Why is shipping so hard?!

A couple posts back I showed you the coffee table I made and (finally) listed in my Etsy shop.  One of the reasons it took me so long to open my shop and list some things was because I wasn't sure how to figure out the shipping costs...especially for an 80 something pound coffee table!

I found out that the USPS won't ship something that big and most freight companies charge an arm and a leg to ship.  Well, did you know that Greyhound ships packages?  Pretty cool!  They have a website that is pretty user friendly and it tells you where they have stations and what the price will be and when the bus leaves, yadi-yadi-yada.

Anyway, I was pretty pumped to have sold the table and excited to be sending it to CA.  That excitement started to wain as I began the whole shipping process.  The trip to Budget Box and Bag this morning went pretty well. The gentleman there was very helpful.  He looked at the picture of my table and suggested a couple items to use to pack it.  He also mentioned that he has other customers who ship stuff via Greyhound and they've had much success.  Yeah!

Okay, so my packing supplies are purchased and I'm headed home to do the "handling" part of shipping and handling.  Let me just say I know why they charge for that!  It took me two hours and four hands to wrap that puppy up in bubble wrap, cardboard, packing tape and stretch wrap!  I was literally sweating by the time I was done!

But my spirit is still high!  (I forgot to mention a very important detail.  Remember the napkins I sold on my shop?  Well, I underestimated the shipping and ended up paying more than twice as much as what I charged the customer.  Well, I ate that cost and chalked it up to experience.)  I still have $100 left from the shipping amount I charged my customer.  Now it was time to take it to the bus station!  Hubby agreed to go with me (since this was my first time and I didn't know if they would help unload it and I wasn't sure where the bus station was).  I opted for the bus station in El Reno, which is a relatively small community.  My other choice was the downtown OKC bus station and the mere thought of going there made me urp up a little.  No thanks!  I don't do the downtown traffic and one-way streets!

Well, we arrive in El Reno and guess what?  They don't ship packages from there anymore!  REALLY?!  Ugh!  Looks like I'm headed downtown after all.  But that's okay...I still have my security blanket hubby to drive me. So off we go to downtown.

Once we get to the downtown area, Hubs is playing tour guide and pointing out all the buildings of downtown and we miss our exit!  So two extra miles out of our way we go but I'm not driving so it's okay.

We double back and hit downtown and there is TONS of road construction going on...nice.  Then hubby pipes up, "I'm pretty sure the bus station is somewhere in this area."  What?  You don't know where the bus station is?  Okay, full blown panic now!  Oh, wait.  There is a giant sign that says "BUS".  This is good.  But wait, it's not the new bus station.  But people are standing out front.  Maybe we are in the right place.  Where do we park? All these thoughts in about 3 seconds.  Now you see why I don't like to drive downtown.

I go inside and wait in line and when it's my turn, I ask and praise God, I'm in the right place!  My breathing is deeper now and my pulse has slowed slightly.  We go outside and load it on a carrier and they take in the back.  I go to the counter and he asks "Did you label it?"  What?  No I didn't label it.  I don't know what to label it with!  I thought that's what we would do here - together - you and me!  Seriously?

Pulse going up, breathing shallow!  "That's okay.  Let me get you a label."  Pulse going back down.  Oh, snap!  I put the receiver's address where I should have put my address!  "I think I messed this up."  Breathing is shallow, palms are sweating.  "It's okay, I'll go get you another label.  It's your first time."  Yeah, and maybe my last!

Okay, label is filled out correctly.  I hand it over and confirm the receiving bus station.  He asks what the package is and how much insurance.  He begins typing on the keyboard and this is where I think my breathing stops all together.  The moment of truth.  How much will it cost.  Remember I said I still had $100 left for shipping?  Will I come in under the mark?  Total to ship to San Fernando, CA - $104. 80.  Now I know I'm only over by about $5, which isn't bad, but I still underestimated my shipping.  Not to mention it took me a quarter tank of gas.

So I'm 0 for 2 on the shipping thing.  But I did learn a lot.  If you have never used Greyhound PackageXpress but are considering it, let me tell you what I learned.

• The PackageXpress website is really very user friendly (except they still show El Reno as a shipping location!).
• I weighed my table unwrapped and it came in 9 pounds less than what they weighed it at the station wrapped.  I'll just add 9 pounds to my next estimate.
• Be sure to enter the value when you are getting your estimate online.  This will make a difference in how much it costs.
• Allow about $10 for a fuel surcharge.  This should be about right.
• If you do all of this you should be within just a few dollars of the actual shipping cost.
• The beginning of the month is busier than any other time of the month (that's what the guy at Greyhound told me).  This will slow down the delivery of your package (it only gets on board if there is room in cargo after all the passenger's luggage is loaded.)  He told me weight makes it slower, too.  I don't know why but apparently it does.

I told my husband that he is officially hired as my shipping and receiving guy!  If he can't take me and my furniture to the bus station, we don't go that day!

And on top of all of that craziness, this afternoon a suspicious package was found about one block away from the station we were at and they evacuated downtown.  REALLY?!

My First Etsy Sale!

As you may recall, I finally opened my Etsy shop on Sunday.  I had a few things made up to list including the coffee table from my last post and a this set of cloth dinner napkins.

Well, today I'm busy packing and shipping my first sale!  Yep, two days after opening my shop I sold these great napkins!  My crafty husband has an Etsy shop that he opened a couple of years ago so he could totally relate to how excited I was!  What a great start!  I'm even more excited now to start working on some other projects!  I'm searching this week for some dining room chairs to refurbish for Little Bit's teacher.  Does anyone else love Craig's List as much as I do?

So today will include a visit to the post office to ship these napkins off to Edmonds, WA!  A big thank you to the gal who bought them for supporting "hand made".  And a big thank you to my followers for sharing in this exciting moment with me!

Long time, no see!

Hey, Peeps!  I'm baaaaack!  Did ya miss me, cuz I missed you guys!  Last time we "spoke" I had more jobs than I had good sense (which wouldn't take much, really)!  Well, I'm down a job, school's back in session and I'm able to squeak out some free time here and there.  And who would I rather spend it with than you guys!

So here's what I've been up to!
















I created this table for my Etsy shop (which I opened nearly a year ago and never listed anything for sale!).  My husband says I've always got great ideas I'm just not good at implementing and that's where he comes into play!  I'd had grand ideas of what I wanted my shop to be but then life got in the way (and school tuition came due!) and I had to go find work to supplement my part time job.  Well, the grind got to be too much and the blog and my Etsy shop had to wait.

Thankfully, through the encouragement and support of my husband, I'm back on track!  I came home from work this afternoon and my sweet hubby told me he was going to take the boys off my hands for the afternoon but that I had to complete a checklist he had made for me.  Well, if checklists are a language, I am fluent!  And guess what was on that checklist?  My Etsy shop and you, my followers!  Isn't he sweet to think of you?  That's just the kind of guy he is.  Truthfully, I think he was tired of all my finished projects (and almost started projects) piling up in the house and in his garage!  Again, he steps in and keeps me on track.

So head over to my Etsy shop and check it out!  There's not much there right now but I'll be adding things as I get them staged and photographed.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking around!

Winter...Oklahoma style!

Here in Oklahoma we just don't get much winter weather.  Ice is more common than snow.  But last night a serious (by Oklahoma standards) snow storm rolled in and it's winter!  We ended up with just under 12 inches.  We have a temp of about 9 degrees and a wind chill of about -15 degrees with 60 mph winds!  We've got some snow drifts around our house bigger than my husband!

Again, that may be no big deal to someone from up north.  But down here, we are not prepared for stuff like this!

The chicken run got enclosed with scraps of  plywood yesterday in hopes of keeping the drifts out.  No such luck.  They even had snow drifting up into the coop so my sweet husband took them out some fresh water and fruit scraps and cleaned out all the snow and gave them some fresh straw.  The dogs are hanging out in the garage with a radiant heater.  Hubby captured these little guys perched above our back door.

School was cancelled today and tomorrow and no church Wednesday night.  I've been knitting, cleaning house, doing laundry and working on Valentine's with the boys.  Tomorrow there will be more cleaning house, laundry and working on Little Bit's shirt for the 100th day of school next week (we're painting 100 stars on it)!

Local television stations have streamed live shots of the weather all day.  The poor "B-string" weather folks get thrown out in it with a camera man to capture shots of them wading into the biggest drifts they can find and sticking their rulers in the ground to show how deep it is.  They drive around all over the metro capturing pictures of people shoveling their cars out of ditches and telling us how they are "wearing five pairs of pants and three coats and I'm still cold!"

You can tell the weathermen are stoked, though.  They live for this stuff.  Well, this and tornadoes!  The "community correspondence" people at the station are telling us about tweets and Facebook comments people are making and reminding everyone to send in their pictures of the "Blizzard of 2011!"

It's silly, really, how excited we get down here over our weather.  But it's been fun.  There's something about extreme weather that we Oklahomans sincerely enjoy!

My Not-So-Original Idea

The week after Christmas, I was thinking about making a felt flower.  So, I went to my Google toolbar and started looking up "felt flowers" trying to find some tutorials  I thought this might be easier than going to each of my favorite blogs and seeing what they had.

Well, I was wrong.

I literally went through pages of links. Yet still, I couldn't find quite what I wanted.  So I pulled out some felt and got started.

I wore my new flower on New Year's Day (and many days since!) but it wasn't until yesterday that I finally posted what I came up with.

Now...

I have a confession to make.  Last night (during my bout of insomnia) was the first time I have looked at any blogs since before Christmas.  (gasp!)  It's awful, I know.  I can't believe I just admitted to it.  I've been in a funk - don't judge me!

So last night I started catching up on my favorite blogs and you know what I came across in the side bar of Tatertots and Jello?  A flower that looks very close to mine (or maybe mine looks very close to hers)!  She actually used a template to cut her petals and only used two layers instead of the three I used.  Her center was a little different, also.  But all in all, our flowers look the same.

I was so embarrassed (and frustrated!)  I was pretty pleased with the flower idea I had...turns out, someone else thought of it first!  Huh!  Story of my life!

So go visit Jen over at Tatertots and Jello.  Maybe she's already done something you've been thinking about, too!

Felt Flower Tutorial

I love big flowers for embellishing most anything and everything!  With winter here, I wanted felt flowers instead of the silk flowers I've been using.  I searched the internet and kind of combined some ideas from some of the flowers I saw.  This is what I came up with (some pictures are of my red flower and some are of the purple.)

Here's what you will need.

1 sheet of felt

1 large button

complementary colored yarn or embroidery floss

hot glue gun

hair clip

lapel pin

First I cut five petals about 3 inches in length.  (This is done completely free hand.  Don't sweat the shape too much.  It will look good, I promise.)  Then do five petals around 2 1/2 inches and five around 2 inches.  The red flower I made with a bit of a pointy petal.  This gives a poinsettia look.

To give it some "oomph" I decided to sew a seam along the back.  It gives a little more depth.  Just fold them in half and line them up on the sewing machine and do one after the other then cut them apart.

Next, cut a circle from the felt to use as base for the flower.  Start gluing the 3 inch petals around the outside.  Then glue the 2 1/2 inch petals and finally the 2 inch petals.

Finish off with a button laced with yarn or embroidery floss hot glued to the middle.

Flip over to the back and use a scrap piece of felt to attach the clip and pin with hot glue.

Your flower is finished!  I hope you get as much mileage out of your flowers as I already have from mine!

One way I use mine is on my favorite knit beanie!

And as a lapel pin to dress up my jean jacket!

I'm linking this idea to these wonderful blogs!
C.R.A.F.T.
Finding Fabulous

I'm still here!

Hello, friends!  Sorry it has been so long since I last posted.  Let me catch you up on what's been going on (this is the part where you pretend to care)!

As of January 3rd I have started working my third job!  Yes, that's right, third.  My 6 and 8 year old boys seem to have a problem finding employment to help pay for their private school!  So I decided to step up.  I'm working as an aide in the Pre-K classroom at their school and I love it!  The only problem is, I'm still trying to figure out how to fit everything into the new schedule!  But it's coming along.

On a similar note, you work-outside-the-home moms...how do you do it?  Getting up every morning and shower/make up/hair and put together an outfit.  Make breakfast, pack lunches, get out the door at exactly 8:08am (1 minute later and you catch all the stoplights.).  Come home from work/school, make snacks, start homework, practice spelling tests, practice Bible verses.  Now start dinner, start a load of laundry, clean up dinner, fold laundry.  Start the boys on their showers and teeth brushing so as not to miss 7:30pm bedtime.  Is 7:30pm too early for me to go to bed, also?  Start another load of laundry.  Monday night, Boy Scouts.  Wednesday night, AWANA.  Friday night, woo-hoo!  Mom's day off is tomorrow!  Oh, yeah...more dinner and laundry.

Work-outside-the-home moms, you have my utmost respect!

In my spare time, I have managed to make a couple of things that I want to share with you so I will be working on some pictures of those things and hope to have them posted soon!

Again, thank you so much for your faithfulness.  Many of you I don't know personally but I feel blessed to know you as my blog friends!  Thanks for your patience and for sticking around while I figured out this new "routine"!