KPDreams Blog is on the move

Good morning readers. I appreciate all the following you have given me, and hope to continue the same interaction on my new blog. I am a warm person and I feel this blog site is far too technical driven. Therefore I will continue all my future blogs on

http://missmessycrocker.blogspot.com/

I hope to see you there. There will be interesting articles, lots of pictures, recipes, family stories and much more. Come visit me at a warm and nurturing site… Hope to see you soon.

Holiday Hoopla

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t keep up with the holiday seasons. When I go into the stores they have taken the Christmas stuff down and immediately filled the shelves with Valentines and Easter merchandise. Now that means that I have to work on Valentines & Easter decorations for my business in December. Well, if you are like me, you are still dealing with the Christmas merchandise and decorations.

It isn’t too bad with the holidays that stay within the seasons, but, who can think of snowy Christmas when it is hotter than you know what in July. Because right after 4th of July everyone starts thinking Christmas. Now there is a little Halloween in there, but mostly Christmas. And it’s 80 degrees out…

I think I have found the solution, I will start working on Christmas stuff in January for the next year. The problem with that is that I will store it and not remember where it is and I will have to miss an entire selling season. Do you feel they are rushing the seasons? How do you deal with it?

Sort, clean and create

Sorry for the break in posts. My hubby came home from OTR and we have been enjoying thrifting and going to flea markets. I have opened a new category on my Etsy store; Vintage. I have always loved the vintage and have an entire 10 X 20 storage building full of my cherished antiques. I have been collecting since the early 70’s and am always looking for the one piece that will complete a look.
We are in Florida and one couldn’t ask for better flea markets. We have two local ones we just love, Cowboy Junction and Stokes. Both offer a limited number of new finds, but mostly those wonderful “junk” items. And I love the “junk”. As well, there are thrift stores galore. So we have been filtering through these stores, remembering and scouring for that perfect find. Some of these I will list, and some I will keep.
Now for the sorting, today I am starting my “old” journey. It is where I started, country primitives. I originally painted on slate and creating unique primitives to add to my house of antiques. I love the country magazines and found I couldn’t afford all the littles extras, so I would recreate them. And that is where I have found myself; I have come full circle. So today, I am going to sort through my stash of supplies, and see just what I can create or recreate out of them.
I am also in the process of redesigning my Blog to make it more user friendly and informative. There will be recipes, how-tos and patterns added shortly. So stay tuned, you don’t want to miss what I find in my tubs of heaven.

New Year, New Look

Well today is the first day of the rest of my life as they say and I am going to make it useful. I have several projects set aside to start, but just can’t seem to get into them. And as I have found in the past, if I am not in the mood, forget it, they will not turn out the way I want them. So I will wait for that inspiration.

Today, I am going to start the process of unloading my trailer, sorting through boxes and refreshing my look. I have several display pieces that should be reworked; new paint, replace missing screws, etc.. So I will start there. Then I must look at my table covers. Each year I have told myself that I will make myself new table covers. And each year I procrastinate until the season starts and I don’t have time. Today I am going to sort through my table covers, discard those with stains and holes, and use the balance to make custom covers that fit down over the tables. So much more effecient, as I won’t worry about the corners getting stepped on, the wind blowing them around and mostly the wicking effect when it rains. Nothing is worse to come in in the morning after a rain and find your entire table wet, not from a leaky tent, but from the wicking affect. As well, I will finish off several of the table top accents that I use, no more raveled edges, I will hem them properly.

Once that is done, I will start my new process of photos of my products. Was told recently they could use some help, so I will look into building a light box. I will post that process another day.

Earthquake in Haiti

As I sit by the television and see the horrors in Haiti I find myself feeling helpless. How can I help? This same feeling came over me while watching the Katrina disaster. The daily coverage of American citizens fighting for survival left me feeling frustrated and the images are still with me.
I cannot travel to Haiti and if Katrina taught me anything, it was not to sit by in anguish; stand up, do something to help. That is why I have changed my charity on this blog to the American Red Cross. Your support will help the Red Cross to provide the support in Haiti.

To take this one step further, I am also going to donate 30% of all sales on my website; http://www.kpdreams.com to the American Red Cross. The donations will be calculated on all sales received from this point through January 30, 2010. I am hopeful that if you are looking at a specific item, this is the time to buy. Help yourself, but also help the people of Haiti at the same time.

I have been taken to task with a complaint that I am trying to profit from the people of Haiti’s plight. This is certainly not the case and the 30% represents my profits from my products. I will be donating my profits to the American Red Cross through the month of January for all purchases made on http://www.kpdreams.com. I thank you in advance for your help.

And if you are not comfortable with my offer, I call upon you to make a donation on your own. The people of Haiti need our help. I thank you for listening.

Nothing is as it should be

Well today Mark McGuire admitted his use of steroids to enhance his performance on the baseball field. It has been reported that this is an attempt to be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Will this work? I certainly hope not. McGuire and all the others have cheated the game, they cheated the fans and beyond all they cheated themselves. How can they possibly know their potential if they were playing under the influence of performance enhancing drugs. They should get no more consideration for hall of fame status as Pete Rose.

Today, I was searching various webpages and found several offers and things that weren’t what they claimed to be, offers to make me rich with little effort, widgets that claimed to make jobs so much easier and items that claimed to be handmade that were not. My mother always told me, “Don’t believe nothing you are told and half of what you see.” That is more true today than ever.

Snow in Florida

As I watch the weather on TV I hear the sleet hitting the roof of my Motorhome. Brrrr… And there is more cold air to come. I feel for the farmers. They work so hard throughout the year and to have their fruit gone in just a “snap”.

More cold to come today..record cold with wind chills in the low 20’s to teens…again in Florida? I looked at the map thinking I would just pack up my motorhome and head south. That wouldn’t do any good either. If the cold air comes in as fast as they are predicting, it could snow in West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale & Miami and only in the high 40’s and low 50’s in the Keys.

Well, put on another layer and hold up for another day.

Don’t become the victim

I recently talked to a fellow business owner about a problem she was having with breached contract. Seems she paid this person several hundred dollars to place an ad in their publication. It was never published. When questioned, she was told it is in final prep, and so forth…several times she called and questioned, and several times they continued to put her off. Then in December, another withdrawal of several hundred dollars was taken for the next months publication. And the first one hadn’t been produced. You can see where this is going…she was swindled.

When this happens, the first one we tend to blame was ourselves. We question our thought process and whether there was something that we should have noticed. And when we are put off, we tell ourselves, this is a just a glitch and we don’t want to be the bad guy, it will happen. And how could we be so wrong, I am sure it will happen. Wrong!

Bad things happen to good people. Smart people…look at the way that Bernie Madoff swindled those people. Smart people and they lost millions. Don’t blame yourself, don’t question your ability to make judgements. These people have the ability to convince the Arabs into buying oil…and they choose to use this gift in a bad way.

Don’t take these incidents as a failure, look at them as a way to stand up and fight for what is rightfully yours. Take the appropriate actions so that perhaps another person won’t be taken. What an empowering feeling to help another person!

It’s still cold outside

Well, the warm weather hasn’t reached Florida yet. Now today they said we had a heat wave, but if you call 56 degrees a heat wave I need to move further south. To make matter worse, they say there might be a chance of “SNOW” in Florida tomorrow…yes I said snow in Florida…if not, at least some grapple. That’s what they call sleet here. So we continue to hold up in the MH.

I have not been sitting idle. I have been working hard on my kpdreams.com and on http://www.etsy.com/shop/kpdreams. I have updated my descriptions, retaken pictures and painted some new items and added them. I am hoping it will pan out. I believe it will be productive, but it will take a while.

Well, off to update some products on my webpage. Stay warm and survive the cold!

Cabin Fever

It has been several days of cold weather here. Weather in the low 50’s with a wind chill factor which is not typical for Florida. An occasional cold day now and then is typical, but not weeks on end. So I hold up in our MH trying to keep warm and attempting to get new merchandise done. Now the issue is clothing. When one heads to a warm climate they bring a couple sets of warm clothes. Sufficient to ride out an occasional day. But days on end?
I have spent my time researching shows, designed a couple new patterns, started two new stitching projects (yes two; too many thoughts in my head), worked on my Etsy store, worked on my webpage, chatted on Facebook and I am still suffering from cabin fever. The weather people advise it will be the middle of next week before it starts to warm up; no break insight. Perhaps a game of cards with my hubby will break the spell, I always win and winning feels so good.