My First Treasury Ever

Here is my first treasury ever! You can see it in real life here!

Post Holiday Update!

Hi Everyone!

We hope you all had as lovely a Holiday Season as we did :)

We spent the actual Holiday with my family and then we went to Matt's family's Holiday event on Sunday. Our families are very different, mine is small (a total of about 8 people) and his is large (his mom is one of 12 kids), which means that celebrating with our respective families is a very different experience.

We had a lot of fun with both families and we gave my brother and Matt's sister terrariums for Christmas.

We also received many wonderful presents. Matt got enough best buy gift cards so he could buy a PS3 and the game "Little Big Planet", which we have been playing every days since. It is such a cute game :) and he has been saving and asking for gift cards for a long time so he was super excited. I got an awesome Rachel Ray pan that i have wanted for a long time, and a lot of odds and ends I needed and wanted.

We also got some things that will help out with Gnome Homes. We got a little photo cube thing, it has little lights and a tiny tripod so we can take better photos when the light isn't great. I have already used it a few times and it helps on days like today where the light isn't great. We also got a mail scale and have had the post office pick up our past 2 orders. It is so much better and easier :)

I have to run and do some stuff before Matt gets home!

~Meghan

Snowed In

So the boy and I have been snowed in since Friday, which is starting to make me very irritable!

After a week of non-stop running and working on Gnome Homes having nothing to do is making me stir crazy, and we are running out of food since all we do is eat all day...lol!

<---- Look at how crazy it is here!

Matt's sister had a baby girl yesterday and we can't even leave to go visit!

The weather is dramatically hindering the Christmas shopping I need to get done and the fact we wanted to go get more jars for terrariums today!

Obviously as you can see from my lovely car, we are not going anywhere today!

I hope everyone else is having a good Sunday and isn't going as crazy as me!


~Meghan

Caladryl, Shmaladryl...

We have been going almost non stop for the past week(well Meghan has). We were able to stay up late, make a bunch more terrariums and post them over the past few days. We had good amount of sales too. Which is very exciting. Seeing some of the huge success stories on etsy, makes me think "how can they keep up with all their orders?". If we sell a few a day it can almost get overwhelming.

It's crazy. Making them and sending them out into the world. Each one has it's own personality and it's kinda sad to say bye to them. But if we kept every one we liked, we wouldn't have any room left in our apartment. Packing material for mailing is taking up all that space anyway. I remember saying to Meghan about a year ago, that we had every thing we needed and anything else new wouldn't fit in our place. I was right.

Oh yeah and we both have poison ivy! In December?!? How the hell does that happen? Next time you get it use Ivy Dry. It is awesome!

gnomehomes.blogspot.com is not endorsed by Ivy Dry, Technu or Caladryl.....especially not Caladryl

Wednesday Update

Sorry for our long absence from our blogging! We have been super busy with our shop :)

Making terrariums has really overtaken our lives, we have been up till 2am the past few days making new terrariums and mushies!

It has been awesome to get to meet so many awesome people on etsy and have a lot of people like what we make. We are curious how well we will do after the Holidays. A lot of our sales have been presents, but maybe January will bring people who didn't get what they wanted and come to buy themselves presents (i do that sometimes!)

Also i am hoping that people realize that these little lovelies are perfect for valentines day :)
Why spend $50 on roses that die in a week when you can have a moss terrarium that will last months and months!

Also if you are reading this please comment on our post, Matt thinks no one reads this and uses it as an excuse not to post!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season :)

~Meghan

Have No Fear...Gnome Homes is Here!

If you read my lovely boy's post below and worried that we would be slowing down Gnome Homes creation because he will be a working stiff again don't you worry!

We have 16, thats right 16 terrariums that are in our living room thriving and waiting for me to start making mushrooms and homes and putting monkeys in them! This weekend we will be finishing up their design aspects and taking photos and then you will be able to see the new listings in our shop.

Expect to see some new large terrariums, some terrariums with doors and some little terrarium sets that are perfect for the holidays.

Hopefully by posting these there will be some more variety in our shop and a little something for everyone!

I am super excited, and I hope you are too!!!

Good Times, Bad Times

So Gnome Homes is picking up a bit. Recently we have sold at least one a day. It's crazy our other etsy shops were struggling from day one but with this shop we've hit the ground running!

In other developments I finally have full time employment again. Which is a huge relief. After applying at about twenty different places I was starting to feel completely un-hireable. Just as I had lost all hope I get two job offers in the same day! Not a minute too soon either, I am broke as a joke. Like the most un-funny joke you've ever heard. Like something Jay Leno or Carrottop would tell.

I'm so lucky to have Meghan, who had my back the whole time. She's super supportive. Luckily I haven't had to borrow any money from her(yet). Who wants to do that?

Also the night before Thanksgiving I played bass and guitar with a couple of my friends at a one-off gig. It was pretty fun and I actually got paid. To play music...It's nuts!

Gobble Gobble!

As Thanksgiving is getting closer and closer I have been thinking about the things that I am truly thankful for this year. Here is my mini list (in no particular order)...

1. My boyfriend Matt. He is more than a boyfriend, he really is my life partner.
2. My family, who in the own quirky way care.
3. My lovely apartment, which I am happy to come home to every night.
4. My craft room which is my haven from the outside world.
5. My health, as I get older I realize what a gift it is.
6. My local library branch which allows me to fuel by passion without involving my checkbook.
   
7. And last but not least is our awesome Etsy customers who like what we create enough to want one for themselves. It is very heartwarming to know that what we do is relevant to others.

I wish you all the very best Thanksgiving and the time to reflect on what you are truly thankful for.

My craft room at my favorite time of day

Exciting, Strange Newness(is that a word?)

So we started by posting about eight things in our store. They got a pretty good reception! Within a few days we got about 70 people to favorite our store which is about 50 more than i had in the year and a half of effort i put into my first etsy shop.

We had sold a few things in the first couple of days and i cant thank the people on etsy enough for being first time buyers to a new store. Its hard to get your first bit of feedback and let people know you ship quickly and safely(some of these terrariums are pretty delicate). I dont know if I would be willing to take the plunge myself.

We went to the woods at Meghan's parents house, where we grow our moss, on a VERY cold morning to get as many large beautiful pieces as we could. Meghan totally kicked ass! I thought I would be all manly getting down in the dirt and digging it up since we were getting more than enough for just one or two, but I guess I was moving too slow so she just took the trowel from me and got down to business. I was so impressed! It takes a special kind of girl to go moss picking in the woods when its in the low 20's.

Launch of our Etsy Shop and Monday Afternoon Updates

Hello All!

It is a relaxing evening...kind of. I am listening to NPR and just got home from our local thrift store. Its name is "Boomerangs" and it supports AIDS initiatives and is run by volunteers. It is eclectic and I like to go there to browse around, especially for the cookware. I have become very very fond of vintage Pyrex and wanted to go see if there were any good finds to be had. I did not find any good Pyrex, but i did find two awesome little bottles for Gnome Homes!

It is nice because it means we can have a lower price point in our shop too. I like to try to have a variety of price points so every buyer can afford something. I know it always bums me out when i love a shop but cannot afford anything in it.

Also, BIG BIG BIG Gnome Home news is that we launched our Etsy site last night! I feel like the views for Gnome Homes is much more rapid as are hearts than for my store 2lilmonkeys. While it makes me feel bad for 2lilmonkeys is makes me so excited about the prospects of Gnome Home success! I would love for this to be a hit.

But now i am off to finish scrubbing my new jars and working on my paper.

Have a nice night all!

Gnomes Homes... New Homes and a New Etsy Start

Hello all!

I hope you all were able to curl up this morning with a warm mug of tea and the morning paper. I wish we were able to do that but this morning were were up and exploring in the rain! All on the quest for rocks and moss for our lovely terrariums!

But before i go any further here is the back story about Gnome Homes and our terrarium making....

I have loved gnomes for a long time, ever since i was a little girl and read an article about how a European museum has an exhibit of gnomes they had to take down because people kept stealing the gnomes. I was fascinated and have been a gnome collector and lover ever since.

Matt and I started dating over two years ago and started living together last September. He introduced me to etsy and renewed my crafting. He was always so supportive of my efforts and even let me take over our second bedroom as my own craft village.

So fast forwarding to last week...

Matt presented me with a moss terrarium as an early Christmas gift which i promptly fell in love with. This is all extremely ironic because making moss terrariums has been a tradition in my family. My mother and grandmother made moss terrariums around Christmas for years and my mother and I would make them when I was a child. (we now get our moss from her old "moss patch" so to say!)

Matt and I decided that we had so much fun making our terrariums that we would revive my family tradition and make them to share with everyone on etsy! I hope you all enjoy!



Much love,
-Meghan