Holiday Sale Now On!

I feel so behind with the holidays this year. Every year around this time, I say I will start prepping earlier next year, but I still haven't mastered that feat. There's always next year to get my act together, though.

Since I don't think I'll have time to partake in any holiday shows, I'm having a big sale in my shop. (Click on image above to enlarge it) I've got an abundance of summer tees that I'd like to clear out to make room for new stock in 2009. So for every 2 tees or totes or a combination of 1 tee and 1 tote, you get a free tee/tote of your choice. The catch is that the free item has to be of equal or lesser value than the lowest priced item and also that the free item must be in stock.

Several new tees have been added to the shop and I will be listing more later today, as well as some other items.





I will be selling some of my goods at this event next Sunday, but won't actually be there. This lovely lady will be selling things on my behalf. Hope the event is a success. If any of you readers are in the Montreal area, please check it out.

And here's a cute image (I'm a little biased) that I came across the other day, c/o this awesome store's new site. They carry an assortment of my kitty items, which reminds me that I should send them some more stock soon.

Less than 60 Seconds or More than 90 Minutes?

Commuting is the topic and hmmm, that's a tough one. Let me think about it for a second... Not! Like I mentioned in yesterday's post, I am back working from home and loving it again. When faced with the choice of either getting up at 5 am 5 days a week and commuting for 1 and a half to 2 hours one way OR getting up when I please and walking up the stairs to my office, well, the choice was pretty clear. I mean I'd be missing out on priceless moments like the one in the photo above if I chose the former. And that is just one of the many reasons why I quit that job.

Not that the job was without its pros. But the cons definitely outweighed them. See, I even made a list:

Pros
- a steady income (for a little while anyways, as it was a contract job)
- it was art-related
- I didn't have to deal with the public
- social interaction with artistic peers; breaks and lunch time were usually entertaining and I met some really nice people there

Cons
- the 1.5 to 2 hour commute each way to the middle of nowhere-land, I mean, Richmond Hill
- 5 am daily wake-up
- $10 a day on transit
- our somewhat decent hourly wage would be changing to payment for the number of "things" you completed in a day, which for me as of last Friday topped the charts at 4... which would make my new hourly wage less than minimum
- a serious lack of good communication between management and staff, a lack of organization and generally too much secrecy; we did sign a confidentiality agreement when we started the job, but I didn't think it meant that we, as staff, would be kept in the dark about what they wanted from us. Heck, we didn't even know how long the contract was for until last Friday. And that wasn't even certain anyways. Things could have been run a lot smoother but I suppose everyone thinks he or she could do things better if he or she was in charge. Honestly though, it's not like I was working at the Canadian Intelligence... I was simply, oh, better not say.
- it was a messy and smelly environment
- social interaction (which was also a pro, but being a naturally introverted person, by the time I got home everyday, I'd be pretty spent, which isn't fair to Matt or the cats)
- not having the energy to do anything else creative once I got home, or even on the weekends
- the cats (mainly Dex, the attention hog) didn't seem too fond of the lack of attention and made it obvious by destroying some of my possessions or wreaking havoc in my office area, so much so that I had to rearrange my desk set-up just so nothing major got damaged.



I think that pretty much covers the pros and cons. Don't get me wrong, though. I am thankful to have had this job, if even only for a month. Every bit helps these days. And thanks, Stacey, for letting me know that your Turkey Day (or Tofurkey Day) hasn't come and gone yet. I wondered why I couldn't place it on my calendar. For some reason, I thought people had already celebrated it.

I can't forget to mention some funny and priceless moments related to this job:

1. The fact that I was even hired is pretty amazing. After arriving late for the interview or test, rather (as the job was based on specific skills you needed), I had to borrow money from my eventual supervisor just so I could get home. I had no idea that you have to pay extra fare after a certain point in Toronto. Had my supervisor not been so kind, I could have been stranded there for a while. I was too upset and hungry to even be that embarrassed though... Lesson learned: always bring enough cash with you.
2. Lack of sleep led me to take the wrong subway direction one morning.
3. Lack of sleep also led me to bring cat food for lunch one day, as my lunch and the cats' food were in similar containers. This led to me having to run to the nearest coffee shop, or shall I say running 1/3 of the way and gasping and walking the rest of the way there. Needless to say, I'm a tad out of shape.

Hopefully I can get back into a regular exercise regime for the winter. If not, oh well, I'll settle for hibernating with this other furball.

I'm Back!

It's been ages since I've blogged. Okay, well only several weeks. I feel a little rusty though. I missed posting about Halloween, the beginning of November, Remembrance Day and American Thanksgiving. Now Christmas is just around the corner. And I haven't had a chance to create any new holiday cards this year as of yet. So the ones from Christmases past will have to do for now. You can find them here.

I'm happy to report that I'm back working from home these days. The job that I started only a month ago was making some changes as far as how we'd be paid, which made it all the easier for me to tell them "Sayonara!" (I'll elaborate more in tomorrow's post.) So I will hopefully get back to creating some new things for the shop very shortly. For sure there will be gift certificates available this year. And I'm considering a holiday sale to clear out an overstock of summer shirts. Check back later this week.

A Long Weekend...

Well, for me anyways.
The concept of long weekends has not really been something I've relished for the past several years, since I worked from home and basically worked everyday. But last week things changed and I started a new job that actually required leaving the house. By the time I got home each day more than 12 hours had passed. Matt would leave the house 3 and a half hours after me, but would still get home before me. To his credit though, Matt did come down with me on Monday morning (that's a 5 am wake-up call) and for a guy who loves his sleep, that was very sweet of him, especially on his day off. Still, you can imagine my reasons for not loving the new job...
Of course, when you're faced with the probability that you may lose something (ie. a job, or freedom), you realize just how valuable that thing may be after all.

In this case, just a week into the new job, all the new hires were told that some of us would be laid off. Ouch! And we wouldn't know who the company would be keeping and who they'd be laying off until later this week. If you've ever thought about slacking off at a job, well then too bad for you. Pretty much all the stuff we'd been doing for the past week was a way to rate who to keep. Not like they had been planning to get rid of people, but with the lagging U.S. economy, their projected sales were not as high as they'd expected so they don't have the budget for the amount of staff that was hired.

So if you haven't already guessed, I was one of the ones who was kept on. Hence, the long weekend. I had prepared myself for bad news, that it wasn't the end of the world if I didn't get called back. But it is a bit of a relief since it'd taken me about nine months of job hunting to land this position. That's a whole other blog post that I will hopefully get around to writing soon. It'll be interesting to see who else is at work on Monday. Toronto certainly doesn't have a shortage of artists and creative types, so I feel for those who didn't get good news.

Today I've been house bound and am loving it. Working on a custom calling card and my own business card which I ran out of weeks ago, but haven't really needed since my shop sales have been kind of slow. That's the downside of working out of the house. I don't have internet access and by the time I get home, I'm too wiped to do anything but veg. Ah, well. Gotta pay my dues. And pay those bills.

Tomorrow is UN Day. The image above is from a yet to be published book that I worked on a while back, the second in the TCK series by Jen Munnerlyn. No new photos or illustrations to show, so old ones will have to do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick post before we sit down for our holiday feast. Yes, Thanksgiving Day is almost over in Canada, so this post is a little late. And yes, that's a frog, not a turkey. But I don't normally draw turkeys (or frogs for that matter), so a frog will have to do.

A big thank you to my lovelySweet Shop customers for helping me reach 800 sales the other day! Hope my fellow Canadian readers are enjoying the day and enjoyed the long weekend too. It was gorgeous here in Toronto and Matt and I ventured out to the beach to take in possibly the last warm weekend this year. The rest of the weekend was spent revamping my website, but I've not yet uploaded the new files.

I think it's about time to eat. I'm VERY grateful for my sweet hubby who made dinner tonight. Yum!

The Times, They Are a-Changin'

It's Sunday, so what better day to reflect on things of the week past. The Clothing Show was pretty good, as my sales improved from the first show I did back in Spring - thank you to all my buyers for your support and purchases!- but they weren't so spectacular that it's convinced me to do another one again. Plus, as my post title suggests, the times, or should I say my times will be changing, so who knows if the show circuit is in my near future?



The most significant change coming up, or the one that has me feeling mixed emotions, is my acceptance of a job outside of the house. While I'm happy to have gotten the position - I've only been applying for jobs since the beginning of this year - it will require me commuting close to 2 hours each way, 6 days a week. Plus, rising hours before the sun comes up. Not a lot of fun, especially since darkness pervades these mornings leading up to winter. I swore that I would never take a job that required more than an hour of commuting one way, but (here I am quoting another song) you can't always get what you want.

It's been several years since I've worked outside of home - thanks to my dear hubby, without whom, I think I'd be in a heck of a bigger mess - and as much as I'd love to continue to do so, the reality of it, is that I'm not making as much as I need to be making to live a comfortable life in downtown Toronto. I'd love to say that I am. I'd love to say that Etsy allowed me to quit my day job. But really, my day job was working from my home. Well, IS, for now. For another week and a half. So my reality is that I have to quit my day job to make more money. How bizarre is that?



My big concern is that the new job won't allow me enough time or energy to devote to my shop and other projects and commitments. I'm also upset that I haven't been able to "make it work" as well I want it to. I know this is just another leg of my journey in life and so I should embrace it and take things one day at a time, but part of me can't help feeling like I've failed a little. I certainly am not going to give up doing what I love, but this post is also to let others know that I may have to close shop temporarily to maintain my sanity.

And speaking of sanity, Matt and I could only handle so much of Nuit Blanche last night before we returned home. We didn't see anything really related to the event aside from lots of people out and about, as we had our own adventure planned for the evening. Some people are okay with crowds, but we are not among them. I love the idea of the event, but maybe if I were 10 years younger, I'd be more into it. Hope whoever was out last night/this morning had a swell time!

Fall Clothing Show Tomorrow!

I'm in the final stages of prep for The Clothing Show, so this will not be a long post. For any of my readers in Toronto, please come by Booth #513 if you can and take advantage of some great deals. Hint: Print the above image from this post out and you can save 20% off my New Fall tees.

I was thrilled to see another of my items on the front page of etsy the other day. What a great looking treasury for Fall too! Well, wish me luck at the Show! I'll let you know how it goes after the weekend.