Completely off topic - sorta - Following one's passion - A story of a Young Lady and her dream

It hasn't been until recently, like in the last three years, that I strongly believed that we must follow our passions in life, both personal (a given) and career. Doing something without passion for it, really destroys happiness


I've been following piece by piece my own passion of becoming a known Artist, crafts-person, as well as at some point want to open up an Institute to preserve and teach historical bead, paper, sewing craft techniques. Focusing on low to middle income folks who want to get into a trade.


I've known the Williams family since 1997. I have watched Elizabeth (Bear as she was called in the earlier years) grow up to be one very amazing person (thanks to her parents Cat Williams and Matt K Kringle Williams and her sibling, JA, Amber, Joil, Bryin, Cartwright).

Elizabeth has always had a passion for caring for animals, and a gentleness that I have only seen in a few folks when it comes to all animals. It her life goal to be a Veterinarian.


I know my daughter Chrystiana Lynn wanted to do that, and it is NOT cheap. I also know how long and hard road to achieve. Elizabeth has a lot of hurdles, Sciences, Math, Medical school, all ahead of her to achieve this goal. But, like her parents - she is a feisty, tenacious, determined young lady.

The Williams have always been a generous family, opening their doors to strangers, adopting an entire set of siblings who lost both their mother and father in a short period of time (They were exchange students), helping others out when they lost everything with Katrina, the list goes on. They believe, like I do, in pay forward and it shall return when you most need it.

Last few years - the Williams have experienced a serious life changing set of events, including Matt's heart attack. Both Matt and Cat are working towards their degrees themselves, making another great positive contribution to society with what they plan on doing with their degrees. But the money is extremely tight with them. And because they had no insurance = they are still paying off Matt's medical bills.

Now; why am I writing this


Thanks to the twinkiness of the government, Elizabeth's funding for her college education took a significant south turn. This has jeopardized her starting this fall and being able to even continue.

If some clown can get 55k for wanting to make potato salad, all because of social media passing around, and the link went viral, I figured why not see if we can get this to go viral!


I know there are those who will help contribute to something far more reaching, far more important, strangers out there who believe the same - Pay forward and this definitely is something that Pays forward.


Help us Help Elizabeth fulfill her dreams.
Please share (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/elizabeth-veterinarian-to-be)


Thank you

Ronni Eloff

SRAJD Tuesday Treasury - Its about the Love

SRAJD - Tuesday Treasury - all about the love

I love making this one.

Reality Shock --- what happens when you realize you just don't have enough made

Though it was a good one to have, still a shock.  It all started because I needed to clean up my tags on my listings on Etsy.  Right now I have 172 items active up in VampkittyDesigns and you know I have been very proud of getting that many posted.  I still have a lot of necklace sets to take pictures of but managed to get the majority of all the earrings I had made up on the store.  But thinking of adding 1 new tag to 172 listings, well I wasn't thrilled.

Did a bit of research, downloaded the free trial version and fell in love with BEtsi.  This new tool is the BOMB to help me with my listings on Etsy.  I found it not only adds Tags in bulk, I could clean up, re-organize, find my misspelled tags, and standardized on verbiage used in tags.  And I did that in less than 3 hours.

I haven't tried the other parts of the tool yet, but suffice to say, this just saved me hundreds of hours.  Anyway back to my reason for the posting.  One of the features it has is to tally up quickly your stock and how much inventory do you have up in the Store, the fees (Etsy and Paypal) and net worth.

That was the shell shock.  Only $6,000+ dollars of merchandise is up in the store.  That is NOT going to work... not at all.

So it is scramble to make more and get the remaining necklace set backlog cataloged, pictured and posted.

Tomorrow is picture day for about 30 pairs of earrings and 20 necklace sets... Tidbits of what is to come below (taken with my phone camera)

Nice to be featured for a change

I do a lot of Etsy treasuries (some posted here for example) and sometimes the group remembers to include me.  But it is really a nice surprise when someone I don't know at all includes something of my work in their Treasury, like today - Etsy Treasury - Join Team Vintage USA

I never had considered my designs Vintage, but looking over some of them, I can see how they could be considered Vintage.  - It was a nice feeling to see this, this morning.

Speaking of Treasuries - it is Tuesday, meaning my weekly SRAJD Etsy Treasury.  This one was a bit of a challenge, since I wanted to do something that hadn't been done in a long time.  Looking over the SRAJD Treasuries Pinterest Board, I realized a very basic combo hasn't been done in a LONG while.

SO -- here's SRAJD Tuesday Treasury - Black -n- White

These are all amazing designs.  Very inspiring that is for sure.

Speaking of designs - SRAJD has a lovely contest each month - themed designs.  I am working on two pieces for this months' design.  But the competition so far is TOUGH.  This is just this month so far for entries.  I have an idea for June 23rd Angkor wat, Cambodia and one for June 30th Marble Caves, Chile. I will post later today on both these ideas and sorta a working journal on how to become inspired - but in the mean time these are the two pictures that are inspiring me for these two weeks.

For Marble Caves, Chile (Picture Credit: Jorge Leon Cabello)

For Angkor wat, Cambodia (Picture Credit: Sam Garza)

Hopefully these two pictures will help guide me to what I want to do.  I have most of the components for the first one.  Today I am looking for the components for the second picture.  Either Agate or Carnelian for the Orange, Aventurine or lampwork green for the other main color.  I have the temple pieces in antique bronze.  It should prove interesting.  More in my next blog entry.

SRAJD - Tuesday Treasury 5-20

Etsy Treasuries are fun.  I think I enjoy just looking through all the beautifully handmade designs, be it jewelry, lampwork, metalwork, papercraft, sewing, you name it.  If it is handmade, and pleasing, I like making treasuries around them.

With that, being the Captain of an Etsy Street Team (SRAJD Etsy Street Team) we as a group make all kinds of Treasuries to promote the brand, the individual artists and themes.

I do Tuesday Treasuries each week.

This weeks' theme is:

Dads & Grads

Check out our other SRAJD Treasuries.  We have a lot of wonderful artists/designers.

SRAJD Tuesday Treasury for May 13th

I love making Etsy Treasuries.  They are fun, easy to make and just cool to look at.  I also like looking at others.

I manage the SRAJD Etsy Treasury process which has turned into quite the business.  It is going to be a bit of a challenge by I would love to see us move from 30-40 Treasuries a month to 400 Treasuries a month in a year.

With that I started Tuesday Treasury to get people in the swing of doing a treasury once a week and posting it for the group.

Here's today's  Shiny, Sparkly and Polished

I have another lady who has gotten very creative in how she gets the team to participate in Treasuries.  She picks a theme and then having members of the SRAJD team pick from their store something to match the theme.

One of Shanons' very pretty treasuries.  May is for Emeralds

Anyway check out our other SRAJD Treasuries on Etsy.  Or if you like in our  Pinterest Board 


Ronni SRAJD Etsy Street Team Captain
#3748

The craft that bounces about

My muse bounces between two craft worlds, Beading and Paper.

I'm trying to mix them but beaded paper craft is tricky and paper beads are interesting...but..

However, I took a huge leap forward in my paper craft tonight I think.  This time I made a multi-fold, multi-cut, Mothers Day card for my Mother-in-law.  My husband thinks I outdid myself.  I actually am tickled pink it came out as good as it did.

The outside was a bit tricky.  I did a box fold so the shutters slightly closed but not completely.  Learning how to do the Martha Steward box punches was a bit of a challenge. The butterflies were a ball to make.  I LOVE MY CUTTLEBUG.  I had the husband help pick out the papers and color.  I glittered the butterflies with this off whitelilac stardust.

The first inside layer is another box fold, matching the punch patter on the front.  I love how the smaller butterfly fit nicely on the butterfly paper I used to make the big blue one on the front cover.  I still haven't really gotten into ribbon mostly it just doesn't feel right.

I didn't have a die for the fence so I made my own paper cutting, then did this brush stroke to create a slight dark grain on it.  I could have used heavier stock for the fence but still it would have had a harder time doing the folds.  I  wanted flowers popping out from behind the fence, so the fence is raised and I tucked Mulberry flowers of spring colors with sparkly gems to make it pop.  Added a few smaller butterflies with the smallest die.

This is the back of the first layer fold that covers the garden. My husband always likes to write his own sentiments in his own hand writing on the cards we give to his folks.  This time I gave him a lot more space to write.  I tied the top into the piece by doing a flower boarder on the same background paper I used for the garden.  I wish I had seen this paper before when I made the fence, it would have been a better choice but again, I love how it all worked out.

So that is My Mother-in-Law's Card.

I'm working on my Mom's next (yes I am late but I had two custom card orders that I needed to do first.)