Out With the Old...In With the New
My favorite pieces are the three hand painted pieces I found on Etsy. And my most favorite is definitely the painted dresser in the blue room. The same artist painted the dresser and the trunk on the upstairs landing. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for more little lovelies in her store; she‘s from Maine and her name is Grazhina. The girls have enjoyed redecorating constantly and it’s been fun watching them. They really play well together when playing with this dollhouse so that’s definitely a blessing.
I have to say the most magical Christmas morning moment did not involve the dollhouse. Any of you who have been reading this blog for any length of time or who know my girls know of Sarah’s attachment to Bunny. We had two bunnies for a while: Bunny Susan and Sister Bunny. Sister Bunny went missing a few months ago. Still haven’t found her. So believe it or not, the only thing Sarah asked Santa for Christmas was a new sister for Bunny Susan. Well, Santa came through. Acting as one of his little helpers, I found the exact same bunny at JCPenney’s, the last two actually, and bought them both…never know when we’ll need another one! Christmas morning, the new bunny was sitting on the piano next to the tree. DH and I had gotten up at 5am to turn the tree lights on and then just layed in bed watching…with a perfect view of the tree and the new bunny…until the girls came down.
Sarah came down first. She must have seen the bunny from the top of the stairs. When I first saw her, she was standing at the bottom of the stairs just looking at that bunny, dirty old Bunny Susan in hand. Then she slowly walked over to the piano…walking right past the dollhouse…and gently picked up the new bunny. She just stood there for a minute, looking at the new bunny and then looking at Bunny Susan. Then she turned around and ran into our room saying, “Mommy! Santa brought Bunny Susan a sister!” As DH would say, “bring a tear to a glass eye…” I think Livvie’s favorite present has been the dollhouse. She’s a great redecorator. I'll post some Christmas morning pictures and video when I get my film developed!
So about this New Year’s stuff…really makes your reevaluate your life, doesn’t it? I’ve been very lucky to have three weeks off over the holidays and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and doing the things I love to do most…create stuff. My mind has not stopped thinking of new ideas. My only problem is, with a full-time job and twin four-year-olds, there’s just not enough time in the day to do the things I’d like to do. So I hope to become better organized with my time. I guess that’s my biggest New Year’s resolution. Santa brought DH and I a couple big ticket items for Christmas...a new flat screen TV for him and a new computer and camera for me. So with the help of my new computer and camera, you’ll be seeing lots of new things coming to my website and Etsy store. Things other than jewelry, too! Just have to find the time to bring the creations out of my brain and onto my workbench.
This is a time of renewal…out with the old and in with the new. So in addition to your trips to Goodwill to declutter your closets and your house (I can’t be the only person who does a major declutter at the first of the year…), I hope you make time to pursue your dreams and your passions and what truly brings you joy. I plan to, and I hope to help my family do the same. Best Wishes for a very Happy New Year! Like this post? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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Furniture is Arriving...
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Work in Progress...
I started with these two rooms (below)...the smallest! Since I've never really worked with paper, I wanted to start small. This will be the bathroom and one bedroom. The laminate flooring is a leftover from the previous decor!
This is the attic room. I just realized there are no stairs going up to it! It was here I learned that paper really does make a difference. I had been using card stock up until this point. I initially did that back wall with the window with just regular paper stock and couldn't get rid of the bubbles so I tore that out and put this funky card stock in.
This was my first big challenge and light bulb over the head moment. I hadn't noticed that archway until I really looked at the room and then said, "Yikes! A straight line cut that is not!" I looked around my workshop and, as luck would have it, the lid of a coil of copper wire was the perfect fit for the arch. It was about 9:30pm by that time, so I had to run upstairs and wake up DH and show him my ingenuity!
And lastly, this room is my biggest challenge. This is the largest room and not only has the staircase in the middle of it, but also has two little nooks. One, to the back right in this picture, seems to have no purpose other than to aggravate me. The other is the front door foyer around the corner to the left behind the stairs...hmm...maybe if I take the front door off. More updates to come!
Time's Running Out!
Now this latest batch of procrastination hasn't been entirely my fault. First I had to wait for DH to clean out the old stuff (very ugly 1980 wallpaper and flooring) and then sand the walls and floors so I could bring it back to life. Then I had to visit numerous arts and crafts stores looking for just the right papers and flooring. And then there was the hunt for just the right furniture, which is still not completed. And then, of course, it is Christmas time after all, so I've had lots of Christmas shopping and wrapping to do. You know, so I have been busy! But really, I'm just a professional procrastinator; I truly could have started it last week. I just work best under pressure!
Anywho, I thought I'd show you some before and after pictures. I wish I would have thought about this before DH pulled out the old wallpaper and flooring, but oh well. We have saved the kitchen intact. I just don't think we can safely pull out the cabinetry, so maybe we'll just have a retro 80's kitchen and keep that snazzy brown, green and orange metallic floral wallpaper, the same wall paper that was in my kitchen in high school on Dillon Drive. I'll save that for last and see what I think. To give you some scale, the house is rather large; it's about 3 1/2 feet wide x 2 1/2 feet tall. My stepfather #1, John, built it in 1980 and it's structurally very solid and the exterior still looks great. Just some minor clean up work needed there. Now my job is to make the interior look fabulous again. Somehow over the next three days, since we'll be traveling this weekend... I"ll keep you updated with pictures as we go!
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Free Bling Friday Number 32!
Diana Martin's Little Lovelies
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Garden Goddess Mosaics--Great Gifts!
"My name is Erica and I am a Wife, Mom, and Nursing student..AKA Mosaic Artist/Hand painted Tile creator/designer. I was born in Long Beach, California, and grew up in Alabama. I have always come from a genetically artistic family with my mom studying art in Chicago and my brother studying in New York.... Apparently my brother got most of the artistic genes LOL!! He received a masters in Art and became an incredible sculptor in New York (I am SO very proud of him!!!). On the other hand, I have come to find and create art as a hobby, and painting mosaic tiles is my GREAT Stress buster!! My best friend taught me how to make my first mosaic and I never stopped!!!! My passion has been painting faux finishes on walls and beautifying my outdoor living spaces with mosaic art for several years now.
I first started making mosaics with stained glass and pouring my own special mix of concrete when the mosaic bug bit me 4 years ago. I also create and hand paint mosaic tiles for others for their special projects! It is so rewarding to see what they create! I have met some super mosaic friends along the way and I love to share and teach my passion with others!! I LOVE to create new projects and have become a super duper multi-tasker! If you peeked in on me you would see me painting 5 tile projects at one time (just at different times of the day and maybe several mosaic projects in the other room)! I will finish my BSN in Nursing next year!"
Show her some love! Visit her Etsy store here and pick up some last minute gifts. Like this post? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders.
Buying Handmade for Christmas
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New Works by Up-and-Coming Artists
Though I sense some outside assistance in these works, it's obvious these two young masters in the making have very long, successful careers ahead of them. I'll be sure to keep you updated on new works. :-)
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Free Bling Friday Number 31!
Amazingly Affordable Art
She has lots more where this one came from. Take a look at all her art here. I just bought two of her ACEO's (what's an ACEO?) and a cute little ACEO stand, the perfect gift for my mermaid loving neighbor for less than $15, including shipping! Three pieces of original art for less than $15! Now go buy out her store.....
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Mindless Drivel...but Handsome Mindless Drivel
And for your laughs, I got this from my assistant today and it totally cracked me up. I can especially relate to the very last line. Enjoy!
Q: How many women with PMS does it take to change a light bulb?
Woman's Answer: One! Only one!!!! And do you know why? Because no one else in this house knows how to change a light bulb! They don't even know that the bulb is burned out!! They would sit in the dark for three days before they figured it out. And, once they figured it out, they wouldn't be able to find the #&%!* light bulbs despite the fact that they've been in the same cabinet for the past 17 years! But if they did, by some miracle of God, actually find them, two days later the chair they used to change the stupid light bulb would still be in the same spot!!!!! And underneath it would be the wrapper the freakin’ blubs came in!!! Because no one ever picks up or carries out the garbage!!!! It’s a wonder we haven’t all suffocated from the piles of garbage that are a foot deep throughout the entire house!!! It would take an army to clean this place! And don’t even get me started on who changes the toilet paper roll……!!!!
I'm sorry. What was the question?
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Fun Art by Sandra Spencer
I'm currently bidding on this painting on Ebay. The auction ends tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for me! I already have one of Sandra Spencer's paintings, but this one is most definitely Isabelle....in blue. She's up to 48.1 pounds already. I'll have to post a new picture of her soon, but here she is as a puppy. See more of Sandra's work on Ebay here, on Etsy here, and on her website here.
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Free Bling Friday Number 30!
Introducing the North Florida Craft Revolution
The two Etsyians who've really pulled this group together are emmommy and alyburd. I bought two of emmommy's personalized photo pendants--one for Aunt Livy and one for me--and they are awesome! The whole group is full of wonderfulness (did I just make up a word?). Check out the full list of us here on the blog that alyburd started for us. Support your local area Etsy crafters for Christmas and Buy Handmade. And don't forget about the First Coast Art Spot artists as well!
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In Support of the Donna Hicken Foundation…
I’ve met Donna a couple times in passing but the one instance that sticks out in my head was at one of the Beaches Fine Arts Triathlons. I used to do those regularly, as does she, and since I was injured one race, I came as a volunteer and manned one of the water stations. When Donna came by, nowhere near the front of the pack, she said to me with a grin, “Am I winning yet?!” Gotta love that spunk.
Not sure if there are still seats available for the Christmas Luncheon, but if you're interested, contact the Florida Yacht Club at (904) 389-1011. I'll be sitting at Peg Greene's FCCJ table! I have two close friends who’ve battled breast cancer, so maybe I still have time to get back in shape for the marathon, though after running the Alaska Midnight Sun Marathon in 1997, I swore I’d never run another marathon…but this is a good cause! If you have someone in your life that's been touched by this disease, I hope you'll consider a donation to the Donna Hicken Foundation. Or would you rather run the marathon with me? :-)
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Bird House for Sale...
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Free Bling Friday Number 29!
REALLY Taking Chances....
So I had an interesting conversation with my guitar teacher last night. I take guitar once a week, and because I typically can’t find any other time during the week, Gary and I call my weekly lesson my “once a week supervised practice”. What the hey, at least I’m picking up my guitar once a week. I really enjoy my lessons, as much for hanging out with Gary as for the musical development. We have a great time cracking jokes on each other. I always joke with him that I’m his favorite student. :-) Anywho, we were working on a new song last night, Sugarland’s “Stay”, and I was picking it up pretty easily. He felt this was a great song for me; it’s in my vocal range and it has minimal accompaniment. Most of the song just has a simple guitar strum background, so it would be truly easy for me perform in a solo acoustic setting. So here’s the thing. As you know from reading this blog, I have no trouble sharing my jewelry or my writing with people, both creative pursuits. I think I’ve developed a good eye for jewelry design and color blending, and I know I’ve always been a very strong writer. Yet, I have terrible stage fright when it comes to sharing my music, another creative pursuit.
Before taking up guitar, I had years and years of piano training, classical mainly, but I loved to branch off into Blues and Broadway. When I can warm up my dusty fingers and play at the top of my game, I know that I really am still very good. Yet I really don’t like to play for people, not even my family, but my cats and dogs have enjoyed numerous concerts! Hmmm….actually I think I have a much easier time playing for strangers than I do for my friends and family. I’m the same way singing and with the guitar. I’ve sang in public a few times for very special occasions, three or four times on campus for special events and several times for my statewide student government buddies, accompanied on guitar by my good friend Jim Phillips. I’ve also sat in on a couple gigs with friends who are professional singer/songwriters. And every time, I’ve had numerous people come up to me afterwards wowed that I can really sing. Yet, other than my DH and the girls, who I truly haven’t played much for, the only person who has really heard me play guitar and sing is Gary, and even he hasn’t heard me truly belt it out vocally. And I’ve been taking lessons from him for at least five or six years now.
So back to that conversation we had. I was talking to Gary about my stage fright and he told me a story about when he was asked to play drums to accompany a woman that was recording some new songs. The person making the connection asked him what he charged, and he gave her a ridiculously low fee for both rehearsal and studio time. She told him, “Oh no, I can’t tell her that. We’ll tell her $50/hour for rehearsal time and $100/hour of studio time.” She told him that he was very talented with years of training and experience and should not be afraid to charge a much higher rate for his talent. He used this as an example to get me to see that I have a gift, a talent that I should not be afraid of sharing, just like I have no fear of sharing my jewelry and my writing. In his opinion, I am musically gifted both vocally and instrumentally, gifts most people don’t have.
So that said, to try to break out of that stage fright a little bit, I have decided to start small by sharing some of my music with you here. If you’ve read this blog from the beginning (tee hee, Kelly made a funny!), then you know that I lost my mother to suicide just after Christmas in 1999. It’s hard to explain what that does to you, other than the huge sense of abandonment and loss of self-worth you feel when someone that close to you chooses to end her own life. It’s very different from losing a parent by natural causes like cancer or a heart attack. At only 54 and going through a nasty divorce from my step-father, my Mom thought she had nothing to live for, yet she had me and my sister, and in my case, possibly grandchildren on the way. (Click here and here for posts in which I talk about Mom.) So of course, my husband decided I really needed to go to therapy. I really didn’t want to go to therapy, just didn’t think that was for me, but I went just once to appease him. I was right; it wasn’t for me. I deal with things better working them out creatively, whether it be by writing, creating something physical like art, or as in this case, creating music. So as my therapy, I recorded a CD and dedicated it to my Mom. I gave a copy of it to my closest friends when I finished it, but other than that, not very many people have heard it. So…you want to hear some of it? I’ve uploaded a few of the songs off the CD. Be gentle; I can carry a tune but I’m not Faith Hill. :-) Click here to hear the songs. They're a mix of country and blues. I'll hold my breath now...
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Taking Chances and Learning New Things!
I have news! I'm included in the 2007 BussBuss Holiday Shopping Guide for Her! BussBuss is "the online shopping Bible" so we'll see how many followers I gain from it. For the secret BussBuss Happy Shack Designs sale code, visit BussBuss here, find the Holiday Shopping Guide for Her, and then find me! It's a little treasure hunt!
And as for learning new things, a few of my students have finally convinced me to do a MySpace page (yes, I really needed just one more thing to keep up with...) So if you are a MySpacer, check me out and let's get on each others friends' list. Find me here.
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Great Day for a Football Game
Today was also the last home game for Chief Osceola John Haley, who's graduating in April. Quite a priviledge he's had for the past four years, and I'm sure he had some tears in his eyes as he and Renegade trotted off the field after planting the spear together for the last time. The Marching Chiefs also have a neat tradition. As they are wrapping up the final half time show, all the seniors take off their shoes and leave them on the field as they march off, literally and figuratively leaving their footprints on the field. Pretty cool, huh? All in all, a great day...the dancing letters were back in the 4th quarter end zone, the Glitter Boys were cruising the aisles, and the 'Noles came out with a win to close out the home season. Though I truly love my 'Noles, unfortunately I'm not holding out much hope as we travel to the Swamp to face the Gators next weekend, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. It wouldn't be the first time we've upset the Gators in the Swamp!
Lastly, I can't take credit for these awesome pictures, except of course for the one of that stunning bracelet, which you can find on the Happy Shack Designs website. :-) The game shots were taken by Abby Reynolds of the Tallahassee Democrat. See more great shots from today's game here! This site also has a good "Old School" gallery filled with old Florida State shots. DH is headed to the Jaguars game tomorrow so we both get our football fix this weekend!
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Free Bling Friday Number 28!
Wyanne Thompson on Quick Sale!
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Jungle Love and Other New Pieces!
I've named this piece "Jungle Love". Now if you are near my age, you should be dancing in your seat right now humming Morris Day and the Times "Jungle Love"! Oh those days of dancing late night at Clyde's in Tallahassee...
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Behind the Camera: Halloween!
Of course, you know I think I have the world's most beautiful children (don't we all?), so I thought I'd share some Halloween and Fall Festival pictures with you. The girlies dressed up as princesses for Halloween, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to be exact. Before Halloween night even arrived, they had three rounds of "trick-or-treating"--Spooktacular at the Zoo (top), trick or treating on my campus, and their Fall Festival at their school--so we convinced them to stay home that night with the carrot of a movie and popcorn! Yeah! Though we still have enough candy to last the year...
This one surprised me, since Livvie usually doesn't like large customed characters. For those of you not from Jacksonville, that's Jaxson deVille, the Jacksonville Jaguars mascot.
Here with the JU Dolphin, Sarah's giving her best "Don't you know I'm a DIVA and way too important to pose for pictures with some big stuffed dolphin" pout.
And lastly I thought this was one too cute: their VPK class on a hayride at their Fall Festival at school. The girls are hanging out with their teacher on the left. Thanks for indulging me!
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Free Bling Friday Number 27!
To be eligible to win this pair, simply email me by midnight Thursday, November 15, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. Good luck! Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Sign up for free weekly email updates here!
Bettina Welker's Polymer Clay Magic
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The Trouble with my Restless Mind....
I came across Linda Woods' collage art on Etsy and immediately liked the simplicity of it. I checked a couple of her websites and saw that she also wrote a book called Journal Revolution. Looked really interesting, so I had to order it. I've been a writer my entire life and have always kept a journal of sorts, but this concept of keeping an art journal is intriguing. Could be another project to add to my list. You know, 'cause like I said, I have so much free time on my hands. :-)
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Halifax Arts Festival—Great Show!
And as with many of the shows I do, I always meet incredibly talented artists whose work I love to marvel over. Let’s just say there were way too many I truly loved this time, so I’ll force myself to narrow this down to just two! First, Augusto Sanchez. Oh…my…gosh. I absolutely fell over backwards when I saw his work. He paints the most ethereal and colorful angels I’ve ever seen, and then adds mixed media elements into the paintings. Oh how I would love to have an original, but I was quite certain DH would limit me to a strict prison work release program if I came home with a $3,000 painting so I had to settle for two prints and cards. The green themed angel above is the original I would have walked away with, though the blue themed was a close second. One of his paintings included the words “While we are sleeping, angels have conversations with our souls.” These truly did speak to me. Visit Augusto’s website here to view all his angels and read more about him. And if I have a very wealthy benefactor out there who's in a generous mood, the "Green Dreams" angel would be a great addition to my home.... :-)
I also met Chrissie Grace and loved her work as well. This was one of my favorite pieces in her booth and since we don’t have any “brothers” in our brood, she’s doing a custom piece for me. Can’t wait to get it! I love the idea of the “Family Rules” in such a colorful, playful presentation. Chrissie is a mixed media mosaic artist who also works some in collage. Visit her website here. She’s also on Etsy here, but for now, just look in the SOLD works to see some samples as she currently doesn’t have anything listed, but mark her as one your favorites to check back later! Chrissie is nationally recognized and is now working on her second book teaching mosiac tile art! You go, girl! You can order the first on her website.
All in all, a great weekend! Whitney and I enjoyed having time to catch up here and there, we had great sales, met some wonderful new friends, enjoyed fabulous weather, ate great pizza and some amazingly decadent fresh chocolates. What more can you ask? See you next year Halifax friends!
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