New Blog for my Shop!

Why not?!
Finally it's up! A blog all for news related to my etsy shop!

Memento Mori Shop

I was thinking of also doing shop spot lights for shops that I have found and love!

First a little bit about myself..

My name is Angel, short for Angelica and I'm 25 years old and currently living in San Antonio, Texas.  I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona and spent some time as a youngster in Orem, Utah.  I am the oldest of six children in my family and I live a couple of miles from my mom who cares for my younger brother who has Autism.  Growing up I always wanted to be a writer.  My first story was a super awesome vampire story.  I think I was like...six when I wrote it. hehehe.

I moved to San Antonio, Texas about three years ago to follow my mom who had moved here for a better position for the company we work for.  (We both work for a used/new bookstore.) My boyfriend along with our cat, lizard and snake followed six months later.  I really have fallen in love with San Antonio! The people are so nice here!
  Hmm, what else? I'm a Buddhist vegan that has a strong passion for animal welfare and I absolutely love video games (guilty pleasure:World of Warcraft).  I love collecting books and love movies and music.  I have three cats (Donut, Tex and Grif ((extra credit if you know where their names come from ;) )) ), one Savannah Monitor (Kovax), one Ball Python (Oz) and two carpet sharks (Snicklefritz & Chubbs "Captain Crunch" McGee) and one 20 year old brother (Cody).  I've been with the love of my life for six years and counting.(Daniel)

 I had been playing with beads making small bracelets and occasionally something special requested by friends and family members.  My Auntie (Sweet Baboux) actually opened me up to the world of beading when I was 14 or 15.  She always made amazing pieces and it only made sense to me to make things that sparkle and look pretty. :)

I had always wanted to make things and sell them but the thought of putting my stuff out there and being judged was intimidating.  Plus, I really didn't know where to begin.  So I just continued to create for myself, collecting ideas for my "shop".  I have so many notebooks full of brainstorming and when it comes time for me to spring clean I just can't bring myself to throwing any of them away.

Anyways, my cousins wife had posted on her facebook about her Etsy shop. (Spiral Finch) I was so amazed at her creations and the fact that she had her own spot on the internet to share with others her personality and art.  I started to read A LOT into making an shop and start planning out my own.  I brain stormed for my shop name and style FOREVER it felt like..until I finally put my foot down.

My shop in the beginning was nothing but skull earrings.  Little metal skull earrings paired with shiny beats. :)  Then I found some howlite skull beads at a local bead store right down the street in a little shopping center called Artisans Alley.  The Store is called Originals beads.  I've found so many amazing bead there that have certainly been popular in my shop!
Anyways, I kinda wanted to keep a Day of the Dead theme to my shop...but the creator in me wanted to add more!  I planned on opening a second etsy shop for book related gifts..it was called "Hootie's Book Goodies" It would have magnets, book purses, magazine totes, little owl cell phone charms, author portraits, and so on.  Well, while I was on my quest to start gathering materials for the book purses (I started collecting books I wanted to use for the purses for almost 5 years now! Sheesh.) I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I wanted to recycle the pages.  WELL! I ran into this book at my store :

And I was flipping through it and they had made really cute flowers!  Well, I'm not very good at the whole quilling thing but I REALLY wanted to make paper flower jewelry..so I made it work! And they are super fun to make.

I thought I would make these rings and show case them in my mementomorishop shop to see how people responded to them.  They are doing great so far! So flower earrings and rings were added. :)

I don't know when or if Hootie's will ever open..but it's saved for when I want to dive into something else.

So! My Memento Mori shop opened June 19 2010 and currently has 86 sales! It definitely grown into way more than it was suppose to and with my one year anniversary coming up, I have been considering to actually making it a legit business instead of just a hobby that I make a little money off of. That is pretty intimidating in itself!

I'm going to post as often as I can on this and try and find others that have blogs to read. Kinda hard to figure out where to start...but I'm sure I'll get there!

Peace out for now!

Angel.