it's getting there

I have been feeling slightly miffed by this injury of mine. I haven't been doing much playing, haven't been doing any working out and certainly haven't done any heavy lifting. I get frustrated pretty easily. (if you couldn't tell, just spend a day with me)

Yesterday all that changed.

I received an order on Etsy yesterday. A simple chalk board frame that I have already created, or at least I thought I had already created. Turns out, as I went to search through my finished goods yesterday, I had already sold it! You can imagine my panik as I thought what am I going to do!

I took a deep breath, grabbed a window frame from my unfinished goods pile and got to work! WOW that felt much better! Being productive and creative is much more fun than feeling sorry for yourself! And although it was a physical struggle to get the first coat of primer on this window frame. I did it and did it with a smile!

Now all I need to do is bug that boy friend of mine for my own work bench! Look at this! It's covered with tools and such that I don't possibly need. Any suggestion on how I am going to get this accomplished? ;)

Vinyl Seriously?

I have been painting my chalk board window frames for some time now with a lot of success. There is some draw backs but.... for the most part I really like it.

I personally use it in my own house.

Today, I tried vinyl chalk board. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!!!!

First, my boy friend and I tried every trick in the book. We continued to get bubbles in the sticker. WHY?!?!? I was so admit this would work. We left our project with a very bad taste in our mouth. I was even worried at the end ( after a good solid hour of trying over and over) that our solid team work would diminish!

Does anyone have suggestions?

My business partner and sanity depends on it!

What are you doing tonight?

I got a phone call early yesterday afternoon. A friend of mine from high school says, "what are you doing tonight?"

Your first response when someone asks you this should be "why?" instead of "nothing". There is always a reason for the question and you always need to give yourself an out!

I learned this much too late.

This phone call wasn't all that innocent, although she wasn't asking all that much of me, she was still asking. Morgan (the friend from high school) explained to me that her friends were putting on this charity fashion show that night and were down one model. She begged and pleaded for me to help. "It's just one dress and then you can go" she said.

My first thought was, how do I get myself out of this? But as I searched for an excuse, I came up short. "okay" I said.(With a lot of reluctance in my voice) After all, it was for charity right?

After driving around lost for 20 min. or so, and then realizing Morgan wasn't even at the event yet, I was less than thrilled to be doing this. I kept saying to myself, It's for charity Lauren. Be nice! 


Once I found the location and the friend of a friend of Morgan's, I felt a bit more comfortable. Once again I had to keep reminding myself How bad could it be? 


Here is where the trick comes in!

As I entered the dressing room I realize that I wasn't just there to model a dress, I was there to model a wedding dress!

The joke really was on me! And of course, Morgan was no where to be found. I couldn't even complain or get up to leave! After all, at this point I am with a friend of a friend. It isn't polite to throw a fit among people you just met!

I tried of my "dress" as instructed. I didn't have the "moment" that brides have when they try on their wedding dress. I wasn't a bride and I wasn't happy. This dress could have been the prettiest dress in all of the world, but it didn't matter, I was still going to pout! I felt large, it was tight. I couldn't sit down and the shoes I had to wear were too small. Couldn't I just get this over with already?

To top it all off, the dress rehearsal totally freaked me out. I am not a model! I am not even close to being graceful in heals, let alone stilettos  that were two sizes too small! I just kept thinking don't fall, don't fall, please don't fall! 


In the end my experience wasn't as terrible as I made it seem. I got to meet a lot of very nice girls, I got to play dress up for a few hours and I got all the attention down that runway. Who could ask for more? Did I mention that it was for charity?

I had escaped with only a single picture, which I will show to you so you can truly experience my embarrassment. Anything for page views right?

2 Steps Back

My first step back was my first sale, my fear and lack of knowledge of sending off my first product.

Last week, I had decided to jump back on the horse, so to speak and get rockin and rolling again. I want to make my Etsy store work. I need to make my Etsy store work.

Then I feel off the horse again. Literally this time.

I dislocated my shoulder, and upon further inspection (by a very over priced doctor) pinched a nerve in my neck. My right hand/ arm is useless.

Can you say frustrating?!? I think so!

So now what? Well, my shoulder will take some time to heal, but its my mind I worry about. Here I am being held up in bed and all I can think about is the cool things I could be making, the photos I should be taking or the fact that my dog smells terrible and needs a bath!

So I write this blog to you, my 2 only followers with the hopes that I can turn this frustation into something productive. Perhaps I can spend more time on my blog meeting new friends?

I'm Back!

After a much needed vacation (that lasted much longer than anticipated) I am finally back to working on my Etsy Store!

I made my first big sale before I left for Peru and let me tell you, it was dramatic! I have never been more nervous in my life! On one hand, I was worrying about my trip and getting business complete before I was MIA for 10 days. On the other hand, I hadn't shipped a large window chalk board yet and I wasn't sure how well it was going to ship!

My first customer was in Maryland and I completely underestimated the cost of shipping. I had thought I had done a good job with those automated shipping calculators but boy was I wrong! After finding just the right box (thank you Uline) and wrapping it with everything I had under the sun to keep it safe, the package was much larger and heavier than I had imagined. We all learn the hard way right?

If that wasn't bad enough, I forgot to include the hanging materials in shipping. I hadn't realized until the next day! I was even more nervous and more flustered! I rushed shipped the picture hanger only to realize this was going to make it before my actual window chalk board did. How embarrassing!!

In the end, it was a rush to get everything together and keep me from completely pulling out my hair! My customer was a bride who was using my chalk board window as a decoration in her wedding to point people to their designated tables. I knew that no news was good news from a bride. What bride wants to follow up about their purchase on their honey moon?

I checked my email a few times when I was in Peru. I was a bit paranoid, but ultimately the window had to make it in one piece or I would have heard something. Thinking back on it, I really wish I would have asked for some photos of my window frame chalk board! But, first experiences are always something to learn from, right?

Sunset Beach CA

It is amazing what you can find when your not even looking.

The day we found this particular window, the one that began this whole idea, was just an ordinary Saturday afternoon.

We rode our bikes down to the beach. A little over a mile ride, it was a beautiful sunny day and the exercise was much needed. For us anyways, Sydney our dog didn't appreciate being dragged along to the beach as much as we thought she might. Apparently a mile is a bit too far for our big girl.

I am constantly saying, we need to come up with a business idea. A beach girl a heart, I desperately need to find a profession that will take me out of the office, and into the outdoors. Something I can be passionate about and use my pent up creativity. As Ron and I discussed my varying degrees of crazy ideas, Sydney almost ran into my inspiration.

Right there behind the beach houses, also known as multi million dollar mansions in Southern California, was this old discarded window.

Its strange to say but, I almost felt bad for this treasure. Here it was sitting next to the trash cans of these amazing homes. discarded, forgotten about, trash. There isn't use for an old beat up single pane window  next to these well manicured shoe boxes with double pane windows. But here is was, at it was mine!

It's cliche to say, one man's trash is another man's treasure but.... thats how I felt!

Hopefully you find the treasure in this window frame chalk board as much as I do!

Wine Cork

Originally, I thought it would be a great idea to collect all my wine corks and reuse them in my new endeavor , Window by the Sea. 

I had collected a fairly decent amount before I began making our first cork board/ chalk board window. As I began placing the wine corks on the window, it became very clear that either I 

A: needed to drink much more wine

B: needed to find a better way to collect wine cork. 

Although choice A was clearly the most fun of the two choices, I wasn't sure how long or how much I could possible drink for "business". 

I began researching where I could find wine cork. It was important to use wine cork because I wanted to keep my theme of reclaimed and recycled resources to use with my reclaimed windows. Being a novis wine connoisseur, collecting wine cork and storing them in my vintage blue mason jars, was just another reason I loved wine. Now I had a use for these!

As I went through all my jars of wine cork, I realized that at least 10% of what I collected was synthetic wine cork, or "look alike" cork. I didn't put much thought into it when collecting them, but as they now have a purpose for my windows, I was curious why I had so many synthetic corks? Was I drinking incredibly cheap wine or was I missing something? 

I had heard that there was a shortage on wine cork and that the cork tree was becoming obsolete. But why? If I was going to find a source to get wine cork, I wanted to know a little bit about the material I was using and if I was helping with the demise of the wine cork tree. 

Finding answers, while using the interntet wasn't as black and white as I wanted it to be. On the first webpage I visited I found Fact and  Fiction of the Wine Cork. Here I learned that there in fact is  not a shortage of wine cork and that contrary to belief wineries are using synthetic cork or screw tops for financial purposes. 


The second sit I visited completely contradicted the first. There was a shortage in Portugal (one of the main cork tree exporters) due to over harvesting. But wait, I had just read that you don't cut down a cork tree, (part of the oak family) but instead you harvest the bark. Every 9 years to be exact. I also learned that the cork tree absorbs 10 times more CO2 than one that is not harvest. Go cork tree, right? 


But there is still a much heated debate as to whether wine cork stoppers are the best way to cork your wine. Experts argue that while cork stoppers are the traditional way to cork wine, using a synthetic cork stopper or screw cap is the optimal choice. 


A PR nightmare for cork producers was introduced in 1974 when the quality of cork had severely decline in Portugal. "Corkiness" as it soon was termed, tainted the wine cork industry and the wine it was preserving.  Experts argued that between 1 and 4% of all wine on the market was contaminated with "corkiness". 


What's corkiness? good question! I was confused myself.


 “corkiness,” a condition that exists when wine is tainted by the presence of a chemical compound called 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole - TCA for short. This compound appears to be caused in the cork by the interaction of moisture, chlorine and mold. Corks are often exposed to these elements during their production and TCA can form. (TCA also occurs naturally in the wood and bark of many trees, including the oak family.) Unfortunately, the human nose can detect this “corkiness” at concentrations as low as 4 parts per trillion!


So that was it. The Pandora's box that began the entire debate, screw top or wine cork.


But what did this mean to me and my cork board project? Well, it meant that if I bought wine corks from an outside source (keeping in mind that they had to be used cork not new) I needed to pay close attention to the descriptions. Synthetic cork just won't do. 


In the end I found a supplier of used wine corks that would sell to me without any synthetic cork in the lot. It was a difficult find, and expensive material. But well worth the outcome! Check out our Etsy store,  to see our finished product!