Another busy week has gone by in our house.  After last week being so positive and having gotten so much done, I created a very long list to do this week.  Let’s just say that it didn’t go as well as I had hoped…but I think I also gave myself about 60 hours worth of work to accomplish in a week when I also have a full time job outside of this.

So here is what I DID get done:

• Ordered and received more paper – managed to cut about 2,400 petals for flowers (and my hands HURT!)
• Create Etsy listings for 9 different dozen rose bouquets – I only had 5 dozen bouquets which were a mix of 2 colors, now you can also buy a dozen of each solid color.  Once I have all these new flowers done, I’ll also be creating some new mixed color bouquets.
• Create pew clip, photograph, Photoshop, create Etsy listing, blog about it
• Write at least 4 blog posts
• Post on Etsy forums at least 3 times
• Paint petals for 3 dozen roses – I decided to do 16 of each color instead of 12 so I can have 4 small roses and 12 long stem (while I could have reused roses for photos, this now gives me 12 long stem roses that are ready to ship right away, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had to chop 3 of them for the smaller vase photos).  This equated to about 1,500 petals of painting which took up most of my week.
  • Not on the list this week – but I also assembled and curled 2 colors, so I have 32 completely done roses right now.  Only…112 to go….uuuuggghhhh.  This is also attributing to very sore hands putting all these roses together.
• Write this blog post – hey it counts!

There are about 6 other things on my list that I didn’t get to, but I think this was pretty good for the week.  Painting and assembling roses eats up a TON of time and while it prevents me from getting other things done, it’s the #1 priority right now so I can have all new photos on Etsy and on the new website I’m working on.

I bought this large piece of Styrofoam yesterday as a temporary solution to my space issue with almost 150 roses I’m creating.  We have this shelf/cabinet area in our downstairs hallway that usually has lots of framed photos and some extra flowers.  Now this is going to be where I keep all my flowers before I photograph them.  It allows them to stand up (if they lie flat it causes the flowers to flatten on one side) and it looks like it will hold all of my flowers.  Let’s just home the trouble maker cat leaves them alone…

I also bought these adorable little glass bud vases from Crate and Barrel which arrived this week.  I’m going to start selling single roses in my shop.  I hope that doing this will first, give me something cheaper in my shop that more people can afford and second, give people a way to purchase something cheap and small to see if they like them before spending the money on a dozen, or spending hundreds for their wedding.  They’re also cute to set on a bookshelf or in a small bathroom.  I’m going to leave them like this so people can leave them as is, fill them with sand or pebbles or whatever they want.  This is just a quick crappy photo of the vase and a new Tiffany rose in my work area, just had to share how cute these vases are!

I really want to get the new website up by this time next week, but that means that I have to cut, paint, assemble, and curl 112 roses this week.  Plus photograph them all, Photoshop them all, change out the photos on Etsy and on the website.  Plus finish a few pages on the site that need more info (sealant test results, contact page, proofread, etc).  Plus I have more than just those things that I wanted to accomplish next week…sooooo we’ll see how it goes.

As always thanks for reading!  Lots of great progress going on here and lots more to come.  I have ideas of Christmas just stewing in my head right now but one thing at a time. Until next time!