Hard work pays off!

This picture has nothing to do with this post. Sure, it was hard work (relatively speaking) to make these since it took three different variations before I was satisfied with the final results, but I'm not talking about hard work in regard to my handcrafted jewelry.

BTW ... before I go any further, these earrings are NOT for sale; they are a commissioned work. But I really like how they turned out so I wanted to show off the picture, and I know people who visit blogs like to see pictures.

Getting back to the hard work. It's all about Entrecard. I have been working the Entrecard system for two weeks now. The past several days, I have dropped 300 cards. The first two days of dropping 300 cards took quite a while (I have a tendency to READ a lot of the blogs) but I came up with a system and time budget that works for me. (So far!) Yesterday I had 192 cards dropped on me, a nice 64%. Thank you everybody who reciprocates. I do my utmost best to do the same.

Needless to say, the number of hits to my blog has skyrocketed. Even the few who actually pause for more than 1 minute to read and or look at photos have increased. It's very satisfying to see hard work pay off.

Even better, I have come across a number of blogs that appeal to me on a lot of different levels. I'm beginning to recognize their calling cards and I look forward to jumping back to their blogs for their latest photo, story, joke, pearl or bucket or boatload of wisdom, and of course, I always drop my card.

I haven't had any handcrafted jewelry sales as a result of this effort, but hopefully they will come over time. I do excellent work, I use quality components, but that's not as easy to see on the 'net as it is in the non-virtual world.

In the meantime, increasing the visitors to my 'lil ole spot of the www is an achievement all by itself.

Again, my deepest thanks to all who stop by, even if it's just to drop your card. I look forward to the end of the month when I shall publish my first Top 10 list.

In the meantime, if you need or like or want handcrafted jewelry and you like my style, please visit my Etsy shop. If you have any questions about Etsy, feel free to drop me a line.

Tulip's Cooking

Time for a new Skwiggzine Blogger's spotlight. I had to jump on this right away because this post has made me soooooooooooo hungry!!

Tulip's Talking.

Dinner at Tulip's house tonight! Yeah!! I can beat the Texas heat. Doesn't the final product look totally scrumptious?

Thank goodness for Skwiggazine!

Say what? Go here: Skwiggazine. Cool place and I belong to a group within this network for bloggers. At the moment, it's the one thing that keeps me showing up here. I know, that's bad, but we all know how many hours there are in each day and we probably all feel there just isn't enough. But eventually, things get done ... we hope.

As part of this blogging group, we all visit each other's blogs and each week we post a link and a comment to the featured blog of the week. I missed last week (I'm hanging my head in shame) but I'll make it up to Stacy next time. This week is another Stacy, and ... well ... you all know the power of pictures. Get ready and say ahhhhhh!

And kudos to Stacy for being environmentally astute by using cloth diapers. They certainly have changed in the 13 years since I used cloth diapers!

OK, here's my obiglatory picture:
This piece was designed for a wonderful woman I met in one of my networking forays who is a director for Mary Kay. I'm told there are new Director's Suits out this year and they are brown. I was also told that bling is the thing for all things Mary Kay so I used all Swarovski, both crystals and pearls. And lots of 14k gold-fill metal things, too. Click on the photo to see the BIG picture.

The networking experience I've embarked on several months ago has been quite a ride! It's one of the main reasons my poor blog has been pushed under the proverbial couch. So has my Etsy store and my website. But I have met some amazing women these last few months and have learned quite a bit about lots of different things. I will be sharing some of the really cool things I've discovered along the way in the next couple of posts! And hopefully get some more photos worked up of all the new pieces I've been designing.