Sea glass windows are for sale!

I've added three sea glass windows to the Shop Scarborough Seashells page of my blog.  Click the link under my blog header for all the details!

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Now you can shop all Scarborough Seashells Jewelry and Art right here on Blogger!

That's right, I've learned a little bit about adding blog pages, shopping carts and such, so I've added a shopping section to my little old blog!

You can use the link just under my blog header that says "Shop Scarborough Seashells" and it will take you to a new page of my blog dedicated purely to my seashell, sea glass and pottery shard windows, ornaments and jewelry.

I've set up a PayPal shopping cart feature- you don't need to have a PayPal account to use it, you can check out paying with a credit card or you can email me: tara(at)scarboroughseashells(dot)com and I can process your card for you that way. I also always take checks and money orders.

Please be patient with me, not everything I have for sale is listed yet- I am a mom first, a designer second, so it will take me some time to get everything ready to go!

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Thinking of changing things up- businesswise

I am debating closing my current dot com store (www.scarboroughseashells.com) and utilizing a shopping cart feature here on my blog in addition to my Etsy shop to sell from. The company I currently use is Prostores, and while I don't have any real problems with Prostores, I just can't justify the monthly cost when there are so many other options out there for less money.

I own my domain name for another year and could easily direct it here to my blog (before I opened my current website, I used to direct it to an eBay store). I am thinking that I'll use a PayPal shopping cart or something similar- does anyone out there in blog land have any experience with this?

My main question is- if I just create and "add to cart" button each time I put up a blog post with a new item, what do I do once the item sells? Am I going to have to go back into all my old posts and remove buttons so one-of-a-kind items don't get double purchased?

Also- is there a simple way to create a unique page in my blog just for shopping? I know I can add a specific tag to each post and then make a link that goes to those posts (like the current "recipes" link at the top of my blog now)- but am I missing something, is there another way to do this?

Finally- my other big issue is my email addresses- I currently have two that I use, but they are generated through Prostores. I can create email addresses using the company I bought my domain name through (GoDaddy) but I don't know if I can create them while the current ones are still active and I'm afraid if I shut them down at Prostores, there will be a lag time before the GoDaddy ones get activated and I'll lose some correspondence into the cyberspace abyss! Aaack, the dilemnas!

Any and all advice appreciated!

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A Life Well Lived

First, I apologize for my absence. April was a very long month. With the high points some of the very highest I've experienced and the low points being deeply low, but cushioned by the surround of loved ones.

Second I apologize if the following video causes lag time for anyone.

On April 4th, 2011, I lost my last grandparent. On Saturday, May 7th, we interred her with my grandfather and said goodbye. My Gram Kelly was 94 years old and through her long life, she had many rolls and went by many names.

Helena, Lena, Lee, Mom, Grams, Gramma, Mrs. Kelly- and my personal favorite, when in the company of her sisters for their annual pilgrimage to Florida, Golden Girl.

When I was small, my grandparents has a flood. My mother rescued as many family photos as she could. My grandmother told her to set them aside for me. Recently, as I sat on the floor for hours sorting through those photos, I gleaned fragments of an entire lifetime.

Nearly a century of her memories, her favorite moments recreated themselves for me. She was no longer just my Gramma with silver hair and glasses. No longer just the Gramma who bowled on Fridays, who square danced with my Grampa, or made me watch boring Nova specials on PBS when she babysat me. She had become so much more.

I met the Lena I had never known- the daughter and sister, the beach lover, the camera flirt, the fashion maven, the young mother, the proud wife and the beautiful woman.

This is a collection of my favorite photos of my Gram and her life, well lived.

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