Latter-day Village Square

While doing research on Google AdSense ads displaying on your site, I ran across another LDS online merchant that is offering an 2008 Primary theme vinyl wall lettering. However, their product only lists the theme; ours includes the scripture reference in a contrasting font. Additionally, our version is cheaper, $17.50 versus $19.95. Ours is shorter, 3 feet vs. 4 feet, but in our opinion, is a much better value due to the secondary font and the verse inclusion.

Ok, this has nothing to do with LDV really, but I’d like to get something started.  I spent the last two days making Christmas gifts for our kids/grandkids in Ohio.  I haven’t had time, but I have even less money, so I just had to stop my LDV work and make some gifts.  And despite feeling under the gun being so close to Christmas and also knowing I just can’t afford to stop working on the site, I really had a great time. So I’m going to tell you, AND show you what I did - and if you have something to share that you made this year, please add a comment and include a picture!

Nothing gives me more pleasure and delight than creating - which is why I love my work at LDV - but I kind of have this challenge - it started way way back in the mid 80’s when one Christmas I made all our Christmas gifts.  I holed up in our spare room where my sewing machine and fabric was kept, and if I couldn’t reach it without getting off the floor, it wasn’t going to be part of whatever I was making.  I saw these old Pooh Jammies - you know the ones - I think Sears sold them - I inherited them from my sister after her two boys had grown out of them, and they had gone through my two boys, and the feet were all worn out.  Too ratty to pass on to anyone else, I thought, “what could I make out of these old worn out one piece pajamas?  A puppet?  Sure, why not!”  So I made a puppet that looked like Bert from Sesame Street.  I had no pattern, and only used what I could reach from my spot on the floor.  His nose was part of a craft sponge I spotted - that was so fun.  And it really did look like Bert, although it was red rather than yellow.

So this Christmas, twenty years later, I was at it again.  I decided this was the year I was going to make a doll I remember having as a kid.  It was, for want of a better name, a 3-in-1 doll.  It was Little Red Riding Hood, and if you flipped her over hidden in her skirt was the other doll - Grandma!  And if you turned Granny’s night cap around, viola!  It was Mr. Wolf!  Cute as can be, and I loved that doll!

Again, no pattern, and no time to shop for any materials.  I don’t sit on the floor so well at my age, so I only restricted myself to my basement workshop.  If it wasn’t there, it didn’t get included.  First I looked for materials.  I found fabric for skin, a dress for Little Red, her hood and apron, Granny’s night gown, and Wolf fur.  I knew I was going to have fun.  I found a spot of bare table top and laid out my skin colored fabric and just started sketching with a pencil the shape of the body.  It had a head and arms at both ends.  I cut it out and stitched it together, leaving an opening to turn it right side out and add the fiberfill, which was conveniently in the same room.  Well, I won’t bore you with all the details, but honestly, I found everything I needed in that room - except for some blush for the cheeks.  I use real makeup on dolls and puppets, and that was NOT in my basement workshop.

Here are my pics:

First is Little Red with her hood on - I don’t have a good camera so I scanned her

Her hair was interesting - I used some of that twine we used to make macrame plant hangers with back in the 90’s - I used my son’s hairbrush to brush it out to look like hair.  Luckily there was a bin of old craft paint and some brushes, so I painted her eye and lips.

Next is Granny

Whoops!  I see I lied.  Her shawl - it is a piece of antique lace from a box of lace I inherited from my grandmother - and that box was NOT in the basement, but in my office upstairs.  Luckily I had some flannel for her nightgown left over from a quilt I made a couple years ago for a new grandbaby.

And finally Wolfy - he didn’t scan so well

It was a trick to make his head with no pattern.  You may notice that Granny’s hair is the same grey fake fur as the wolf face - which was nice since her hair just lead into his face.  His nose is a pompom I sewed on and his eyes are two white buttons.  I drew on the pupils with a permanent marker my son had brought home from work, and it was in the room since the room doubles as a tv/video/playstation area for him.  I did use the bathroom right off the workroom to rinse out my paint brush and to borrow Max’s hair brush.

I should have made Granny’s nightgown fuller to accommodate the arms of Little Red underneath, and the dresses should have been longer to cover the top of the head of the opposite side doll, but all in all, I was quite tickled with how it turned out.

I made three “door snakes” for our three kids in Ohio - a request from our son Michael who has cold air leaking from under the door - with a new baby, he wanted to keep that cold air out.  I had no pattern but just started cutting some brown and cream checked flannel I had - made tubes with one end rounded.  We didn’t fill them with wheat or rice or sand because that weighs so much to ship - so I had to make the other end have a hole where they could be filled, yet would close to keep the filler inside.  I left a flap and sewed across leaving only a little hole to push a funnel into to load the tube.  Then I put velcro on the flap so after filling you could close it, and then open it again to empty and wash.  I tried to think of a clever name - and I DID!  In fact, it is so clever that I won’t tell you in case I decide to market them.

I had some cute fleece - and with four grand daughters to make presents for, I made the three youngest ones little hoody towels with matching wash cloths.  I had this awesome shaggy chenille in hot pink - which I used to make the oldest girl a poncho - the reverse side was a cute pink and blue puppy fleece.  I also made one of the girls a stuffed kitty out of the same hot pink chenille.  One got the Little Red Riding Hood doll, and I made a set of bean bags and a tossing can and tote bag for the other girl.

All that stuff was too big to scan on my flat bed scanner, so no pics!

Well - that was all I had time for - and the basement was a total disaster with pink chenille fuzzies everywhere.  My mom used to come into my room when I was a kid to see my latest creative play and pronounce it looked like a cyclone struck it.  Did your mom ever say things like that?  Well, she was pretty close to accurate - and I haven’t lost my touch!

I boxed and labeled the presents and got them to the post office - we have a new one here in Saratoga Springs - there was no one in line!  I was THRILLED - till the lady told me the mail got picked up at 3 PM - and it was 4.  Oh well - she said she thought it would still get to Ohio before Christmas.  Here’s hoping she was right.

And when I got home, I even cleaned up all that sewing debris.  AMAZING.  Without being hounded by my mom and everything!  I reflect that I am about the age she was when I had my own Little Red Riding Hood doll.   But I still keep thinking she will clean up after me like she did when I was a kid . . . I still much prefer playing to cleaning.

Now I want to hear from you.  Tim told me he also spent a couple days making Christmas gifts.  I imagine some of you did too - so at least tell us what you did, and if you have pictures, I want to see them!!!

From one busy elf to another,

Debra

	I wanted to let you know about a brand new Primary product we just added to our store - it is a digital download 2008 Primary Interactive Calendar by Tina Descovich! SEE CALENDAR I am so excited about this calendar because it is our first editable pdf product, and will usher in a new line of editable download products and resources at LDV. When you open one of these beautiful monthly calendars, you can click on any box for any date and add your own text, then press the PRINT button on the bottom of the page and it will print. You can use these for your Primary Board or to include in a monthly newsletter for all the children! It combines the beauty of lovely art and the function of editability that I am so excited about! Go to the website where you can sample the January Calendar - type in your own dates and print!
	The artwork matches the beautiful new 2008 Primary Theme Collection by Elsa Remund that is now in the Download Depot Club http://latter-dayvillage.com/pages/VDDClub.htm as well as being featured throughout the Primary Knowledgebase in the 2008 Primary Category and in the 2008 Music, and featured on our new 2008 Primary Stickers! See Stickers in our store
	There are 2008 Pencils in the store too! These are beautiful and a great way to introduce the new theme or to use as birthday gifts.
	Do-it-yourself Vinyl Lettering Wall kit - oh how easy and how beautiful! Display the 2008 Theme right on your wall - and you can easily remove it at the end of the year without damaging the painted surface!
	Cute as can be - these 1.2″ round SUPER SINGER stickers are perfect for motivating young singers to participate in Primary Music!

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season and are all ready for a very happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Debra Woods Hamilton
http://latter-dayvillage.com
debra@latter-dayvillage.com

January UPDATE: One month later and Goemerchant is still spamming me. They are not doing it several times a week, but I still get their lame come one emails.  I hope some other prospective client reads this and realizes what kind of an organization they are considering as a partner. They don’t even respond to unsubscribe emails.

- - - - -

I wrote previously about Latter-dayVillage’s desire to upgrade our shopping cart to handle more merchants and allow them to make more LDS products available to our customers.

The search has not been very much fun:

• Many carts that meet our requirements are priced so high that only national brick & mortar stores could afford them. Several, including Zoovy, are fantastic, just too far out of our price range.
• One cart in particular (Nexternal) meets ALL of our requirements, except support for downloadable products. That is now such in integral part of our ecommerce model that we simply cannot do without that feature.
• One cart has part of the multi-vendor aspect done right, but has no good mechanism enabling us to accurately pay our vendors their rightful % of sales. This was considered a modification request; sadly their development quote for that ‘feature’ was more than their whole product license.
• One cart vendor (Goemerchant) actually has really riled me up. When I signified on their site that I was interested in getting product information, salespeople started calling me. When I discovered that their product is priced WAY out of our price range and does not include a real multi-vendor approach, I told them I was not longer interested. Suddenly I started receiving weekly email sales bulletins. The first couple of weeks I politely sent an email to their unsubscribe address; however, the emails kept coming. Next, I forwarded one of the marketing puff pieces to the salesperson who last called me, asking for her help in removing me from the list. After one week with no reply, and the marketing emails still coming, I’ve decided to report each and everyone as SPAM through spamcop.net until they stop coming. So be warned, unless you want MORE spam, do not ask GoeMerchant to contact you.
• Open Source options: there are still several open source carts that might still fit the bill. In most cases, for me at least, evaluating an open source solution involves an install and monkey process. I install the software and then monkey around with the settings and such until I can verify it will do what we need. This is due to one of the frequent downsides to open source software; lack of documentation concerning addons or modifications to base systems. There is usually no ‘sales person’ to call and ask pointed questions of; many times you have to dig through discussion forums or use them to get answers from the user community. The help is sometimes there, sometimes not, but that is what you get for free or very-little-cost software.

So here’s the score so far: 43 cart systems reviewed (multitudes don’t make the cut when I cannot find a multi-vendor option in their feature list) with three still in the running for consideration. Two of those are open source and I am down to the install/monkey stage. Of course I am still evaluating carts as I come across them, but the time involved is just mind numbing. However, Debra and I remain committed to finding the best solution for our customers.

This is an exerpt from a message I sent out to our Primary subscribers after our recent Villager Newsletter.

2008 STICKERS! I just added beautiful new stickers to the store with the 2008 theme by Elsa Remund - I also added Super Singer Stickers with Melissa Carter’s cute designs which are on the third page of stickers.

Since the newsletter, I got some messages indicating there were missing files or corrupt files in the new material I have recently added to the Primary Knowledgebase and Music subscriptions.

I am so grateful when someone points this out to me, because I may never know otherwise. I saw that in every case, many people had tried to access these files unsuccessfully before someone finally pointed it out to me. I know it is an extra chore to send me a note, but if you find a mistake or problem, it would be so helpful if you would let me know. Kindly, I do appreciate a gentle notification. So thanks to those of you who let me know of the problems.

There was a missing lesson supplement attachment, and a missing substitute thank-you postcard attachment, both have been fixed. There was a corrupt pdf file that wouldn’t display - the 2008 Music Planner (for full Primary and Music subscribers) which I needed to replace. I am sure I have missed some other things, so let me know if you happen to notice anything.

Also, someone made a request I thought would benefit a lot of people, so I added it - in my 2008 Page-at-a-glance Outline, I make suggestions for songs for September-December, I’ve always done that, since the sharing time guide doesn’t list specific songs. But some people might want to choose their own songs for those months, so I added an alternate version with those months blank in both the Primary KB and the Music page.

I also wanted to point out that I have added some new resources or updated resources for lessons for 2008. There are lists of all the songs associated with the lessons - and for the Primary 4 (Book of Mormon) manual, I have added links to the song words at lds.org. There is a Book of Mormon reading program and some other helps added to the 2008 Lesson Helps for each manual you should check out.

I really appreciated an alternate December Sharing Time Idea sent in that I have added to the KB article I had already written. Your ideas are so valuable, and when you share, it benefits a lot of other people, so never hesitate to send in new material you have prepared, or ideas that have worked for you.

Thanks to everyone who sent in photos for the 2008 Monthly Primary Theme Posters. I was overwhelmed by the response to my request - so many sweet pictures! Since we cannot use all of them for the posters, I want to make a video or presentation with some of them - I will keep you informed about how that is going.

I had a lot of fun creating the 2008 Motivational Chart idea for the Music page. I have repeatedly looked for cute artwork of children in international costumes over the years, and I would always find one here and one there. So I bit the bullet and created a set of international paper dolls for this idea. At first I just had the different color cut outs, and then I did the clothes to go on them, but they looked funny without hair and faces - so I went back and added the hair and faces to the dolls, but now they looked like naked children, so I had to add a little jumper to each one. It was all a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy using this chart.

I was hunting the internet for a fun new idea for a 2008 music choose and review. I can’t even remember how I stumbled on it, but I saw a cootie catcher on some family website - and a rush of childhood memories came to me. I had to follow the instructions to make one after all these years, and I made marks on the paper so when I unfolded it, I could see where the various parts should go - then I designed a colorful SONG CATCHER in Adobe Photoshop, and it is just a lot of fun. There is one with all the 2008 CSMP songs and a blank one you can write your own songs on. And it will also work for a sharing time or lesson game if you want.

I want to make a special thank you to Amber Mock. She has been doing the lesson supplements for the CTR B manual for the past several months. She has earned free Download Depot art collections for helping this way - I just know her work is great and much appreciated by me and those who use the supplements.

Sorry this is so long. Thanks so much for your patronage.

God bless,
Debra

Google Ads contribute some revenue to LDV; however, we only display them on public or free pages, never in our paid content areas.  So we do want to keep using the Google AdSense service, but wish we could enter a list of keyword phrases we do NOT want to serve ads on our pages.  Our only recourse now is to monitor the ads displayed and exclude those we find objectionable. 

The real problem with Google AdSense is objectionable vendors (subjective, I know) that use inappropriate (in our opinion) keyword combinations to get their ads to appear on our LDS oriented web site.  E.g., ‘lds garments’; this keyword combination is just wrong due to the sacred nature of the last word to us LDS folks, yet some vendors out there use it as their advertising heading.  Someone just used the Shopzilla service to launch a linked search, which returns really just another page of Google ads, some populated by paid Google AdWords.  In the ‘lds garments’ example, the shopzilla search page shows ads from Deseret Book online.  I do not think that Deseret Book would knowingly sponsor an ad using that search keyword combination.  But they sure do indirectly.

In the Shopzilla situation, we have to block all of shopzilla search pages by blocking their whole domain instead of being able to block just the shopzilla client targeting those phrases we would never use.  Over the years, we have collected and entered many domains that use these objectionable keyword phrases to target lds sites like ours.  There is a limit to the number of domains we can list. When we hit that limit, we will have to monitor the list and remove domains that no longer exist; work we really should not have to do.

Google, make this valuable marketing tool more what we want; let us filter through our own keyword list, not just a list of domains. 

I love the dollar store. It is so addictive to walk down the aisles and think - only a $1?!! WOW - I’ll take one of these and one of those - yadda yadda yadda. I saw some brightly colored kiddy clay the other day on one of my vigils at our local dollar store - and since I am the nursery leader, AND an artist, I dropped it in my cart, along with 35 OTHER inexpensive gotta-haves.

So late one night over the Thanksgiving holiday, I couldn’t sleep - VERY typical - and I came downstairs and my son was still awake. I saw that clay there and peeled open the package and started making little clay Christmas figures. He’s an artist too, so I said, - hey - why don’t you make one? So we rolled and squeezed to our hearts content, forming little clay buddies. I don’t have much luck with my digital camera, need to take a class, so instead, when I got one done, I’d lay it on my scanner. The first one, I made the mistake of closing the lid. SQUISH! After that I laid a Kleenex (or cheap knock-off facial tissue from Walmart) over my little pal, and a piece of white paper and did my scanning. Still they got a little squished, but, thanks to AMAZING Adobe Photoshop, my favorite friend, I unsquished the squished places, filled in the cracks, and then adjusted all the colors so our yellow and blue snowman came out white with black trim and an orange carrot nose.

OK - so now I’ve given away my secret - my clay figures ARE computer enhanced, I admit it.

I also wanted to JUMP FOR JOY - because with this Christmas Clay Collection, I’ve finally figured out how to make text follow a path around an object in Photoshop. I knew there HAD to be a way, but could never find the steps to make it happen. DUH - I felt motivated enough to actually use HELP - that curious menu item I almost wholly ignore in about every program I’ve ever owned. You know how most fathers REFUSE to stop and ask directions while traveling in an unfamiliar area - well, in as much as I so admired my dad, I guess I must have adopted that classic male characteristic - at least when it comes to software - anyway - the instructions were right there in Photoshop Help - easy peasy - and what fun I had creating a path around the snowman and writing the cute words to a cute song - I will definitely be using this new found tool again and again!

This collection is exclusive to the Club this month only - I won’t be adding it to the store later on. There are 25 items, which make it perfect for an advent calendar, and there are several nifty scrapbook papers included too.

I wonder what else I might find in the HELP section . . . hmmmm

Debra