Yep, it's 2012

And it has been for a whole month already!

I can't believe a whole month of the new year has already passed.  

Last year I jumped  on the new year like a crazy lady, I've decided this year that I would just sneak up on it.

This is how my work space looks right now.  Actually that's only part of it but I assure you the rest of it looks the same.  I'm working on getting my shop stocked back up after taking a long break from stitching over the holidays (and most of January).

See the skinny little newspaper in the top right corner of the photo?  That's our tiny local paper and on the cover of the last edition was a photo of a bunch of people sledding.  The city closes this one steep street in town every time we get a good amount of snow for "safety reasons" but really it's just so we can all go sledding.  Anyhoo, my husband, son and I are in the group, my son thought it was really cool that we were on the front page. 

I hope you are all having a great beginning to 2012!

Raffle Fundraiser for Sparrow Salvage

One of my favorite Etsy artists, Penny of Sparrow Salvage, was in a horrible car accident about 3 weeks ago and  is still on the mend in the hospital.  Kindly, Fanciful Devices is raffling off this fabulous necklace to help raise money for Penny.  

Click HERE for more information.

Thank you!

Go Outside

We had a small outing to the nearby city of Anacortes a couple of days ago.  My husband had a customer to go see so my son and I went with him to wander around.  There is a great waterfront park there so even though it was grey and misting a bit we decided to go throw some rocks in the water.   

We ended up meeting this guy

 There is a boat launch at the end of the beach and according to one of the fishermen I talked to this seal has been a local fixture for about 15 years.  He hangs around the waiting for the fishermen to come in and hand over their extra bait.  You might notice that one of his eyes has been damaged, the man I spoke to said it's been that way as long as he's been around.

Yesterday was bright and sunny so we stopped on the local rainbow bridge to take a couple photos of our picturesque little town.

Picturesque right?

Here's a photo of the rainbow bridge I took a couple summers ago from a neighbors boat, it's named for it's shape, not it's color

I really is nice around here.  I really should drag myself outside more often, but for today I have some embroidery to do.

Old Stock

The other day while reorganizing my art supplies I found a small pile of bases for barrettes and a few pins. 

I'm just finishing up the one with the vines, and hope to get it listed tomorrow.

They are made out of cereal boxes, it's a painstaking process that includes: cutting out the shapes, gluing the layers together, shaping, sanding, sanding some more, then the fun part - painting.  They turned out to be way too labor intensive for the price I can expect to get for them so I'm not planning on making any more when I'm done with these.  Hopefully I will get them all finished and listed in the shop over the next few days (probably longer) 

See, cereal boxes.

Oh, and I've been working on some more embroidered brooches, like this one:

This weekend will be all about getting some of those decorations up and doing some crafts with the kiddo.  I have been finding all sorts of fun crafts on Pinterest, like this one: Cinnamon ornaments

Do you have any fun weekend plans? Do you have a fun holiday craft idea?

Aaaaaaargh!

Aaaaaaargh!
I'm warning you now that this is me venting.....

All the little things are adding up. 

I had 2 new embroidery pieces to list today.  I got some ok photos of one of them but with the second one I can't get any that aren't blurry.  The screen on my digital camera is broken so I have to push buttons and just hope that it's on the right setting (it's been that way for about 2 years)  so, I turn the thing on wait a few seconds, push the arrow 2 times to the left, take a bunch of photos, load them into the computer and then try again if they are all blurry. So far I've deleted and re-taken about 4 times.  Add too that the dark grey day and the fact that my house tilts so my embroidery keeps rolling away, oh, and my back hurts...... I'm just about ready to throw my hands up get a glass of wine and take a bubble bath. 

Instead I will power on, get the photos taken, make more stuff, start dinner, then maybe wine and bath.

Hey, I warned ya.