The NorthWesternBelle

Hey! I know I'm five days late. We've been super busy over at Craft and STEM. Our final inspection happened today, and we passed! The shop will officially be open on Tuesday, July 10. Head over to CraftStem.com for all the exciting details! Colt's 7th birthday is this weekend, and we're having a party for him at the shop on Saturday, July 7. It will also function as an open house/sneak peak, because I love to multitask. Please feel free to stop by between 2 and 5 pm for cake, food and a tour! Anyhow. June just flew by, as it does when you're working hard. Here are some highlights: Honey B came home! Grandmommy visited for a few days. She is so helpful around the shop! Not a fan of the ponytail. Lots of trips to the pool. And to the Ikea. The kids and I surprised my dad for Father's Day weekend (also his birthday) by showing up in Twin Falls without warning. It was fabulous! I just love hanging out with my niblings. Max <...

Holy crap, y'all. Was anyone else's May as crazy as mine? I kinda doubt it. I couldn't be happier about it, though, because it's exactly what I want to do! I don't have to answer to anyone, I don't have to pretend like I care because I actually DO care. Being my own boss is exactly what I always dreamed it would be. The shop is getting so close to being ready to open! The pottery equipment all arrived this week, so the only thing holding us back at this point is the plumbing, which is complicated. Still, we're hoping to be open before July. I was going to include a bunch of photos from the shop, but then I realized it has its own website that needs to be filled with content, so stay tuned for May in Review over at craftstem.com. May wasn't only work, regardless of what it looks like. Two of my nephews have birthdays in May, plus Mother's Day, Lil Boy's last day of school was the 25th, and Honey B arrived yesterday. photo credit: Gr...

One day late this month. I had good intentions yesterday, but it was Tuesday so I went to pottery instead. Sorry not sorry. Did some slab building with leaves from the complex and cookie cutters I've had for a minute. As you probably already know, April 2018 was our month! We signed the lease on the first location of Craft and STEM on April 10 (shout out to Mr. H, my brother in law, who was celebrating his 30th birthday on that day, too!). Two keys... ....three suites! 3780 square feet & it's OURS! So, yeah, April 10 through 30 were some busy days. So much to do! All the things, really, since we're self-employed and all. Basically, I live here now: Yes, that's a 32" screen that I plug into my laptop so that I can watch movies & YouTube while I work. #beyourownboss I've just got a temporary website up and running. It'll be much better once C has some time to focus on it. Which....well, eventually! For the time being...

I intentionally put off publishing this month's newsletter because I was hoping to share good news on about....yesterday. As is the case so far, though, there are yet more delays. So, I guess I'll just go ahead and stop teasing y'all, seeing as it has been six months since I gained financial independence (hey, thanks past-self, devising an easy way to keep track!), and we are soooooooo close to completing step 1 of our master plan. You see, we are trying to secure a lease on a building with sufficient power for our needs. We've been actively looking at properties and working with commercial realtors and electricians since January to find a place, and we've been held up by the lack of sufficient amperage in anything less than 10,000 square feet. So far we have only come across one property, in desperate need of upgrade (seriously, crumbling) in a shady part of downtown, that was already equipped with more than enough power. Everything else has been barely enough,...

This post has been a long time coming, considering this project was accepted in November and finished in December 2017. Better late than never, right? Right. (Edit 3/16/18: I did make a couple of videos about this project! Check them out here: Part 1 & Part 2 .) Spoiler! They're awesome. So, pretty much as soon as I lost my job at the end of October, my mother in law commissioned 30 mugs - 10 cat themed and 20 dog themed - to be Christmas gifts for her pet sitting clients. I'd never taken on such a large project, but I had the time to do it, so I was excited! And also seriously nervous about getting that many mugs through the entire process with enough time to ship them to NM before Christmas. To-be cat mugs. Dog mugs. The dog mugs were thrown to be 4" tall and 4" wide. The handles were all hand-pulled. Right about midway through production of all the cups, the studio hired me as a part-time office assistant. I went from spending two and a ...