penguin ornaments

I joined an ornament swap this year and just finished these little cuties. Should I put some in the shop? What do you think?

Did I tell you I bought a globe?

I thought Mr. Typewriter looked a little lonely over there on the buffet and then I saw Miss Globe and thought she would make a good friend for him. So I brought her home and it was love at first sight.

I've also been meaning to make a table runner for the buffet for a long time. I like how this turned out. It has stripes on the other side so when I feel like a change I'll just turn it over.


p.s. the kids also love the globe and have learned where all their cousins live.

a few polls

Hi everyone. I'm trying to get an idea of what might do well in my etsy shop. Would you answer the poll questions on the side bar to help me out? Thanks.

I have changed the first poll so it WILL allow you to select more than one answer.

giveaway winners!

Thanks to all of you who commented and looked at the new shop! The two lucky girls were . . .

Saint Julien's who said: love etsy, love the earings:) The chrysocolla earrings are lovely...If I HAD to pick a fave it'd be those.

and Amanda who said: Congrats on the grand opening. My favorite earings are the apricot pearl clusters. Good luck to you and good luck to me (I hope I win).

I will be emailing you about shipping info soon. Thanks again!

shop announcement and giveaway!

I've finally opened my own etsy shop! Right now it has lots of earrings in it. I wanted to get it up in time for Christmas shopping so you can all buy earrings for your sisters, moms, and wives. As you all know, I like to make lots of other things too. And when I do, I'll make a few extras for the shop. If you want something custom, just let me know!

Of course with a shop opening I have to do a giveaway! So I'll be giving away 1 pair of earrings each to 2 different winners! Just leave a comment on this post including your name, email address, and your favorite pair from the shop by Friday, November 21 at midnight. Ill pick the winner randomly and announce them on the weekend. (If you don't usually comment, it's easy. You don't have to have a blog or a google account. Just click on "name" and type in your name and leave a comment.)

Tell all your friends! And thanks for looking at the new shop!

messy

I'm a messy person. Sometimes I blame it on the kids (and they do contribute to the mess) but if I didn't have them my house would still be a mess. I've been frustrated about it for a while now and found a temporary solution when I hired a neighbor girl to come over once a week and do a big job for me (bathroom, mop all the floors, some job I never get to). As I said it was temporary because we decided it was too expensive.

I've been monitoring myself and realized that I rarely clean up a mess I've just made. I'm always too busy and onto the next thing, usually a project. I hate cleaning up the dinner after I've just made it, even if it's macaroni and cheese. My dining room is usually full of project pieces, sewing scraps, homework, mail, random legos, etc, etc, etc. It's not just my dining table, it's my whole house.

I'm sure I have too much junk, because organizing it is taking too much time, so I've been dejunking lately. But it doesn't really seem to help much. I tried to pare down the jeans in the kids drawers and now they're running out of clean clothes every other day!

Sometimes I just resign myself to the fact that I have to clean and I spend a few hours on it. It doesn't matter what room I've cleaned or how well it's been done, but 30 minutes later it's got something spilled on the floor, or little pieces everywhere, or whatever.

There is a good side to this. Not cleaning allows me to have time to do lots of projects. But I'm starting to go crazy right now and I need some advice from you clean friends out there. How do you keep your house clean? And how much time do you spend doing it? And do you ever have time for anything else? How do you get your kids to help?

ps - some of you have asked me before if there's anything I'm not good at. Here you go. I'm a terrible housekeeper. (There are lots of other things too, but I won't list them all now.)

the house of mouse

I just happened upon this cute etsy shop today. Here are some of my faves.

the beatles

edward scissorpaws

adam and eve

wonder woman

vincent van gogh

back yard

before

after

e.e. is in the house

I've been meaning to do this for a while, since Emily moved here in August. But I've been busy, so I'm a few months late. Now half of my sibs live here! It's really great having cousins and aunts around.

failed attempt

This was going to be the helmet for the space guy, but it turned out to be WAY too big for little Charlie's head.

a video

oh yeah

I was in such a hurry to post costumes and visit friends and family this weekend, I forgot about the yard. Here is the new front yard. Truthfully, it's not a whole lot different than the old one, but much more level and has sprinklers. We will also be adding plants, shrubs, and trees in the spring. (I still don't have pictures of the back (and it's raining right now) but I'll get the back yard on here soon.)