Simply Shiny Life

We’re moving, so both shops are set to vacation and I’ve put blogging on hold for a bit.

I’ll be back in late June!

AuctionBytes posted an article called “IRS to Track Online Sellers’ Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year” you might want to read.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y210/m03/abu0258/s03

The fact that the IRS is going to be scrutinizing online payments shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I’d welcome being able to receive official 1099s from Paypal to assist in my annual tax preparation. The proposed new form will be called a 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments.  You can see a sample below.

Unfortunately, for those of us managing small online businesses, this new scrutiny is only going to apply to those with sales exceeding $20k and 200 transactions.

Perhaps Paypal will give the rest of us an option to receive reporting based on this new requirement. One can hope, right?

Hippity Hoppity

(Ok, silly title. The kiddo helped me pick it out. )

You can click on the image to be taken directly to the treasury.

My son has a LOT of Legos. A LOT. And one of the Hub’s workmates gifted him with another big box of them earlier this week.  See that pile on the floor? I’ll bet he has that many more in his bedroom. Really? Really.

That’s the kiddo in the corner of the photo, in his favorite Monster Jam shirt,  slurping down a strawberry milkshake and surveying his domain.

Maybe we should be buying 2 houses? One to live in and one to store the toys? Food for thought…

I’m offering a special sale to my lovely and very loyal newsletter subscribers.

If you’d like to join my newsletter list, I’ll send you all the details.

You can join my newsletter here: http://shinyadornments.com/simplyshiny/my-newsletter/

I’ve not posted much new work the last couple of months. My time has been eaten up lately with my full time job, the hunt for a new house, and now the process of moving from our old home to the new one. Things like stucco inspectors, and painters and carpet measurements and septic leach line mappings and spiders and water quality tests have me captive.

The good news is that I’ve already picked out my new work area. There’s a tiled sun room simply calling my name. It’s already equipped with heat/cool, lots of light, and plenty of electrical outlets. Additionally, the tile floor is a HUGE benefit as I’ll be able to move my soldering equipment and torch from the garage into this space to accompany all my other beading paraphernalia. This new tile floor is so much more conducive to molten silver than the carpet in my existing space.  Just the thought of having everything I need in one place makes me giddy. LOL

We close on this new property in mid April. After selling the old house and getting settled in, I’ll be ready to take up the torch again. Probably more than ready, really. I’ve got loads of ideas that I’ve been logging into my sketch books. I’ll be incredibly ready to actualize them once I’ve gotten everything settled and the kiddo enrolled into some new summer activities.

I am REALLY looking forward to this move.

My pal Brandi has added a great post with her tips and techniques to taking super pictures of her fabulous jewelry. You can check it out at Photo Formula at Brandi Girl

Gorgeous pictures of gorgeous jewelry, huh? Here are some of the images from Brandi’s post.

Check out Brandi’s blog…and tell her I sent you and that you think her stuff is fab too.

Sometimes I can be a little slow to catch on to the obvious.  To catch on that selling unwanted items doesn’t feel as good as giving them to folks who want them. To catch on that it is WAY easier for folks to come to me to carry off stuff versus me having to schelp it somewhere else.

I”ve been a Craig’s list fan for ages…but just hadn’t discovered Freecycle. Do you use it? Freecycle describes itself as “a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.”

Since we’re moving, we’re trying to reduce the amount of stuff to move to our new house. I’ve placed 3 things on the Wichita freecycle list tonight….3 are spoken for already. One was picked up in less than 2 hours after I listed it. Awesome. And I’ve not even dented the amount of stuff I’d like to find new homes before the packers arrive.

If you haven’t checked Freecycle out yet… do. It’ll make you feel good. I did.

It was a day of inspections at the new house yesterday.  The pest guy, our chosen general inspector, and the stucco guy. No big issues, just a couple of smaller items we’d like the seller to take care of. But, the very amiable pest dude did confirm that there were brown recluse spiders in the basement. Dead ones. But. Still. ewwwwwww.

Normally, bugs don’t bother me. I”m much more grossed out by toddler bodily fluids. But brown recluse? Ugh.

I was bitten by one when I lived in Texas. Still have the not so gorgeous scar on my leg to prove it.

Now where did I put that pest controller’s number……………….

New treasury on Etsy, featuring bright spring colored items.  You can click on the image to link to leave comments.