You have no idea...

Wow. I am blogging. OK, that might not impress many of you, but it's a really big deal for me. Trust me. Not only have I managed to successfully get here, to this point where I'm typing, but today I also started my own flickr.com spot. That's probably not even what "cool" people call it - a flickr.com spot. But that's what I'm calling it and I did it all by myself.



My motivation for all of this internet adventure is my newest obsession, making and selling handbags. Sunshine Handbags. This is actually my second attempt at creating some type of stay-at-home mom business out of a hobby. That first time I spent weeks trying to come up with a name for my jewelry business, spending hours on-line and at a more desperate hour I even paged through a thesaurus for ideas! Because, I thought, it all starts with a name, and it needs to be PERFECT. I bugged my family members and friends for their opinions and finally settled on something that in truth probably wasn't worthy of such a long process. Certainly my short-lived business wasn't worth the effort in the end. Except for the "learning experience" part of the whole deal, of course.



When it came time to give this new baby a name, I never hesitated, never asked anyone for advice, it just was there, waiting for me to announce it. Sunshine Handbags. I don't even use the word Handbag in my everyday vernacular. I have always called what I carry a "purse" as in, "honey, do you know where my purse is". But Handbag sounds important, maybe a little old-fashioned, like something you don't want to get dirty or mussed up or set on the sticky floor of a movie theatre or bar. It sounds like something that is hand-sewn, tailored even. And that is essentially what my bags are. On the inside, they might end up carrying your used kleenexes and old grocery receipts, but on the outside, they look like a Handbag. A thing of style.



However, I'm not delusional enough to think my bags will be in the same league as a Dooney and Bourke, Coach or Prada. No, they are handmade, don't contain any type of tanned animal hide or super fancy buckles or chains. So, I am taking my handbags to a marketplace where people are not looking for a Coach or Prada anything. I'm joining the multitudes of other artists who have found the wonderful world of ETSY. A world where hand-crafted items are considered a luxury, a special gift. Where people, some of whom only loosely consider themselves an "artist" can be a part of a group where everyone has this unexplainable need to just create. And a need to make some money to enable them to keep feeding the creative mind with supplies and ideas.



So, I have this blog, I have my etsy shop, I have a flickr account. I'm going to try not to make this a SAHM blog. That is a big part of my life and I no doubt will entertain you with stories about my kids from time to time, but I also hope to help expand my creative thoughts here, get ideas from others and spread the good word of Sunshine Handbags!