I'm an Idiot, I'm a Genius

.

Hand Stitched Wearable Paper Art Pin, 2-3/4" diameter, $4.00.

First, why I'm an idiot.

I've mentioned before that I turn into such a nervous wreck when sending an email blast to my customers. It used to be that I hesitated because I didn't want to be considered to be a spammer. I have never sent out enough email to be considered spam - and this is an email list that people sign up for! So I got over that.

I just want the email to be perfect. Is that asking too much??

I wanted to send the email last week because I often feel like I wait until the last minute before an event. But first I wanted to post more things in my shop, but before that I wanted to . . . and the list goes on and on. Finally, I had to just do it.

I posted 5 new paper art jewelry pins in the Shop last night. This morning I updated my Shows page. So I was ready to send the email. I tell you, I reread that thing 100 times, I sent it to myself first to see how it looks, checked the links, etc.

Finally, the big moment - send! My list is so large I have it broken down into groups alphabetically so the mail server can handle it. First group - I sent the group as "to", not "bcc". This is one of my pet peeves in that I think it makes one look amateurish to expose recipients names like that. Darn.

Not to worry - I did it correctly for the rest of the groups.

I immediately get a small number of auto-replies, as expected - address change, mailboxes have been deleted, etc.

Then I get a live response from a woman who politely asks about the new shows, "Sounds great! What town are those in?"

Crap! I gave the addresses but neglected to say they are both in downtown Rochester, NY. I forget that my mailing list has grown beyond the 18 friends and family it started out as.

Oh well. The complete address is on my Shows page, so there's that. (And I immediately replied to her personally, of course.)

~ ~ ~

Now, want to hear what a genius I am??

Long ago I needed graph paper for a project and figured I could find some on the Internet - and I did. You can specify the size, color lines, etc. Worked perfectly.

When working on these new pins the other day, like the one pictured above, I was making the patterns by folding paper in half, quarters, eighths, etc. to mark off the sections. Particularly when working that small, being off even just a skosh makes the design look sloppy. I liked the direction I was heading but any slight imperfection was bugging me.

Shazam, I says to myself, I bet I can find round graph paper on the Internet! I Googled and found it helps to call it circular graph paper but whoomp, there it is! Every kind of graph paper you could possibly want, all turned into a free downloadable pdf, made to your specs.

So yeah, I'm a genius. I invented Googling the Internet.

First & Last Arts & Crafts Show
May 3rd
5 – 10 PM
Spot Coffee
200 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14604

.