it is pointing me onward to reach the next milestone.  I truly enjoy doing this business and would love to share with you about selling handmade products online.  If I can help someone else along the way, that would be wonderful.

Enjoy each facet of your small business or whatever it is that you do.