Laurel Arts Extravaganza

I am so excited! I'll be one of the artists participating in the Laurel Arts Extravaganza - just in time for holiday shopping!

This is a juried event so everything is hand-crafted and the artists' products pre-approved. Best of all, the proceeds will benefit the Laurel Rescue Squad.

Come see me in the old PG Office Supply building at:
342 Main St, Laurel MD 20723 (next to Laurel Board of Trade)
on
December 10, 2010 (5:00 pm – 9:00 pm)
December 11, 2010 (10:00 am – 5:00 pm)

For more info contact Gail Reinhardt at the Laurel Board of Trade at 301-483-0838. Or RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=165758556788297

Halloween Babies and the Sound of Music

I just got back from North Carolina where I spent the weekend being a grandma to my adorable new grandson, the Halloween baby! Of course he's the most adorable baby ever!!

I left my studio in the biggest mess ever as I literally finished the costumes at 7:30am last Friday after 2 all-nighters so I could deliver the Sound of Music costumes before leaving to visit my son's family for the weekend. The costumes weren't actually due for a few more days, but I so wanted to see the new baby I moved the deadline up and made it happen. Once finished, I ran home, packed, and hit the road.

What I'm not looking forward to is all the clean-up--piles of scrap fabric everywhere, patterns to sort out and file away, floors to vacuum.... Oh, well. Part of the job and it was totally worth it!

Taxes, Yuck!

April 15th, taxes due! It's unbelieveable how much data entry, tracking, analysis, thought, worry, concern, angst and time goes into keeping books for a business. If I were a larger business and had a finance dept, maybe I'd feel different about it, but being the chief cook and bottle washer as well as CEO, CFO, Admin Asst., and boss lady, I burn a lot of midnight oil trying to not get too far behind on it. Needless to say, 4/15 is marked as a red letter day on my calendar but not in a good way.
For those of you starting out, here's a piece of advice I paid $150/hour for....get QuickBooks Pro in whatever the latest version is. Then, find an accountant or bookkeeper who doesn't trigger your gut reaction alarm and who is affordable/knowledgeable and a whiz with QB. Not all accountants are, so you really do have to ask them if they are truly competent with the program. If they are QB Certified, even better. It's worth the price to have them set up your Chart of Accounts so you can get off to a good start from the get-go and not have to go back and correct a year's worth of data. If you are opening a business like mine, it's considered a non-traditional business and there are special considerations that affect how the chart is set up. Feel free to ask me any questions....I've already paid to get the answers.
Whatever accounting program you use, even pencil and paper, will require a learning curve to get it set up and use effectively. I've been using QB since 2005 and finally was forced to upgrade to the 2008 version and I'm still learning how to do things. But, as frustrated as I get with having to do it at all, I do get good information from it and it does print out beautiful, informative reports. Which does make filling out the tax forms easier.
But it's still not on my list of favorite things to do!
As compensation for doing all this accounting stuff, I've promised myself I will do something FUN!!

Day Before Easter

Just finished shopping for little doodads to put in an Easter basket for my little Samantha...her first Easter! Now to get it all together and pretty! I plan to wrap the handle in ribbons and then put a small spray of flowers in the center of the bow. And of course, artistically arrange everything in the basket.
Gone are the days when I made all the chocolates for the baskets and dyed and decorated dozens of eggs. I really miss those days, especially now when I'm so busy all the time running the Studio that everything seems to be a blur and I'll suddenly realize that someones birthday or a holiday is only a day or two away and I don't have time to do all the little special things I used to do. So, I seem to scramble a lot to come close to what I want to do and feel guilty that it's not exactly what I wanted to do, but all I had time for.
I emailed a friend the other day and said I was trying to be more focused in planning and doing for my business, no more pinball. She emailed back that I'll always be a pinball. Now I have to prove her wrong!

It's been a while since I've had the time to write on my blog. I guess that's a good thing, means I've been busy. So far the first 3 months of 2009 have been a blur of Inaugural gowns, costumes for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company....Country Wife is eligible for a Helen Hayes Award and we're all crossing our fingers for a nomination! Lots of little and not so little jobs and now I'm into Prom season.
I'm working with several girls to create the prom gown of their dreams; and these girls can dream big! The gowns will be gorgeous when completed and I'll try to teach myself how to put photos up here for you to see.
I've been working on items to add to my Etsy store and with Jessica's help, a few of them are now up. Guess what!? My first Etsy sale was to a lovely girl in England! I learned all about customs shipping that one out. And now with my son in Iraq, I get to fill out custom forms a couple of times a month.
Since it's almost 3 in the morning, I guess I'd better go home and get some sleep. I promise not to take so long to write again.
Happy morning!