My new fav thing to do is paper crafting.  I love scrapbooking, card making and now I have gotten in to other things like making wreaths and mini scrapbooks.  It is just such a stress relief for me.   At the end of this last semester I was really tense and stressed.  I sat around and crafted and for the first time I realized just how relaxing crafting really can be.  Funny as it may sound it was an awesome feeling.

Well I got really bummed because twice a year they have a craft show, it’s called CHA.  It’s called the Craft and Hobby Association.  It is held once in the summer and once in the winter.  The summer CHA is held in Chicago, or at least it has been the last two years, and the winter CHA is held in California but that one is only for retailers.  Well  since my family is all from IL, just outside of Chi-town I thought it would have been great to visit with family and try to go to the show.  Well that didn’t work as planned.  We decided to not go home for a visit this year because of school and the fact that we are moving next summer.  We would have spent a decent amount of money to go home to visit.  Well that just sucked.  I totally could have met a bunch of my bloggy buddies and just had an awesome time.  Well one of these years I will attend.  Maybe I can get in on a design team with one of the manufacturers and they can invite me to go and help set up their trade show display booth.  Then I would HAVE to go right?   LOL!  Yeah well that won’t happen anytime soon because school takes any of my free time.  I had to get a design team for my blog just to keep it going.  Wishful thinking though, right.

One day, though, I will make it there!!!

I am not sure I ever did an official post on this blog about my scrapbook kit club that I started up last year.  Last September I decided to start a scrapbook kit club.  I didn’t have much support in the beginning and so I really didn’t think I would make it more than a couple months.  Well we are almost to one year later and I am happy to announce that things are moving in a positive direction.

Our kits are very reasonably priced for how packed they are.  They are filled with pattern papers, coordinating cardstock, and fabulous embellishments.  If you have a chance you should check it out, www.artfuldelight.com

Would you like some inspiration in your crafting, a sketch to use to create your layout.  Some incentive to scrap, well on our blog we have monthly challenges are you are playing to win one of Artful Delight’s monthly kits.  You can check that out here.    We have a team of delightful designers that help with the inspiration and we try to post something new for you daily.  Become a follower of the blog to get our daily inspiration. 

Well I am not so sure they are totally new but they look new to me.  I was blog hopping today and I saw these super cute projects on Glue Arts blog.  They were bracelets and headbands using a product from Epiphany Crafts.   They also showed making earrings, looked like they used some lapel pins to make them.   All I know is I am going to have to get the tools and accessories from Epiphany Crafts to make some headbands and earrings. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post we plan on moving next summer.  Hopefully to a town in the middle of the desert in Arizona, lol.  The houses out there are really big and decently inexpensive.  I am excited by the thought that I might actually have a craft room.  Some of the houses we have looked at have 5-6 bedrooms.  YIKES, what would we do with all that space. 

So I have been browsing the web and getting craft space ideas.  Looking for ideas on how to organize my space.  I would really like to find garage sale and thrift store items that I can refinish.   On a side note we may need to find some thrift store chairs to use in the kitchen, the chairs we have are falling apart and may not last another year.  I could get some upholstery fabric and redo the seats.

Anywho, I really want to make the space my own, where I can have all my stuff neatly organized and have a place I can craft and also be able to find my craft supplies.  Now I am so unorganized I can never find anything.  So basically that will be my fun over the next year, find fun things to fill use in my new craft room.    LOL!

Lately it seems like everyone I know is having a baby, old friends from high school, family, and new friends I have met over the years.  I enjoy making cards so I will never need any greeting cards but I need to think of ideas for new mother gift baskets.  There are so many cute ideas online and videos I can watch on Youtube.  Maybe I need to check some of those ideas out.  I know of several friends and family that are pregnant or just recently had babies.

So 7 months ago I decided to change my web store to a monthly scrapbook kit club.  Basically I wouldn’t buy and sell individual paper crafting products but I would sell a kit, items I put together from various manufacturers to make an awesome monthly kit.  At first I only had one scrapbooker help me promote the kits and it was a super slow start.  I don’t think I got any sales the first 2 months.  BUMMER!  Well then in November I expanded my “design team”, basically it is a group of crafters that create projects using the monthly kit, they post about it and promote the kit on their blogs.  I ended up choosing 3 girls on top of the one girl I had already.  November and December sales picked up a wee bit.  Now come December the first girl that originally helped me promote my kits decided that she couldn’t be versatile and try new products, she was stuck on using the same companies and types of products.  Well that isn’t going to work for sales.  People Buyers want a variety.

So anywho, sales have progressively picked up and now I have 6 or 7 active subscribers, plus I sponsor a giveaway almost every month and I have a sketch challenge which I giveaway a kit too.  So I am super excited that things are going in the right direction.  I LOVE shopping for scrappy goodies, I love being able to sell these kits.  In addition, I had to raise the price starting last month and I was really worried people wouldn’t buy it at the higher price.  Thankfully that hasn’t stopped people.

My kits are jam packed with amazing products.  And I think for what is included the price is still reasonable.  If you are a scrapper or paper crafter, please check out www.artfuldelight.com to see the monthly kits or you can check out artfuldelight.blogspot.com for inspiration. 

I am so excited that Artful Delight is starting to pick up in business.  A couple months ago, heck 7 months ago, I decided to change from selling a variety of craft products to selling monthly scrapbooking kits.  The first couple months, were very slow, I don’t think I had any sales.  Now to be fair I had no real way to “advertise” either.  The one girl that I would send the kits to for free in return for projects made using the kit and “advertisement” on her gallery.  Well she wasn’t getting enough traffic to her gallery and wasn’t getting any bites.  So in November I expanded my “design team” to 3 more ladies.  Oh my goodness they have done amazing things for me.  I am so totally excited.  They deserve some gold bars, or stars or something.  I just can’t believe how much interest I have now.

Now of course I have tons of room to grow and I am by no stretch “making money”  but I think that is only because I give away 3 kits a month to the design team and I am also sponsoring a blog challenge once or twice a month.  I am at least making my money back or losing a little but again when I am giving away 4 kits that I could potentially be making $120 from, I think that is good since I am not losing that amount every month.  I hope to grow pretty big, I am having a ton of fun!