Spring is FINALLY here. Talk about fashionably late.

This winter was brutal and yet this was the first winter I didn't have to actually work outside in the cold in 6 years.

It was also a winter where I didn't make it to the beach, not even once.  That's hardly surprising considering I have a little human in tow now though.

Is this going to be a sea glassing post?

NOPE. I WISH.

I mean, remember when I used to post every. sea. glass. haul. EVER?

We did try to make it to Bluff Point yesterday though. 

In the jogging stroller for the first time!

We drove all the way to Groton to meet his dad for a walk after he got out of work (he works as a carrier for USPS in Westbrook, CT), and we hadn't even gone walking there since almost exactly a year to the day--the day we saw Buddybear during the ultrasound for the first time (Well, the first time where he actually looked like a human being and not just a gestational sac.)  Once we got Buddybear out of the car and into the jogging stroller, we made it about two minutes down the path before we had to admit it was far too windy and cold for our little tyke.

Which led to a very confusing 10 minutes for Buddybear.  

We decided to go home and walk there, where we thought it was less windy, since it was hardly windy at all yesterday. Turns out the wind was here to stay, so we gave up.

Today it's considerably warmer, but I tried to drink a coffee on the porch in a tank top and decided I was better off indoors.  AGAIN.

Meanwhile, in additon to the #buttonaday posts on instagram, I decided to tackle @lu_and_ed 's #creativedaily . I'm really having a blast with my shop instagram account.

In other news, Buddybear is going to be 6 months old on the 13th--when did that happen? I know I'm going to be saying the same thing when he's 6 years old, which is going to be like tomorrow, right?

I mean, it's been 7 years since I first went specifically sea glassing in Watch Hill, and Watch Hill is where Taylor Swift lives, and Shake it Off is one of Buddybear's favorite songs.  No joke.  It's my fault but he smiles every time it comes on.

 Oh, remember when my sea glass display looked like this?  I don't either. (September 2009)  That white cabinet is definitely my spice rack in my kitchen now.

Since I moved out of my mother's basement in 2010, my sea glass has been bagged up and put away.  I think we're going to eventually put it in the bay window in our bedroom, but I don't want the window to fall off the house. LOL

It's a massive work in progress, though I do miss taking my sea glass out and just messing around for photos.

Also September 2009...definitely curious as to how I will photograph it differently whenever I unpack it!  I started working as a photographer professionally a year after this and I've learned a ton since.

I know, short blog post.  I'm still getting back into the hang of things. :)

Instagram!

Last week I started a new Instagram account for my Etsy shop.  I had been using my @meganmcgory account for Etsy related posts but realized I needed to break it out if I was going to grow my shop and traffic to it.

Follow here!

@mannequinreject

Search #mannequinreject for all the earlier posts under @meganmcgory.

So far I'm doing a daily "Button a Day" post where I feature different buttons!  A couple other button collectors and I are also doing this, so check out #buttonaday.  I think, after I amass enough photos of buttons, I'm going to offer button photo prints for sale through my smugmug and maybe even through Etsy.  Maybe I'll do a photobook and sell that too.  I am still a photographer and a writer, after all.

Check out #buttonaday !  Also #buttonlove

These buttons sold a couple months ago.

In other news, it's FINALLY spring!  And that means it's time for SPRING CLEANING, which I've been dying to do because my craft room (above) sure as heck isn't that clean right now, and the rest of the house needs a good do-over.  We've only been here just over a year but my god with all the baby stuff that he's growing out of and all the stuff we never really finished, the whole house looks like it's exploded from every angle you look at it.

Meanwhile, this morning I had my biggest Etsy sale EVER.  So big that it actually trumped every MONTH's worth of sales on Etsy EVER.  I just about fainted.  However, I had just awakened when I saw the email and promptly made myself an entire pot of coffee, since I'm the only one around here who drinks it.

Biggest. Sale. EVER.  And they were all the boho bracelets --one rainbow bracelet and two others.  Why did I not think to make those sooner? Wow!

A part of me wants to get out of selling vintage clothes.  I've had a bunch of clothes in the shop going on 7 years now and (as I usually do) I go through phases of wanting to sell off the entire lot and be done with it.  They are just so much work and I have about 75 pieces of clothes to list and it takes all day to do just 1/10th of that if I were working on it full time.  I hate to say I just don't have that kind of time, because a 5 month old demands a lot of work.  There is no such thing as putting in a solid 8 or 12 hours of work on dresses right now, unless I had help, and I don't make enough money to hire an assistant.  So...the dresses either have to go or they have to wait.  I'm not sure what I should do there. 

I'm back with a new little sidekick and a new line of jewelry!

Hello again! Remember how I kept mentioning how pregnant I was?  

Here's my little sidekick! (And his daddy!)

 

This is Little Roger.

He's growing WICKED fast.

Little Roger is almost 4 months old already, and it took just about that long for me to get used to juggling the needs of a very new and loveable baby and just about everything else.  I let my Etsy shop coast for quite a while since I had built it up so much over the summer but all I had energy/time to do was ship orders out as they came in.

While out and about just before Christmas, hanging out with my mother-in-law just so I could get the heck out of the house, this new jewelry line hatched.  She was looking for an inspirational bracelet for her pastor and couldn't find anything she liked.

Suddenly, something clicked.

So I went home and made this.

There's a similar one listed in my Etsy shop.

Boho Wrap Bracelet - Inspirational Jewelry, Trust, Faith, Hope, Believe in Denim Blue with Sodalite, Lapis, Labradorite, Czech Glass Beads

Ever since I started making jewelry for my flea market booth and Etsy shop in 2007-8, I've struggled with finding a voice.  I love love LOVE Czech glass beads and I LOVE semi-precious stones and I have a ton of both but there's only so many pairs of earrings I can make and hardly any of my stone jewelry/nature line ever sold...EVER.  All of the sudden, all of these materials came together in Boho Wrap Bracelets, which I can't seem to stop making and I'm finally using all these beads that I bought a ton of, way back when.  That night, I made a bracelet for my mother in law for Christmas, and I made a bracelet for my own mother to match the necklace I made her for her 50th birthday in 2009.

I made wrap bracelets until I ran out of wire, and then I bought some more and kept right on going.

#309 Boho Wrap Bracelet - Deep Ruby Red with Garnets, Labradorite, Antique Buttons, Smokey Quartz, Freshwater Pearls, Czech Glass Beads & Charms

#319 Boho Wrap Bracelet - Pink and Green Czech Glass Beads with Malachite, Aventurine, Chrysoprase, Dyed Agate, and Charms

And then...I made a huge one...for ME. Because I wanted to make an attention grabber that I could use to advertise my shop.  I have made a few pieces for myself over the years and handed out business cards when people ask.  I've heard whispers of "hey, she's wearing clock hands for earrings" while out at Ocean State Job Lot. 

So here is the most awesome piece of jewelry I've ever made, which I call "The Button Box (#326)."  I've been hoarding glass buttons ever since I started selling buttons on Etsy, and started putting them in my jewelry during the past year.  There are some buttons I would admit that I would miss if I sent them off to new homes, so I used many of them in this bracelet, and I used the best of the beads I own, as well as semiprecious stones.

The Button Box - Vintage and Czech buttons with Czech beads and Labradorite, Fluorite, Garnets, Carnelian, Aventurine, Chrysoprase, Peridot, Malachite, Turquoise, Amazonite, Lapis, and Amethyst.

Of course, I'm open to making another one, but they're extremely limited as I don't have many yellow or orange buttons.  If there's a high demand, I'll source more, but a lot of these buttons came from lots I got at yardsales so the colors were up to chance.  (I used to buy small buttons from EKSupplies on Etsy, but she doesn't seem to have any left to sell.  Still, she's a fab seller!)

So that's bringing you up to date.  I also started a new little website, Adventures with Meg, since I used to post some adventures in here and that site also has Saab shots. 

I hope to be able to post new blog posts once a week, but that might be a bit too ambitious.  We'll see. :)