I had planned on getting a good start on my Taxes today.

Instead, I took photos of the masks and earrings and some feather pendants I would take to Commonwheel Gallery and put on Etsy. It always takes me longer to get everything done for selling the items than I think it will.

And it was frigid on my front porch photo studio. My fingers in my fingerless gloves felt frozen very quickly. Which made it more difficult to get the photos I wanted to take done. And I really need to figure out a backdrop that doesn’t need cleaning all the time. Black suede looks good, but getting feathers off it can be a real pain! Then I have do a bit of clean up in PhotoShop before I can post them anywhere, or it looks messy.

I did take fewer photographs than planned, but got the ones I absolutely needed. I am planning to put photos of all the masks I took to Commonwheel on my FantaFaces web site to direct people on Etsy to see more styles and playful masks I create. I can’t have the same mask for sale both on Etsy and at Commonwheel. If I make a sale at Commonwheel, and the same one sells on Etsy, I could never recreate most of them even close to the one that sold. They really are one-of-a-kind masks, as no two feathers are alike and the patterns of the eye highlight feather vary hugely from one ringneck pheasant to the next.

I created mask boards for the shop also. They are the best way to package my masks. They needed the “Care and Feeding” information printed, so knew I wanted to print them on my Laser printer, as I am getting low on color ink on the InkJet. Then realized I didn’t have any of the proper tags for the earrings printed. My laser printer gave me a few moments of worry with a technical difficulty when it didn’t start up properly. It took a couple of restarts to get it working. Glad I don’t give up easily, and believe in restarts making a difference. I am visionig it surviving a few more months, or longer, before I need to replace it. It is very old, but can print certain things better than the ink jet I share with the Festival. It only works with my older MAC, so worked on that instead of my newer MAC. Got them all printed and the earrings on their little cards with the right price tags on them.

Just watch a small spider float down onto my desk, a little to cold to capture him and take him outside. So will just ignore him for now.

Walked to Commowheel on a very chilly foggy day. At the Gallery, I had to do the tagging and inventory write up in the “cold storage” room. That room isn’t really set up to do this comfortably, but I got it done. I haven’t had the feather pendants for sale since Holiday Market ended. So made some room on the side of my display that has the Hair Clips, Hat Clips and Pins to put 9 of them there.

The member working the shop helped me do some photos for a demo of how to use the mask boards. We have had lots of new members and I am not sure how many know anything about the mask boards. So will do a page for them to see where to find them and how to package the masks properly.

The masks I made yesterday that would be priced lower than my normal masks, were hung on another side of my display. I had a sign stating that they are “Specially Priced for Carnivale”. Also put a sign in the window about Carnivale Masks being available. Want to do another one saying they are made in Manitou, but didn’t have that ready today. Realized we are missing the Artist Pictures that were hanging in the front window before Holiday Market happened, and didn’t get put back up. That was where I would normally put a couple of signs about Carnival Masks. Will have to work on that with Marketing Team . . .

Got home checked emails for the first time in two days. Then put away my photo props and started on clearing up paperwork in preparation of working on my taxes. Had dinner, watched a bit of the Olympics. I love the skaters! And a bit intrigued by the women snowboarders.

When I woke up this morning, my left leg was a more swollen than normal. That always worries me a bit. So I took a very hot shower and rubbed more essential oils on it than normal. The root cause of this swelling, (a life changing health challenge created by minor surgery gone awry) is one of the challenge stories I want to get written this year. It is my intention to share challenges I have faced in my life that I overcame by dealing with them with a solution oriented approach, rather than dwelling on the challenge.

Now quickly -right- doing my two blog posts, writing everyday! Then will see where I get working on my taxes. Tomorrow is set aside as a day to get caught up with Commonwheel Festival and Old Spokes Show tasks. A past member is going to stop by to help me look at the scrapbooks that got covered with mud last August and see what we can do with them.

Now off to the races . . . I mean taxes.