Welcome To My Blog...

I will be telling you a little of my life, my love of beads, various crafts, and the teams and groups I belong to. You will be able to share in my accomplishments and my failures. Such a wonderful way to become old friends.

March 2010
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EARTH to Etsy

Posted By GrandmaMarilyn on March 7, 2010

I got an email today letting me know that my Green and Gold Woven Bracelet was include in a treasury called EARTH to Etsy curated by Pam of cooljewelrydesign.  Other JET members in this treasury are AdroitJewelers, Glitzglitter, CocosGreenhouse, and mcrdesigns.

This treasury is open until Tuesday, March 9th, at 6:15 p.m. (EST).  So you have plenty of time to click on the picture below to be swept away to the real treasury where you can click each picture and leave a comment. 

3 7 2010 EARTH to Etsy

Looking through Pam’s shop, cooljewelrydesign, I found this lovely pair of earrings in my favorite gemstone and color…..amethyst purple. 

image

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Secret Sweetheart

Posted By GrandmaMarilyn on March 5, 2010

Last month my JET team had a Secret Sweetheart event for Valentines Day where we made jewelry for another member of our team.  The gift you received was not from the same member as you sent to.

The team member that was chosen for me to create something beautiful for was Judith of judesjujus.  I kept trying to figure out what to make and send her.  I kept coming up with ideas but none of them seemed right. 

While I was in a creative mood, I made a pair of earrings in a trapeze style (well, that is what I call it).  I am not sure what the beads are as my daughter bought them.  I think they are some type of jade but not sure.  I decided to try a bracelet to match.  Boy was that a fiasco.  I finally, after about 3 or 4 tries, got the bracelet to come together the way I envisioned it.  I was going to put these beauties up for sale in my GrandmaMarilyns shop but they spoke to me and said that they wanted to go to Judith.  So to Judith they went.  LOL  Turns out that they are in her favorite color….green.  I was so happy when I read that.  She told me that she loves the set.  Whew!  I can let that breath out now.

Green bracelet & Earrings - sweetheart swap

My Secret Sweetheart was Victoria of dbvictoria.  She created me a beautiful rutilated quartz necklace and earring set.  I love the set because it is so dainty and feminine.  Victoria even sent my set in a pretty purple box.  I do so love purple.  hehe

rutilated quartz earring and necklace set from dbvictoria - Secret sweetheart

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Wish Me Luck – Quickbooks

Posted By GrandmaMarilyn on February 23, 2010

I finally broke down and bought Quickbooks to keep my business records up-to-date for my GrandmaMarilyns, GrandmaMarilynsToo, AngeliquesCreations, Bead Patterns Boutique (Grandma Marilyn), The Bead Coop (Grandma Marilyn), and other online shops. 

I bought a used copy of Quickbooks Contractor Premier 2007 from a seller on eBay and ordered a book from Amazon called Quickbooks 2007 for Dummies to learn how to use it on February 2. 

I received my Quickbooks Contractor software on February 9.  When I went to register it, I found out that once it has been registered you can’t re-register it.  You need the unlock code from when it was orginally registered to use the software.  They also informed me that once you register software, you are not allowed to sell that software when you no longer need it.  That was a surprise to me.  I sent a message to the seller and asked if they had the unlock key.  They did not so refunded me my money immediately and told me to destroy the software they sold me.  Moral of this story:  Never buy used registered software from someone or try to sell registered software to someone if there isn’t an unlock key available.

Once I received my refund from the first seller, I went back to eBay to find a New In Box (NIB), never registered copy of Quickbooks.  I found a seller with 4 NIB Quickbooks Pro 2008 Software packages up for auction with a Buy It Now option.  I bookmarked it and went back later to find that only 1 copy was left.  The seller had a good feedback percentage so I hurried up and bought the last copy.  I was still skeptical about whether this transaction would work or not.  I received my purchase Friday, Feb 19.  I loaded it into my computer and called the number to register my copy of Quickbooks.  I was still very nervous that something would go wrong with the purchase.  Before I found out what my unlock key was, the person on the other end of the line told me that this was an old copy of Quickbooks and that it would be upgraded to 2010 version automatically.  I was really excited about this until he informed me that it would cost me $135 to upgrade.  I told him that I was perfectly happy with the version that I had and that I did not want the upgrade.  Finally, he gave me the unlock number.  I entered this code into my Quickbooks and everything was just fine.  Whew!  I didn’t have to be nervous any more except that at this point, he had told me that since I had Windows 7 on my computer that my version of Quickbooks wouldn’t work right (again trying to sell me the newer version).  I told him that it works just fine.

My Quickbooks 2007 for Dummies arrived on the same day as the second software.  I started going through it and trust me, I did my best to understand what the book was telling me.  I thought it would walk me through step by step on how to set up the company.  When it came to accounts, I never could make heads or tails on what to do.  Believe it or not, I went back to the book that came in the box and learned more from it than I did from the Dummies book.  Of course, that is just me.

I decided to go online and see what I could find to help me learn my Quickbooks Pro 2008 better.  I found several articles that looked like they might help in other areas but not the accounts lists.  I finally found Video Professor Online that let you watch all of the videos for Lesson 1 of 3.  This one explained to me better how to do the accounts list but still left a lot of unanswered questions.  I found a course that I could take in a college about 75 miles from here that cost $1800.  I really would like to take it but it is a little much for me right now, especially since it did not include the books that would be required bringing it up to around $2000 or more.  I found several other CD or online courses but they were a little expensive for me right now even though they sounded wonderful or didn’t look like they would help me.

Next, I went back to see what I could find on eBay.  I found the Video Professor Quickbook set for $25 with shipping instead of the $400 the Video Professor site wanted.  I thought about ordering that.  Then I found Teach You Comp, Inc with an online course for online course for Quickbooks that looked like it was well rounded for $19.95 for a 1 year subscription (original price was $179.40).  This was the course that I bought yesterday.  By looking at his entire shop, I found where they have it on CD as well as online.

Ok, now I am getting ready to start this course and see if I can start using my Quickbooks Pro 2008 effectively.  As the title of this post says, Wish me Luck.

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JET of the Day

Posted By GrandmaMarilyn on February 13, 2010

My GrandmaMarilyns Etsy shop is the JET of the day for February 12, 2010.  To read the lovely writeup that Bob of Jewelry24seven, one of my JET friends, wrote go to the JET Blog.  Following is a brief picture of the post.  To see the rest go to the blog post.  You will also find lots of other wonderful shops listed there for your browsing pleasure.  I am sure that you will find something to please your pocketbook or your love of bling.

2-12-10 JET team Blog - GrandmaMarilyns - cropped

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Blog Management Made Easy

Posted By GrandmaMarilyn on February 9, 2010

For anyone who hasn’t tried Windows Live Writer to manage their blog, you are missing an easy, great tool.  Plus, the program is free.  You don’t have to be online in order to use it.  Once you finish your blog post, just click on publish and it will do all the work.

It is easy to use.  To start off, you give the link to your blog, your blog user id and password.  Once Windows Live Writer has that, it goes and downloads all of your information on how your blog is set up…ie, font, background, etc.  From this point, you can start posting to your blog.  Oh, yes, you can use Windows Live Writer for more than one blog.

Windows Live Writer Prt Scrn

When you are writing your blog, it is easy to add pictures and make links out of words that you are using…..ie, GrandmaMarilyns is linked to my etsy shop.  To add a picture, you click on picture on the right menu under Insert and select the picture from your computer.  To make a hyperlink, all you have to do is highlight the picture or text and click hyperlink  on the right menu under Insert.  A screen will show up that allows you to place your hyperlink, allow you to have it go to another tab, link with the words all the time, and then add a title that shows up when your picture won’t show up.

Note at the bottom of the screen, you have the capability to put your categories and tags.  You also have a Set Publish Date (that I just found…LOL) at the bottom right.  I used this function to post my “January Treasuries” post yesterday morning.

If you want, you can add plug-ins to help make things easier.  For instance, I downloaded TwitterNotify that will let my Twitter account know when I add a post to my blog.  I tried to find a way to notify Facebook when I posted to my blog but could not.  So I added #fb to the end of the Twitter notification and it will go to my Facebook Business Page after it is posted to Twitter.  I added DeliciousNotify to put bookmark information about my blog post in Delicious.  Another plug-in added was Flickr Upload, which is suppose to upload a thumbnail to your blog and to your Flickr account at the same time. I haven’t really tried it yet but will someday.

Well, those are the plug-ins I installed.  There are plenty more plug-ins that I chose not to use; but, since we are all individuals, you might want to try them out.

You really do need to give Windows Live Writer a try.  You have seen the lovely posts that I have created with it.  You will be glad that you did.

If you have any questions, I will try to help you the best that I can.

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