Holiday fun's over

So it's back to work for me, today and tomorrow. As hubby arranged for a vacation day for today, he automatically gets tomorrow off as well, meaning he has a five-day "vacation" right now. Argh. I need a vacation. A permanent one. I'm seriously looking into opening a standalone website with a store and all, while still doing the blog. I can still cross-post things like events, photos, etc., to the blog pages, while mainly working on the webstore, and using the hosting there for photo storage and such. This would eliminate the need to worry about space on photobucket, or my gmail, etc., or having to upload photos to FB - I can just link to them from there. A lesson I learned a long time ago is that you take maybe half an hour a day to work on something like that and get it done, and go from there.

So, over the next several weeks, I'm going to be spending a tiny bit of time each day photographing something I've got ready to go, and writing up a description of it, so that when I get the site finally going, I can have things ready to list for sale. Only reason to do that now is so that getting stuff set up for sale won't take so long once I buy the domain and install the shopping cart software and all. Honestly, I have a bunch of things to put up, and I don't have photos for everything. I need these ahead of time to get SOMETHING going. Then it's just work on other things as I go and add them a bit at a time. My little ebooks don't take long to write, so that would be a new one every week or two going up for sale as a digital item. I get some sales of my ebooks through Amazon, but seriously, there's so much competition there, it's ridiculous. Ditto Etsy and eBay ... everybody's storefront looks pretty much the same. In order to make this work, I have to stand out.

And I have so many things I can make to sell. Crafting (ornaments of all kinds, picture frame magnets, magnets period - mostly cheap foam crafts, but still, it's quick money), finished needlework and patterns, my little ebooks on homesteading and gardening and DIY how-tos, and jewelry I make, soaps, candles, seeds, my gag gift baskets from one of my ebooks, and my favorite of the Gifts (Not) In A Jar. Maybe baked goods for local customers only. Eventually, there will also be a section for needlecraft supplies, like yarn, needles and hooks, and other patterns. Yep, I got LOTS of plans, lol. I just have to make a little time every day to work on them. Thank goodness for weekends, as I  can make a little MORE time then. And eventually, it will replace my job and I know I will be happier, because I'll be doing what I love to do. Staying home, keeping house, and crafting in all kinds of ways.

That's not to say I won't be doing SOME affiliate income stuff. I think ones like Leisure Arts or Annie's Attic or the like would be cool to have their banners floating. It wouldn't be much extra income, but every little bit would help. I have a lot of planning done, lots of writing done to figure out how I want things to flow. Half an hour a day for a month of designing and re-designing and moving things around will do that for you, so hopefully, things will flow nicely once I get it up and running. Wish me luck!!

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