A Few Cards

I've been feeling really creative the past two days and have been wanting to make something. So I sat down this morning and made these cards. I'm pretty happy with the way that they came out but it was so hard to keep them relatively simple. I kept adding things to the elephant card, lol.

I'm doing a 12x12 layout tonight at a 10 year old's birthday party. Her mom bought 12x12 frames and is going to snap a group photo that they will put on their layouts when they're done. So their party favor will be the framed 12x12 layout. I think that it was a great idea. I haven't designed the layout yet. That's next on my list :) I'll post a picture of our finished product later tonight.

A Better Picture

So I've been told that my dog didn't look very cute in the previous pictures that I posted of him so while I was home I had my cousin snap some quick pictures of him. She sent me this one yesterday so that I could put it up on my blog. It does do him more justice, lol. She also took some pictures of Isaac and I as well as some family photos (us and the dogs). I haven't gotten those from her yet but as soon as I do I'll post some.

I have a lot of house work to finish tonight but all I really want to do is play with my new supplies. I'm also working on getting my etsy shop back up and running. I listed four new tins on Wednesday night and one had already sold by Thursday morning. I was so thrilled to see that my small break hadn't turned away my clients :) I need to list at least four more tonight. My goal is to get my store back up to about 40 items by the end of next week. We'll see :)

A Great Memorial Day Weekend

We went home over the weekend for my Grandmother's dove release since we were unable to do it at her funeral in February. It was the final piece that provided total closure to our loss.

We had so much fun being home with all the family, playing with the great-grandkids, catching up with my aunts and cousins, and spending time with Grandpa. I only wish we all could have been there together longer.

One of the great parts of getting together with my aunts and cousins is that we love to go scrapbook shopping together. I have been doing it a few years longer than them but we have so much fun looking for great supplies. We hit several stores over the weekend and I have to admit that I went a little overboard buying things. I got TONS of paper as well as some fun embellishments to make some cards. I can't wait to get started.

Here are a couple of pictures of just some of the things that I got.

Perfect Sunday

Today was the perfect Sunday. We went to church, came home, watched a movie, ate lunch, and then fell asleep together. Now the "nap" was a few hours too long but we were both exhausted. Even the dogs were tired today. Needless to say I don't have anything much to blog about but I did want to share a few cute photos that we snapped recently.

These first two are of Copper. The other night while I was scrapbooking, I turned around to catch him squeezed into Napoleon's bed. I couldn't stop laughing! This is a bed for the 10lb dog variety, not the 70lb. Now this has become his thing. He lays in both Napoleon's and Bella's whenever he gets a chance. I guess that means he wants his own bed but I'm not about to pay $50 for one so he'll have to wait until I can make one.

Isaac took these next pictures of Bella and Napoleon after their baths on Friday. I guess they were cold since it was raining that day and they decided to snuggle up today, which is extremely rare. I think they are bonding in the Copper tramples all over us so we've got to stick together kinda way.

This last one is just a super cute shot of Napoleon doing his thing, pre-Copper.

Apple Blossom Festival

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I last posted. No wonder no one reads my blog consistently, lol. Life has been in some major turmoil and for awhile there we didn't even feel like we were treading water anymore. We were definitely sinking. Things aren't any better now but we have a better perspective on them. We know that we are praying about it, that God is faithful, God is for us, and he will also work toward the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose. We just have to keep reminding ourselves of these things :)

I finally got the pictures from my mom of my booth at The Apple Blossom Festival. This was hands down the best show I've ever done, but it didn't start out that way. Saturday was horrible, I mean just horrible. There were hardly any people and I'll just tell you that I was in a major funk of depression thinking that I paid all this money for a booth and my tent, etc and I wasn't even going to make that back, much less make any profit. During the last hour of Saturday there was literally no one there so my mom walked around and talked to a few of the other vendors and they said just stay calm, that Sunday is the day. They said that if 5,000 people come Saturday, then 50,000 come on Sunday. My friends later told me that people don't really come out on Saturday because of the two parades and all the other events going on Saturday.

I went home that night and made a few more things before I passed out and woke up on Sunday determined to have a better day. Even if I only sold a few things like I did on Saturday I was still going to have a positive attitude, chat with my guests, and have a good time. I also brought several projects to work on in case there was a lot of dead time again. Sunday was completely different. There were tons of people and there were several times when my booth was completely packed with people. You couldn't even move. It was awesome. I was selling the projects I was working on before they were even completed! I took several custom orders and have several more that are going to be contacting me, hopefully, about doing other projects for them. All in all, in was an amazing day and an amazing experience.

A few things I learned:

1) Having a million different patterns in my pocket albums in maybe not the best thing. Some people had a really hard time picking one out. My thinking was that I really want to appeal to the most people possible so I usually make 3-4 tins with one set of papers. So I'd say I had about 30-40 different patterns out. I think in the future, at least for these shows, I'll do maybe 6-8 tins in one set of patterns or I'll only put out half of the patterns that I have. If one set sells out then I'll put another out or if they are looking for something specific I can pull from behind the table if that particular pattern isn't out. I can see where it would be overwhelming if you aren't a good decision maker.

2) Always get their contact information. I got better at this as Sunday went on but when people say oh I'd like to talk to you about doing this for me or I'm looking for this and I'll contact you, make sure you get their information. I'd say about 60% of the time the people do actually contact me but then you lose that other 40%. I had several people that were looking for things and took my card and said they'd be in touch but I should have asked them for their email.

3) I need to make up some sort of receipt to give to those who pay with credit/debit cards. I had a few people ask for a receipt and all I could do was jot their purchase down on some scrap paper.

4) Last but not least, you need real weights for you tent. We filled milk jugs with water and they just weren't heavy enough. I need to get some cement filled pvc pipes for the next show.

New Dog

I've totally gone off the deep end here. On Tuesday we got another dog. Even as I type it out, I can't believe we actually did it. We've been talking about getting a bigger dog for a few weeks now. We had some guys come to our door at like 1:30am a few nights ago and, while we shouldn't have answered the door, they were calling for help so we did. It ended up that they wanted some gas or some money for gas and the situation got a little scary for me. So I decided that I needed to have a dog that made me feel a little more comfortable when home by myself.

Mom and I were out getting business cards printed for Apple Blossom and the printer just happens to be right next to the SPCA. I jokingly said we should stop but didn't really want to because it's so sad and I want to take them all home with me. But my mom wanted to go in and look so we did. They had a litter of lab mix puppies that were SUPER cute but they weren't ready for adoption yet. So we got out of there okay and decided to check out the other county shelter because it was new and I had heard what a giant facility it was.

So we went out there and it was a huge facility but it didn't have many more dogs. It had a few puppies that I was looking at, again lab mixes, and then there was one adult dog that was a lab/golden retriever mix. My mom was like, oh that's two of the nicest dogs you can get mixed together, that would be a wonderful dog for you guys. He was one year old and so I wouldn't have to do all the "puppy" stuff per say and he was really friendly. I also liked that it said he was an outside dog so I could put him out in the yard on nice days and he'd be cool.

So I went home and got Isaac and we checked him out. He was friendly and very playful so I got Bella and Napoleon and brought them in. They weren't too thrilled of course. In the end we went home with him. His name is Copper but I want to change it. I was thinking about Dozer because he is totally a bull in a china shop. It's out of control. This dog has enough energy to generate electricity for my whole town if he was on a treadmill. We haven't slept the last two nights because he's only dog for a few hours and then he's jumping into the bed and trying to pull my out to play with him. Ah! Last night I finally got up and put him out in the yard with his blanket. I had to get some sleep. I may be in over my head here as I've never had a big dog and he's very much still a puppy. More stories will come I'm sure :)