my mini vacation

it's so nice to get out of town for a little while! me and a few girlfriends left last friday morning and headed up to ruidoso, new mexico for the weekend. we stayed in some cute little condos that had the perfect view (above, view from our back porch). i'll post more later, right now my internet is running a little slow... 

here's the entrance to our residence for the weekend. love the red door.

this is what you see if you walk down outside our condo in the back. there are some nice little trails to follow and the deer are not shy!

!!!!

i love books. the feel of the cover, the smell of the ink, the crack of the spine as i open a new book the first time. so you can imagine my delight when i arrived home rather late from work thursday night to find a package on my doorstep, with these two darling books inside. there was a feature on d*s last week about this domino book. i couldn't resist this beautiful book created by the designers of my favorite magazine. grace from d*s also mentioned this colors for your home book sometime last week, which is a great resource of interior designer's favorite colors and how to use them. i couldn't resist that one, especially since i always have a hard time picking out colors... i haven't gotten all the way through the domino book yet, but i'm about to spend some quality time with it before doug gets home from work. and the bonus? i got it for $10 off at amazon, and it includes a year's subscription to the magazine!

flocked paper...

okay, so i admit it. i really have it bad for flocked paper. i mean, if i could find some awesome chartreuse flocked wallpaper (that i could afford anyway) it would pretty much be covering my entire house right now. i guess that's why i like amanda's book so much. hot pink flocked paper? what more could you want... 

i love the funky flower paper on this book for rosa. i actually have this same paper in green and cream... very retro.

tana's book has got to be another one of my faves. the paper she selected for the cover is very leather-like and super soft. it was a pain to punch holes in for the binding though. :) oh well.

i made two books for a lovely lady named kacee. she's having quite a few guests and wanted to make sure that there were enough spots for photos of everyone. i just love how the polka dots show through that vellum ever so lightly. 

well folks, that's my book update for the week. i am trying to get together another etsy advice article for my few wonderful readers... just haven't decided what topic to cover. there are so many. so, if you have a question you have been pondering over or want to know more about a certain subject, just let me know! i will be more than happy to answer your questions. 

scottie

in an attempt to post photos other than of my books, i thought i would share this strange picture of our dog scottie, who finally got a haircut today. i just love that he has eyebrows. it makes him look distinguished :)  we had him trimmed schnauzer-style and he looks so adorable. for some reason he doesn't like looking at the camera when i try to take pictures of him. he must be camera-shy... like brandi's dog cotton. i know this isn't a very good photo but... it was taken in really bad light and i thought i would play around in photoshop and make it look a little funky. i normally take all my photos in our kitchen, but sadly it is overrun with business receipts in my attempt to 'organize' everything before the holidays. so here he is in my office/spare bedroom. as i'm sure you can tell by now, i like green. alot. anyway... there's my ramble for the night. (mainly it's just me avoiding the books...)

smile!

these are a few photobooth books i finished up today for my friends over at Smile Now Photobooths. man, i wish we could have afforded a photobooth at our wedding. how awesome would that be? oh well... maybe for our 10 year anniversary party or something :)

goals for october

let's talk goals. i know, it's scary... but it's got to be done. I didn't do too bad on my goals for september, though i did skip out on a few things (like listing new items :) i really do have a hard time pricing my items though. especially the magnets. and how many should be included in a set... got any ideas?

so what do i want for october? here we go:

     100 sales in my etsy shop (i am so close!)

     200 hearts

     5 local guestbook sales

     up my feedback (lots of ppl who buy from me are newbies who don't know about feedback)

in creating new items for my shop:

     yes, list those magnets that are waiting patiently for a new home on my fridge

     more notecards

     a small, inexpensive calendar (how exciting!)

     would also like to get a template set-up so that i can create baby books (boy & girl versions)

i know that i need to have more of a variety in my price range and maybe more people than just brides will look at my shop. (not that there's anything wrong with being a bride!) i have been pondering over baby books for awhile, but now i think it's time to step up my game. this would be a good opportunity to create something 'custom' that doesn't require quite as much work after an order has been placed. once i have a template set up all i have to do is print the pages :) this is speaking hypothetically of course. i will offer my usual selection of paper and design a front panel for the cover... but that's about all as far as customization goes for the baby book. 

i have also been contemplating photo albums and have even gone so far as to purchase a few that have glassine inserts between each page. these are basically just blocks of paper that are ready to be bound into a book. we'll see. my time has been running short lately. or maybe i just need to get more sleep. i don't know if i can handle more 'book' type orders. something that requires less assembly would probably be good to focus on. hence the notecards. and magnets. and did i mention calendars? have any suggestions as to what you'd like to see in my etsy shop? drop me a line at paperlustbooks@gmail.com and i will certainly think about it. 

see you later on this week... hopefully with a new etsy advice post as well as some new guestbooks.

it's already october?

i know i've been bad... i didn't post at all last week. so i thought i'd show you a little of what i've been up to. last week was extremely busy. i had a huge job (144 page huge) to get out the door at my daytime job along with a few rushed jobs for paperlust. i've also been busy trying to get all my sales tax stuff straight since i am technically a 'business'. 

i also wanted to announce that i am no longer accepting rush orders for wedding guestbooks. i have quite a few on my plate right now, and am unable to squeeze any more in at the moment. i'm sorry for the inconvenience, but i have to find some time to sleep :)

in other news, hodgepodge turned 4 on saturday! happy b-day hodgepodge! i know i didn't get to see you for long, but congrats dinah, on all your success with the store. (ps - they also have a new blog... check it out here!)

i hope you all have a great week! i promise i'll be posting more this week... in the mean time - here's a few new books!