Birthday Blog Candy Winner Announced!

Scroll down to find the winner announced today, August 4, 2012

Guess what I bought myself for my Birthday? While you're at it try to guess who can't find the place where Blogger wants to find pictures to upload? Ok, first answer is an iPad!!! second answer is me! I can't for the life of me figure out why Blogger won't let me upload pictures from this thing, so ended up emailing the blog candy pic to blogger for this post. Now let's see if it worked. Oh, the deets: 1. Be a follower 2. Leave a comment on this post 3. Please spread the word about my giveaway! 4. Post the candy on your sidebar or send me a link to your other method of sharing. 5. Oh and please make sure you leave your email address if it is not on your blog. 6. Due to the high cost of postage this is open to U.S. residents only. I will leave this open until August 3rd and will use a random number generator to choose the winner. In case the picture doesn't come through and I have to try another method, there are several packages of stickers, journalling tablet, loads of seam binding ribbon, Stampin Up ribbon, micro beads, Sizzlets, Spellbinders impressibilities and much more!



The winner is....... Nana from My Crafting Channel Congratulations!

Pretty cherries decorate this upcycled note card

This card is one of four in a set of blank note cards that I listed today in my Etsy shop Eco Chique Boutique. I wanted to show you how something as simple as a picture from paint chip samples, a little ribbon and an embossing folder could turn in to something so beautiful. I love the way she is holding those luscious cherries in a heart shaped pile in the palm of her hands. I hope this goes to a good home and brings a smile of joy to the person who receives it!

Time for celebration of 100th item listed in Eco Chique Boutique on Etsy!

I've been very busy taking pictures and replenishing the shelves in our Etsy shop and finally listed our 100th item! Well actually if you count all the sales we hit 100 a long time ago, however it was my goal to get 100 items listed at the same time and I finally reached that goal today. If you like EcoChiqueBoutique on Facebook maybe you've already seen the announcement, if not it will be worth your time to go read it now because there's a gift involved if you're not too late.

Restocking the Eco Chique Boutique Shelves!

Yesterday after doing my Saturday morning errands (LOVE our local Farmers' Market!) I spent some time taking pictures of all my upcycled drink can brooches and restocking my Etsy shop's virtual shelves. After church today I'll take pics of badge reels and if time permits will get some of my oodles and oodles of upcycled paper embellishments posted. I kind of got carried away making all those die cuts out of assorted food and tissue boxes, wallpaper samples and security envelopes. Here's a few of the new brooches just listed in Eco Chique Boutique.

Zeleny Art Fair

The flyers are ready now for the Zeleny Art Fair, making this fun event even more of a reality. You'll have to hop over to their blog to see some of the other vendors. Eco Chique Boutique should be on their as soon as they get all caught up. If you haven't liked us yet on Facebook, please head over there now so you don't miss out on any updates. We'll have a special surprise for our FB fans who stop by our booth! Please help us get the word out by sharing this post any way you possibly can. We're all just little hometown folk trying to make a difference in our world!

Goals for first half of 2012

I decided that my crafting goals needed to be posted at the top of my blog until they have all been completed. Now to figure out how folks make posts stay at the top... I just read that putting a publication date in the future would create a sticky post and keep it on top. Tried that and it didn't work, so will just make a text widget with just the list and locate it above the posts.

Here's the list that was posted in January:

1. Create card kits to sell on Etsy.
2. Create scrapbook page kits to sell on Etsy.
3. Put stuff together for a swap with friends.
4. Donate a bunch of stuff to groups that make cards for charities.
5. Make cards to donate to Operation Write Home. DONE
6. Make cards to donate to a local church that in turn donates to homeless shelters (currently doing this one.)   DONE
7. Make card assortments along with boxes to put them in to have on hand for gifts.
8. Offer some blog candy (coming soon, so stay tuned!)
9. Make upcycled embellishments and other products for Zeleny Art Fair coming up in April. DONE

Below are some things I've made. The sample is flower die cuts made out of upcycled wallpaper samples. Next is a really cute ruffled purse made out of t-shirts, then a fabric rosette using leftover fabric and the last picture is a package of paper rosettes.

Challenge for the New Year

I can't believe it's been an entire MONTH since my last post! Where has the time gone??? Unlike some of you who have very busy lives with children and/or grandchildren running around the house during the holidays, it's just me and my dear husband and menagerie of dogs and cats. Sure we have an occasional visit with our daughter and son-in-law, sometimes along with one or two of their dogs; but for the most part it's just the two of us. I think that my mojo got sucked up in the thick atmosphere and blew away for a visit somewhere else!

What have I been doing? I dare not show any pictures because of the perpetual mess my craft room is always in, but I will tell you that things are moving along. Like some of you I am trying to use up what I have on hand in my stash. This MIGHT be the time for me to finally make the switch from paper to digital design, BUT not until I've gotten my stash down to a reasonable amount. Here are some thoughts I've had lately:

1. Create card kits to sell on Etsy.
2. Create scrapbook page kits to sell on Etsy.
3. Put stuff together for a swap with friends.
4. Donate a bunch of stuff to groups that make cards for charities.
5. Make cards to donate to Operation Write Home. DONE
6. Make cards to donate to a local church that in turn donates to homeless shelters (currently doing this one.)   DONE
7. Make card assortments along with boxes to put them in to have on hand for gifts.
8. Offer some blog candy (coming soon, so stay tuned!)
9. Make upcycled embellishments and other products for Zeleny Art Fair coming up in April.

So there you have it! The past few days I've been digging through my stash and pulling out all those assorted paper embellishments that I cut or punched out in bulk for who knows what reason (just because!) and am attempting to use them to make card assortments. Isn't it funny when you look at something that you've hung on to for several years and you can't for the life of you figure out what you were thinking when you made it??? The paper-hoarder in me finds it extremely difficult to throw anything away that might possibly be used on a card, scrapbook page, collage, jewelry or whatever. Don't you love seeing and reading about all the cool things people make out of what would normally go in the trash? Sorry folks, but I've actually begun throwing away those little bits of paper that are left behind when cutting borders with the scalloped border punch! Yes they make squares look like postage stamps, BUT if they haven't gotten used in over two years they're GOING BYE-BYE!

One last thing I'll kind of share with you is that I have a huge reason for needing to downsize, but am not quite ready to post in for the public yet. I guess I don't want the plans to get jinxed somehow, so will wait until time gets closer, but trust me, this will be a big life-changing and very exciting thing! No folks, I'm NOT pregnant (way too old and the plumbing's been removed since 1994!); but it DOES have something to do with family. Like one of my favorite movie characters once said, "That's all I have to say about that."

Oriental Trading Post Haul

Ok Ya'll, please don't laugh, but I finally made a video to share a haul with you. I discovered that my daughter has the best place ever for making videos, so might just have to spend more time granddogsitting in the future. Or I guess I could just go when she's there to keep the dogs out of the room. Anyway, here's a video showing all the cool stuff I got from Oriental Trading Post.

Time to get organized!

What do YOU do when you take time off from work? Well if you're like me you work even harder at other things. Whether that means gardening, cooking, sewing, taking kids to doctor appointments, cleaning house, caring for elderly parents, or like me, organizing your craft space; it usually requires a lot of work. I've taken the next two days off to clean up my two rooms dedicated to my crafts. Yes you heard me right, TWO ROOMS!!! AAACK!!! For those of you who are now wallowing in jealousy over the fact that I have two full rooms for my crafts (one for paper, the other for sewing) let me tell you that I'd have more room on my dining room table than in both rooms put together! More space means more STUFF!

On Saturday my daughter and I had a very successful sales event in Lawrence, Kansas. There were a dozen Etsy vendors set up in a room at a downtown restaurant, Pachamamas (with absolutely FAB food that we've promised our husbands we'd taken them to later!) The crowd was awesome and steady throughout the entire day and the other vendors were all so friendly and talented that just meeting them would have been well worth the time.

Anyway.... I've finished doing inventory and now it's time to make a dent in the mess called my craft room. Hopefully I'll be able to spend tomorrow cleaning up my sewing room. I have every intention to finally get both rooms to the point where I can actually walk in, sit down and do some creating, then eventually start creating tutorials. What would you like to learn how to do? Is there a paper craft that you've seen here that you'd like to learn all the steps? Maybe you've seen a finished product somewhere else and just can't figure it out? I used to do training as part of my job and I guess you could say that it's in my blood. There are already soooooo many awesome tutorials out there and I don't want to repeat things that are readily available, so pray tell, what can't you find? Not that I can guarantee I'll be able to figure it out, but it'll give me something to shoot for when this old antique computer gets replaced by a graphics capable one. Oh, please also tell me if you're more of a visual, auditory, textual or hands-on learner. I'm one of those people who needs to do all four: see it, hear it, read it and do it. If you're anything like me you do best when there are written instructions to go along with the video tutorial so you can concentrate on soaking in all the visuals and listening rather than scrambling to write everything down.

Ok, NOW I'd better get out of this room and get to work in that craft room! Hopefully I'll have some success stories and pictures to share later. Oh, OH OH! Don't forget to sign up for my October Blog Candy Gratitude Giveaway that closes at midnight on October 29th!

Hear Ye Hear Ye Read All About Kansas Handmade Market!

Our upcoming Handmade Market for Kansas Etsy shops was featured today on the front page of Lawrence.com. We are sooooo excited and hope to see some of you there!
http://www.lawrence.com/news/2011/oct/14/hands-sellers-kansas-etsy-artists-featured-single-/

Upcycled Envelope Mini Albums

Here's a sneak peak of what I've been working on the past couple of weeks. They are all made out of junk mail envelopes and decorative paper from my stash. No two are alike and they were a blast to make. There are more than what you see in the picture, but I'm having brain freeze about getting the flash to stay on while taking closeups. The one closeup is of a double-embossed cover that's made to look like leather. First it's embossed on the Cuttlebug, then with extra thick embossing enamel powder. What do you think? I saw a tutorial somewhere using this technique to make wallets and thought it would work equally well as an album cover.

T-shirt Transformed into Jazzy Ruffled Purse

I've been seeing a lot of ruffles around lately.... ruffles on blouses.... ruffles on headbands.... even ruffles on greeting cards! While making a ton of upcycled t-shirt totes for the Farmer's Market and upcoming craft shows I found myself with a pile of strips left over. So what's a girl to do with all that great t-shirt fabric? Why.... ruffle it of course! Here's what I came up with:

It has been quite a struggle NOT to just pile all my stuff in it and carry it around, but I convinced myself that there was a future owner out there somewhere who just couldn't live without this fun purse. Maybe I'll have to make another one soon! This project is also linked at the Passionately Artistic linking party
where you can find a ton of really awesome projects from yummy recipes, to colored glass jars, hand-sewn quilts and well, you name it it's there!

Here we are at Rails to Trails in Burlingame

Here's a shot of our setup at Rails to Trails in Burlingame this morning. We had slow traffic early due to threat of rain, then things picked up a bit when the sun came out. I'm still looking for suggestions about enhancing my display to make things pop. It is really apparent when I look at pictures that I need to make changes. Any ideas?

I wish I'd had my video camera with me to show this amazing Border Collie herding the geese as part of the parade. OMG this was awesome to watch! Makes me want to train our Katie to be a real Border Collie!

We met Emily and Matt for supper tonight to celebrate her birthday early (it's on the 25th) and sat at Chipotles eating with tornado sirens going off watching the hail and rotating clouds. Toto, we really ARE in Kansas!!! Then we went next door to shop at Michaels and found the doors locked, but the manager came and opened the door, informed us that if we came in we'd have to huddle in the back hallway with them, so hey, what better place to hunker down than Michaels, right?!? We ended up getting let out right before the all clear was sounded, drove home thinking we'd find a Border Collie stroked out (she HATES storms!) and it was completely dry here. The tornadoes are hitting further northeast of here and another storm is headed up the turnpike towards us, so I'll send this on its way and think about getting some rest before the next round of thunder. Have a great weekend everyone!

Garage sale loot!

What a great morning of garage sailing (ok so spell check doesn't like "saleing" or "saling") with my daughter! We didn't find any jewelry that we could salvage, but did find a bunch of other needed items like t-shirts for tote bags and t-shirt yarn, genuine StampinUp stamps and brayer (much needed!), acrylic blocks for unmounted stamps, drop-dead gorgeous burgundy wire-edged ribbon, StampinUp fiber pack and journal, wire basket for card display at Farmer's Market, jeans and some Peanuts stuff for DH. Oh and the last two pictures show some tiles. I tried drilling a hole in one of the small square glass tiles and it broke both the drill bit (titanium dremel bit) and the tile (covered both sides with painter's tape). Anyone know how to drill holes in glass tiles to insert jump rings for jewelry? Here, take a looksy:

It's a Mother-Daughter Day!

Yippee my daughter is on her way over and we get to spend the day together. We're going to scout out some garage sales looking for things to upcycle for our Etsy shop and Farmer's Market. It's just so much fun finding things that might otherwise end up in the landfill and transforming them in to something useful that will bring a smile to another person's face!

After our shopping trip we're going to make a valiant effort to cut my little Harley's hair. He does NOT like having his face, neck, legs, or well, just about any place touched by metal. I managed to hand cut the fur on his back and have snuck up on him and cut off some mats around his neck, but as soon as he discovers that I've got a scissors he tries to bite it or me. Wish us luck!

Here we are (or were ) at Farmers Market!

I'll have a better picture later, but this is what Emily posted on her Facebook page right after we got set up at Farmers Market. It was a great day, a little windy and hot towards the end, but the crowd was awesome!

Banner for our vendor booth

One of my projects for today was to cut out the vinyl letters for the banner on our vendor tent for Farmers Market. I had just enough black vinyl in the size needed (phew!). I used my Sure Cuts A Lot program to lay out the letters to cut out on my Cricut. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Can't wait to show you the booth all set up next Saturday!