Number Crunching & Some Good Fortune

Currently, I'm making enough to pay my bills, but not much more. I've been kind of down about it lately, thinking that I made more money at the job I left. In some respects it's true, but only because I'm paid through purchases and commissions now, instead of a biweekly paycheck. Although my job prior to freelancing was seasonal and only lasted for 6 weeks at a time, freelancing is year-round. I'll be fine, it's just that whole 'uncertainty' thing. That, and not being able to just spend money the way I want too;

I'd like to sell my illustration work online, "in-house", but there are start-up costs for that(printing, packing, shipping-in bulk). I want to start doing blog giveaways, which I will, as soon as I have a budget for it. And then there are ongoing projects that I am trying to fund, such as the Cupboard/Steampunk house for Undersized Urbanite (and my website if you consider that a project). I spent part of this week looking into advertising options for the blog, so we'll see if there's anything that will help to keep things going without shamelessly spamming my followers, because I really appreciate the interest in my projects, everyone is so friendly and encouraging. I'd like to think that I can return some of that.

Major concerns aside though, things seem to be looking up.

As I've said, I'm running low on spending money and my Undersized Urbanite entry, sadly, takes a back seat to paying the bills, but something really odd and wonderful happened last week that sort of fixed this particular problem (I'm telling you, "someone" out there seems to like me and my dollhouses a lot).


Once again, my mother showed up while I was working on my latest blog post, with something neat to show me-again. This time though is was glitter tape.

She told me Michaesl was having an in-store clearance sale(she got an email), and although she's never sure what I can use, she knew I'd like the tape (I do). Then she  told me that the sale would still be happening on Friday and that she wanted to check out what the other store location had on sale (we live inbetween several shopping hubs, which has it's perks). I went along to see if there was something cheap I could use.

We got to the store, there was a jewelry section-70% off lowest marked clearance price (wow, really?), and then a series of bins full of all sort of things I could use-90% off lowest marked clearance price (Wow, Really?). Yep it's true, someone out there must like me.

So I bought a pile of cool stuff that I'm 99% sure that I will use, including this scrapbook paper box (I now have some place safe to store my dollhouse 'wallpaper' while I'm still in the building stage)

The lid's finish is a little scratched up, but it only cost me a penny.

Everything in this photo, including the box and the corrugated paper in the background (soon to be Steampunk dollhouse roofing), cost me just under $5. (Good day).

To make the situation even better, there was a bin with $2 grab bags. Clearance, opened, and damaged items, I assumed. Found a bag that at first looked like it was full of kid's craft stuff (I blame the pony beads), but then I saw that someone wrote, " Use For Demos" on the bag,

I picked it up and saw what was definitely some nice looking jewelry and beading supplies. I figured that what I couldn't use can always be sold on Etsy, so I bought the bag, took it home, and dumped it out onto the floor.

Some empty packaging, but most of this is really nice stuff. Beads, ring bases, bead wire (the bead wire alone would've cost me $2), buttons-all sorts of things. There were also a few jewelry making tools I didn't have,

Although I'm not really sure how to use them yet (going to have to look that up somewhere).

It's hard to feel down about something when you have such good luck. Maybe I should just take it as a sign that things will be alright and I worry about nothing...That's usually what these things mean.