Whoah, and an apology, and some cuteness

Whoah, this is post #800!

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I do apologize for my lack of blogging and online presence in the last week or so! The last two weeks have been really crazy busy and it's not going to let up for another two weeks. I've been neglecting this here blog, sorry!  It's my busiest time of year at work and we are getting ready to put our house on the market. We are working our asses off getting the house ready. Last weekend I painted three rooms, miles of white trim, and six doors plus all of their trim. I don't know if you've ever painted doors and their trim, but I about gouged my eyes out with my blunt paint brush. It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to paint those stupid doors. This weekend we purged, purged, purged and took a gazillion trips to Goodwill and our storage unit. The good news? Our house looks awesome. And we're getting all new carpet throughout!  It's going to look even awesome-er once the carpet is in; it's being installed this week. There's still lots of deep cleaning that I need to do, but that's going to seem easy peasy compared to what we've been doing recently.

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So anyway!  I shall return soon enough!  In the meantime, enjoy these lovely little drawings from the girls! Lyda's is on the top - that's the family in our house, she says; Arlene's on the bottom - her princess castle!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - sah-weet!

My friend Amber from Write Here Write Now is such a sweetie pie!  She came up with this week's Etsy Favorites Wednesday list!  She's all about the Etsy goodness this week - yesterday she had a great list of favs on her blog, read it here.  I've loving her Etsy love!

 Many hearts to her for doing this week's list for me!  I usually only do five items in my lists, but that darn Amber, she sent me six, and they're all so stinking cute, I had to include them all!  Here's her list!

What's better than a cupcake? Seriously. I'd like to know. It's the perfect amount of heaven if you ask me. Consider the following a calorie-free serving of heaven.

Cupcake print - I love this artist's work. So whimsical, yet displayable.

Surprise cupcakes - Gift boxes and wrapping paper are soooo 2009. I love this cute way of giving a small thank you or thinking of you gift.

Washcloth cupcake -  Where were these when all my friend were having babies? Adorable spin on a standard baby shower gift.

This is what I'm saying.

Cupcake soaps - I'm not sure how, or if, you use cute little soaps like these. To be honest, I don't know how you keep from eating them, either, but I think they're cool.

Sticky note holder - I love to make lists. Why not have a little fun while doing it?

Do YOU want to contribute to Etsy Favorites Wednesday?  Please do!  Leave me a comment or send me an email.  It's so easy - pick out five of your favorite Etsy items, send me the links and a little bit about why you like the items. 

{P.S. How would you spell favs?  Is it faves or favs?  I ususally write it as favs, but it just looks wrong to me right now, so I didn't write it at all in this post.}

The answer is yes

A picture from Arlene ... how funny! Of COURSE I love her! This just cracks me up because I know that's not what she means, exactly ... I think she might have gotten the saying off of a Valentine's card, or something?

And then Lydia drew this picture of Mike and I ... I'm the one on the left with the purple hair. She got our eye color down pat and our clothes match what we were wearing at the time she drew it. Tee-hee!!

I can't get enough of my kids' drawings, I tell you! They are both so talented and have such great imaginations!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday

This list is a mash-up of some delightful things I've spotted on Etsy this week:

Porcelain Snowflake - these are painted and then etched. So delicate yet also sturdy looking, I think, because of the black.

Tree Rings paintings - these are slices of elm. Check out the listing to see the last picture of a series of the slices hanging above a bed. Very cool.

Cloth star pin - Simple? Yes. Do I love it? Yes.

Vintage egg cups - I have a thing for egg cups.

Four Small Plates - Aren't these pretty? I'd love using them for a special dessert.

It snowed, I sewed

It snowed this weekend.

I sewed. A purse!

It has SCISSORS on it! The fabric is a patchwork of pinks, beige, greens and blues (with a little orange too) with sewing notions and butterflies. I typically don't carry such a colorful purse, but I do love how it turned out. It's unique!

I had made a Christmasy purse out of the same pattern a couple years ago and I loved carrying it around the holidays because the thing is huge. After Christmas I was sad to put the purse away. So I had to make myself another one.

This time I put little pockets on the inside.

I like the strap a lot!

I had blogged about this fabric last month and I had featured that little purse in an Etsy Favorites Wednesday. Link here. I did end up buying that little purse, isn't it cute? It looks super cute inside my purse.

I am very excited about these two things

I am very, very excited about two new craft projects. They're in the beginning stages of development, but I just have to share.

Thing number one! I've written about this before, about how I loved resin when I was making pendants but then resin became my enemy because I was having a hard time with it, specifically when I was trying to branch out with it and do new things. Remember I wanted to make resin embroidered pendants? It was called "The Great Craft Disaster of 2009" and I blogged about it. It was a major fail. I cried. I had such high hopes for those resin embroidered pendants.

WELL, check this out! I spied this on Etsy the other day. That's almost like what I had envisioned doing, except without the resin. It's an embroidered pendant! PERFECT! So then I stalked that craftster and found out that she bought those pendant frames on Etsy. So I bought some too! {I have no shame in getting new ideas from Etsy! I don't plan on copying her, just borrowing her idea to further my own ideas. Yeah.}

<----- That's what the pendant frames look like. I actually bought three of the pendant frames and three of the pin frames. I cannot wait until I get them! I want to embroider up some of the girls drawings - they've been making cute little flower designs that will fit perfectly inside the pendants. I AM SO EXCITED!

Thing number two! I have decided that I am going to teach myself the art of print making. Specifically, I'm want to learn how to work with linoleum to make prints. I adore the linocut prints that I see on Etsy. Like this one, for example (the third picture in that listing shows the actual linocut of the design.)


I also draw inspiration from this Etsy seller, I have one of her pillows, one of her tea towels and this (pictured left) adorable little ice cream cone stuffie! I love the look of her work, the bright colors and the cute designs. I want to teach myself how to do it. The possibilities are endless with a print - I could print onto fabric, tea towels, coasters, actual art prints to frame, etc. etc.

I have worked with carving materials before - I carved the button-eye stamps that I used on my baby-safe dolls. I made up some button material and also some Jack Skellington fabric from a Jack head stamp. I have the basic principals down, but I want to make designs on a bigger scale, using better materials. I used the pink Speedball carving blocks to make the button and Jack stamps, and I found that after a few uses the stamps were getting worn out and in fact my button stamp can't be used anymore because one of the corners wore off. Linocuts seem to be more durable. I want to experiment with different types of papers and inks too. Because this is something relatively new to me, I'm doing research and learning about the techniques. I got some books from the library last weekend about the different kinds of block printing techniques and I've been scouring the internet. Here's a pretty basic tutorial on linocut. I bought a sketch book and I've began thinking of a couple of designs. My birthday is coming up and I want to ask for a little printing press!

I've always done the same few types of crafts over the years. I mainly crochet and sew and did resin jewelry for awhile. Print-making is a new medium for me, and I'm so incredibly excited about the possibilities. I think this new venure will stretch my creativity and it will challenge me. I rarely design or draw from scratch, I'm best at pairing up fabrics that someone else already designed and making them into something of my own, or using a good color combo of yarn to create something interesting. But I know I can do it, create Wendy-original designs, because I have pretty good drawing skills, I just rarely have used them. I need to hone them and really study what inspires me. I'm taking all of this slow, and I'm learning as I go. I will keep you updated on my projects, for sure!

Choosing my artwork - the results

Thank you to everyone who voted in my poll to pick the artwork I should buy for my hallway! (Original post & poll here.) I had intended on purchasing three pieces of art, but my husband tells me I should only buy two. (He's the more budget-sensible of the two of us, so I agreed!) When I looked at the polling results it was actually quite easy to settle on two art pieces, because two pieces had the highest votes. So, here's what I'm going to buy!

Stella - this darling girl with stars upon thars is from Black Apple, a very talented artist that I adore. I already have one of her prints (picture here) and I'm looking forward to buying this one to expland my collection.

Red Bike - this piece just makes me smile. It's fun. And I think I'm really going to like how the two of these prints will look together ... Stella looks a bit serious and this bike is playful. I think they'll compliment each other nicely.

I'll take pictures once these are framed and put up in my hallway! Thanks again to everyone that voted!

Aw, thanks ladies!

I was nominated for the Beautiful Blogger award by two wonderful bloggers today, Amber from Write Here Write Now and Jenn from Wrestling Kitties. (and this makes TWO posts today in which these lovely ladies are named, haha!) Thank you my pretties!

So, here goes, the rules for this Beautiful Blogger Award:

1.) Thank the person(s) who nominated me for this award. DONE!

2.) Copy the award and place it on my blog. DONE!

3.) Link to the person(s) who nominated me for this award. DONE!

4.) Share 7 interesting things about myself. SEE BELOW!

5.) Nominate 7 bloggers. SEE BELOW!

Seven interesting things about me: (I asked my husband to come up with seven interesting things about me. Here's his list about me:)

1.) I hate loading and unloading the dishwasher. I absolutely despise it. I will oftentimes make up excuses why I can't do it so my husband will do it.

2.) I "creak" in my sleep - I do this weird breathing thing that sounds like a creaking door.

3.) I read, a lot.

4.) I'm well organized.

5.) I am a multi-tasker. If I don't have more than one thing going on at one time, I think I'm being lazy.

6.) I like the Cincinnati Reds and I'm "smart about the game of baseball" - quote from my husband.

7.) I have a hard time beating my husband at games. Very true. I try though. And fail.

Now, here's the people I'm nominating! I'm nominating them because I read their blogs regularly and I think they are witty! Almost all of these bloggers have been nominated already, but, here goes!

1.) Blu Shed - This gal, Lu, is just the coolest, most creative gal ever. She is my favorite fabric designer on Etsy.

2.) Grunts & Grumbles - I discovered this blogger through Two Pretzels' blog. She's so funny and real and I just really like reading her blog.

3.) Sassy Times - in 2009 she participated in the "grace in small things" thing (read more about it here) and I always enjoyed reading her posts. I bet that was hard but she stuck with it and did it all year long.

4.) The Stark's Blog - Amber's family blog - I love seeing the pics of her sweet little boy.

5.) T.W.I.T. - I miss this blogger! She seriously needs to start blogging again!

6.) Two Pretzels - I heart her blog big time plus she's just so sweet!

7.) Weighty Issues - Jenn's other blog - I am so so so proud of her for starting a weight loss blog.

A good write up about blog commenting

Blogging, I do believe, brings people together. And I LOVE IT. I've developed online friendships (by that I mean we communicate through emails, Twitter or Facebook) with a few of the blogger girls I follow. Last month I had the great pleasure of meeting, in person! Jenn, the author of Wrestling Kitties blog while I was visiting fellow blogger Amber, Write Here Write Now, for the weekend. You see, Amber and I are real-life friends, but Jenn and I are technically blogger friends. It has since been discovered that there are other connections between us - our husbands were friends in college! - so while eventually, yes, I probably would have met Jenn in person, really it was the circle of blogs that brought us together.

The three of us had a delightful conversation about blogging. We talked about commenting, and how frustrating it is that we KNOW people are reading our blogs, but yet they don't comment. We're not sure why people don't comment. I'm on the fence about this, really. Most of the time I'm not looking for or seeking comments. I'm simply blogging to express myself or share to the internets a particular craft I'm doing or something funny my kids did or a new artist that I discovered. I realize that a lot of what I blog about does not warrant comments. But I do love it when someone comments!


Today, I came across this blog post about blog commenting. It is GENIUS. Please read it now. Then come back ....


So, what do you think? I thought the author's take on comments pretty much matches my own. I try my best to make relative comments on the blogs that I read and from now on I'm going to try harder to be more engaging and to leave smarter comments.

Let me just state: if you read this here blog and don't comment, that is perfectly FINE and dandy, really! I appreciate you reading, I really, really do, and I know that you're reading, because I'm a geek and I track my blog's stats - they tell me how many people visit. But also, really, it's ok to comment! It's fun!

Let me also state: I'm not posting this post about commenting to solicit comments! But if you'd like to comment, go on ahead!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - hooked!

Crochet is a great "down-time" craft for me. I usually pick up crochet project in between other sewing or craft projects. Like now, I'm in between sewing projects and have a big project in the wings (more details on that another day!) but yet I still want to make. Crochet is perfect - the projects I do are relatively small and I can sit on the couch and crochet in the evenings while watching TV or relaxing. I'm currently working on colorful scarves for the girls using leftover yarns.

I've been coming across some pretty neat crocheted items and crochet-related items on Etsy. Here's what I found for this week's Etsy Favorites Wednesday list!


Lana Painting - she looks so mysterious with her crochet hooks in her hand.


Vintage Lace Capelet - I absolutely love the look of this capelet from the 60s. When I saw this on Etsy I began doing searches for crochet patterns for capelets, thinking that perhaps I could make my own, but I couldn't really find any patterns that I loved, so sad. I'm going to keep searching though.


Keep Calm and Carry Yarn - a cute twist on the overly-popular poster.


Crocheted Flower - I love the lush color! So nice. Is it spring yet?


Crochet Art - how cute is this - it just looks happy.