Bella's Boutique

Noah Has Arrived!

2009-04-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is WAY late but what can I say? I hit a wall in my last month of pregnancy and I just went into hybernation. That is until my mom came and then I was out doing everything I could do to try to go into labor. I ended up asking to be enduced because I just couldn't take it anymore. I swelled up like a blue whale those last three weeks. It wasn't pretty. Noah finally made his debut on March 9th at 8:56pm. He weighed in at 7lbs 15oz and was 21.5 inches long.

I'm not going to share any stories to try to scare other women or sing songs about my battle wounds to et some kind of sympathy. I will tell you that I had a 12 hour labor, 3 of which were spent pushing. Noah did get stuck because he was turned sideways but a merciful God and a helpful hint from my first labor and delivery nurse allowed me to dodge the c-section bullet and Noah made it out just fine. Pushing was more intense than I thought it would be and I was completely exhausted but 2 days after giving birth it was all a distant memory and I was ready to do it all over again.

Isaac and I are adjusting to being proud parents and life is returning to our normal hectic schedule. Unfortunately my blog and etsy shop were temporary casualties of the birthing process, but I'm bringing them back to life starting today!

Finishing Noah's Nursery

2009-02-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided that it was time to finish up Noah's nursery. We are down to the final month countdown so I don't want to be caught off-guard should he arrive a little earlier than expected. Isaac helped me put together the swing and I put together the bouncer last night. Let me just say that those things are not so easy to assemble. I could barely get the covers to go over the frames. I'm afraid the seams might pull apart they are stretched so tightly!

We also put his bedding on his crib and I went through the closet and pulled out all the blankets, bibs, socks, and clothes that still needed to be washed. The real time killer of this task was sitting down to take all the tags off of the clothes and socks. I bet that took me a good hour. I've been running loads since late last night and I have two more left before all his things will be ready for him. The next project will be sterilizing all this bottle nipples and pacifiers. Probably not going to happen today, but hopefully some time this week.

Today, I'm going out with my friend Sarah to finish buying up what supplies we don't have but still need. My second baby shower on Saturday was a lot of fun and I ended up getting quite a bit of what was left on our "still need" list. I just have things like batteries for all the equipment, breast feeding supplies, a Bumbo, baby gates, etc to pick up today. None of the fun stuff. The real challenge will be not buying him any more clothes! Babies R Us is having a big sale right now and in their ad there are at least two things that I really want to get for Noah. They have a onesie that says "Handsome" on it and I think I might just have to buy it. We could also end up at the outlet mall at some point today if I'm not too exhausted and my giant swollen feet aren't killing me too badly.

Speaking of swollen feet, if it wasn't so sick I would take a picture and let you all see the glory that comes with the last month of pregnancy. I haven't had too much of a swelling problem until the last few days. Isaac said that my feet look like the Nutty Professor movie where he changes from thin to like 400lbs. Ah, that's love. The most annoying thing about it is that because they are so swollen they itch like crazy and then off course if you touch them they are painful because my cells are probably on the verge of bursting! So if Noah wanted to come a week or so early and save me from the swelling, I would love him all the more.

Wednesday out dresser for the nursery comes and then I should have the whole thing complete and the long awaited and promised pictures up for all to see!

Great Free Printable Coupon Site

2009-02-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

So one of our New Year's resolutions was to come up with a budget and stick to it. In order to stick to my designated grocery amount, I realized that I needed to start using coupons. My mom sent me a link to a website called couponmom.com that has a lot of printable grocery store coupons. I used the website to find several coupons that I could use when I went to the grocery store earlier this week. The site even has a free ebook called Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half that gives you some helpful hints about how to maximize your coupons.

Another cool thing on the site is that you can look up any of the grocery store sales for your state or area. So essentially you can find which stores have the best prices on what items and then if you have a coupon for that item the price is even better! I'm loving this site and will definitely be checking it before every grocery trip from here on out. I hope that you enjoy it as well and save a little of that hard earned money.

Stamps For Sale

2009-01-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

I've been cleaning today and I decided to clean out all my stamps and get rid of the ones that I'm no longer using. I have quite a few Close To My Heart clear My Acrylix stamp sets that I would like to sell. I've listed if they are new and their condition if they are used. If you are interested in purchasing any of the stamp sets, please leave a comment with your email and which set(s) you would like and I'll email you. Some of the sets are retired so I can send you a scan of the set if you'd like.

To view most of the stamp sets go here and type the set's name into the Find Items box on the left-hand side.

Stamps For Sale
B Sets
Baby Accessories (new) $11
Little License (new) $11
Reminders (new) x2 $11 each
Swirl Stroke Lowercase (a few letters used) $9
Baby Accessories (used) $7
Baby Blocks (new) x2 $11 each
Alfresco (lightly used) $9
Blossom Blocks (one lightly stained) $9
Fall Leaves (2 lightly used) $9
Love Is (lightly used) $9

C Sets
Birthday Celebration (used) $10
Le Chic (lightly stained) $12
Accents, Etc (one lightly stained) $12
Let’s Shop (lightly stained) $12
Floral Charms (lightly stained) $12
Smitten (used) $10
Goodness of Life (new) $15
Simple Blossoms (used) $10
Totem Carvings (new) $15
Swirl Stroke Caps (used) $10
Kissy Fish (one lightly stained) $12
Bow-Wow (lightly stained) $12

D Sets
Doodle Alphabet (new) x2 $18 each
Doodle Alphabet (a few lightly stained) $15
Treasure Life (new) x2 $18 each
Happy Haunting (new) $18
Delightful Alphabet (new) $18
Wedding (lightly stained) $15
Elegant Script (lightly stained) x2 $15 each
Seasonal Celebration (used) $12
Small Pleasures (lightly stained) $15
Card Sentiments (used) $12
Eastertime (new) $18
Friendship Flowers (lightly stained) $15
Life’s Creation (2 lightly stained) $15
It’s A Party (lightly stained) $15
Love Tags (lightly stained) $15
Magical Season (1 lightly stained) $15

A Bad Dream?

2009-01-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday started out so nicely. I was feeling very motivated to work on some new designs and products for my etsy shop and to work on our family budget with Isaac. I worked the morning away and before I knew it, Isaac was up.

I was upstairs calculating our expenses so far this month when I heard his phone ring. About 10 minutes later he came up the stairs and said that he had something to tell me that I probably wasn't going to like. He had just received a call from his First SGT and Isaac was put on a list to be mobilized to Iraq. At first, I don't think I really believed him. I knew that some of his soldiers were going because he had received an email on Friday that 8 of his lower ranking soldiers were being called up to join another unit. However, they didn't request anyone with a ranking as high as Isaac's so we thought he was safe. Well, for one reason or another, there are a lot of soldiers in his platoon that don't qualify to be deployed (because they are terrible soldiers that never get there paperwork and tests done on time and generally just suck at life) so they decided to take Isaac since they didn't have the number of lower ranking soldiers that had been requested.

Then he told me that he'll have to start flying to Texas in February to do his monthly battle assembly with the new unit. That's when I started to freak out. The March battle assembly is the weekend that Noah is supposed to be born and Isaac was going to just make it up later in the month. I don't know if he'll be able to do that now or not. I cannot have our first child without my husband present. I just can't do it and at this point I started crying. He continued to tell me that he would have to go from training in June and July and then his deployment would start in September. He'll miss Noah's first everything, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first birthday. Plus, I'll be essentially a single mom for a year. I don't want to be a single mom. That's why I waited to have children until I was married and we were settled. I mean, by the time Isaac comes back, Noah will have no idea who he is. How heartbreaking is it that my son will not know who his father is?

I realize that we are not the first and will not be the last family to go through this situation. I know that many women have given birth while their husbands were in Iraq either watching on a web-cam or not present at all. I know there are countless fathers who have missed years of their young childrens' lives but I just don't want to be one of those women.

And I'm just so irritated at the recruiter who got Isaac into this unit with all his promises that the unit wouldn't deploy, but if it did they would only deploy to Hawaii to replace the full time Army there. In all his scare tactics about not going into the IRR because you'll be mobilized so join this Reserve Unit so you'll be safe, he never once mentioned that you can still be mobilized if any bigger company requests soldiers from your unit. AND we got screwed out of the $10,000 bonus for signing a 3 year contract because the guy wrote it 3 days short of the full 3 year period. So Isaac didn't get a cent for this.

I just feel like this is all one really bad dream and that when Isaac wakes up this morning he'll come downstairs and not know what I'm talking about.

It's Good To Be Home

2009-01-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Isaac and I headed to my parents' house in Indiana for my baby shower. My aunt Robin threw the shower for me and it was good to see so many people that I haven't seen in months and even years. My childhood best friend and her mom came and I was so happy to see them. I haven't seen her mom in probably 8 years and it had been a year and a half since I had seen Ashlee herself. It's funny how you can get together with old friends and once you get talking it doesn't seem like you've ever been apart.

Here are a couple of pictures from my shower:
Wow, not a flattering picture of me but the only one I have so please don't poke your eyes out!
A beautiful blanket that my grandma made for Noah.One of my aunts gave me some tights for Noah to wear. I'm not thinking I'm putting tights anywhere near my son, unless he chooses to do ballet or something.

I received lots of fun things at the shower and I also received a lot of gift cards so I can't wait to go out and get the rest of the things I need with those.

Yesterday I was thinking about the few big things that I still needed to purchase and I wasn't sure where I was going to get the money to pay for them. One of the items was $500 and the other was around $280. I was listening to some pod casts from Crown Financial Ministries and just deciding that I would have to do without the one item and I'd just have to trust that God would provide us with the finances to purchase the other. Just as I was thinking that, my mom called me and told me that someone had given her a check for me covering the cost of both those items! I couldn't believe it and I know it was from the Lord. How good is He to his children?! We feel so blessed and now I know that we'll be completely ready for Noah. I'm so relieved that I can just relax for these last 6 weeks and not stress over anything.

Noah's Bathroom

2009-01-13T05:58:00.000-08:00

We sort of have this monkey theme going on for Noah, with his jungle bedroom decor and his cute monkey coat and onesies from Gymboree. So my mom found this really cute monkey shower curtain and accessories at Kohls a few weekends ago and she decided to buy them for the bathroom that is attached to his room. She ended up having to order everything online because her store only had a few things left so I just got the package in the mail yesterday.

Last night I set up everything that she sent and I think it looks super cute. It at least looks better than it did before because we only have a white plastic liner hanging for the shower curtain. We didn't want to buy shower curtains for all of the bathrooms when we only use the shower in our bedroom for the most part.

So here are pictures of the bathroom:

And I promise to get some pictures of his nursery up soon. I have one project to finish before I start snapping pictures!

Cleaning Like A Mad Woman

2009-01-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

I realize that I have neglected my blog this past week but I just got into this crazy cleaning and I've only now somewhat come out of it. I think it was a combination of being tired of the clutter and watching too many cleaning/organization shows on tv. I just got fed up and decided to start cleaning, but not just cleaning, really DEEP cleaning.

I took my entire kitchen apart and cleaned ever surface. I even dismantled my refridgerator and cleaned every shelf, drawer, and the entire inside. Then I scrubbed the floor by hand to make sure that I got it really clean. My hands were so swollen by the end of the night that Isaac was horrified to look at them.

The next day I worked on bathrooms. I scrubbed all the sinks, toilets, and showers. I have four bathrooms so this was no small job. I didn't get to scrub the floors in there yet but it's still on the list. I might do that later tonight.

On Saturday I cleaned up our bedroom. It was really dusty and our dresser was MIA for all the clutter. It's sort of a dumping ground for anything that enters the room and I was so sick of it. It took me about 2 hours to sort through all the junk and get it into the correct places and then I dusted everything. I don't think Isaac appreciated that I was doing it while he was still asleep but when you feel like cleaning, it's time to clean! Then I did all the laundry and washed all our bedding. The room looks so clean and relaxing now. It's so nice.

Then Saturday night I spent like 4 hours in Noah's room going through things. The closet was so unorganized and packed full of things and it was driving me nuts. I also had this huge pile of things that was just taking up the corner next to the crib. I went through all the clothes that I have for him so far and hung only the 0-6 month sizes and packed all the rest into plastic tubs. I have a whole tub full of 6-12 month clothing and the kid isn't even here yet! Then I gathered all the blankets that I have for him and filled another entire tub! Several of the blankets are my old baby blankets though so I don't feel too guilty about the number of blankets he has, but let's just say he doesn't need any more. I moved the changing table up from the basement into his bedroom and then loaded all the diapers and wipes that we have onto that and proceded to fit everything that was outside the closet into the closet. It looks amazing. I should have taken a before and after picture now that I think of it so you could truly appreciate the change that took place.

Yesterday I paid the price for my crazy cleaning. My back was killing me! I didn't sleep well at all the night before, just tossing and turning. So I took a break yesterday and will continue to work at a slower pace the rest of the week. I still need to shampoo carpets and a few other things and then I'll be squeeky clean. It will be fabulous!

I think my mom is worried that I might go into labor now because she kept telling me that this is what people do the day before they pop their kid out. However, this had nothing to do with being pregnant and everything to do with being frustrated.

Finally, a few cute pictures of Bella and Copper playing together and hiding from the madness.

New Albums

2009-01-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

I have finally started working on some new chipboard albums for my etsy shop and I'm really excited to see how they turn out. I've got one almost finished and I'm hoping to have it finished tomorrow. I'm using this really cool retro bird paper called A Little Birdie Told Me by Paper Shoebox. I've had it for a few months now and I'm just getting around to using it.

I also added a few Valentine's themed cards to my shop today. I really love the mini notecards. They are probably one of my most favorite cards I've ever made. The sewing ended up being way harder and taking way longer than I thought it would. Free hand sewing hearts = not easy.

I also got this really cute picture of Copper last night that I thought I'd share. My mom bought him this giant monkey toy that has all these different squeakers when we were home for Christmas. He absolutely love it and I caught him cuddling up with the monkey late last night. Too cute.

Finances For A New Year

2009-01-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

So my husband and I decided that we'd really like to start tracking our finances this year. We found ourselves asking where all our money went far too often these past few months. I have really been dreading actually taking a look though and digging down into where we spend our money.

Yesterday I decided to take the plunge and I went onto Crown Financial's website and found some very useful worksheets. I have their book and I thik I read the whole thing a few years ago but I never really got down deep into our spending and doing a budget. I just took away lessons on how to pay down your debt and applied those to our lives. Things were different back then though. We didn't really worry about our finances because Isaac was in the military and I was also working full time. Now that I'm not working and we don't get extra housing allowance, tings are much tighter. We actually need to be tracking where every penny goes. Especially with Noah arriving soon.

One of the major questions I was having was how much of your income should be spent on what. Like how much should we be spending on food? What percentage of our income should pay for our housing? I had been very frustrated because I had never been able to find something that actually gave you an idea until I found this sheet. They actually have them for lots of different scenarios, like single with x amount of kids or married with x amount of kids or widow, etc. I was thrilled to have found this and sat down to see how we measured up last night. It seems that our percentages are much different than theirs. We spend more on our total housing than they suggest and we also spend way more on our debt (student loans) than they suggest.

After looking at this I was just frustrated. It's hard to face the fact that you're overspending and spending on things that aren't really needed. Since I stay at home the only time I really get out of the house right now is when I need to go to the store. So buying for me is my way out of the house. Nevertheless, I am committed to tracking our expenses this month and to really getting an honest look at what we doing with our money. I know that I need to come up with a strict budget for our family, especially if I'm going to continue to stay home with Noah. I have to learn to live and spend on just one income. This should be interesting!

Hooked Studios Skincare

2009-01-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, you're always looking for a good line a skincare. I have combination skin and it seems that I'm always bouncing from one line of products to the next hoping it will due what I want. Out of her own frustration, my friend Jill recently launched her own line of skincare and has been getting great reviews. She sells the line here on etsy. I wanted to help her get the word out about her new product so I thought I'd share a little information about her and her product.

I've been researching all-natural skincare for quite awhile now, thanks in part to my frustration with conventional products' effectiveness. I recently created a cleanser/mask that has been incredibly successful here in Minneapolis. It has been featured in two local publications' Holiday Gift Guides, and will be entering more local stores soon! I'm just grateful it seems to be working as well for so many others as it has been for me.

Hooked Studios Skincare works for any skintype; is completely organic; fragrance-free; shrinks appearance of pores; clears up acne; softens and tightens skin; and is a generally soothing product--great for winter. Here is a little more information that she sent me about the skincare that contains a list of ingredients and what they do for your skin.

Hooked Studios Skincare is made of all-natural, fresh, organic ingredients. Each ingredient is selected based on its time-tested history of proven results. Natural skincare has existed for centuries; our skincare hearkens back to a simpler era when chemicals didn’t undermine the terrific results nature alone can bring out. We bear in mind that your skin is your body’s largest organ and that products applied to the skin absorb readily into the bloodstream. This means the healthy food choices you make daily are being negated by any chemicals you choose to put on your skin. We’re here to remedy that and make you look and feel amazing in the process.

Ingredients and Their Functions

Ground Oats
-softens skin
-absorbs excess oil
-possesses soothing, anti-inflammatory properties
- is found in several commercial skin care products, but often combined with harsh, unnatural ingredients

Garbanzo Powder
-popular exfoliant in several parts of the world
-cleanses skin
-tightens skin
-neutralizes oiliness
-helps treat acne

Turmeric Spice
-aids in remodeling of damaged skin
-accelerates wound healing
-treats inflamed skin
-is associated with aiding in melanoma prevention
-leaves skin with subtle, sun-kissed glow
-natural antiseptic and antibacterial agent which disinfects the skin
-used for centuries in Chinese Medicine to treat depression

Ground Flax Seeds
-rich in Omega-3 and Omega-6 essential fatty acids
-improves symptoms of acne, psoriasis, eczema, and dry skin
-aids in healing scars and abrasions
-possesses anti-inflammatory properties

I hope that you'll give it a try and definitely come back to let everyone know what your experience was!

Noah's First Pictures

2008-12-31T15:33:00.000-08:00

We went to a specialist today to check on a spot that had been showing up in Noah's heart on the last two ultrasounds. Thankfully, it is nothing more than a thickened spot in the muscle and he is perfectly fine. During the ultrasound the technician asked up if we had any 3D pictures yet and, since we didn't, she took a few for us.

He has his hands crossed under his chin so in some of the pictures his right hand is over part of his face. It looks like he's going to have Isaac's nose and my mouth in more ways than one. He was constantly opening and closing his mouth and sticking his tongue out so it's quite possible he'll have a lot to say.

I didn't think I wanted to do a 3D ultrasound because I wanted his face to be a surprise but I think it'll still be a surprise because while you can get some idea of what he looks like, it's not the same as seeing him in person or in an actual picture.

Back Home

2008-12-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

Isaac and I returned home from our trip to Indiana late last night and I must say that I'm glad to be home. It was such a quick trip as we were only there for three days. It's hard to believe in just two and a half weeks we'll be doing the trip all over again for my baby shower!We had a great time being home with family and Christmas was good. The only annoying part was listening to extended family members tell me how big I looked and say how gigantic they thought I'd be the next time they see me. They seriously must not think before they talk. All I could do was roll my eyes and bite my tongue. I don't think that I'm a particularly large pregnant person but maybe I have a distorted view of myself.

My mom and I did a lot of shopping for nothing while I was home which is the best. I love to just go out looking for nothing and see what you find. I did find some great books and Half Priced Books to teach me how to knit, crochet, and do applique. I've been wanting to learn how to do those for awhile now and I finally decided to take the plunge. Isaac doesn't seem too thrilled at the prospect of me picking up a few more hobbies but oh well. I also really want to learn how to make my own jewelry but I haven't found a book that has anything like the style I'm interested in so that's still on the back burner.

I was practicing my crocheting technique on the car ride home but I became a bit confused on the conversion between the rows and so I think I'm going to have to look for a video on youtube or something to show me. On one page of the book it says to hook through the loop just like you normally would but then on the next page it says for row two you want to hook under both loops to turn the chain so I'm not sure which to do. Then do I continue to hook under both loops every time I turn the chain or is that only for the second row? You're probably confused just from reading that!

Anyway, today has been lots of cleaning and putting things back away. I have a lot of organizing to do in my craft room since it looks like a nuclear bomb went off in the Christmas rush and I also need to sit down and start organizing my business paperwork for taxes and such.

Almost Feeling Like Christmas

2008-12-22T13:42:00.000-08:00

I've been having the winter blues the last two weeks. The sun has not been out and it has just been raining for days. So I sort of crawled into a little hole and have not really been participating in life. Well, today the sun is shining and I've decided to come out of my hole and get things done.

Over the weekend we had dinner with our friends Sarah and Aaron and then went to a Christmas light display at a local park. The decorations were nice and it was a very large park. It was quite cold though and the wind was not very kind to my face. It was so cold in fact that we bought hot cocoa while we were there and it was cool enough to drink within 30 seconds. They had a really cool display that had the lights coordinated with the music playing so we decided to stop and take a quick picture since I don't have any pictures of us together lately.

Isaac and I have been talking about taking a Christmas photograph for like two weeks now and we finally decided to get it taken today. So before he went to work we sat down and took a few snapshots for the dogs. I don't have a lot of pictures of me pregnant but this one turned out well and I think that we should at least have one to show Noah some day.

I'm busy working on scrapbooking the rest of our ultrasound pictures today and getting things ready to head home to Indiana on Wednesday. My mom says they're going to be having a winter mix of ice and rain Wednesday. Perfect traveling weather, yuck.

Thai Cashew Chicken Recipe

2008-12-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

So today I thought I'd share with you the Thai Cashew Chicken recipe that I made for our friends over the weekend.

1 Tbs olive oil
1 large yellow onion, sliced thinly
1 of each: yellow, orange, and red pepper
3 Tbs ketchup
1 Tbs soy sauce
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp thai garlic chili paste (or hot pepper sauce) or more to taste
3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
3 Tbs. creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup cashews
Jasmine rice

Heat oil in skillet
Cook onions and peppers until they start to get tender
Mix in ketchup, soy sauce, chicken broth, sugar, chili paste, and peanut butter
Add chicken to skillet and continue to cook and stir for 10 minutes
Mix in cashews before serving over Jasmine rice

A few things you want to keep in mind:
-You only want to cook the onions and peppers until they are starting to get soft. If you cook them until they are completely soft they will be a mushy mess by the time the chicken has been cooked.
-You also want to get the chicken breast in as soon after adding the sauce ingredients as possible or your sauce will dry out before your chicken is done. This happened to me and I ended up having to add more chicken broth to thin it out and I lost some of the flavor because of that.
-Make sure that you slice your chicken breast very thinly so that it will cook relatively quickly.
-Cooking this mixture is done best in a wok at a high temperature but you can do it in a regular pan if that's all you have. Might be a bit messier.
-If you're not a big pepper fan, you may want to use only half of each of the peppers as it is a lot of peppers and onions.

Give it a try and enjoy!

A Busy Little Weekend

2008-12-08T08:20:00.001-08:00

Wow, this weekend really flew by for me! I can't believe that it's already Monday, sigh. Friday was kind of a bust for me as far as getting any work done. I had my Keepers Of The Home Bible study group on Friday morning and they wanted me to do some Christmas cards with them. So I brought all my stuff and they each made 5 cards. Normally, we meet at 9:30 and we're done by 11:00. Not so this time. We didn't even get started until nearly 11:00 and the little boys (3 of them in the 2's) were going bonkers. It was so hard to concentrate on the Bible study portion. In fact, I would say I was totally distracted. Thank goodness I won't be having triplets! So the meeting lasted until nearly 1:00. I came home and Isaac wanted to go get some Five Guys hamburgers for lunch so we went back out and did that and then it was time for him to go to work. Then my friend Sarah called and asked me to go Christmas shopping with her so I did and we were out until about 7:00 or so and I was completely pooped. I did however get a fabulous maternity coat at Target for $60. I am thrilled with it because now my coat isn't hanging open and I'm not freezing to death! This is my coat.

Then on Saturday we had Sarah and her husband over for dinner at 5:00. I made Thai Cashew Chicken with sticky rice. I had never made it before but I think it came out alright. There weren't any leftovers so I guess that's always a good sign. I got the recipe from a friend and there are a few tweeks I'll make to it but all in all it was good and very simple. After dinner, we went to their house to meet their new puppy, Maggie. She's a yellow lab puppy and super cute. I think Isaac wanted to steal her. He kept saying how he wished we had Copper when he was a puppy over and over again. But just for the record, we are at our dog capacity. Three dogs and a baby equal my hands being very full!

Then Sunday we did our normal church thing and went and had lunch at the mall afterwards. We decided to redo our Christmas tree because it was looking pretty pathetic and I hated the decorations we had for it. Not to those that move to Hawaii without Christmas decorations, there is a limited supply for the island so get them early. Don't be like us and wait until December only to find that there is little to no selection left. We bought the only things we could find and I've pretty much always hated them. Anyway, Isaac has been on this kick about wanting modern blue lights for the tree, yadda yadda, so I finally gave in. We went to several different store and got blue lights and all these silver and blue decorations for the tree. It took forever to get it together last night but we did it and I really like it. The only thing we don't have is a star because we couldn't find one we liked. I'll have to keep looking. Here's our tree.

The Best Little Camera Ever!

2008-12-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

One of the things that my mom and I did while she was here was to go shopping on Black Friday. We didn't drop any major money or really buy all that much but we just went out to have fun together. There were a few electronics that we knew we wanted to buy and so that's mainly what we were looking for.

I have been wanting to get a small point and shoot digital camera for awhile now, since the flash is broken on our big point and shoot camera. The last time we went to DC and took pictures at the museums, nothing turned out because we didn't have a flash. It was very upsetting and disappointing. So I had been doing some research and reading what types of cameras people recommended and I found that overall people really liked the Canon Powershots. A few things that I required from the camera were that it has a fast click to capture time, a macro setting, and various settings for action shots, night shots, etc. So I started looking into the Canon Powershots and reading customer reviews on them. I was shocked to find that most of the $200-$300 Powershots have no settings on them. They are just auto. So that was discouraging.

Then I happened onto a few recommenations for the Canon Powershot A590 IS. I looked it up and found that it had all the features that I was looking for but the one complaint from people was that the body of the camera felt cheap. I picked out about 3 Powershots that I thought I'd like to try out and then started scouring through the ads. To my surprise, there were 3 stores that had the A590 IS on sale and it was very inexpensive. I have to admit that I started to think this wasn't going to be a good camera because it was only $135. I've never spent that little on a camera before. So we went out and I ended up purchasing the camera with the intent to try it out and if I didn't like it, to return it.
Well, I'm happy to report that this little camera is the best digital camera I've ever owned! I love it! It turns on SUPER fast and the click to capture time is almost INSTANT. Not only does it have all the other features I was looking for but it also has a setting for children and pets. Perfect! Now, I will say that the body of the camera is plastic, but that's something that I'm willing to compromise on. After all, the last camera I bought was about $250 and has a great heavy frame and I've hated it since about a month after we got it. It never worked right so word to the wise, never buy the display because it's the last one they have! So in the end I'm willing to have a lighter body casing on a fabulous camera then a heavy metal casing on a sucky camera.

If you're looking for a great little digital camera this year, I would say to try this one out. You can always take it back if you don't like it, but I have a feeling you'll be keeping it!

A Great Thanksgiving

2008-12-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving visit with my mom and brother and we got so much accomplished while they were here. It really was a great time and I'm so glad that they were able to make it out here on Tuesday night, even if it was a little later than planned. We needed every day that they were here.

My mom and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner and it was super yummy. We tried out a brined turkey recipe this year that we hadn't done before and it turned out really well. The turkey was very moist and the meat had a sweetness to it from the brine. We made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, pumpkin pie, and peacan pie. Here's a quick picture of our spread and below that is the recipe for the turkey brine.

Brined Turkey Breast
16 cups of water
2 cups sugar
2 cups coarse salt
5 gloves of garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp pickling spices

Combine ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until sugar and salt dissolve. Cool to room temperature. Poor brine over breast and refrigerate, loosely covered, overnight.

We also worked on getting Noah's nursery put together and I think that it's looking great. We put up the border around the room and did it at a chairrail height. It helps to break up the whiteness of the walls. I figure this will be easier to remove from the walls than having to completely repaint when and if we move again. We also hung a curtain rod and put up the window vallences and I'm working on a project to hang above his crib that will have his name on it. We got all the bedding out and put in on the crib to see how everything looks together and it's super cute. I'll post pictures once I get the room finished.

My etsy shop has been quite busy lately and I have to say that I am very thankful for that. I'm quickly approaching the milestone of 200 sales and I'm hoping that I'll hit that before the end of the year. I would just be thrilled. Over the weekend I added a whole new line of Amy Butler tins into my store and I'm excited to see how people like them. Today is another busy day so I'd better be off and start working on my to-do list. Ah, the never ending list.

It's Almost Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T06:51:00.000-08:00

Well, my mom and my older brother were suposed to be coming today for Thanksgiving but my mom just called and said they weren't coming because my brother is sick. I'm so annoyed. He says he has a fever and has been sick to his stomach this morning. How does that prevent you from getting into a car? All he has to do is sit there. So they "might" come tomorrow or they just won't come at all. I could seriously just scream. I've cleaned my house, I've bought all this food, Isaac is working way long hours through Wednesday so he could have Friday off to take my brother to DC, they were suposed to help me get the nursery together tomorrow... I hate it when people break plans. That is seriously the most annoying thing in the world to me. You do all this stuff to accomodate people and plan for them to have a good time and then they don't show up!

I feel that I must now amend my post because in fact my mom and brother are on their way to my house now. I guess he puked it out and is feeling better. They won't get out here until after midnight but they'll be here. Yay! Sorry I had a little tantrum earlier, I'm pregnant :P

I was in the middle of writing this when my mom called so instead of ranting for the whole post I'll go ahead and finish what I was originally writing. I have been super busy the last several days finishing up orders and getting them in the mail. I had one large card order that about did me in. Everything that could go wrong with the cards did and I ended up having the re-do about 35 of the cards because I had ink on my hands that I didn't know about and I smeared it all over some of the cards when I was tying them up. I finally got them done though and off in the mail but not before I stressed myself out so badly that I've got stress blisters. Sigh.

We had some friends over for dinner on Sunday night and I cooked this really good chicken that I thought I'd share the recipe for.

You need:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 cup prepared mustard
1 (6 ounce) can French-fried onions

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Place mustard in a shallow dish or bowl; place onions in a second shallow dish or bowl. Dredge chicken in mustard to coat both sides, then dredge in onions. Place coated chicken in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 50 to 60 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

This chicken is so easy and yummy. You'll be surprised at how the chicken stays so moist. Most of the time when I bake chicken it tends to get a little dry by the time it's done but the mustard really gives it a nice juice and then the crunch onions on the outside are just so perfect.

Baby Boy Finds On Etsy

2008-11-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to check out what unique things etsy has to offer for the baby boys of the world and I have to say that I am disappointed. I thought that there would be some really cool, very unique things and I just didn't see all that much. So it left me thinking, maybe I should just really figure out how to sew and make my own baby things. I'd love to have some really cool burp clothes with fun prints and bibs also. I'm even thinking that I might want to learn how to do some applique and make him some cute onesies or shirts. We'll see though. It's not like I have a ton of time on my hands these days and I'm sure it will only get worse!

I did happen to find a few things that I really liked and thought were pretty unique so I wanted to share my finds with you.

I really love this dachshund onesie by BellaBludesigns. I love the graphic prints that she uses and of course I have a soft spot for anything Dachshund.

I also found a shop, Cashmeredejavu, that makes cashmere baby items by upcycling adult cashmere sweaters.

Mysweetpeashoppe also has these very fun moster shirts. I like that you can pick which monster design you like.

Another shop, Tadpolecreations, had a set of appliqued puppy items that I really liked. Again, she used a very graphic print to do the dog cut outs and I really like the overall look of that.

Finally, sheknitsamy had these great little crocheted baby booties that I think are super cute.

So those were my etsy finds for the day!

Busy Day

2008-11-17T15:23:00.001-08:00

Today was an incredibly busy day for me. I was finishing up orders and packing things to be mailed all afternoon. I had two international orders so I had to actually go into the post office to mail them. I couldn't believe the line! It was out the door. People must be really on top of getting things mailed this year because it's not even Thanksgiving yet. When I left the line was just as long.

I saw a tweet this morning on twitter about a blog giving away a Kitchenaid stand mixer so I entered to win it and I thought that I'd pass along the link for anyone else who wants to enter. I'd love to have one of these. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't pass along the link because that just mean more competition, right? Click on the picture to go straight to the blog post.

And since I'm now into both advertising through Project Wonderful and having people advertise on my blog, I found this great post by fellow etsian Timothy Adam that gives a wonderful tutorial on how to run an ad campaign. It was very informative and so easy! So here's that link if you're interested: http://timothyadamdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/05/master-list-of-pw-ads-here-list-of.html

And finally, a few pictures of some custom tins that I did for someone through etsy. I love how they turned out and they have actually inspired me to do a whole line of tins with Amy Butler papers so stay tuned!

Where Did The Weekend Go?

2008-11-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

This weekend has totally flown by. I can't believe that it's Sunday night already. Isaac had drill this weekend so we had to make the 2 hour trip to his drill site yesterday. I did a little scrapbook store shopping while he was working. I have about 4 pads of Amy Butler paper that I've had for months now and haven't done anything with. I came up with a pretty good idea on how to use up this paper and so I was hunting for matching cardstock. May I just say that she uses the most odd shades of colors in her prints. This was the second time that I had gone looking for matching cardstock and it was VERY difficult to find anything. I did come away with some that I think will go nicely though.

So we were pretty much gone all day yesterday and then today I am working on finishing up some custom orders and getting them ready to go in the mail tomorrow. When I have those finished I really want to start working on a new round on tins but instead I'm going to have to get together my baby shower invitee list with names and addresses and get it emailed to my aunt. My mom has been asking me if I have it done for the past three days now so I've got to get it finished.

Speaking of baby showers, it was suggested to me that I possibly have a virtual baby shower since most of our friends are spread out through different states and countries. I haven't looked into how this could be done but I'm wondering if anyone out there has either had a virtual baby shower or participated in one and how it worked. It would be awesome if our friends could participate in our baby shower.

Two quick baby finds that I'm loving right now. I found this monkey coat at Gymboree and I think Noah just has to have it. I didn't buy it when I saw it on Friday but I am going to go back and see if they still have it. It was on sale in the store so I think it was only like $25 which is a lot for a baby's coat but for the cuteness factor I'm going to have to give in!

I also found this pacifier that closes when it falls out of the baby's mouth. My mom had seen one or heard about them before and looked them up online. We thought that was the only place that you could get them but when I was in Motherhood Maternity the other day I saw that they had them. So I grabbed the only blue one they had (they had the Nemo one but Isaac didn't find it as cute as I did) and it was only $3.99. I didn't think that was such a bad price, especially if it keeps the pacifier from getting all yucky on the ground. I hope that Noah takes to this kind.

And lastly, a few new Pocket Albums in my shop.

The Most Delicious Lemon Cookies Ever!!!

2008-11-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

I've got another seasonal recipe for you today. Yesterday I decided to make the most wonderful and delicious lemon cookies ever! I'm seriously not kidding about this. I had never made these before but my aunt has made them every Christmas since I can remember. Since it has gotten so cold and yesterday morning there was a thick frost on my lawn I was just in the holiday mood and decided to give them a try. It was the easiest and cheapest batch of cookies I've ever made.

1 box of lemon cake mix
1 8oz container of cool whip
1 egg

Stir together and drop small cookie balls into powdered sugar. Preheat the oven to 325 and cook for 10-12 minutes.

It couldn't possibly be easier! I love them as little bite sized cookies and they are so soft you won't believe it. My husband, who doesn't really eat sweets, was gobbling them down yesterday. And you get a ton of cookies out of one box. I would say we probably had between 60 and 80 just larger than a quarter sized cookies. So super yummy.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins and Soy Milk

2008-11-10T06:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in the baking mood so I made some pumpkin spice muffins for breakfast. They smelled delicious and they taste alright, but not as good as they smell. I need to find a really good pumpkiny recipe for those. I love pumpkin anything. They are a little on the dense side as well but I know that some people prefer that so that's not necessarily a negative.
Here's the recipe that I used to make these
Makes 10 to 12 muffins

2 cups whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 15-ounce can solid-pack pumpkin
½ cup water
1/3 cup raisins (optional)
Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl.
Add pumpkin, ½ cup of water and raisins. Stir until just mixed.
Spray baking cups with cooking spray, then spoon batter into each one. Fill to just below the top of each baking cup.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until tops of muffins spring back when touched lightly. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on a rack. Once cool, place muffins in airtight container for storage.

On another note, I'm trying to make the switch from drinking regular milk to soy milk. It's tough though. I bought a half gallon of soy milk nearly two weeks ago and I just opened it up this morning to have my first glass with my pumpkin muffin. It has a strange taste but I'm sure it's something that I can get used to. My husband was telling me that all growing up he only drank soy milk and so he doesn't really like the taste of regular milk. How did I not know this? We've been together for over 6 years and this is the first I've heard about this. He says he'll only use a little in his cereal and that's it. I guess that's why I never noticed. So I'm trying to make the switch and have healthier eating habbits one switch at a time.

I Need A Drink

2008-11-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days. I'm not the type of person that typically says this, but I seriously needed a drink today. If only I weren't pregnant! The day started out fine. I went to my last chiropractor appointment and all is well again with my back so that was great news. I still will go once a month for the last three months to make sure I don't get that same problem again, but I have relief and it's fabulous. I came home and listed a few items in my etsy shop and then started making lunch. Isaac and I had a great lunch of meatball subs and then the UPS man came. We received replacement sides to our crib we just bought last week. The sides had been dropped and the wood was shattered but JCPenny was awesome and immediately sent out replacements. This is the crib that we got for Noah. I am very pleased with it.

So we put the crib together, which took like an hour and a half, and then things started to go a little sour. I went downstairs to get something and apparently Napoleon had gotten sick so there was a big pile of puke on the floor. Yum. So I went back upstairs and told Isaac and he was all yuck that's so grose you should go clean it up. By this time it was time for me to start cooking dinner for Isaac to take with him to work. If I don't start cooking by 2:15 it's not ready for him to leave at 3:45. Plus he wanted me to make some more ice tea for him to take with him to work. So I told him that I didn't have time to do it all so he would just have to suck it up and clean up the puke.

So I went downstairs and started cooking and of course Isaac never comes down. So I yell up the stairs at him asking him to please clean it up while I cook. He yells back down that his stomach is really upset and he has to go to the bathroom. So I make the tea and get everything cooking in the oven and he's still no where to be found. So of course I have to clean up the puke and the whole time I'm sitting there thinking I can't believe that he thinks it's okay for me to do this but he acts like he'll die if he even has to look at it! I was so annoyed. My husband is very helpful and great at a lot of things but when it comes to cleaning up after the dogs, I could strangle him. He's useless and whines like a baby.

So he finally comes downstairs and before I can even say anything his phone starts ringing and he's on it until like 10 minutes before he has to leave. So I do the dishes and clean the kitchen while I'm waiting for the food to be done. He comes up and asks if it's done yet and the timer is just going off on the oven. So I get an oven mit and take out the pan and just as I'm lifting it onto the top of the oven the glove slips and I drop it all over the floor and the inside of the oven. I was so mad! I don't usually act out in my anger but I was so mad that I just threw the glove down on the floor as hard as I could. And of course it's plastic so it made a huge noise and all the dogs fled the kitchen. Isaac just looked at me and said, was that my dinner? I just looked at him and told him that I hope Noah craps all over him.

And that's why I desperately needed a drink today.

Election Day

2008-11-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

I feel like I was really busy today but at the same time I didn't get much accomplished. Don't you hate those kind of days? It's now 11:30pm and I'm feeling like I have to do 10 more things before I can go to bed! I hate that. Plus I'm feeling like a giant prego so that doesn't help matters.

I did manage to get a few things listed today in my shop. Another set of notecards, another Pocket Album, and a super cute snowman Christmas card. I also got a custom order today for some of the monogramed notecards so that was exciting. I'm not sure how she found my shop but she just signed up to etsy today and placed an order with me. I'm wondering if maybe she found me through one of my Project Wonderful ads. That would be awesome since they've only been up for like 2 days. I'll have to ask her.

What else did I do today...oh yeah, I heard of this new site called Lollishops.com and I heard that they were taking applications for shops on their site. They haven't launched the site as a selling venue yet but they launch the trial version on November 15th and then later in the month they are launching the full version. Anyway, the site is for super girly stuff, lots of victorian and cottage type things but they also have a section for bright colors. I applied to be put in the bright section, I know it's shocking, right? I didn't really think that I would get in because I read that a lot of people weren't getting in but amazingly within about 15 minutes of applying I was accepted. Yay! I was emailed more information about the site and I need to go check out what their fees are going to be. Wasn't I just saying yesterday that I wasn't going to set up on other sites and that I was just going to work on etsy for the time being? Oh well, I may give it a shot and see what happens. I hear that they've already got ads up on several internet sites and that they have a pretty big advertising budget so maybe it'll be a great second selling site for me.

Alright, housework is unfortunately calling my name. Gotta get those 10 things done before bedtime!

What A Day

2008-11-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

Wow, I feel like I've been running, running, running today. I woke up late today because this daylight savings time has really thrown me off. I'm super tired very early and so by staying up until midnight, which is my norm, I actually feel like I've been up until 3 or 4am and then I can't wake up at my normal 7am. I didn't get up today until nearly 9!

I did a lot of research about how to better promote selling my handmade items and I learned quite a bit today. I have this fabulous friend Dotty who gave me a lot of valuable information. I was thinking about setting up shop on several other sites other than etsy but in the end I decided to stick with etsy and just try to promote the heck out of my shop. So I created an ad for Project Wonderful and I've got that ad on I think 5 or 6 blogs right now. I like that you can see how many clicks you get on your ad for how many views of the website. Plus it's pretty cheap advertising. I'm also going to purchase an ad space on another gal I know's blog. She seems to get a ton of traffic so I figure I'll try it for a month. I need to be more visible in this holiday shopping season.

I've added several new pocket albums to the shop and I'm also offering custom monogramed notecards again this year. They were a huge hit last year and they are such a great stocking stuffer or gift to get for the gals at the office. The price on them is just right for this kind of thing too. I have three colors listed right now and you just pick the monogram you want on them. You can also convo me if you want a different color that I don't have listed. I have about 60 different colors of cardstock so I'm sure I can fix you up!

I made old fashion bread pudding from Tastefully Simple tonight for my Bible study gals. Oh my gosh, it was so good. I did get a stomach ache from it though because I didn't eat dinner before I went to study so all I had to eat was bread pudding. Thus, the stomach ache. I'm hopefully going to get a little real food in me tonight while watching The Hills at 10pm. I know, it's a sick addiction, what can I say :)

This Is Too Funny

2008-10-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

Just a short post today. I'm photographing and listing items mostly today and then I'm off to finish my organizing spree!

I saw this clutch on etsy this morning and I just thought that it was too cute and had to share.

She has other animal clutches as well as coin purses and card holders. What fun things to make!

Finally Some New Pocket Albums!

2008-10-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

I finally finished some new pocket albums and I'm so excited to get them listed. This is the first one that I listed earlier this morning. I love this paper and the fact that the roses are dry embossed I think is just fabulous!

I have 7 more patterns to list and I'll be listing them over the course of the next three days. I found some really great papers a few weekends ago in Maryland and I've been working as quickly as possible to get them finished.

I'm also working on some Christmas cards for my shop. I was just going to make single cards originally but then I decided to do some sets. I have this set listed currently and I am working on finishing up another set or two tonight. This was just going to be a single card but after I finished it I loved the embossing and the overall look so much that I decided to do it as a set of four. I know that people don't always want to send hand-made cards to everyone on their list but I thought for four special people that would appreciate them, these cards would be spectacular.

First Christmas Card

2008-10-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

So I just finished my first Christmas card of the year. It only took me about 2 hours. I'm so indecisive when it comes to these things. I tried making some last night but I just wasn't happy with the results so I decided to try again tonight. I was getting all my stamps out and ready to start when I realized that some how I have no Christmas image stamps, just sentiments. So I just stared at the paper for like 30 minutes trying to decide what to do.

I hate when that happens because then I feel like I need to run out and buy some new stamps and God knows that I have an entire box of stamps that I have had to run out and buy so I could make some card that have never been used. Plus my husband has the car so I'm immobile. Probably a good thing.

So after looking at the paper for a long time I decided to cut out the trees from one of Karen Foster's new pattern papers and use them like I would have stamps. I also tried making the look of snow with some Stickles. I hadn't done that before and I think I like the way that it came out. I used my Cuttlebug snowflakes embossing card to add a little texture to the CTMH Heavenly Blue cardstock and I accented with CTMH holiday buttons. Overall, I like how it came out.

A Custom Album

2008-10-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

I just finished up this custom wedding album. A friend of the bride ordered it for her as a special gift and I really like how it came out. They were married on the beach on my birthday :) The decorations for her wedding seemed really simple and elegant so I tried to keep the book looking that way too. I hope she likes it!

Long Weekend

2008-10-21T05:19:00.000-07:00

I just finished up a marathon weekend. It was totally crazy. On Friday Isaac was drilling with the Army Reserves so he had to drive 2 hours to his drill sight and I was a home getting things prepared for both a Close To My Heart party I was having on Sunday and a Children's Miracle Network Event that I was doing on Saturday. I had high hopes for Saturday's event since it was a charity event but I'm not sure what happened. Very few people came and I don't really think any of the consultants there made any sales except two, Tastefully Simple and a jewelry consultant, and they only made 2-3 sales at that. So I was there pretty much all day and it was a wash. Normally, I would be really annoyed but I don't really feel all that bad about the money I gave for my table because I know that it was for a good cause.

When I got home Saturday night I needed to finish up prepping for my gathering on Sunday and then it was off to bed. We woke up early on Sunday to drive back to Isaac's drill sight, which also happened to be where my party was, and we did our things. The party went well and I pretty much knew the crowd so it was fun. After the party I managed to sneak a few minutes into their local scrapbooking store to check out any new papers or embellishments but I was distracted by the fact that I really need to buy a baby crib, and should I be spending a bunch of money on more supplies...no. So that kind of killed the joy of it all, plus Isaac started calling me to come get him. So I raced over to Ft. Meade and picked him up and he decided that he wanted to go to this China Buffet we used to go to alot for dinner. Our local China Buffets are so terrible so I was excited for some good food. Neither of us had eatten anything since breakfast and it was nearly 5 so we were both very hungry. We ate so much food it was sickening. This was the only time I can actually say that we truly got our money's worth. I think we were there for an hour eating. Isaac had at least 3 plates of regular food and 3 plates of crab legs. It was awesome. So we left there about 6:45-ish and headed toward the Korean grocery store, which is somewhat on the way home. We stocked up on a few essentials and were on the road towards home at about 8. We finally got home at about 9:15 and crashed.

Then yesterday, I picked up another event as a Close To My Heart consultant. I was in Curves working out and they were having a Ladies Night In to sponsor breast cancer awareness. Since I had displays and everything already ready, I just asked if they had room for me to set up a table. They did and so that's what I did from 3-7 last night. It was okay but I'm really having a hard time finding people that scrapbook. I know they are around here but they must be hiding! I did get one large order and two ladies that want to join my classes so it was totally worth it to me. After that I ran to Bible study and got home about 9:30 and crashed again.

I had to go and pick Isaac up from work since I had the car and that was around 1am. Somehow, when we came home Napoleon slipped out the front door and we didn't see him. We thought that he was hiding because he had pooped in the kitchen while we were gone. So neither of us really thought anything about it and went straight to bed. Well, I could hear Napoleon crying all night last night but I thought that it was because Isaac had shut him out of the bedroom so I was just ignoring him. About 4 or 5 this morning Copper and Bella started barking at something outside and I could hear our neighbors dog barking as well. Of course I didn't get up to see what it was and Isaac just put Copper outside the room and yelled at him for barking. So about 6:30 thiss morning I can really hear Napoleon crying and I notice that the bedroom door is open and Copper has come back in. So where was Napoleon? I got up and went downstairs to get him but I couldn't find him. I was calling his name and looking around thinking that Isaac locked him in the bathroom or did something stupid with him. Bella was scratching at the front door and I kept telling her, he's not out there, help me find him. He was hysterical by this point. I finally decided to show her that he wasn't outside and low and behold he came flying in the house. My dog was outside on the stoop of my house all night!! I was freaking out. I felt so horrible. The poor thing was an ice-cube. I don't know how it happened but I know that he'll be treated like a king today for sure. I swear that this baby is cutting the blood supply to my brain off. I am forgetting all kinds of things and saying things that don't make sense and I left my dog outside in the cold where he could have run away or been ubducted!

So yeah, it's been a crazy weekend.

A Dilemma

2008-10-15T11:57:00.001-07:00

I'm sort of having a few dilemma's in my life as of late. I'm not sure what to do about a multitude of things and so, I've done nothing.

Dilemma #1: So we have little Noah on the way. Fantastic! But I'm becoming very concerned about what our financial situation will be once he gets here. I mean my husband has a descent paying job and we do fine with the money he makes with the two of us. I'm afraid, however, that once we throw an expensive baby into the mix things might get too tight. I don't want to go back to work full time because I don't want someone else raising my child 75% of the time. I feel strongly that my place is here with him and any other children that come along. However, I'm not sure what to do to contribute to our income. I've always worked and brought in money and I'm starting to feel like I don't contribute anything and just spend the money. Which brings me to my next dilemma.

Dilemma #2: Am I just kidding myself with my etsy shop? I've been on etsy for over a year now and I do love selling my things there. I really enjoy the fact that others love my work. I originally thought that I would be able to bring in a part-time income with this but I don't really think that's happening. I am really bad at keeping records like how much I'm spending vs how much I'm selling and knowing overall if I'm actually making any money. It has just been fun up until this point. But now I may need to take a serious look and I'm afraid of what I might find. I spend tons of money on supplies and I feel like I never use all of them. But I get tired of them or they become the "old" patterns and I want to run out and buy the "new" papers that have just come out. I know that the simple solution is to stop buying and just use up what I have, but something in me compells me to keep buying the new stuff. So the question has become, do I keep my shop open or do I just close? If I closed then I would certainly spend less money because I wouldn't be buying all these supplies. And I'd get to do my own scrapbooking that is seriously behind. I never scrapbook for myself. But I do love having my shop and going to craft shows. So I'm torn.

I could go on with a few more of my dilemmas but this is getting long so I'll stop for today. I did list two more tins in my shop this morning and I'm crossing my fingers that people are going to recover from the economy shock and start Christmas shopping soon.

It's A Boy!

2008-09-30T15:57:00.001-07:00

So the days have just been flying by since the Apple Harvest Festival and I can't believe that I am just now getting a chance to blog. First and foremost, I had my ultrasound on Friday and found out that we're having a little boy. We were really hoping for a girl but I think that we're both still excited to have a boy. As long as I have a healthy baby I really don't care if it's a boy or a girl. This just gives us something to hope for next time :) Anyway, our families are super excited and the quest to find cute boy things begins. I think I have a small army of people out there crawling the stores and garage sales looking for things and the funny thing is that I'm not one of them. I really haven't looked at any baby stuff aside from the day I went with my mom to Babies R Us to start my registry. Maybe I'll start looking when I'm six months or so.

The Apple Harvest Festival went well for me. I didn't do the sales that I was hoping for but I still did well. I also got a lot of custom orders which I have been working on filling and why I haven't been blogging. I just got a custom order today for a beach wedding album and I'm pretty excited to get working on that. I love to do wedding albums. I should be working on mine, but that's a topic for another post.

I'll conclude with a few pictures of our little Noah.

Two More Days

2008-09-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

I've got just two more days until this festival kicks off. I'm sure this will totally shock you, but I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be. I do have a friend coming over tonight to help out so I've got to plan for some things for her to do. I'm sort of a control freak when it comes to my things though so I only really have a few things that I can let her do. The problem with just being like, okay this album in completely cut and I need to glue the photo mats together and put them on the pages, could you do that? Is that they have to be straight and I already have a vision so I want them to be in certain places, etc. If it doesn't end up exactly as I had envisioned then I feel like it's not as good as it could be and then I don't want to sell it. It's stupid, I know, my mom tells me. But my friend helping tonight is an engineer so she SHOULD be good with adhereing things straight, lol.

I think that I officially popped out the other day and am now showing. I was doing the grocery shopping and my stomach muscles were really hurting. It was like a pulsating pain that kept getting stronger. When I finished up at the grocery I had to run to Michael's to pick up some cardstock and while I was in there it was really hurting. I kept thinking that I didn't know why it was hurting so much. I haven't even gone to the gym this week. Then all the sudden it was like my muscles just gave way and out popped a little stomach. And then there was no more pain. I think my body was having a little tug-a-war. My muscles didn't want to expand but the baby was demanding more room. The baby won. So I officially made it to 15 1/2 weeks before I got a pooch.

Here are some pictures of another chipboard album that I finished yesterday. It's definitely a glitter lover's dream. I've got two more that just need their finishing touches today and tons of tins to start sealing this morning. And the list goes on.....

Robots!

2008-09-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

I worked with robots today and I did two albums that I think came out pretty darn well. The first one is an accordion album similar to one that I had done several months ago. The hardest part of that album was mounting all the die-cuts onto chipboard and cutting them out so that I could pop them up on pop dots.

The second one was the second bound album that I've made myself. I purchased my bind-it-all months ago and have just gotten around to using it. The album is about 5.5"x7.5" and holds 7 photos. I had a hard time figuring out the embellishments for the album though because there just aren't a lot of great embellishments for boy albums other than for like baby boy albums. But all in all I am happy with the album. There are two pages that I feel like don't have enough embellishments but I'll have to sit on it for a day or two and revisit it.

Prepping For Apple Harvest

2008-09-11T14:39:00.001-07:00

So my next big festival is in just over a week and I'm working like crazy getting stuff ready. I've come to what for me is the hardest part of making albums, adding titles and themes. I can do and decorate the albums just fine, but when it comes to making a decision on titles as well as including any quotes, it just takes me forever. I get so nervous about what to call the album and what to include in it because I don't know what kind of pictures the person may or may not have in mind for the album. Now, have I ever had an album that really didn't sell? Not really. If it didn't sell at one show, then it usually sold at the next. But still, it's very hard to make that decision to lock an album into a theme. I semi-finished three albums today and two have themes but the third one I just can't seem to get a hold on. So here they are

For this first one, I had bought this cowboy-ish paper which isn't really up my alley but I thought that it was pretty and there are a lot of people with and that ride horses in my area so I decided to try out a horse album. The front reads Crazy for Horses and the inside has two quotes about horses.

This next album was done with paper that I just love and have about used to death. I had in mind a little girls album so I used lots of crystals on the inside. I was very pleased with how the crystals on the flower pull-outs turned out. I think they look really cool. On the front I just put Little Lady on the tab and three rhinestones on the cover because I thought the paper was so pretty that I didn't want to cover it up.

And here is the one that I can't decide what it's theme should be. It's obviously for someone who really isn't into the whole really pink and girly stuff. I can see someone using it to put pictures of their sister and them in or of them and their mom perhaps. But what should the cover read? I don't know. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

It's Been Awhile

2008-09-02T07:40:00.001-07:00

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I updated my blog. A lot has happened and I just haven't gotten around to getting back into the swing of blogging. Isaac and I went to Hawaii at the end of July. Isaac was there for two weeks and I joined him for the last week. We got to see our old friends and it was just a really great, relaxing time. It felt so good to be "home." We were both sad to have to come back.

Then we found out that I was pregnant so that was exciting. I've been really blessed so far in that I really didn't have much morning sickness. I did have a couple of weeks where I was just drained and pretty much slept the entire day but other than that it has been smooth sailing. I've completed 13 weeks and we should be finding out the sex of the baby in another 4 weeks. Well, that's if the baby decides to cooperate. We went last week to hear the heartbeat and that baby was cruising in there. The midwife was having a hard time keeping the thing where we could hear the heartbeat. The baby was going to left, to the right, then up, now down. It's a swimmer.

My parent's came to visit this weekend and we ran around so much. I'm so pooped so I'm glad they left today. We went to DC on Sunday and did a bunch of the museums and let me just tell you that I could barely walk yesterday. I'm still sore today!

Now I'm on to getting ready for my next craft show on the 20th and 21st. I'm not nearly ready but I'm working very quickly and realizing that I can only do what I can do. It must be the wisdom that comes with having a baby :)

Our Anniversary

2008-07-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Isaac and I's 3rd wedding anniversary. On the one hand it doesn't seem like it has been 3 years since our wedding but on the other hand it seems like we've always been together. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do anything too exciting because Isaac had to work last night but he was also pretty sick. He hasn't been feeling well all week and it seems to be getting worse. Needless to say, I'm okay with him keeping his distance.

I did get a really great gift yesterday though. I've been wanting a smart phone for years now and just haven't gotten one. There was always some excuse or another or I'd rather do something else with the money but yesterday I actually got one! I feel very important with my big old phone now, lol. Isaac decided that this would be a gift for both of us because he said he'll be stealing my phone a lot. I'm most excited to have this for our trip to New York this weekend. We have to drive up and pick-up Isaac's parent's from his sister's house. So having the internet and being able to work on things on the drive up will be very nice.

So yes, as you may have gathered, my in-laws are visiting with us this weekend. This will be the first time they have ever come to visit us. They live in South Korea and make a yearly trip to the states but they have only been visiting with Isaac's sisters the past three years. Since we were in Hawaii it was too much out of the way. They only have a week to spend here so they couldn't see everyone. I'm a little nervous about them coming into our house though because I know that Isaac's mom will be eagle-eyeing my cleaning skills. When we were in his sister's apartment after her wedding in December his mom was telling her that she should keep her place more clean and that the bathroom was really nasty, etc. Then she actually started cleaning the place. She got down on her hands and knees and started scrubbing the floors! I don't want her doing that here, lol. So I've got some major deep cleaning to do today and tomorrow!

I did finally finish a scrapbook today. I have had this idea for a dinosaur scrapbook for months now but I just haven't gotten it done. Well yesterday I decided to sit down and make it happen. I finished it up this morning. I bound it in my Bind-It-all, which was my first time using it although I bought it months ago, and I think it came out quite well. As soon as a few things on it finish drying I'm going to take some pictures and post it in my etsy shop and of course here on my blog too :)

Finally Done

2008-06-24T08:35:00.001-07:00

So I'm finally done with my friend's set of thank you's. 20 total, 6 each of 4 designs. I'm pretty darn happy with the final product. I didn't want to go over the top since I was doing so many but I wanted to make them cute. Mission Accomplished :) Here are pictures of the last two.

Today I've got a long list of this to do. Cleaning up around the house, finishing about 15 tins I've got in pieces, etc. I've got less than 4 weeks until Baltimore's ArtScape so I know I've got to get crackin! My one problem is that while I'm working on one thing my mind is always wondering onto millions of other things that I want to do. I can't stop my mind from thinking about them and what I want each thing to look like and how I'm going to this or that to it. It can get very frustrating. I'm already starting to have a wondering mind when I'm trying to go to sleep. That usually doesn't happen until the week before the show, lol. I guess it's just because the stakes are higher for this one and I have some really big expectations.

I'm doing the festival on Saturday and then I fly out to meet Isaac in Hawaii on Monday. So this show has to provide all my spending money or Angie and I aren't going to do much but go the the beach that week. While this might not be such a bad thing, you know how it is when you go back to some place that you lived for years but haven't been back for a year. You want to go to all your favorite places to eat, you want to visit all your favorite stores, you've got a list a mile long of things you want to do. I'm sure it will be fabulous no matter what we do. Just being back with our best friends is going to be the best part.

Cards, Yay!

2008-06-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

It's a rare occassion here on my blog today. I actually have cards to post and share! Yay! These are two of the cards that I made for my friend's Thank You cards set. I made six of each of these cards. I really love the sparley flower card with all the rhinestones. Totally up my alley!

I also wanted to make some with owls since I love this stamp and they're so popular right now. I think this one came out alright. It still feels sort of plain but I'm sure she'll love it. I've got two more that I'll either add to this post later or, more likely, post tomorrow.

Family Photo

2008-06-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

Every year I try to get a family photo taken by my cousin. I think it's important since Isaac and I don't really take many pictures together otherwise during the year. If we go on a trip we might take some together but then it's usually just hit holding the camera out in front of our faces and I really do hate those shots. I'd much rather ask some random person to take the picture for us. But that's just me. Anyway, my cousin just sent me the picture and I think it came out pretty good. It was SO windy the day that we we taking them. I thought Napoleon was going to blow away!

I also worked on my flowers yesterday. I took the advice given and I sat outside for probably almost two hours cutting off all the dead from the flowers. That giant pot took forever! I hope that it helps them out. They are also in a place now that doesn't get sun all day long.

On another note, I finally felt like I was creatively able to work on my friend's set of Thank-You cards. I think I first tried to work on the about three weeks ago and just couldn't produce anything good. She's on a trip right now and gets back home tomorrow so I'd like to have them done and on their way to her by then.

Alright, lots of work to do today so I'm off!

Can Anyone Help Me?

2008-06-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

I've never been very good at keeping flowers alive. I tried to plant a garden in the backyard of our very first apartment in Hawaii and they all promptly died. When we went home for Memorial Day, I was telling my mom that I really wanted some flowers but I didn't know what to get and I really didn't know how to pot them, etc. So she decided that we should buy the flowers, potting soil, and pots at her house and then pot them before we had to drive back to our house. It's like an eight hour drive. So we did and everything looked okay but since I've gotten them back here I just don't think they're doing very well.
They just seem like they are going to die. I had them in a full sun spot but then they were looking so bad that I thought I'd move them more towards are screen door so they wouldn't have as much sun all day long. They were wilty and turning brown. I didn't know that I had to water them EVERY day so I started doing that since they were a little brown. That helped with the wiltiness but they are still turning brown and they have this weird yellowish color to parts of the stems. My mom said maybe I was over watering them so I should just feel the soil and if it doesn't feel moist then water them. So I've been doing that now but it doesn't seem to be helping. I also potted them in Miracle Grow Potting Mix because I figured I needed all the help I could get.And what the heck is up with the one above's spread-out-ness? It was a hanging pot that we just took out and put in this pot. I realize that it's a viney type flower but I wouldn't have thought noting would grow up or in the middle. Is that normal?
On this particular plant the leaves all got the yellow color and then turned brown on the ends and died. What the heck? I don't understand. Is there anyone out there that can give me a suggestion? I really don't want these flowers to die because then I'll never be allowed to "waste" money on flowers again!

Poni's Parlor

2008-06-18T17:58:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited to know that my Pocket Albums have made their way into a gift shop called Poni's Parlor in New Hampshire! I sent my tins out to her last week and she put them out in her shop on Tuesday. She emailed me today to tell me that she has already sold one! Yay! It's so exciting to have my product in another state.

Alexandra's shop is so cute too. I love that she did everything in pink, black, and white. She also found amazing displays to showcase her artists' work. I know that there are several other etsian selling in her shop. The shop is located at 51 Main Street Meredith, NH if you're in the area and want to check it out.
These are my Pocket Albums on the white table.

I have to say that I was very nervous when she contacted me on etsy about renting space in her store. I had read lots of horror stories on etsy about people sending their product and never getting it back. It took me quite awhile to decide just to go for it. She didn't have the store open yet but from the information she did give me I felt like she was legit. I'm so excited to see how my product does in her store!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2008-06-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy this last week! I've had a few custom orders to do, housework, organizing....all those fun things. I've also been working out every day and I've got to tell you that I'm getting pretty tired. I wish I could take a nap today but I have to go fill in at the vet's office because one of the regular employees has a doctor's appointment. So I'll be there for most of the day today. Bah.

I finished this album up yesterday that one of my friend's requested. It's going to be a wedding present for her boyfriend's sister. I hope they like it. I really liked adding the red in with these papers. Super cute.

I also made this SUPER great Korean food the other day. I must say that I'm getting pretty good at it, based on the four things I've cooked now :) Isaac stumbled upon this Korean lady who does cooking podcasts. I love it because I need to see it done. I can't just read a recipe and really know what I need to do. I can do that with baking but not regular cooking. I need to work on a few more dishes before my mother-in-law comes in July. I want to impress her with my skills!

So here is a picture of the dish I made. It is called Sweet and Crispy Chicken. It's double fried and then coated with this really yummy sauce that's totally not bad for you, what with all the corn syrup, brown sugar, soy sauce... :) Very healthy! The recipe called for 1 cup of chopped ginger but I must say that was WAY too much ginger. We ate it okay but it definitely had some overpoweringness to it. I made it a second time and I think I only used about one tablespoon of ginger and that was much better. Next time I'll just keep tasting the sauce as it's cooking and decide if I need to add more ginger or not.

One More

2008-06-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

Here's another fun picture of me and my husband that my cousin just sent me.

I'm slaving away trying to finish some orders and make a few cards so I should have lots of fun things to post tomorrow :)

Cool Picture

2008-06-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

My cousin sent me this picture that she took of Isaac and I a few weeks ago. I think that it's really cool. I'm anxiously awaiting the rest of the pictures but I know she's busy and for goodness sake it did take me almost a year to get her wedding scrapbook done. (That's really bad).
Today I have lots and lots of work to do. Two orders to complete and stuff to make to put up in my etsy shop. The goal of the day is to be productive! Be, be productive!

Slowly Getting It Back?

2008-06-03T07:53:00.000-07:00

I looked at tons of blogs yesterday prowling for inspiration to get my juice back. I found a few card sketches that I liked and decided to try. I am happy with how both of them turned out. One is for one of my best friends whose birthday I missed and then forgot to send her card and present. She'll be more surprised now though when she gets it in the mail so hopefully she'll forgive me.

This last one is going to go in my etsy shop. I think I'll make another one that's similar to put in my best friend's thank-you cards set. She told me yesterday that she wants like 20 so I'd better get crackin.

I did find some fantastic blogs yesterday and I know that I'll be reading them regularly. One new one is Kim's blog and she is giving away blog candy. I can't believe people just randomly give things away to their readers but I thought I'd enter and who knows, maybe I'll win and have to do a blog candy of my own! Oh wait, I think I'm the only person who regularly reads my blog.....

Have You Seen My Juice?

2008-06-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm so frustrated today because I've been wanting to make something FABULOUS for nearly a week now and every time I sit down I just get blah. My juice is seriously missing.

My best friend asked me to make her some thank you cards so yesterday I decided to work on them. I seriously sat there for 7 hours! And this is all that I produced. Nothing I'm really proud of. The first three I like okay but the others I don't really like. This can't go on! I've got to find my juice. I've got too much to be done to be missing my juice!

A Few Cards

2008-05-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-27T18:51:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

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 :)

Chilli Dog

2008-04-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

So Isaac took some chilli last night to work with him for dinner. He really likes this canned kind and, as far as canned chilli goes , it's really not too bad. Well he threw the can in a small shopping bag next to the trash can because the can was full and I needed to run it out real quick. He took off for work and my mom and I were outside trying to figure out how to set up my new EZ Up tent for the show this weekend. Let me just tell you people, it's not EZ. Whomever created their "instructions" needs to be shot. So while my mom and I were outside wanting to throw the tent off my balcony, Napoleon was apparently in the trash. I ran inside to go on youtube.com and see if someone had posted a how to video for this stupid tent and, when I came back outside, I noticed Napoleon had something on the side of his face. As I bent down to look at him I saw that he had a ring of chilli all around his head. He had stuck his entire head in the can licking it out and got it all over him! What a lunatic. I snapped some quick pictures to show Isaac today when he wakes up. (Sigh) Dogs.

Scrapbook Yardsale

2008-04-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to a scrapbook yardsale in Manassas, VA with a couple of girls that I crop with and my mom. Holy cow were there a lot of people. I was feeling very uncomfortalbe and my heart was beating pretty fast because of all the people pushing into you and wanting you to move so they can see what's on the table. That was the one thing I didn't like. I don't like feeling that uncomfortable. I thought about just giving up and leaving but then it wasn't THAT bad so I just stuck it out. If a table was mobbed then I just went on to the next few and came back later.

I got some really good deals on some chipboard albums. I got some for .10, .25, and .50. Awesome. I plan to alter them for the Apple Blossom Festival this weekend. Let's hope I have enough time :) My biggest and best purchase for the day, however, was the long desired Zutter Bind-It-All! I'm so excited to finally have this tool. It was a really good price on it too. They had them for $60 with 20% off so that made them $48. I know that you can get them from between $35-$45 on ebay but then by the time you're paying shipping of like $10-$15 it comes out to be the same or more than what I paid. I also picked up a few packs of the bindings for 20% off her lowered price.

The really funny thing that happened though was that, just as I was purchasing the machine, two ladies walked up behind me and asked what was so good about that machine. So I starting telling them all about it and what it can do and how fabulous it was and what a good price it was and all kinds of stuff. I bet I talked to those ladies for half an hour at least! The one lady was wanting one and her friend was trying to talk her out of it. In the end, the BOTH bought one!! How funny is that?! They each got a machine and some bindings. Then we were talking in the check-out line and it turns out that they live in Winchester. What a small world. So I tell them that I'm going to be in the Festival this weekend and they say they are totally going to stop by and see me. I also tell them that I am going to be teaching classes for the Parks and Rec Dept. this fall and that I will be doing a class with my machine and they should take my class.

We finished up and parted ways and my mom says to me that I should have given them my business card so that if they had any other questions they could contact me. I had my CTMH cards in my bag so I wrote my new number on them and found the ladies outside and told them to call me if they needed any more help. The one lady says, oh did you used to be a Close To My Heart consultant? I said, oh I'm actually still a CTMH consultant. Well then she got so excited and started talking about how she loved out clear stamps and there hadn't been a consultant in our town in forever and she was so excited to have met me and on and on.

How awesome is it that I just happened to start talking to these ladies about a machine that I was excited about and it turned into making local contacts?! I just think it was such a God thing. They were so super nice and I'm extremely excited to see if they do in fact come out and see my booth.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2008-04-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

So tonight my Bible Study is meeting in our house. I'm pretty excited as this will be the first time we've had people over. I decided to make red velvet cupcakes for this special occassion. The last time I was home before my Grandma passed, I got her recipe for her fabulous red velvet cake. I hadn't tried to make it yet as I had been told by other family members that it can be tricky to make, especially the icing. I made sure I followed the recipe and instructions to a T and everything came out wonderfully. I know that she would be proud of me :)

They smelled so yummy that I just had to have one. And then I had to have another, shhh. The rest will go to work with me and Isaac in the morning so that I don't get tempted to eat all the rest of them. Go Grandma with her fab recipe!

Hmmm...

2008-04-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to update my blog for awhile now. I've been taking all kinds of fun photos of different things just for the purpose of adding them here but, alas, time has gotten away from me. I know you're shocked if you've read any of my previous posts. I'm so good at time management... I've written out an hour by hour time-line for myself today to make sure I stay on track and get as much done today as possible.

I can't believe I haven't even posted pi ctures from my craft fair two weekends ago! It wasn't the greatest show I've ever been too but I did okay. I met some really fun etsy girls though and so I think that made it worth it. I came nowhere near my goal and bet with Isaac though so that was sad. So I guess he gets to dictate which shows I do from now on as that was the deal. That probably means that I won't get to do any more than I already have booked.

I have the Apple Blossom Festival in two weeks and I'm getting super excited. I'm hoping that it will be the $1000 show that I was hoping that last show would be. Isaac says it had better be and I agree. I had to purchase one of those vendor pop-up tents and let me tell you, those babies are not cheap! So I'm already really in the hole with overhead for this one. I am also suposed to be done making things by Saturday. My mom is coming to visit and she said that she doesn't want to be home watching me make things at the last minute. She wants to go out and explore, go to DC, etc. I'm not really sure what there is to do around here but we'll find something I'm sure.

So here are a few pictures of my display from the show

Bella's New Collar

2008-04-15T15:35:00.001-07:00

Last week I went to the Coach Outlet and bought Bella a new collar. She totally deserved it. I mean Napoleon has a nice leather collar and she has a cheapo Wal-Mart collar that is coming apart. It was a must! It's all brown to match her coloring and everything. She's such a spoiled little pooch. Oh well, what are you gonna do?

Robot Album

2008-04-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

I spotted this paper about a month ago. I fell in love with it as soon as I got it home and was thinking of so many things I could do with it. I've made up several pocket albums with the paper and today I finished this accordion album. I just LOVE how it looks. I cut out the big robot and then glued it to 1/4" thick chipboard and then cut that out. The giant blister on my finger says that this will not happen again, lol. Then I cut out lots of gears and some chains and mounted then on thinner chipboard and cut them out. I finished it up with pewter brads to look like the bolts. I REALLY like this one. It will be going with me to a show this weekend. I sure hope some one takes it home with them, but, if not, it will be posted on etsy early next week :)

Please Don't Get Infected!

2008-04-07T06:38:00.001-07:00

Last night we had the dog fight to end all dog fights. Our dogs, Bella and Napoleon, get very tempermental when we go to bed at night. It has to be some kind of territorial thing or Napoleon tests her alpha dogness when we're going to sleep. We went to bed extra late last night because I was working late. Isaac was already in bed as were the dogs and I came in a started playing with Napoleon. He had a sock in his mouth and I was tugging on it and he was growling at me. I couldn't see because it was dark but I'm sure it was a playful growl. He never growls at me otherwise. He knows he'll get kicked out of the room and that's worse than death for him.

Well, all the sudden Bella starts growling and comes flying across the bed. They start attacking eachother and Bella won't back down in a fight. She bites Napoleon's ears and neck and the longer it takes for us to break it up the more bite marks and little bleeding spots Napoleon will have. Just by the tone of the fight you could tell this was way more intense than their normal disagreements. So Isaac and I are trying to break them up but it's dark and really hard to see. I reached out to push Bella to Isaac and grab Napoleon to toss him off the bed but I reached straight into Bella's mouth. She bit down as hard as she could and I swear I thought she ripped the side of my finger off. Now I've accidentally but a finger off before so I know what it feels like. My first thought was OMG I can't believe this is happening. Then I thought, I've got to stop the blood. Then I thought, I don't want to see it so I shoved my finger into my mouth. Isaac got the fight broken up.

I jumped out of bed and said I'm hurt, with my finger in my mouth, but I'm afraid to look. I think she may have ripped my finger open and I don't want to have to get stitches. And did I mention that we don't have any medical insurance yet? Yeah, Isaac's cool employer likes to make you wait two months before giving you insurance. Awesome. So Isaac turned the light on and I pulled my finger out of my mouth and shoved it in his face. I couldn't look. He asked which finger so I knew it couldn't be too bad. I told him the middle one and he said oh my gosh! So then I of course look and there is one puncture mark on the bottom and a very deep indentation on the top.

What had happened was that she actually bit down until she hit my bone. She bit my right on the side of my knuckle but got just were the vein and nerves are. I couldn't feel half of my finger, which is why I thought it was torn off, because she hit the nerve bundle. I can't believe my dog actually bit my bone! This morning I've got the feeling back in my whole finger but it hurts like crazy. I'm seriously worried that it will get infected. I washed it with anti-bacterial soap last night and put neosporin on it but it is seriously sore. Stupid dogs. Maybe they need to just start sleeping on the floor in their beds they got for Christmas. I can't have them continuing to do this, especially when we bring a baby into the mix.

I just took the bandaid off and it doesn't look too bad but I can't fully bend my finger. It feels a lot worse than it looks which I guess is a good thing?

Amazing Artwork

2008-04-04T06:57:00.001-07:00

I never open forwards but my mom sent me this one about amazing artwork and I thought it might be something she wanted me to see for inspiration. This guy is totally amazing. I can't even imagine doing this. It'll take him four hours to do a hand, and I'd like to point out that he paints both the left and the right so he is that good with either hand. Then he photographs it for posterity. I cannot imagine how he does the eyes so remarkably lifelike. It took him 10 hours to do the two-handed Eagle in picture #2! Amazing.

Tonight Is Date Night

2008-03-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited for tonight because my husband asked me if I wanted to go on a date. How sweet is that? He never does that. It must be because he was gone on Wednesday and Thursday so he missed me. :D We're not going any place super fancy or anything, number one because I don't think that a place like that exists in Winchester, but we're going to one of my favorite places, Chilli's. I really love their ribs so I'm excited. Then we're going to get some dessert at the custard place that just opened for the season a little way from our house. We jogged by it this afternoon with the dogs and said oh who would want custard right now, it's so cold. Then on the way back we were like, oh custard sounds so good since it's getting warmer, lol.

In other news, I've got a big show in two weeks that I'm totally psyced about. My husband and I have a little bet going on as to how much I can sell. It's on baby, it on! I've been cutting pocket albums like a mad woman and have so many great papers and albums coming out soon. I am in love with all the great papers I was able to find. Here are just three examples

So Frustrating!!

2008-03-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

I've just had the most rotten experience and I just needed to let it out. I received an email last Friday from a gal really interested in our (Close To My Heart's) stamps. She was so interested that she wanted to do a demo in her home with her boyfriend's mom who is a big stamper and who she knew would love to see the stamps as well. They had both looked at my site and were very excited. Since we just moved and I'm trying to build up a business, despite the fact that she lived an hour away, I decided to go ahead and do the demo. She wanted me to come out quickly because the mother was only going to be there through this week. We decided to do it tonight at 6. I confirmed with her last night and said I looked forward to meeting them today. All okay.

I was out all day today running my husband to the airport and doing other errands. I came home, grabbed my stuff, checked my email to see if she has written anything, and ran out the door. It actually took an hour and a half to get to her house and when I get there the mother answers the door and blankly looks at me. I tell her I'm Amy and I'm here to do the stamping demo that Jennifer scheduled with me. She says, oh honey, she's having a bad day. It's just not a good time. I politely say, well we scheduled this three days ago and she confirmed last night that I would be coming. I drove an hour and a half to do this demo with her. The mother says nothing. After a very long pause, she says well she's just not having a good day. Do you want to leave a catalog. At this point I could scream. I tell her yes I'll leave a catalog for her and run to my car to get one. I bring it back and the mother is like, Oh scrapbooking and stamping things. I love to do this stuff. This is what you were going to show us? I say yes. Are you sure that Jennifer doesn't want to do the demo today? I have all the stuff and it will only take about 30 minutes to do the two cards that I brought. She says, well we're starving and we were just leaving to go out to dinner. Pardon me? Leaving to go out to dinner when you had an appointment with me? Was the chick just planning on not being there when I showed up and they got caught? Anyway, the lady continues on that she has so much scrapbooking to catch up on and she'll definitely contact me to order some things. I sure hope so but frankly I'm not going to hold my breath. Needless to say that Jennifer never showed her face to say an I'm sorry or anything. So frustrating.

But it gets worse. On my way over there I saw that the side of one of the mountains has a brush fire. It wasn't too close to the road but there were like 8 fire trucks there working on it. Well, on my way back, the fire was bigger and just as I was coming up on it four police cars pull out and stop the traffic about 15 cars in front of me. Are you kidding me?! I ask the truck driver next to me if he knows what's going on and he says that the radio says the fire is right on the road and they've closed it. Now, there is only ONE road that goes the direction I was headed and they've closed it. After about 20 minutes, people start braving the median to turn around. It was a wicked v too. A semi-truck even did it and he almost tipped. It was SO scary. After 45 minutes, I'm annoyed. It doesn't look like they're opening the road. So I decide to go ask some people if they know the area and if there is a round about way of getting home. So I'm asking some shaddy looking men standing around and they are telling me this other way to take. Well, I should say that they were telling my body how to go (I'm 25, not that that makes me attractive but just to have the dirty old men/young girl mental picture). They didn't even look at my face. So I'm walking back to my car feeling dirty and like I immediately need to take a shower when one of the semi's towards the front yells out that they are opening the road. Good thing I went and asked those pervs for directions.

So I left my house tonight at 4:45 and got home at 8:45 and spent about $20 in gas all for nothing. Seriously the worst CTMH experience I've ever had. Not that it has anything to do with the actual company but seriously, what's wrong with people. I totally understand having a bad day, but for the love of God, call me and let me know you are backing out before I drive all the way over there. Am I being unreasonable here? Okay, my vent is over and I feel better. Now I need to shower, lol.

Featured Artist: Jodie Flowers

2008-03-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a featured artist in quite some time so I thought I'd do one tonight. I ran into this shop several weeks ago and I absolutely adore her patches. They are so fun and colorful! I love how she mixes the different textures of fabrics together to make each patch. If I had a child, I would have a ton of these for onesies and little shirts. Too cute!

Did I Sheer A Sheep?

2008-03-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. You must be wondering if I decided to sheer a sheep in my living room tonight or what? What could possibly produce this pile of hair 12 inches wide and 6 inches tall? That would be Bella. We have had hair coming out the wazoo lately and I've had enough. Isaac wants to shave her but I just can't let him. She would look totally stupid without all her pretty hair and besides, that won't stop the shedding. I don't know what the deal is. She's never shed like this before. I mean everything is covered in hair. I can vaccum and dust and 10 minutes later the hair is back. So I decided to take the Furminator and really go to work on her. I think I brushed her for a good 30 minutes. I probably could have kept going and getting more hair but she was pretty much not enjoying it anymore. I'll see if she's shedding tomorrow when I hold her. I think I'll scream if she is. My mom was telling me about this product called Shed-X to try. I'll have to look into it. It's not like I feed her a cheap crappy food and her hair is falling out due to lack of nutrients or anything. Maybe since she actually went through a winter season she got some extra hair and now that it's slightly warming up she's loosing it. I don't know, but it's gotta go!

Thank God For YouTube!

2008-03-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

So while I've had the internet for the past few weeks, we have not had cable. Let me just say that being alone in your house for 10 of your waking hours and having no tv even just for background noise is pretty daunting. I don't love tv. I'm not addicted or anything, but I do like to have it on while I'm working. It makes me feel like I'm not all alone.

I've never really watched anything on youtube before but I've been watching it lately. I like to watch something while I'm eating lunch and dinner. It provides a nice break. I've been watching things like Passions, America's Next Top Model Cycle 10, America's Best Dance Crew, etc. The last two shows were mainly something to fill my time since I was caught up on Passions. I wanted to watch SOMETHING. (And may I just say I hope the Jabbawokies win on ABDC)

My solitude changed today though. Comcast came and finally ran a line from the box to our house yesterday morning so I called and set up installation for today. So as of 2pm today, I have cable again. I haven't watched anything yet but I just feel more comfortable knowing that it's there. I could watch it, if I wanted to. :)

Friday, What To Do

2008-03-14T05:46:00.001-07:00

Yikes, I can't believe that it's Friday already! Where has the week gone? I have so many ideas of what to do with today that I can't even decide what I'm actually going to do. What should my day consist of?

1) I have a new line of more elegant wedding/formal tins that I'm working on. I just need to assemble the albums and clean-up and seal the tins before they are complete. Clearly I need to work on and possibly finish those today as I have been working on them all week. (There are 28 pocket albums)

2) The house still isn't completely unpacked from our move a few weeks ago. I should hang up pictures and finish putting stuff away.

3) The house also needs to be cleaned. There is a really dirty bathroom downstairs that it seems the previous people forgot to clean. It's really yucky and I think why I've avoiding it. I need bleach, lol. Plus I need to sweep all 3 levels (including both sets of stairs) and shampoo the carpet in the entry because when we moved in it was raining of course and we tracked mud in.

4) I really want to create something fresh today. I have so many ideas. I have this pile of chipboard my brother got me that I want to do something with. I've been thinking about doing maybe some lace-up card albums or just something with them for about two months now. I also need to work on diversifying my card supply (right now I only have Easter and Mother's Day for sale). I need some thank you, happy birthday, just because, etc.

5) I should also organize my workspace because it is very messy right now. I can't even find things.

6) Finally, I have tax documents to get in order for next week when we get them done. I really don't want to work on that though, blah.

So what should I do? What will my day include? Let's see how many people actually read my blog. Comment and tell me what I should do today :)

I Finally Got My Passions Fix!

2008-03-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

I've been so bumbed since Passions moved to DirectTV. I was watching it during my lunch every day. I did okay for awhile without it but then I found someone on youtube.com that was posting all the episodes. So of course for like a week straight I just watched Passions for hours and hours catching up on the three months that I had missed. Then one day, POOF, she's gone and so are all the Passions episodes. I figured that DirectTV must have made them pull the episodes.

Well, this afternoon I was looking for some background noise to put on while I was working and I thought I'd just do a quick search for Passions and see if there were any previews available. Much to my surprise, I hit the mother-load! There is a gal that is putting up only the Ethan and Theresa parts of the shows and really that's the only part that I am interested in. So for the whole afternoon and evening I watched all the episodes that she had up and I think I'm caught up now. I've seriously had like 5 hours of Passions and it was everything I thought it could be.

The only problem is that now I want more! She needs to upload last weeks episodes like right now. I know that DirectTV is canceling the show after the summer and that's so sad. I don't know what I'm going to do when it's really gone. But I must say that the writers they've got for the show or way better. Although, the plot line with Dr. Russell and Julienne and their son is pretty sick and I think the writers made a bad call on that one. But overall the plots are much more interesting and the show moves more quickly than it used to. I always hated how slow it was when it was on NBC.

I'm so happy I got my fix :)

I must be crazy, right?

2008-03-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm diving in full force with this craft show thing. I've done two in the past month and then I have a two day show April 12th-13th that's jurried and hopefully going to be a big show and now I've just entered into what I hear is a HUGE show here in Winchester, The Apple Blossom Festival that is not two weeks after this other weekend big show. What am I going to do if I sell the majority of my stuff at the first show? Can I actually restock in just two weeks? I guess we're going to find out.
I guess maybe this is all a little premature in that I just sent in my application and the Apple Blossom Festival is a strictly jurried show as well. I sent a ton of pictures because I really want to get in. Especially since I'll practically just have to walk down the street. The biggest bonus would be getting my name out in a big way in my new town. Maybe I could even get some consignment of wholesale orders from it. Okay, okay, my mind is spinning and I don't even know if I'm in, lol. They are supposed to say yes or no by the 15th of this month so I should know shortly. I'm going to do some heavy praying for this.

Then if I do get in, I need to do some heavy praying that I'll be productive. I have a very hard time staying on track. I tend to wonder off doing other things instead of working and then I pay for it the week and day before my show. For instance, I should be working on some pocket albums seeing as I have hardly any in my store but instead I'm chatting online and updating my blog. Sigh, can someone teach me how to work properly? :)

The Dead Zone Is Over!

2008-03-05T18:43:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh, I've been without internet for the last three days and I seriously felt like I was going to die. I'll admit that when we first moved in and found out that our neighbor had an unlocked wireless network we did a little pirating for the first week. (My husband likes to say we shared.) But then three days ago we suddenly couldn't connect anymore. They didn't lock the network but maybe they found out we were sharing and did something to block us. Which is totally fine, because we should get our own internet anyway, which is what we did. So comcast was to come out and set it up today. First thing, the guy was to get there between 11-2 but didn't actually come to nearly 4. I was really annoyed because I was having to stay on the second level to hear the doorbell so I couldn't even do any work while I was waiting. I ended up putting away the rest of the odds and ends and washing the walls from black marks, and doing some other mundain housework instead of working. Blah.

So he finally gets there and goes outside to turn us on in "the box" and comes back in to say, um we have a problem. Apparently when they built our house they neglected to run a cable from "the box" to our house. The ran them to evey other house on my strip but us. Are you kidding me? So we have no cable from "the box" to our house which means that we can't get cable or internet until they come and dig up the sidewalk to run one to us. So, how long does that take I ask. I don't know, I've never had this problem before. Great!

So I start looking for places to check my email. Library is out because they won't give us a card since our lease has the incorrect zipcode on it. They want a letter from the real estate agent giving the correct zipcode. Something to do with where the funding comes with and an 80 year old lady totally flipping her lid at us. Tried Starbucks but you have to have a Tmobile account to use theirs. No Panera Bread or any other net providing eateries. So we're stuck. I call a friend and she tells me about how you can get a card for your computer to get internet from your cell provider and it goes through the cell towers. Hmm, sounds like a plan.

We head out to Sprint to see the options. I secretly wanted to get a Palm Treo with internet as I've been wanting to get one for some time now. However, the lady didn't know if I could upload my pictures onto etsy from it so I didn't want to take the chance. Anyone know? Also, she didn't know how to get pics from your digital camera onto your phone (since the home pc wouldn't have internet if I got the phone). So in the end we went with the card and I think it's going to be pretty cool since if I take my laptop with me I'll pretty much have internet whenever I go. Works for me!

I signed onto etsy immediately, had a few convos, had a few sales, all is right in the world again!

Posted some of my newest

Craft Fair Aftermath

2008-03-02T05:45:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was the big day. What was my day like you may be wondering. Well, let me give you a little breakdown.

4:15am Wake-Up, Shower, etc

4:50am Pack the Car

5:00am Roll Out

7:00am Arrive at Show Venue and Set-Up

9:00am Show Starts

3:00pm Show Ends and Pack Up

3:30pm Roll Out

4:00pm Arrive At Ellicott City Lotte Mart (Korean Grocery)

5:00pm Stop By Uncle's Laundry Place To Say Hey

5:20pm Get some McDonald's (Because We're Starving!)

5:30pm Roll Out For Home

6:45pm Arrive Home To Clean Up Dogs' Messes In Kitchen (Poor things have been in there for nearly 13 hours!)

7:30pm Enter Coma

7:00am Wake-up Refreshed

Yesterday was completely crazy. Was it worth it? Probably yes. You may be asking yourself why I went to a show nearly 2 hours away. Well, you'll remeber that I moved last week and this venue was litterally 5 minutes from my old house. Since I already paid for it, I might as well go, no?

Where you happy with the show? Yes and no. Did I sell as much product as I was hoping? No. Did I do okay? Yes.

Here were the 2 main problems with that show:

1) They took as many vendors as they could get, literally. So that meant that they oversold their cafeteria by a landslide and decided to just line the vendors up and down all the hallways and even put some in the library. Now this is itself was not a big problem EXCEPT that my booth was in the very back hallway that had barely any lighting and no heat so we didn't get much traffic. Now the front hallway and the cafeteria were well lit and warm and clearly the majority of the traffic was going through there. People just weren't coming all the way back to us wich sorta stunk. I have to say though that I feel the worst for the people they put in the library. I'm sure they had really bad days because you just couldn't tell that there were boothes in there. The bookshelves totally blocked it. In fact, they had to announce on the loud speaker that there were vendor's in there. I would have been totally peeved if I was in there. The really annoying thing was that the organizers told my boothmate that they moved our booth to a better location, which was the back hallway with no heat? I wonder where we were originally going to be. Oh well, no matter, it can't change anything now.

2) People weren't looking. Now honestly, I can't tell you how many people just ran by our booth with their eyes on the floor. It's not like I'm out there attacking people and trying to pull them over to my booth and force them to buy. I simply sit behind my booth and say Good Morning to the people going by. What's the point of going to a craft show if you aren't going to look? Now, I realize that paper goods aren't everyone's cup of tea but you can at least glance at the goods of the table for goodness sake. :)

I stayed up late the three nights before the show making some Easter and Mother's Day cards because I was sure that they would sell. I'll have you know that I didn't have ONE person look at them. I couldn't believe it. For that matter, only ONE person looked at my monogram notecard sets too. Totally crazy I thought. Maybe craft shows just aren't the market for handmade cards? Maybe I need to try a more upscale venue for my cards?

Now, like I said, I didn't do terribly. I actually did responable well. I know that other's in my hallway did not do so well. One lady even left at 2pm saying this was a total waiste of her time. I felt badly for her, because it stinks when that happens. I've been there myself. I was really hoping to do about double what I did take in but again, I did okay. I would probably do the show again but request a table in the cafeteria or one right outside of it. You'd think that they would have assigned the spots based on who signed up first vs. last. Like the people who signed up last would go in the very back hallway where we were and the people that signed up months ago like we did would go towards the front. I guess not though. Oh well, we had fun, met a lot of new crafters, made some connections, and made a little money. All in all, not such a bad day :)

More Easter Cards

2008-02-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

I've got tons of Easter cards made now. I hope I can sell them all, lol. That's all I did yesterday. Today I'm packaging and getting this ready for my craft show at Quarterfield Elementary School tomorrow. I'm also working on some Mother's Day, Birthday, and Thank You cards to sell. This will be my first show that I've brought my greeting cards to so I'm pretty excited to see how they do. My only concern is that my cards are a little more expensive because of all the paper layering and stitching that I do so they may want to buy from someone with cheaper cards. We'll see though. I think they're totally worth it in quality and I hope they think so too!

Easter Cards

2008-02-27T18:54:00.001-08:00

I've been working away on some Easter cards both for my shop and for my craft show this weekend. I'm fairly happy with the ones that I've come up with so far, although I'm having trouble concentrating. I think I need a good night's sleep tonight and I'll be ready for full time creating tomorrow. The hard part about Easter cards is making them different. Everyone does chicks and rabbits for Easter. I've done a few Easter Cross cards, because let's face it that's the real reason for Easter, but I'm not sure what else to do. Maybe I'll have some inspiring dreams tonight :)

We're Officially In!

2008-02-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

So we're officially in our house in Winchester. It so awesome to have a house again. I don't think we can ever go back to living in an apartment. I have too much stuff, lol! I'm so proud of us though because we packed the whole house between Saturday and Sunday, and then drove over Monday morning and were unpacked by 5. I still don't have everything put away but it'll take a few days to find just the right places for everything. I was so pooped yesterday after we unpacked. I actually snuck upstairs for a nap around 4 and Isaac did the last of the boxes alone. I spread out a mat on the floor and huddled under some blankets since we didn't have power and thus no heat. The people came to turn it on while I was asleep so we're all nice and warm now. Bella and Napoleon came and slept with me and Isaac took a shot of the sweetest moment ever.

Seriously now, is that not the sweetest picture you've ever seen? I can't believe she did that. I just want to squeeze her every time I see this picture!

Very Busy Day

2008-02-23T05:50:00.000-08:00

I'm up a little too bright and a little too early today. It's the official start packing day. Isaac went to the local groceries just after 6am to get boxes. He came back and crawled into bed with me and brought breakfast. How sweet was that. I've never had breakfast in bed. I used to do it for him every now and then when we were in Hawaii, but it was nice to be on the other end. It was just McDonald's pancakes, but still, it was the thought that counts. The living room is piled with boxes and the plan is to get them all filled up today. The Uhaul comes tomorrow after church and then we're out by midnight. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I can't wait for my new house and all that room!

In the meantime, I'm still trying to work on some Easter cards. I've got a craft show next weekend so I need to keep creating. I'm going to try to pack my materials dead last and unpack them first thing. I did do one card last night that I was preety happy with. I have a few more cut out on my desk that I just need to put together and decorate. I should get one that, lol!

Perfect For Mother's Day

2008-02-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

This is another one of my new accordion albums and I have to say that this is my very favorite one. I think this would be an AMAZING gift for Mother's Day. I took this one home to show my mother earlier this week and I was afraid she was going to want it and that I wouldn't be able to put it up in my shop. But, she didn't so in it went :) Hmm, maybe she's just expecting to get one....oh well, I can always make another one, lol. I love the colors of the papers and how the prints are so elegant. I really envision it being displayed on a mantle or on a dresser with lovely pictures of mother and child. I hope that the mother that receives this album will really cherish this piece.

Amazing Book Binder

2008-02-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

I had the priviledge of sitting next to Katie of Moonlight Bindery at the Savage Snowdrop Craft Fair last weekend. Her work is simply amazing. She has been a professional book restorer for the past 17 years and her experience is evident in her books. Another thing that I love about her books is that she likes to use asian papers for the covers.

She also reuses cardboard food packaging to make fun notebooks in a variety of sizes.

I was lucky enough to trade some of my work for one of her beautiful books and it has quickly become my new sketch book. I hope that you'll check out her shop and purchase in full confidence knowing that you will be receiving a top quality book that you will cherish for years to come.

Finally Back To Normal?

2008-02-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

Life has been so crazy as of late getting ready for the Snowdrop show yesterday. I was SO excited for this show and just knew that it was going to be fabulous. Well, it was a little less than fabulous, well, a lot less actually. There just weren't people coming through. It was so sad. Almost seemed like not sleeping but a few hours for the whole of last week wasn't quite worth it. On the bright side though I did meet so amazing fellow etsy sellers and we had some great conversations. I'll be featuring a few of them here on my blog in a few days. I also got some AMAZING sleep yesterday as soon as the show was over. I mean I literally made it to the car and that was it. I was instantly asleep, lol :)

I tried out a new product line at the show and I seemed to get some good responses. I did sell one to a fellow etsy seller but that was it. I was so sure that I wasn't going to have any of them left to take home. But their loss and etsy's gain! They are so fabulous and I'm so excited to start making these a central part of my shop. I just love them! I have these two up in my shop now and there are 8 more to be listed in the coming week.

On a sad note, my grandmother passed away on Friday. Really more of a relief for the family because she was no longer mentally with us and it was starting to take a huge toll on my grandfather. Isaac and I leave to go home for the funeral tomorrow. I know she's gone but I also know it won't become real until I see her.

Will The Tins Ever End?

2008-02-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

I've got tins coming out my ears today. When will they end? My goal is to have 50 pocket albums and 50 sets of Tiny Sentiments done by tomorrow. Right now I think I've only got about 30 out of 100 done. I totally feel like I'm drowning in tins. It's actually starting to make me feel creatively stiffled. I really want to move on to doing some cards and other mini albums but I'll just keep pushing through until tomorrow and I pray I get them all done by then or I may stab my eyes out, lol. These are the 18 that I did last night and yes, that's all the action my keyboard gets :)

Bella is begging to be taken to the park. She's so tired of me being held up in my craft room all day. She started to shred her toys which I know means that she's about to snap. Hopefully I'll have time to take her on Monday. Until then, she's getting lots of chewies :)

Lost I Heart You!

2008-02-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Lost was so great tonight! I really don't know where there going with this season. They can't possibly get off the island because then the show would be no fun. So I'm not sure where they are going with the whole Oceanic 6 thing. I mean we know there is Hurley, Jack, and Kate that are 3 of the 6 and since Hurley is with the other group then somehow they all have to get back together. Have these team members been sent by Darma? Or are they anti Darma and that's why they are after Ben? And who is it that Ben has on that boat? Could it be Michael or possibly Walt maybe and that's why he's in contact with John? And what's up with John not knowing that Hurley was at the cabin? It was John that ran into Hurley in the rain right outside the cabin. Oh you gotta love all the questions. That's what makes Lost so good.

I am sad that I'll never be an extra on the show again though. If only we were still living in Hawaii. My husband actually got a call not too long ago to be an extra in a Korea scene but we had already moved. Even if we were still there I don't know if I'd get called again because the last time I was an extra my face was seen and I was told my a few of the other frequent extras that once you're seen you're out. They were all trying to make sure they weren't seen but my goal was of course to be seen. They did blur out my face a little but if you use your DVR you can see me. My small claim to fame :)

These are pictures from my first time as an extra on Lost.

This last one in the bottom left is Desmond getting his hair all sprayed down. This is from his flashback scene. He has just run into Charley of the street and runs into the university to talk to Damian (I think that was it at least) the Indian professor.

Project Runway

2008-02-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh. What is going on here? Sweet Pea is totally losing it. I really like her too so it's making me sad. Looks like she'll be having trouble again next week. She did pick a really horrible fabric for this challenge though. I was cringing when she picked it at Mode. She could have had so much fun but she was just too focused on how much she hated the challenge.

Chris and Christian did have really awesome outfits though. I'm glad Chris won because I feel like Christian rode his shirt tail when he won a few weeks ago. I mean that whole huge crazy collar thing was all Chris and that's what the judges really loved about that outfit. Christian is getting super mad though that he isn't winning challenges. You could tell he was so peaved tonight.

I have a love hate relationship with Christian. He says the GREATEST things but then he can be annoying because he's so full of himself. Most of the time he does good work and I really like it but he has his sucky moments just like everyone else. My favorite quote from tonight has to be by him though. I just cracked up when he said "She's one of the fiercest people I know which is pretty major because I've met some fierce bitches in my life." Oh what great things you do say Christian!

Yummy Dinner

2008-02-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

I've been out and running errands all day long today. I am just now getting to the dishes and sweeping, you know all the joys of life. I ran to AC Moore today (solo) so I was able to look and look at anything I wanted to. I found a new glue that I'm trying out on my pocket albums and I also found another medium to try sealing my tins with. I've got a sample drying right now. I'm not sure how I'm going to do the edges though as I feel like it will just drip down them. It's a pourable medium so that's what I did to the top. I'm waiting for that to set so that I can try the sides. I have high hopes for it though because it's giving me that flawless finish I was looking for (just keeping my fingers crossed that it sets).

I also got another corner rounder. I go through them so quickly! So I'm enjoying myself punching the corners off of eight more pocket albums in progress as well as about 15 more sets of mini cards. I hope to get them finished and listed soon. I can do everything up until the sealing of the tin. Then I'll have to decide if I want to go with the new sealer or the old one. Only time will tell. The only down side of the new one is that it takes about 3 days to fully cure. Booooo!

For dinner tonight I made one of my favorite meals, Tillapia with saffron yellow rice and beans. Yum! It really couldn't be an easier meal to make either. Cook your Tillapia in a skillet sprinkling seasoned salt on both sides. Then, get a packet of Saffron yellow rice and zap it. Finally, get some black beans and zap them. Whala! Oh and don't forget the lemon juice squeezed on top (lime juice is also good)

Crazy Week

2008-02-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

The past week has just flown by. I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote. This past weekend Isaac and I went home to visit my grandmother. She is very ill with cancer and we were told that she only had a matter of weeks so I wanted to go home and see her one last time. The drive was so long but it was worth it. It was bittersweet to see her again. She is no longer the grandmother that I once knew.

We sped back here on Sunday so that we could go to our friend's Super Bowl Party. We were really looking forward to it and getting to socialize with other people. We're growing tired of looking only at eachother all day long, lol. It was a great time with good food and to top it off the Giants actually won!

I had a reality check yesterday and realized that my craft show in Savage, MD is in less than two weeks so I've been trying to kick my crafting into high gear. Despite that, I feel like I've run into a million and one other things that needed my attention and therefore haven't gotten much more done. The rest of the week will be better though. I'm gonna make sure of that! I did manage to get an Easter card done today for a custom order in my etsy shop and I listed this tin that I finished last night.

New Pocket Album

2008-01-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

I finished this pocket album late last night and I'm loving it. I really love the papers that I used and I've been waiting to use them on one of these. I have about 6 more in pieces that I need to get to today but am trying to do some housework first :) Housework somehow has turned into internet work though....how DOES that happen, lol?

Loving These Bags

2008-01-27T21:06:00.001-08:00

So I'm a Coach girl through and through when it comes to my handbags. I even got rid of most of my non-Coach bags about a year ago and I have a whole closet full of Coach bags. It didn't help that I lived VERY close to an outlet store when we were in Hawaii. However, after having seen some of the fabulous handbags on etsy, I may be leaning towards purchasing a few from some of the great artisan setting up so there. One set of bags that I really love is by Sew Gracious. I love the bright fabrics that she uses and how she combines them. I'm not much on the tote bag in general but I would love to carry one of these. You can also see that they are well crafted from her pictures. I just find them very yummy :)

She also does very cute mini wallets.

On a totally unrelated note, this weekend has been pretty much unproductive for me. Especially today. I really got NOTHING done today. Granted I've been trying to use Sunday as my non-etsy day so I'm not too worried about that, but I did want to work on my mom's scrapbook today. I still haven't finished her scrapbook from my wedding, almost 3 years ago now. I haven't done my own yet either. We're planning to go back to Indiana this coming weekend to visit with my dying grandmother and I wanted to have the album finished for her. It would be a total surprise.

So instead of working on that, here's what I did today. We went to church (finally found our home church here and are VERY excited) and then went to fellow etsian Amy's house to pick up a desk that she so wonderfully gave to us furniture-less folk. Then we went to Panda Express because Isaac was dying for some. That took FOREVER because our dumb GPS drove us right through the mall and then started taking us home without even telling us we were there. I have a love hate relationship with Garmin. Most of the time it's hate. Isaac was driving and was getting so frustrated that he started blowing through stop signs without even realizing it and almost got us killed 3 times. That was the end of his driving today.

We finally got there and we ate. Then Isaac went and got some more for dinner tonight. It's pretty far away so we never go there. The guy gave him a 10% discount and a free drink for buying more. Then I got to go to AC Moore as part of the deal of him getting more food. I got a few small things and then we came home.

We spent the next hour or so setting up the desk and then the next hour getting all the computer and stuff hooked up. Then we started trying to get my HP Photosmart C5180 to install on the computer. I was having trouble with it so decided to uninstall the software. BIG MISTAKE. I couldn't get it to reinstall and we'd been trying for almost a week. Isaac was working on it and I was getting frustrated so I went and laid down. I fell asleep for like 2 hours and then got up and called HP. I spent the next 2.5 hours on the phone with them. Finally I was able to talk to someone who really knows what they are doing. She freaking came into my computer and fixed everything for me. I loved it. I felt like the previous hour and a half was a total waste. If they can just come in and do it for you, then why don't they do that from the start?! Oh well, it's working now so tomorrow I plan to do some scrapbooking. The lady laughed at my test picture

Could this be considered doggie porn?

More New Cards

2008-01-25T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'm having SO much fun lately doing these card sets. I did this one late last night and wanted to really have some tropical colors going on. I also NEVER do abstract things because I like all my work to be perfect but I went out on a limb and sewed abstract hearts on the cards. I love how they turned out!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2008-01-25T18:16:00.000-08:00

I finally made my cupcakes today and they are super yummy! I got the recipe from Paula Dean and halved it. Next time I'm going to use less cream cheese in the icing and less oil in the cupcakes. They are dense and moist just the way they should be though. I have a stomach ache now though because I ate three!

The recipe was this

For the cupcakes:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 large eggs, room temperature

2 tablespoons red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 pound cream cheese, softened

2 sticks butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

For the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

The aftermath

Fresh Cards

2008-01-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I almost got my goals for today done. I have been working away at the things laying on my craft table to get the finished and off. I did two sets of 8 cards today

and I also worked on four more sets of Tiny Sentiments. I didn't finish them, just adhereing them down to their bases. I still have six more sets of those to do and then I have to add all the sentiments. Shew!

I've been thinking about the movie 27 Dresses while crafting today. My hubby and I went to see it on Monday night. It was cute. Not quite as cute as I was wanting it to be but I'll still probably buy it and watch it over and over until I have all the lines and scenes memorized. That's sort of my thing. So anyway, I've been replaying scenes in my mind today while working on cards and also dancing around to my ipod. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy but oh well. What are you gonna do?

Project Runway starts in about 30 minutes and I am uber excited. I love that show, especially with that Christian. He totally cracks me up with his comments. He annoyed me at first but now it's all love. Alright, enough blog love for now, gotta change so I can do my workout while I watch some fab clothing!

New Crystals

2008-01-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

I've been completely slacking lately on my crafting. You know when you work full time you think, gee, if I only didn't have to come to work I'd be able to get so much more crafting done. Then the day comes when you no longer have to go to work but yet you still find that you aren't getting much accomplished during the course of the day. Honestly, where do my days go? Too much time on the internet I fear. I've cut way back on my television watching to help with my procrastination and now I just need to work on internet time.

I had two orders for crystals on Sunday, one pink heart and one custom dog. I finished those up today and they are on their way to their owners. I also finished up a Papillon and listed it in my shop .

I also received a large paper order today so I have lots of new albums to come as well as some mini scrapbooks that I'm pretty excited to try my hand at. Meanwhile, my desk is covered in half finished cards and various other projects. My goal for tomorrow is to get everything on my desk finished up and to be productive!

Jewelry I Heart

2008-01-19T18:40:00.001-08:00

I've been eyeing these earrings that I know I'm going to end up getting from Dancing Mooney

They are so pretty and I just love them. Such a great price too! I just hope they don't sell before I get some money to purchase them. I've made a commitment not to buy anything else unless I have the money in my paypal, which sits empty right now.

I also love this necklace made with sea glass from Sea Glass Things because of the amazing color. I also love the starfish charm attached. I love starfish so that really completes the piece for me.

And I also love this bracelet from Wire Gems. I really like the simplicity of it but the fact that it is very femine. I'm a simple jewelry kinda gal.

Pumpkin Finally Made It

2008-01-19T18:25:00.000-08:00

The other night I made Toaster and now I've made Pumpkin and added him to my Shop . I'm really in the mood to get back into more beading. I think he came out really cute. I can't believe how tired my eyes and finges are though. It's amazing that a few weeks can take away so much!

In other news, I received a new corner rounder today, yay! So that means that I will be finishing those million sets of tiny sentiments in the coming week. I also need to sit down and come up with a list of things that I want to take to the Savage Arts and Crafts Show on Feb. 16th and then come up with a time line in order to get it all done. I can feel the excitement for that show growing now that it's less than a month away!

Price Tags

2008-01-18T21:26:00.001-08:00

I started making these fancy price tags to use on my items at shows and decided that other people might like to have an alternative to the huge and ugly white one found at Wal-Mart or those sticky ones that you can get through bead supplies. I HATE those sticky ones. They leave residue on your jewelry and are just yuck.

I've chosen really elegant papers to make them with and I think they really help add value to the item and are small enough that they don't get in the way, but still do their job. I love them. We'll see if anyone else feels the same :)

Cross-eyed

2008-01-17T22:32:00.001-08:00

Today was a day filled with cleaning. This morning I could no longer stand the clutter in my house, built up from the last week of crafting instead of cleaning, so decided to do a full cleaning. I spent hours cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, computer area, and our bedroom. We still had pictures stacked in corners and other things that we just hadn't hung or put away since we moved in. I got about 75% of the cleaning done and plan to finish up in the morning.

After dinner, I decided to relax a little and get back into making my crystal animals. I've been wanting to get more dog breeds done so I did a dachshund tonight. My hands are tired from the weaving and my eyes are practically crossed since I haven't done any of these in weeks. I've still got to weave in the ends and cut the string but I'll post pictures in the morning. :)

Fun Shops For Your Doggies

2008-01-16T20:14:00.000-08:00

So Bella's Boutique was named after my dog Bella. Sad, but true. I heart Bella. I'm the dog owner who treats them like royalty, buys them gourmet treats, the latest clothes, lots of collars to rotate, and bling. So of course I'm always looking for fun doggie shops on etsy! Here are a few that I've found so far

Furkid Fever

I love her dresses and embroidered pj's.

Fifi and Me

She has really fun hoodies, which Napoleon loves to wear, and fashion coats as well.

Mr Soft Tops

Lots of really cute sweaters and in different sizes.

Designs For Dinky Dogs

I'm always looking for fun new clothes for my babies. And another fun thing I found on etsy is that you can have a custom portrait of your animal done! I actually donated pictures of both my dogs to Ninner Fish Art and she did a portrait of Bella for her shop

You can also get a custom portrait from Lynne Adamson which I think are really neat. You can get them in a variety of sizes depending on your budget.

Demise of the Corner Rounder

2008-01-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

So my corner rounder bit the dust today. The metal on the bottom snapped right in half. How the heck does that happen?! And of course it's a corner rounder that I have NO idea where to get another one. Plus, I already punched the fronts of 74 cards and was in the process of punching the card bases when it broke. I have about 60 more cards to punch. All corner rounders have different curves so I can't just get any old one to finish with either since I already punched ALL the fronts. Blast!

So I walked away from Tiny Sentiments and did this fabulous set of birthday cards

Sore Fingers

2008-01-15T18:00:00.001-08:00

I recently got the most beautiful pearl finished papers and tonight I decided to start making sets of Tiny Sentiments with them. So I cut 14 sets worth of paper and have been sitting here with my corner rounder and punching all the corners while I watch American Idol. Both of my thumbs have big blisters on them now. I was even punching through my sweatshirt but it didn't help much. I haven't even punched the card base corners yet. Yikes! But, I'll have some great card set up in the next week. They are going to be perfect for wedding thank you's, just because's, and blank cards.

I also added two new pocket albums to my shop and there are a few more to be listed before the end of the week!

New Pocket Albums

2008-01-14T13:38:00.001-08:00

Today was a day filled with making new pocket albums. I really love these altered tins with accordion albums. They are such a great way to carry your pictures with you and show them off with maximum impact. I've made sure that they will hold up in your purse or bag too by sealing them several times.

Here are two of my newest pocket albums with more to come in the next few days!

My Blog

2008-01-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited to be entering the world of blogging! This blog is going to record my journey from hobbiest to etsy store owner to brick and mortar boutique owner. I'll be posting my latest work and projects I'm working on, asking for suggestions for future products, sharing my favorite esty sellers' work, talking about life and the struggle to become a successful online business, and whatever else I happen to feel like sharing. Stop by and check Bella's Boutique out at www.amyyang.etsy.com