Chaos

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  So, I mentioned last week that we adopted a new puppy right?  We adopted a 1 year old mutt nearly 2 years ago, Leo, who is basically the love of my life (sorry husband, haha).  Anyway, we've been debating for about a year now whether to get a second dog.  Every now and then I peruse the local dog rescue association websites just to get a peek.  When you see all the sad, adorable, and hopeless dogs out there that need homes, it's really hard to say no.  Last week, I was checking out the Montgomery County shelter's adoptable dogs, and I melted when I saw that little girl puppy with the big floppy ears. Before I knew it, she was ours!

Really how could you say no to those puppy eyes?

We've named her Penny.  For the first few days, everything was fine.  She came to us emaciated.  Our older dog, Leo, has always been very independent.  We bring him to the dog park all the time to socialize, but whatever happened to him on the streets before we found him has made him very wary of other dogs.  It's sad because it seems like he doesn't realize when other dogs want to play with him...he doesn't even seem to realize that other doggies are for playing with.  So, we spent the weekend trying to adjust the dogs to each other.  Penny just wants to bounce around and have puppy playtime, but Leo doesn't seem interested.

Over the weekend Penny started getting sick.  She had what sounded like a bad respiratory cold.  We called the vet Monday morning to make an appointment, and he told us to bring her in immediately and drop her off.  Turned out she had to stay overnight at the vet until Wednesday.  She has hookworms and another parasite called coccidia, which is common in shelter puppies and can even be fatal.

Needless to say, I've spent a lot of this week freaking out.  Not just about the puppy, but also about Leo, because I became terrified he would get infected as well.  Both parasites are pretty contagious, and it's pretty much near impossible to disinfect your yard from hookworm.  At this point, we had been milling about the house and yard for several days not realizing everything was contaminated.  We've finally got Penny home, but we have to keep her and Leo isolated from one another for about two weeks, which is a bigger pain than it sounds like.

So, with all this puppy drama going on, I sadly haven't been able to get too much done for LOB.  I'm not sure about you, but I'm the type of person that can daydream and come up with 47 ideas for new jewelry pieces all day....but I just never seem to get the time or energy to bring all these ideas and plans to life.  I still haven't opened that big beautiful sewing machine!

Hopefully this weekend I will have some time to dedicate to the shop!  Thanks for reading :)

Deep in the Art of Texas!

Howdy yall! I'm participating in the Lone Star Showcase at Handmade in TX.  This weekend they are linking up to all handmade artists in Texas.  Check it out by clicking the button below!

Bejeweled

Check out my latest treasury, featuring deep rich velvety jewel tones!

Staying relevant...

I'm guessing by now you have (hopefully) heard about Etsy's change in its default search mode.  Check it out here.  To sum it up, search results are now sorted by relevancy to search terms rather than recency.

So, I'm curious, what do you think?  As a newbie shop, I was slightly optimistic that this would boost my views.  I had been relisting a handful of items about once a week, but let's face it, in the over-saturated Etsy jewelry market, I'm not sure if that was very useful.  It seems like search results based on relevancy would even the playing field somewhat.  However, I've been reading all sorts of negative comments and assorted freakage in the forums, which got me worried. 

I've been taking a lot of time to re-do all my titles and all my tags to try to make everything as concise and relevant as possible.  The hardest thing is just getting into the mind of the buyer.  Today I actually tried using search terms that I'd use to find my items, but that's the thing, they're terms *I* would use.  A lot of my earrings fall into the categories of "old hollywood" or "old glamour" style to me.  I see other people use "estate sale style" or "glam" or even "retro glam" instead.  Do buyers use these sort of terms?  I've no clue.  I guess it's really just a question of trial and error and using Etsy shop stats to see what keywords are really being used. 

I was at least pleasantly surprised to see that a few of my items do show up on the first few pages of a common phrased search.  For example, these little cuties show up on page 1 of a search for "bird nest earrings" (let's hope I don't jinx myself here).

birds nest wire-wrapped earrings at Lazy Owl Boutique

What are you doing to make sure your items show up under the new search results?

Joining the circus....

 Bunting gift tags by Rainy Day Colors

If you have children or a child-like spirit, you probably love bunting.  Before I joined etsy, I didn't really know that bunting was even called bunting, I just thought they were circus flag banner things.  But now I too can't help but love the vague sense of happy childhood memories that seeing a pretty bunting brings me.

 Rainbow bunting flags by Boobahblue

I love shabby chic bunting for decorating the house.  I love vintage circus-looking bunting for a child's birthday party.  I love blue & white paisley bunting for a wedding shower.  However, I feel sort of silly hanging bunting all around my house at the moment since we have no children to make the feeling whole.  Thus, I decided to create this fun colorful bunting necklace out of leather scraps.  Check it out at LOB, I hope you love it as much as I do!

Colorful bunting necklace at lazy owl boutique

Sorry I've been MIA....

I had a delightful weekend to myself last weekend where I just attempted to craft stuff and make new jewelry all weekend...more on that eventually.  BUT I have been MIA lately because this week we spontaneously decided to adopt another doggie.  This one is a puppy girl from the Montgomery County shelter.  I saw her picture online and one thing just snowballed into another, and by the end of the day, she was ours!

 I'll have some real updates soon!