It Has Been So Busy! I Have Never Seen A Spring So Consistent.

Business usually starts to slow down in late March, but this April has been busy for Fun Cool Collectibles. I think that all of the promotional hardwork is starting to pay off. People are getting to know us, and we are attracting more customers.
We have even had someone offer to buy the business! We must be doing something right, if someone is willing to purchase the business. I have put together a short video about the Nightmare Before Christmas.

A little Nightmare Before Christmas...

to beat the winter blues....

As we have all heard by now, the groundhog has seen his shadow and cursed us with six more weeks of winter. BLECK! It's going down to -6 degrees tonight and I have had enough.

Here's a few Nightmare Before Christmas Winter Wear to keep you warm, toasty, and on top of the style for the next six weeks of winter!

Nightmare Before Christmas Hearts Reversible Beanie Hat

Nightmare Before Christmas Knit Cap

Nightmare Before Christmas Arm Warmers with Gloves

Nightmare Before Christmas Scarf

That's just a small sampling of what we have to offer. Much more just added, including Nightmare Before Christmas jewelry, keychains and buttons. See the wide variety of Nightmare Before Christmas items in stock now.

Also check out our Valentine's Day Sales and Savings too!

Reflecting on the past year

This past year is almost a blur to me. Alot has happened, many things have not happened and some things have just stayed the same. I have decided as I now have more flexiblity with my work schedule,that I will be focusing on writing online. I always enjoy writing and my Mom always told us girls we inherited the flair of writing from my Dad. He used to spend many countless hours writing stories until the wee hours of the morning.

Anyways, Richard has been writing over at Associated Content and has a sports blog "Sportshound" at Today.com. He has written some good articles and after reading his, the ideas have flooded my mind and I have been bitten by the writing bug once again!

I am also considering writing reviews,especially on Nintendo's Wii games, as it has become a BIG family deal in our home. I'd like to share the best and worst games as we found them.

And last but not least, our Fun Cool Collectibles store is going as stong as ever. We are planning to add more variety and to hold monthly sales events. The economy is hitting us ALL where it hurts and we would like to offer some very good deals to help out!

Holiday Shopping Online

Here we go into the 1st week of December, so how is your Christmas shopping coming along? I have been pretty successful. I actually scored some FREE after ECB's gifts at CVS on Thanksgiving night. Who woulda thought???

Scored good prices online for Wii games and accessories for the kids from Gamestop, Toysrus and my all-time favorite Amazon. If you find yourself missing out on all the deals, here's a heads-up: Tomorrow at Amazon, all the Gold Box Deals will be for the Wii. How cool is that. Check it out right here: Amazon Wii Gold Box Deals

For those of you who are shopping for younger kids, Amazon is busy slashing their prices on some very HOT toys! These are the latest deals I found:




From Baby Alive Learns to Potty to the Eyeclops Night Vision Goggles, Amazon's prices are the rock bottom lowest I've seen this year. Pick yours up now before they all sell out at these prices!!

Edgefest 2008

This past weekend I spent some quality time with two of my teenagers as we attended "Edgefest 2008" at the Altamont Fairgrounds in Altamont,New York. The weather kept good for pretty much the whole day although we did experience a few quick rain showers.

There were a total of 15 different bands performing but my favorites were P.O.D. , Filter and Everclear. My sis and daughter got the surprise and thrill of their lives as they were walking back from the bathrooms and saw the lead singer of Filter, Richard Patrick, by his tour bus. They went up and complimented him on a great performance and shook his hand. He was very down to earth and friendly! Needless to say, I was bummed but they were ecstatic for the rest of the day!

Do you know Richard's brother, Robert Patrick? Betcha you do. He is John Doggett from the X-files and T-1000 from Terminator 2 , as well as starring in many other movies.

Here is a few pics from our wonderful day of great live music!

Embracing The Squidoo Experience

Just about everyone who knows about Web 2.0 has a Squidoo lens. Some have 2-3, others have made it a competition, personal endeavor and/or money-maker have anywhere upwards to 300-500 lenses!

I started out with three lenses, Nightmare Before Christmas, Decorate with Disney and For Those About to Rock. Their main purpose was to advertise our Fun Cool Collectibles business and showcase our merchandise. This goal has been met. We get a steady flow of traffic and a good conversion rate on our products.

But as in every business, goals can always be improved, revamped and widened. One of the steps of my new goal was to update and improve on my current lenses. Fresh updated information is a key to a good Lensrank at Squidoo. So I spent the day updating my lenses and reading up on new information. Two things became of this process that is worth mentioning:

1.)I learned about important new places to submit my lenses:

Lensroll: This site is basically Digg for Squidoo lenses. You can submit your lenses (a maximum of two per day)and users can vote for them.
Squoogle: This site is a link directory not only for Squidoo lenses but also Hubpages, Gather etc.
LensMasterWorld: This site is a Squidoo Directory for Lensmasters. Submit your lenses here.
Squidom: This site is called "The Kingdom of Squid" You can submit your lens and vote for your favorites. A nice added touch on this site is that when you add your lens, it also gets twittered on Twitter!

2.) I stumbled across this lens, "Are You a Stay-at-Home Mom(or Dad)Interested in Earning a Monthly Income". This person outlines her past year and a half on Squidoo and documents the money she has earned from her lenses and affiliates. She breaks it down month by month and by how many lenses she had live during that time. It grabbed my attention, it also gave me a renewed interest in taking a closer look at Squidoo as more than just a traffic generator, but as a real moneymaker. So I have been reading and researching, absorbing the tips and tricks on the many different lenses of the Giant Squids. I will take time but I will share how I proceed and if I get lucky and start earning more than 3 bucks a month.

My new improved serious attitude for creating lenses was applied in the new lens I made today, "All About Tinker Bell"

Oh and as previous mentioned in another post this week, I also created a lens about my son with Autism. That now brings me up to 5 active lenses. Yes a far cry from becoming a Giant Squid, but nonetheless, a start.

If you are new to Squidoo or would like to learn more about optimizing your lens, I recommend checking out the new Squidoo Answer Deck Headquarters.

Garage Sale Fever? What's wrong?

Well I've spent the last 2 weeks trying to clean out some of the 15 years of accumulated junk. It's been a S-L-O-W painful process but finally got a good start for a yawn sale. As I sit and price stuff I think what a great way to get rid of this stuff quickly and pass some great steals onto others. Yeah right! The first weekend (last week) was marred a bit by extremely hot weather and severe thunderstorms. But customers did come and BROWSE.

One of my first customers took a took at my Disney DVD's priced at $2.00 and $3.00 and informed me the lady up the road was selling Disney movies for .25 a piece and I would do better if I DROPPED my prices. I just smiled sweetly and fought off the urge to go running and buy all the Disney movies at the other garage sale for a quarter. LOL. But seriously, an hour later 2 of the Disney movies were gone. I know times are tough and everybody is looking for a good deal but since when did garage/lawn sales become so....CHEAP???

Gas and food have skyrocketed to unbelieveable new heights. People should be flocking to garage sales, especially as the new school year is just a month away. I have good quality teen clothes for .10, .25, .50. Name brand jeans for $1.00 in almost new condition? But where are all the buyers. I was quite depressed.

This week so far has faired much better. Today yielded almost $100. I know if I lived in a big city I would be celebrating right now as I prolly would have sold everything! But I live in a small town in a line of small towns and those gas prices can be a real yard sale killer.

I just want to clear out the bulk of the stuff and give the rest to charity. But I'd just like to do it quickly...more quicker than weekly weekend sales. I considered auctions but at 30% commission..hmmm..I'll pass for now. I'm leaning toward listing the really good stuff on craiglist or kijiji, wonder if that will have any rate of success. I hear of others having good luck. Guess I won't know til I try.

If anyone knows any tips or tricks, success stories for craiglaist or kijiji? Drop me a comment. Much appreciated.