I feel like I’m back.  Since Thanksgiving, it’s been one thing after the other and I’ve been craving a normal week and some kind of routine.  When both boys were little, I was used to working on things in bits and pieces and I had a system all worked out to be efficient.  Now that they are older, I really depend on the time when they are at school and have trouble getting into a groove when they are home a lot.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet time, but…you know what I’m saying.   It’s tough to get into a work groove.  So, after the holidays and snow days and my son’s diagnosis and all of that stuff, I finally feel like my creativity is waking up.  I feel energetic again and ready to dive into projects.

I started by making a to-do list, so I could be focused.  It was a little overwhelming to look at everything that “needs” to be done and I know the list isn’t even complete, but I just need to take it one thing at a time.  Today, Jeff and I pulled out our new lighting, camera and sound equipment and made a video on waxing the rocking horse.

Our goal is to try to make 1 or 2 videos a week on painting, topcoats, mixing, tips and tricks, etc. We’re also going to make a new slipcover series as well as upholstery, building and more.  It’s so nice to have someone behind the camera!  My videos until this point have been me, a low budget camera and a tripod.  That’s fine, but I know that sometimes it was hard to see exactly what I was doing.  We hope to show things more clearly in these new videos.

I haven’t shared much about them, but I show off the wax brush sold with my line in the video.  It has a comfy handle, oval shape and tapered bristles, making it perfect for a applying and buffing the wax on pieces with nooks and crannies.  (I know Reinvented Vintage has them available online.)

And the horse was a great subject, although still a little unruly.

Someone suggested a “name that horse” contest and I think that’s a good idea.  Don’t start sharing names now.  Hold them for the official contest and I’ll put some goodies up for grabs to go to the person who gives him/her (?) the winning name.

Since we had everything set up, we also made a video describing and comparing all of the colors in the MMSMP line.  Of course, after shooting I realized that I left out Mustard Seed Yellow!  Dang it!  So, we’ll be doing that one again.

And speaking of MMSMP colors, I did a photo shoot of Apron Strings, our upcoming #mmsmpcolorofthemonth for February.  I decided to show how it looks mixed with Ironstone in different amounts to create some lovely pinks.

And someone asked for a side-by-side comparison of Shutter Gray and Trophy, so here that is…

Shutter Gray is one on the left and Trophy is on the right.  Obviously, Shutter Gray is more of a pale blue-gray and Trophy is a much warmer, richer gray.  I’ll go into more detail on that in a post on the MMSMP blog.

And, I’m excited to share that a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes and The Mustard Seed Pages (an online classified for girls like us) is ready to be up and running, so I’ll share about that next week and you can start posting all of your goodies (for free)…

…AND, the new online shop is set up.  It seems the rush of shoppers when I listed items was more than the little shop plugin I was using could handle.  I’ve switched to a Big Cartel shop for now, which allows shoppers to hold items in the shopping cart for 10 minutes to prevent an item from being sold twice or from being snatched out of another shopper’s cart.  I know it was frustrating, so we’re hoping this addresses all of those technical issues.

I have a nice collection of stuff to list including the alligator doctor’s bag that’s been in my home office, a little trophy I use in a lot of my photo shoots and, of course, some ironstone, book lots and more.  I’m in the process of ordering more hemp sheets as well.

See?  I told you I was back!