Foovay’s Cauldron

Archive for the ‘cool stuff’ Category

Life is good. Isn’t this beautiful? Scenes like this are why we won’t be moving to the city – and a big reason why we decided to live here in New Mexico.

Yesterday was a rainy day in the desert. We had to drive to the city and go from one Dr. to another all day for poor hubby. However, we did treat ourselves to a delicious east Indian dinner, too. And did a little shopping. Wow, I can’t believe it is already time for Valentine’s Day. Hubby and I have been married for twenty years – so Valentine’s Day isn’t necessarily that big a deal to us. Here’s our usual plan for the holiday.

However, I know other people do celebrate and so I’ll be drawing some Valentine’s Day coloring pages and writing a few blog articles about some of the fun goodies sold at my sex toy and video shop for the holiday.

My big exciting news for today is that I finally got everything worked out to sell the downloadable coloring books on PDF created from the coloring pages at Color-Your-Own.com. So you can go download all the birds, or all the horses at once – or the big coloring book which has all 360+ images in it. Then it’s on your harddrive – print it once, print it a hundred times, print it all, print just the coloring pages you want to use, and print your favorite coloring page as many times as you want. Yeah – I think Yes, it’s true, I think e coloring books are very cool.

I’m going to bore and torture everyone to death today promoting the new Coloring Book store because I get it free for a week, then have to decide if it is worth paying a monthly fee to keep.

Then I’ll draw some Valentine coloring pages. Really. I swear. (UCK)

When I’m not out taking awesome photos like this one:

And sharing them with my dear friend Robert Sloan so he can bring his awesome talent to recreate them as paintings.

Blessedbe

Summer Fey Foovay

My first big job of they day was to download the entire Color-Your-Own.com coloring pages website in preparation for two more big jobs. Lets call them A and B under 1.

A is a major change in advertising and/or how I make a bit of money from that website. You can read a nice, long thoughtful post about that on the coloring pages blog here – and if you are interested in making money on the internet with your creative work or with affilliate marketing you might find it a bit educational. All my personal experience and YMMV of course.

B)A very nice man named Jim who runs eBook Connections.com emailed me to offer his help. He has written software that can resize and convert images into ebooks. I sent him ten images and he sent back the ebook. I printed it out. I did happy dances at how beautifully it turned out. We are now working things out to have the drawings at Color-Your-Own.com converted to ebooks divided up by subject that you can download for a nominal fee.

So – before doing either of those massive projects, I wanted to download a complete copy of the website before the big changes. This is going on as we speak. Blog. Read. Whatever.

This task has NOT been simplified by the unexplained fact that electricity at the ranch is going on and off today. I can’t begin to express, in fact, what a royal PITA this has been on several levels – not the least of which is that it is about 40 degrees outside with a north wind and the heat keeps going off and staying off…

So during an electricless period (is that a word?) I started another project here at the house. Last week we brought home my piles of art, craft, jewelry making and sewing supplies to go with the art, jewelry, and sewing supplies I got for winter solstice. There is now a vast unorganized pile of the aforementioned supplies in the living room. I have one shelf area in our bedroom devoted more or less to that sort of thing and it, too, is very unorganized and messy. So I emptied the shelf and made categorized piles (at least). They are now scattered across the bed courtesy of Ms. Pearl who is now contently asleep in the middle of them. Sometime today – probably while I am without electricity – I will attempt to put all of the supplies on the shelves in some sort of organized manner so that I can gaily make things this winter.

I made a few things last night – wanna see?

Well, okay, first I sat back with my great new lap desk and colored with colored pencil one of the freshly printed out coloring pages – a Betta Fish.

This is a hematite with a spiral pendant on a long cord. Sorry the photo is so unfocused. I wear a lot of hematite for grounding. I probably ought to be wearing this one now

I created this choker for my roommate. No telling if he will wear it. If not, I’ll probably sell it somewhere. It has a turquoise pendant and another stone I can’t remember the name of now – but the reasoning is it will bring good luck to a male wearer.

Sorry for the bad focus again – this lepidolite pendant with a coyote and a moon and star was meant for me. I want to put it on a choker so it can lay on my skin right below my throat, but don’t currently have the right materials and findings for that. An odd thing happened when I put it on a long chain – it began acting like a pendulum. Lepidolite is supposed to help counteract depression and I’ve used them for years. This is my last big piece. Hope I can find some more. Meanwhile, I’m not sure if this will get to be a choker or a pendulum for magic or oracular type work.

And last but hardly least – here is a photo of the snow on the Sierra Mountains at sunset a few days ago. This is the view out my back window. No wonder I love it here.

And now for the laughter. As you may imagine I have been a little impatient and grouchy this morning. However, while trying to be patient as the website downloads I did some blog reading and ran onto this post about a mini-drama going on over at Amazon. The comments are really the part you got to read. They are hilarious. I laughed my head off at the ones about the book’s title being a good name for a fancy show dog – because it’s so true. I feel for the author in question – but there are times when you should just walk away from Internet wars. And that time comes before you offer to sic the FBI on people who disagree with you.

So that’s what I am doing today. Hope you are still enjoying a fantastic holiday.

Oh wait – one more thing. When I’m done here I think I’m going to put up a new story and pic at Foovay’s Floozies. If you love Victoriana, or my adult fiction, or are just curious – check it out

Blessedbe

I know a lot of us could use just a tiny little cash boost this time of year – Christmas gifts, Christmas travel, food for the big feast, Christmas decorations to replace those ratty things you dragged out of the attic – and it’s not as if the regular bills stop coming either. In fact, if you are like me, the insurance company likes to send you a big fat one the end of this month that they want paid by the 3rd of January or so, eh?

This is one time when I don’t feel too bad about recommending those quick, overnight cash loans. Yeah, they charge you a fortune in interest – but sometimes it’s worth it. You gotta have some fun.

I’ve got a couple of quick cash loan companies I’d like to share with you. One is quicker, one is a bit more family oriented. It’s up to you which you prefer.

FastWire Cash is quick – no waiting and faxing stuff around, no credit check, no hassle – you apply online and are approved instantly. Check them out by clicking here

Or you might prefer Family First Cash. They can loan you up to $1000 and are safe and confidential. They can have the cash to you overnight. Check them out by clicking here

So as you may have guessed these two offers are from my new deals shop set up courtesy of Affiliate System.us aka Anthony Morrison. I am still a bit on the fence about the whole thing. I got far enough through the training videos to realize that his idea of minimal start up and my idea of minimal start up are two different things. He is coming from the land of “oh and Google will just grab up $50 out of your bank account any old time they run that much up in clicks” and I come from the land of “not only is there not $50 laying around in my bank account any old time, but if Google starts grabbing at it they can quickly run me into the HUNDREDS of dollars in overdraft fees and leave me unable to eat or buy gas”.

It isn’t his fault. The middle class in America – what there is left of them – who have $50K a year in income and a few thousand in savings think they are barely scraping along. They aren’t aware that over half of us are earning under $30K a year and it is all we can do to pay all our bills every month, put gas in the car, and maybe buy some Ramen soup. Actually, right now hubby and I earn less than half of that. If that is where you are at – this really is not the program for you. I MAY be able to make it work without a few thousand to start up, but only because I already have a lot of knowledge about promotions and I have several up and running websites I can promote on for free.

Otherwise, the only thing he offers is to go purchase advertising on Google, Yahoo, MSN and so on. I have actually had enough money to do that. Once. I spent a fast $100 on Google Adwords and got about $10 back in income. This doesn’t work so well for me. *shrug* Sure, there is a learning curve to find out what works and doesn’t in advertising – I just do not have the money to lose while I am learning.

Like I said – I’m not quitting or anything. I will give it at least a year. There are some really good offers on my website if I can just get some people to put their eyeballs on them. I may hang on longer if there is a glimmer of hope. I’ve been at Squidoo over two years and have just now actually begun earning over $1 a month. It’s fun so I kept at it (and besides, it was good promotion for my coloring pages and coloring books) and it is finally starting to pay off.

Speaking of the coloring pages that seems to have reached a plateau. I have well over 300 coloring pages available now, and twice the number of page visits I had last year and guess what – I’m making just about the same old amount of money, almost entirely from Google Adsense. I can’t be specific, of course, but lets just say I only get a payment every two or three months. I’m sure there has to be some way to increase that without becoming one of those websites that beats visitors half to death with pop-up ads, or requires a membership and your email so it can be sold to SPAMMERS, or all the rest of that shit. Of course, all the hosting B.S. over the last year really kicked my ass, too. Dropped from the top ten on the Search Engine Results Page to not even in the top 100. Thanks Dreamhost. Now if I were going to pay for search engine advertising – it would be for Color-Your-Own.com. Get it on the top of the first page for a month or so and see if that didn’t start making a difference. But I may need to find some more targeted advertisers, too.

Well, I’m just rambling. Have a good weekend. I’m battling the winter blues, but maybe I’ll get a little work done, a little writing, something. Oh yeah, I’ve been playing with my poor neglected Sandbox Farms account so if you play there drop by and see what I’ve got up for sale. Doing a major farm cleaning to try and get it so I can drop by a couple times a week and still keep up on things.

Oh yeah, about the ever so happy coffee drinker up there – it is in the public domain so snatch away – it is one of many Currier and Ives prints that I love. I did a lens about them not to long ago so just click here if you want to know more about this American art

BlessedB

Summer

Now that I’ve written a title for this post – I feel a bit more like I have accomplished a thing or two this week! I have some things to muse and mutter about, and some updates and new items and recommendations to share. Maybe I shouldn’t put it all in one blog post – but then again, I’m not limited to 140 characters here! I will break it up into sections – will that help?

This is kind of a combo Squidoo, Internet marketing, and most important Pets and Christmas section

First off, I want to thank everyone who has helped promote Pets as Christmas Gifts and say keep at it and keep sharing and yeah – thanks! I updated it a little today because a friend of mine has created a lens that is the perfect companion lens – Furreal Pets and Friends. Sandy describes several of the fun new electronic pet toys and gives you a chance to vote for your favorites.

While I’m talking about pets , I want to share this unique business opportunity with you. You can open your own online pet supply store through this offer. I signed up for it myself because it looks to me a bit like my online sex toy shop deal. Over the years that little shop has been a dependable money maker even when I am not actively promoting it. Along with the online store, you are able to purchase your own pet supplies at a deep discount. So I’m thinking this would be very cool for someone who does pet rescue from their home – you get a discount on your stuff, you make a few bucks that can help defray the costs of rescue, and it would be painless to promote – face it, you have a zillion pet loving pals online don’t you?

That rather nice segues into my next subject, making money on the Internet. I don’t usually write much about this, because I don’t feel like I am all that successful at it. I’ve been working at making a living on the Internet for almost ten years now. Wow. I’ve tried adult sites, affiliate marketing, selling my art and stories, and had a bit of moderate success but I am most definately not a millionaire yet. Not even a thousandaire.

I have tried a lot of different Make Money on the Internet programs and found out that the vast majority of them are scams. I’m pretty cynical at this point.

My roommate sleeps with the TV on. This means that we get exposed to a whole lot of those late night informercial programs. About a week ago he told me that he had seen a program on making money on the Internet that actually sounded practical and real. As he described it to me, I became interested because I could see from my Internet experience, what this guy – Anthony Morrison – was doing and it is a legitimate business. A few nights later, I happened to see the program. I was intrigued enough to write the number down, and on hubby’s payday, I called and ordered it.

What impresses me the most is Mr. Morrison over and over says that you are not going to become an overnight millionaire. You aren’t going to buy your Lambourgini and lay on the beach at BoraBora while your website magically cranks out the big bucks without you lifting a finger. He tells you that it grows slowly and that you do have to put in some work. You know – like in the real world. I got my free website, which is right here if you want to check it out and have been going through the training videos. I laughed my butt off last night at the last one I watched where he says that people who go for that “overnight millionaire” scams are living in a dream world. So true.

The website actually has some good offers. Shit – I signed up for one myself! That is – the pet shop mentioned above. I’m still going through the training videos right now. I’ll let you know how things progress. This might finally be a legitimate “Make Money on the Internet” business. Cool.

Mini-brag about the “old” novel And this is one of those Law of Attraction serendipity things, too. I gave a copy of The River Way to a friend who works at WalMart. He put it in the break room to share and it wandered from employee to employee and has vanished, never to be returned. He asked for another copy. I finally remembered on the way to town yesterday to run an errand that turned out to be a)unneccesary and b)a waste of time – but I stopped at storage and grabbed my last three copies of the novel. Why all three? I dunno. Tossed them all in the car. Stopped at Walmart and my friend was not there, but another mutual friend was – so I asked her to hold his copy for him (I’m not in town much) and she said she would, but also asked if she could BUY a copy. I have to admit, of the big 12 author copies I bought – this is the first one I ever SOLD. I sold it at cost – she is a friend and fellow writer – but it was kind of a thrill anyway

Meanwhile, on Twitter, a new follower there insisted on going to Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of The River Way, rather than downloading the free ebook version. (The link to the Amazon buy it page is on the picture up there) Thanks!

BTW if you’ve bought the novel and read it – can you do me a favor and do a review on either or both sites?

Wow. I just noticed there is a REALLY nice review up at Barnes and Noble. Thank you anonymous whoever you are!

Speaking of Twitter, I’ve tried and loved two Twitter applications. And they are both free, so how cool is that?

TweetCatch.com gives you a simple, easy way to find people to follow and hopefully they’ll follow you back. You can set up filters to gather folks by certain keywords. I have filters for goth, birdwatchers, coloring pages, Squidoo, writing – the things I do and twitter about. Since I started using TweetCatch I’ve gone from about 100 followers to over 700. What I really like though – is I have discovered some of the most fun, interesting people to follow. Twitter is like 100 times more fun to read for me now! No affiliation, I don’t get a commission or anything – but it is really a good Twitter application. The first week is free and then it’s under $10 a month. I thought I’d cancel it – but nah, no way.

The other cool Twitter application I’m using is TweetMyBlog and I am an affiliate although I only get paid if you decide to buy one of their upsell products. Actually, they have some pretty cool stuff they are offering. The application itself, though, is free. This application links your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Whenever you add a blog post, it is automatically tweeted. You also get a nice widget (you’ll see it to your right here) that puts your tweets on your blog. Myself – that’s all I use it for and I am really happy with that. It’s just a little time saver, trouble saver and if I happen to also make a buck or two – well, gee, cool! I’ve got it on several of my blogs now and it works perfectly. Very easy to install and get set up. And it’s free.

Okay. I think that’s it. For now. Not sure what I’ll be doing today… maybe draw a few more coloring pages.

Oh yeah – that reminds me. I am really trying to get my Free Printable Christmas Coloring Pages lens to the top ten in the Parenting and Kids category on Squidoo this month. You see, being off line I missed the Google dance, and poor Color-Your-Own.com doesn’t appear ANYWHERE in the search engine results for Christmas coloring pages. Which is a real bummer. I COULD maybe make a buck or two if I could grab some nice Christmas traffic, and get some new followers and bookmarkers, too. But I got search engine fucked (sort of my own fault since I had no Internet around the needed time). So if you happen to love me and my coloring pages and want to help out (hint hint hint) visit the lens, blog about it, tweet about it, pass it to your pals, rank it, comment on the guestbook, whatever you feel like doing. Thank you!!!!!! And BTW this really does help, since I started begging you wonderful people to help me out the lens has gone from #206 all the way to (as of today) #62. We can make it to the Top Ten and Squidoos front page – yes we can.

Okay, now that is all – really…

Summer Fey Foovay

I had promised myself that I’d do Nanowrimo and then give myself December to do beading, sewing, art, and otherwise get off the computer for a month. It hasn’t worked out quite that way. I’m doing a lot of computer “stuff” – heavy on Squidoo and blogs. That doesn’t mean I can’t go drool over the beads at Nomad Crafts. Beautiful lampwork beads. I could spend a mint – if I had one. As it is, I will certainly have the site bookmarked to make an order next month. They are also having a great bead giveaway on their blog – so check it out and enter.

Now what shall I do today…

Summer

I do, I do, I do – I love Halloween. You should see all the fantastic Halloween t-shirt designs at Zazzle! I am whelmed! And oh yeah, I got a discount code for you! Just put in “TRICKORTREAT” when you purchase. Now go buy yourself a great Halloween treat!

I can’t decide – I want them all!

Summer Fey Foovay