Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri are the first, of hopefully many states, to require drug-testing of welfare recipients. It seems odd to me that we are just now addressing this issue. People who work for their income have been drug-tested for years--prior to employment. Yet, people who are receiving government aid are free to abuse drugs and alcohol on the tax-payer's dime.

I realize the economy is tough right now and many people may look to vices as a means of coping with stress, depression, etc. However, it isn't the responsible solution to the problem. Find something to bring in an income or seek counseling to deal with the underlying issues driving you to drink, smoke, and/or abuse drugs.

If a person has the money to buy even cigarettes, let alone marijuana or alcohol on a regular basis, surely they can afford a loaf of bread and gallon of milk or basic necessities to support their family through hardship.

The results of the following study conducted by the National Institute of Health (NIH): Alcohol and Drug Use, Abuse,and Dependence among Welfare Recipients show that "[t]he percentages of welfare recipients using, abusing, or dependent on alcohol or drugs were relatively small and consistent with the general US population and those not receiving welfare benefits." Still, disqualification of even the small percentage of the sample population that is using would save the country, specifically tax payers, money over time. Additionally, it is the principle that these people are receiving free aid because they have children, to take care of their children, not to remain unemployed, sponging off of the government as long as they can, while abusing substances.

Spending money to drug test the welfare recipient is a one-time cost. Maybe they are drug-tested once and lose benefits for one year or something. We are saving one year of paying them benefits for the cost of a single drug test.

Any thoughts?

First ArtFire Ad!

Well, we purchased our first Ad on ArtFire! It really is a great value. We paid $15.00 for two ads that will run from 11/21 at midnight until 12/19 at midnight (roughly 4 weeks).

The greatest obstacle for us right now has been driving traffic to our sites. You'd think having great products up, that you handmade would be enough. It's really not. There are so many artisans out there competing for the attention of Web surfers. The ability to click through millions of great deals and products makes it difficult to capture a potential customer's attention. Then you have ads flashing all over the place; it's just hard. So, hopefully this helps!

Here is the image we have created to use for our ad:

So, let us know what you think. Also, we would love to hear about any other promotional opportunities, such as sites you have used or services that have helped drive more traffic to your site. We are open to anything! Thanks for reading...

Now Available on ArtFire!

Seasonal Heart - ArtFire Seller Shop

Come check us out!

Google+

Have you tried Google+ ? It is actually pretty neat. It's like Twitter and Facebook had a baby ;-)

Add us to your circle if you make one!  https://plus.google.com/i/wGQAUA6KhC8:Et56LLj26vs

More Christmas Cupcake Toppers! I love these things!

Come check out our other holiday listings at Seasonal Heart www.etsy.com/shop/seasonalheart where we have different pack options of this and other wonderful seasonal cards.

This is an original Seasonal Heart design.

Follow us on Twitter, Blogspot, and Tumblr, and “LIKE” us on Facebook to be one of the first to hear about upcoming holiday promotions and coupon codes:

http://twitter.com/#!/SeasonalHeart
http://www.facebook.com/SeasonalHeart
http://seasonalheart.tumblr.com/
http://www.seasonalheart.blogspot.com/

Christmas Cupcake Toppers! Pack of 24

Only about $0.50 per topper!

This listing is for a pack of 24 toppers (enough to make an entire batch of cute holiday cupcakes). Each Christmas cupcake topper is 2 1/2” x 2” made from 110 lb. premium index card stock.

It is a very cute gingerbread man, with a pair of reindeer antlers, a candy cane, and red and white matching scarf. These are a VERY cute addition to your cupcakes! They are great for bake sales, your children’s classmates, Christmas parties at home or the office, and much more.

Please also check out our other holiday listings at Seasonal Heart www.etsy.com/shop/seasonalheart where we have different pack options of this and other wonderful seasonal cards.

This is an original Seasonal Heart design.

Follow us on Twitter, Blogspot, and Tumblr, and “LIKE” us on Facebook to be one of the first to hear about upcoming holiday promotions and coupon codes:

http://twitter.com/#!/SeasonalHeart

http://www.facebook.com/SeasonalHeart

http://seasonalheart.tumblr.com/

http://www.seasonalheart.blogspot.com/

NEW LISTING!! "Turkey Surprise" Window Cut-Out Handmade Thanksgiving Holiday Greeting Cards!

In Love... with Mountain Dew!

As I type this post, from the cozy comfort of my bedroom, I am continually distracted. Three empty aluminum cans line my nightstand, just within my peripheral vision, like soldiers prepared for battle. Not so long ago, these three cans, filled with twelve fluid ounces of tropical ecstasy, served a purpose. Yet, out of personal greed, and over the course of just one or two hours, I have raided each of them. One by one, I invaded the aluminum guard as a means to quenching my desire, whilst leaving them hollow, without remorse. Now, only the recycling bin can provide them a minute glimmer of hope. Perhaps out of the three of them, one will have an opportunity at identical rebirth, bringing the same joy to another, as these have to me; highly unlikely, but still it is a possibility.


(Image Source: http://mdewtree.com/)


Please Follow/Favorite/Like:

Blog: www.seasonalheart.blogspot.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/seasonalheart
Tumblr: seasonalheart.tumblr.com/
Pinterest: pinterest.com/seasonalheart/
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/SeasonalHeart
Etsy: www.seasonalheart.etsy.com

We will definitely Follow/Favorite/Like you all back as well!

Jeremy and Lisa, Seasonal Heart

Handmade Glass Christmas Ornaments from Seasonal Heart

We just finished 6 sets of our newest handmade, glass Christmas ornaments! Check them out at http://www.seasonalheart.etsy in our Christmas section.

New Thanksgiving Listing - Tissue Paper Flower Arrangement

Check out our Etsy listing to purchase this beautiful Thanksgiving / Harvest tissue paper flower arrangement

On to Thanksgiving...

Seasonal Heart is working frantically on Thanksgiving products. Hopefully we will have some items to share later this evening. We've been working on some great ideas and are now trying to put them together into something awesome. It's just so hard to believe 2011 is just about over...

Happy Halloween from Seasonal Heart!!

50% OFF HALLOWEEN CLOSEOUT

Well, the Ghost Kids were a major success this year on Etsy at our shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/seasonalheart out of roughly 30 or so that we started with (pretty late in the season) we have 5 remaining. We are marking them down 50% from the original price of $30.00 to only $15.00! Get yours today and be ready for next year!
  
http://www.etsy.com/listing/82485585/50-off-clearance-ghost-kids-cute

Holiday Card Combo Packs!!!

Combo Pack of 20 Holiday Cards!!! We have funny, blank, sentimental, and inspirational! Tell those special someones how much they mean to you!

Promotion, Promotion, and More Promotion!

Today has been a day filled with promotional activity! I didn't get to create, but I worked hard on getting Seasonal Heart out into the computer world. Hopefully the robot spiders come and find all of my sites and rank me high in the search engines and all that jazz. I realize asking for anything more than a 4 on the 10-point scale is dreaming, but I'll start small ;-)

So, we now have a Tumblr (www.seasonalheart.tumblr.com), a Blog (obviously you found that or you wouldn't be reading this), our Facebook Fan Page (www.facebook.com/seasonalheart), and I've branded everything to try and match it all together to create a universal image for the company. Oh, I forgot my Pinterest ;-) (http://pinterest.com/seasonalheart).

If anyone has any advice or sites we may have missed, I'd love to hear it! I am completely open... Critique of our shop and other sites is much appreciated (www.seasonalheart.etsy.com).

Thanks and Good Night Blogger! (Or, I guess it's Good Morning!)

New Etsy Shop Banner

We have a new Etsy Shop Banner! I did not realize how easy it was to create one in PowerPoint. If you do not know how, it's simple:

In Page Setup (varies depending on the version you are using, I have PowerPoint 2010 so Page Setup is under the "Design" section).

Change the Slide Size to Custom and set the Width to 27 inches and the Height to 3.55 inches.

Walla!! Fill that puppy with whatever you want and go to File>Save As and select JPEG Interchange Format and select Current Slide Only on the window that appears. Now you have a cool new banner perfectly formatted for your Etsy Shop!!

So here is ours!

Greeting Cards!

So, the other night, Lisa and I were trying to figure out what our next product would be. We've decided to try our hand at greeting card design. So far we are really happy with what we've created. It is probably something that we will get better at with time.