New stuff. Now available at cardinalhouse on Etsy

Taupe Rosalind necklace from cardinalhouse

Khaki Rosalind necklace

Khaki & bronze Rosa necklace

Taupe & magnesite Rosa necklace

Coffee brown & almond pearls Rosa necklace

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Next batch will include some soft french blues & sage greens.

Any color requests? I'd love to hear.

♥-Kat.

Spring cleaning: sale coming!

 

Rosa Necklace from cardinalhouse  

Okay, guys. It's time. I didn't get around to doing a sale for my 1-yr anniversary on Etsy, or my b-day (earlier in Feb). Now I'm going to make up for that. I started marking down items this week, but I will be marking down the rest of the items at least 15% (stuff that's been in the store since last fall or earlier).

I was chatting with another seller & during those chats, I realized that I want to be much more aggressive in what I started earlier this week. Sure, I'm going through my reclaimed office fabric...but lately I've brought more home from work. I'm heading backwards at the moment. Nicht gut. Even packing a stuffed plastic grocery bag's worth into my son's backpack everyday doesn't seem to be making much of a dent. Hah! And trust me, while his teacher said she can take as much as I can give, that will change soon! I overwhelmed his teacher last year, eventually. 

So, I will be working on mark downs this weekend.  If you see something in the shop & I haven't marked it down, please let me know!   cardinal_house [at] comcast [dot] net

Happy Weekend! 

♥-Kat.

No rest for the weary...or should that be wicked?!

Retriever Ring by Kristin Lora

Do you ever have one of those moments when you could just disappear? Run away...vamoose...split like a banana (instead of acting like one)...yeah..that's been the past couple of weeks for me. Stress levels up through the roof & today I almost lost total composure a couple of times at the office. NEVER a good thing to let it get that bad. Serenity now, serenity now...& tomorrow is another day.  Whew...so the jewelry & definately the blog have been pushed to the backburner for my sanity.

I've had some things that I've been wanting to write about, but I'm not going to get to them tonight. So here's what's coming up (& I write these down now more so I can look over & remember what I had in mind!):

•How-to DIY stickers...please tell me I am not the only person just discovering this phenomenon! I was so giddy making stickers last night. I bought the supplies to make handmade seals for my packaging, which also functioned as a means to recycle all of the rolls & scrap sheets wall covering I have taking up space (saved from being tossed, just like all of the fabrics I use..for more see previous post here). I'm thinking about selling some in the Etsy shop to de-stash asap!

•Focus...which I was doing fairly well at until I started playing with that damned sticker maker!

•Reviews...books & products

•Little (Indie Shop) Black Book (of resources, tips, etc)

Latest necklaces listed @ cardinalhouse:

From top to bottom: Plum pumpkin Rosa; Mint mojito Rosa; Midnight Blue Rosa; Sienna Rosa;  Embroidered ivory Rosa

Farewell for now & serenity now!

♥-Kat.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Green article No. 1

So we recently went through a renovation at work & boxes upon boxes of fabric hang sets, etc were put into a showroom used for storage. A coworker was going to take all of it to donate, but backed out. I ended up taking a bunch into nearby schools, but they can't use all of it. It was going to be thrown away unless something was worked out.

*Yes, thrown away - all of it. Ponder on this: take all of the design firms around the world x's all of the fabric, wallpaper, & carpet samples (see pic's here of a portion of our small library at the office). Okay...very few companies offer to recycle these samples & even fewer reps will ever pick up the items. Literally, we have one rep that asks about picking up carpet samples that we don't need anymore. Thousands & thousands of dollars go into making all of these samples/books & the vast majority of them end up in the trash.

Okay, so while I'm not always the "greenest" person out there by far, the huge amount of waste was hard to swallow--especially when paired with a crafty personality. Random note: if you don't own re-usable shopping bags...what's wrong with you?! You can fit a few plastic bags' worth in one & they're much more confortable to carry.

♥11/22/09 UPDATE: How to take apart a fabric sample book? See the demolition at this post!

♥10/17/09 UPDATE: Some of the fabric companies will at least now send mailers to send back memos, but not many.♥

 

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♥10/17/09♥ FYI: No, the fabric does NOT! stay out like that!!! If I'm not working on it, it's out of sight. Although... sunroom (aka studio) may look like a fabric & bead explosion went off on the weekends (but I'm working on it then & that ='s good).

♥10/17/09: Idea...my sunroom is adjacent to the living room, so the bookcase helps to act as a divider between the two spaces. Umm..I hadn't taken off the labels when I took this picture, but the totes help keep various small supplies handy when you don't have enough drawer space. Also..that's fabric folded on the shelves. This is an older picture---I hadn't finished putting the fabric up there but, again, you get the point!

Save the planet, it's the only one with chocolate!

♥-Kat.

PS- For those of you that get this...wallcovering. not wallpaper...my faux pas