Try not to cry

from the Mindy Gledhill concert for NieNie

I've been working...

I promise.

Really.

I should have a heaping amount of updates later this week or over the weekend.

Life's just getting in the way... and creative bursts of energy. They don't come around as often so I have to run with them before i forget them!

So...
Until later.

I know you're out there...

so you wanna win a 2009 Wall Calendar?





I'll choose two lucky ducks to win.

Just leave a comment and you'll automatically be entered- one per person please. Please make sure there is a way for me to contact you via email, your blog or Etsy shop. If I do not have contact information for you, I will have to pick another winner. This is open to international winners as well! You do not have to be visiting from the Bloggy Carnival to win! If you are just stopping by, please enter!

This is apart of the big BloggyGiveaway Blog Carnival hosted here and runs until Friday, October 31st

Check out all I have to offer in my Etsy shop. New holiday items will be coming soon!

I hearby find you GUILTY!

It has been decided that I am not allowed to go to the mall by myself. I have agreed to these terms and though I may not agree 100% with the reasoning behind these actions against me, for the greater good of my household and my bank account I must oblige.

Below you will find some of the evidence against me.

Exhibit A


Exhibit B


Exhibit C


Exhibit D


Case and point.

Why I cannot be a millionaire and buy my way out of this will haunt me forever.

Explain to me how someone is supposed to raise a daughter in this world and teach her that objects and material goods and THINGS are not important... when places are offering these amazing pieces of fabulousness? I

If this collection came in my size, I'd break my no matching outfits rules.

images courtesy of Janie&Jack ... click if you dare- you'll get sucked in.

Miss Artsy Fartsy...

never disappoints

checkitout.

Miss Blog Buddy, Erika, wrote up a great little mentioning of Five Dot on her Artsy Fartsy Shopaholic blog today. I never really know what to say when someone does something like this- I'm so flattered and humbled to find someone that likes my work as much as my mom does. And word to the wise- subscribe to her blog... it's definitely a great read and she ends up showing some fantastic Etsy sellers- um, hello? She found me didn't she :-)

So, thank you Erika! I can't wait to snatch up an apron when she's back in business. I hope see's back in time for Christmas shopping! Check out her flickr here.

And love on this painting here.

I was in the middle of this.

Writing almost this exact post.

More on it later... or read an earlier post that is similar here.

A Play date with some new friends.

It was a VERY productive weekend for me. It was virtually kid-free (which also lead us to find out that Little Miss was NOT happy about being away that long), so both the hubz and I were able to focus on a few projects uninterrupted.

Friday: Operation Oz.
Well, it's almost finished. It doesn't look all that pretty. But it's almost finished. I never realized how zippy Singers were! Man, Betsy was flying! I didn't really have an problems following the pattern, but I had a little trouble controlling the pedal (apparently I'm a lead-foot), so the stitches aren't all that pretty. It's okay. It's my first attempt at anything by myself and it could be waaay worse. I had to rip the stitches out of two of the sections and should be able to get that sewn up this week for her debut this weekend at a Family Halloween Party out in the country.






Saturday: Operation Oz continued
I worked until about 1am on Saturday morning, got up around 9:30, ate the yummy french toast my hubs made and then got right back to it. After sewing a bit, I decided I was tired and lounged a bit before having to go pick up the Nugget.



Sunday: Punch it Margaret!
I finally changed into my scumming tshirt and pulled out the rubber ink. Margaret came out to play this weekend. I ran her (the lovely letterpress) on Sunday after a trip to the grocery. I had to do a lot of tinkering and a lot of readjusting, but I was able to get some ink on some paper. There is still a lot of tinkering and more adjusting to do, but it was good to get my hands dirty- er blue (the ink is still in my nails). I think I'm going to have some ornamental designs made into blocks so that I can get a few things rolling. I just wanted to get digging into the press, get my hands dirty and print. I wanted to USE my machine. It spent about an hour downstairs tightening and loosening bolts, making passes over the ink plate and the "L" locked up in the chase. It was fun. It was a nice and relaxing. Marv came down and laid on the floor next to me and only made a ruckus once (why do dogs eat their own poo? seriously!).








Monday: Wholesale
I'm super excited about the first possible wholesale account I have on the table. The glitch? I didn't have my wholesale policies or my line sheets or my catalog ready to go. Ugh. I managed to pull a quick line sheet with pricing together (which will be worked into a proper line sheet once I get the photos taken for my catalog and will no longer need to rely on my digital illustrations.) It's a daunting task to take on. Especially with a tight turn-around time!

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On a completely different note, Jenny the Artist 2 included a picture of our old bathroom in a lovely inspiration board. Last photo, 4th row. Oh Swannies...

Miss Betsy

click the photo to see more information on her.

oh i can't wait.... good work hubby... good work.

What seemed like a long absence

which i'm sure it really wasn't. i'm getting that overwhelmed feeling lately and i think it's because i'm feeling motivated at the same time.

a little somethin' somethin' came in the mail for me yesterday... i'll post it later. i'm super excited.

this weekend we hit the pumpkin patch. i'm just going to share some pictures.



my two favorites in shadow form





a wordier post later. :-)

Again...

this is what happens when your husband gets bored. there are more photos on my flickr site, but this is the gist of it.
good news? he's installed all new insulation and is moving drywall in as we speak. i'll take a few photos later tonite and post. the secret to speedy working? tell him it's for the nugget. see, we're revamping that space into her play area. we've moved downstairs (for now) to the guest bedroom and we're very comfortable. seeing as how this is not our dream end-all-be-all home, we don't need the lavish master bedroom that we (read: i) plan to have (yes, i have the floorplan already sketched out and ready to go for when we build) in the next or next next house.
what i'm hoping to also come out of this is a new office space. right now i'm in two spots: the basement and the guest bedroom (yes, our bedroom). it works and i'm happy if that's how it ends up working out, but my hope is the new insulation and the new drywall will regulate the temperature up there so that it's not at it's highest or lowest degree (it's sweltering up there in the summer and freezing in the winter). we have a window unit to cool things off in the summer and really, it's not all that bad up there in winter, but i want to make sure we do this right. we have our walk-in closet up there (it's behind the dresser in the photo above), so in doing this, i think it will make it easier for me to get ready in the morning... i can take her upstairs to play while i pick out my wardrobe- i.e. jeans and shirt- for the day and not worry about her being alone downstairs.
after i see the space drywalled and "finished" (i use that term lightly because nothing is every finished around here), i'll be able to layout some floorplans... and of course i'll share them! i'm going to be using a lot of what we already have and anything that we do buy i'm going to make sure can be used in the future. we'll be moving a TV up there, the current "entertainment center" that is downstairs and i have a rug that we'll put up there so nugget can crawl around without worrying about eating a pound of dog hair (the dogs will be off-limits unless we're up there).
i'll be sharing the pieces that will be going up there soon. i'm also going to be putting some thought into the closet and how to make it more efficient. i need to assess what we have, what we need and how to go about pulling it all together.

They're here...

and they look pretty darn good.

the 2009 Wall Calendar.



the 2009 Desk Calendar.



A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders! I'm so happy to get these calendars listed- ahead of schedule to boot! I'm working on one more calendar to round out the year, but I'm not as concerned to get that one done because I just started it last week!

I have some fun things in the works for my wedding listings derived from this concept- GENIUS! I'm really excited about what I came up with, so I'm sure I'll be working extra hard to get this concept flushed out.

Check over here to see how my sewing is going! I started on Little Miss' halloween costume last nite, but ran out of pins, so looks like I"ll have to make a meijer run a little later so I can finish up!


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Done!

I finished them a little while ago, but I'm just now getting around to the post. Please ignore the pedicure (or lack there of)... I haven't had much time to get to my toes.

Here's a few shots of the calendars that will be listed this weekend!




I know the shot of the desk calendar is horrid, but it's the best I could do.



This is what I was working on tonite. I've borrowed a sewing machine so that I can work on Charlotte's halloween costume. I'll post the progress... notice my high-tech weights used to hold the paper in place.

I couldn't bring myself to cut the pattern so I decided to just trace it. I don't know if this is a no-no in the sewing world, but I'm learning (feel free to give me a virtual slap on the wrist!). How do you use your patterns? Do you cut straight from or do you create a master pattern?


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Mark this date

According to my Bloglines... today is the first day I have had NO NEW posts to any of the 170 blogs I read since I logged in this morning at 8:30. I read 15 that were posted overnite and it's been crickets ever since.


*chirp chirp*

oh yeah... calendars are going to be listed this weekend

Refreshed

Friday nite was spent with many kindred spirits. We laughed. We cheered. Some cried. All rejoiced for one common theme.

The New Kids on the Block.



(video courtesy of coreyann via flickr)

I won't go on into detail about the absolute AMAZINGNESS of this concert because I'm sure you would be jealous (the links are to fellow NKOTB'ers that took video at the concert and have some great photos). if you go here i can show you where we sat: look at the top right at the tan banner- we were right by the lower left corner of that banner. sure not so close seats, but i could have cared less!
and i have to say that natasha bedingfield was an AWESOME choice for an opening act. i always think it's a testament to talent when you can sound just as great live (if not better) than you do on a CD... and she far exceeded any expectations i had for her. i've heard her once on a talk show, but that was nothing compared to live!

but enough of that. overall the weekend was great and i'm so happy i decided to go... my busy thursday, as posted here, went pretty smoothly. i didn't get a chance to do any printing of the calendar BUT, thanks to BeanPickleSprout, I'll be offering both a desk calendar and a wall calendar. I'm hoping to get to those tonite, if not cut down to photograph.

i've finished up with my sewing lessons and will moving on to the next project! i'm really excited about this because it will be my first "solo" project, so this could get interesting! i'm borrowing a friend's machine, so tonite- after printing i'll trace out the pattern (i can't bring myself to cut it!) and then probably tomorrow at lunch, i'll go get the fabric... probably.

If you're reading this...

I'm hangin tough...

and hopefully getting pictures with the boys! Cross your fingers. Until then... I'll leave you with this.



Have a great weekend- I'll be back on Sunday or Monday with photos.

photo courtesy of nkotbmansion.com

My Day Today

Getting ready to go out of town has always been... not stressful... just full. It might be hard to see, but click on it and you can see how I fill my day today. We will be leaving tomorrow morning to go visit my brother, his wife... and see NKOTB. Yes. You read correctly. New Kids on the Block. It was my first concert and I'll die a happy girl if it's my last. i digress...

Anyway, this is a typical routine for me to do before going anywhere for an extended amount of time. I read a tip somewhere that said to write down the entire contents of your bags when traveling (mostly pertaining to when flying) in case you lose your luggage AND for when you go to repack. Carry your list on your person at all times and you'll always know what's in there and what's not when you get home. This has saved me not only from forgetting items, but in packing as lightly as possible (though it may not seem so judging the Nugget's packing list). This was EXTREMELY helpful when the hubs and I traveled to NYC last year.

My plan is to plug these times into my phone so that I can keep myself on task... let's hope that works.

And... as you'll see... the hope is to get the calendars printed and ready to list when I get home.

Until then... I'll be hangin' tough with Joey, Jordan, Jon, Donnie and Danny.

Content

with some toys and in her highchair. Makes mornings easier.