What's going on in the MooreMagnets house?!

I thought I would give you all a little update on what is going on in the MooreMagnets household! Oh, and for all of you looking for the update on the paperwork - I haven't gotten everything together to do a blog post about that, but hopefully sometime this week I will be able to give you a re-cap with pictures!

Boys! As most of you know we have 3 boys running around! Life gets pretty busy with all of them running around - especially this year! The oldest is 14 now! Hard to believe but he is a freshman in high school now! He is the kicker for the Junior Varsity football team, and he is a starter on the Varsity soccer team! Woot! Being on the varsity soccer team is quite and accomplishment for him, and he is the only freshman or sophomore on the team! Seeing them practice and play is a bit strange for me, especially since he isn't any smaller than the rest of the boys!

The middle boy has certainly sprouted this year - he is 12 now and definitely coming into his own. His father and I were incredibly shocked that he wanted to play middle school football this year - especially since he has never been very sports oriented. So, he tried out and made it!! He is one of the wide receivers on the team, so now he is really working on catching with dad and older brother.

Youngest boy is 6 now, and just as sweet as ever! Watching him develop friendships is the most wonderful thing! He wants to be in the boy scouts (trying to work out scheduling for that) and will probably play soccer in the spring!

Hubby and me are doing great! Not too many household projects going on right now other than finishing my workshop. I have taken on one project though! A dear friend of mine was recently diagnosed with adult alopecia. It really frightened me when I saw her wig sitting in her room before she had a chance to tell me what was going on. Only two short months later she has lost all of her beloved hair - all with no real known reason. Most of you who know me also know that I have enough hair for 2-3 people, so I have decided to let it grow and donate it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. Here is a picture of where I am now!


Curious about the requirements? You can find them from the link I posted above - but here is a quick rundown - must have 8 inches in length, less than 5% gray (I hope I still meet this!), no permanant hair treatments (vegetable color is okay)...

So I have about 7 inches right now - but really I am going for 10 - Hopefully I will be there by January!

Paperwork! Organizing my stacks!

It's a rainy day today, and I am finally finished sending out my outstanding orders. As much as I would love to just take the day off and do nothing, I have a giant stack of paperwork staring back at me!

I have several files already set up, but since our new computer arrived, I have decided to rearrange my desk. Things are coming along nicely, but it is forcing me to tackle some of the paperwork projects that I have been putting off for a while.

I will be taking pictures during the day to show you part of the process, but here is the list of the supplies I have ready to go to tackle this project!

File Folders
Label Maker
Large clean surface (my living room floor)
Stacks of paperwork
Empty file box
Note pad
Pens/Pencils
Shredder

I am not sure if I will be able to reveal my final office yet, but stay tuned hopefully it will come soon!

New Product Preview - Wall Pockets, Spice Racks, Coupon Organizers ... Oh My!!

I have been asked several times about what new products are coming from Moore Magnets! So, here is your preview of items that are in production in the workshop, a brief description, and when you can expect to see pictures and listings!

Wall Pockets - I am currently working on some wall pocket organizers that will look similar to my new letter holders. These wall pockets will be larger than the letter holders and designed to hold standard file folders (a legal file folder option will be available). These will hang on the wall with screws and magnets will stick on the surface of the wall pocket. They will be beautiful, functional, and some of them will come with matching magnet boards and other office goodies! These are scheduled to be completed in 1-2 weeks.

Spice Racks/Organizers - I am also working on some spice racks and organizer racks! They will be magnet boards that include magnet tins suitable for storing spices or other itty bitty goodies! There will be large sets and small sets and some of the magnet boards will come uncovered for those cooks that get a bit messy in the kitchen. These are scheduled to be completed in 2 weeks!

Coupon and Receipt Organizers - Sorry - can't tell you more about these! You will just have to wait patiently! These are scheduled to be completed in 2-3 weeks (maybe sooner!)

We are Experiencing Technical Difficulties....

ACK! My computer crashed! It was something that my husband and I knew would happen at some point!

So - do you have an external harddrive? Do you back up your computer on it?

If so, that is great - However, you need to take the next step and actually go on to the external harddrive and make sure that your back up files are really there!

Hopefully I will have some new things to show you soon, but it will take me a few days to get back on track and figure out how to use some of this new software!

Have a great day!

Don't forget about the End of Summer Sale in my Artfire shop! Click the sale tab on the right for more details!

Organizing Tip! Organizing Digital Photos

One of the hardest things for me to keep organized these days are my digital photos! I am guessing that is because they really don't take up any physical space. However, as an online seller of my craft photos are an essential part of my business. In my former life in the business world I maintained a database of thousands (maybe millions) of electronic papers and pictures and the system that we used was a dating system. It didn't take me long to figure out that we needed to use a coding system of year-month-day-document number - Today's first document would have looked like this: 2009-09-09-00001

However, that system didn't help me in business since the day that I took the photo was irrelevant. I currently use a system that uses the size of the magnet board, framed or unframed, fabric description, number - so my files end up looking something like this: 12x12Bluedots01 or 18x23Framedpinkgreendots01. For the items that I make that are not magnet boards my files look something like: pencilholderpurplegreenflower01 or mailholderorangewhitescrolls01

This naming system is generally how I keep all of my photos that have been edited, but I don't re-name the original pictures that are downloaded from my camera - I probably should, but since time is short - I don't.

Another thing that I do is I keep a file that is labeled - Show pictures - These are pictures that are my best photos of my work, and the file that I open when I need to find a picture to print for craft shows, juried sites, website design, flyers etc... Every picture in this file is a copy of the original.

There are other ways of organizing your photos, such as, coming up with a numbered category system where you have a number for each main category, perhaps a number for a subcategory, and a photo number. However, if you use a system like this you will need to make sure that you keep a list handy of all of your category and subcategory codes. Personally I prefer a system where I don't ever need a reference sheet and I can quickly look at the name of the file and determine what the photo is.

So, what is the first step to creating your own system? I would suggest that you first make a list of all of the different types of photos down, and then decide how many categories that you have and how many subcategories you have. After that you should be able to come up with some sort of system!