holiday cards and fresh new photos!

It is now the middle of Thanksgiving which, in my opinion, is prime holiday card buying. We are getting busy at work with lots of orders! And that made me realize that it's time to restock the shop with my cards! Greeting cards are available in boxed sets of six. I'm going to try to take new photos (more about this below) and list individual cards as well sometime next week.



There are also some personalized holiday photo cards. (Thanks Heather, Tracie and Sarah for letting me "borrow" your photos!) You can personalize each set with your family's photograph and order matching return address stickers if you wish.



So, the above photos, are...well...terrible. I know! My lighting at home sucks. I've never had the patience to create a light box, so I set up two desk lamps and have at it. Then, the lighting is SO bad that when I try to correct it digitally it turns in to pixelated mush.

This week, I needed a new picture of my calendar for my work to blog about (my calendars are available in the shop!) We have a great lighting system that I think worked wonders. I still had quite a bit of editing to do, but am really pleased with how the photos turned out.



I've also been noticing photos a lot on etsy and have noticed that most of the front page images are clean, bright, and crisp. I'm hoping that these photos do the trick.

Ideally, I would like to reshoot all of the photographs in my shop, but that might be a task left to next year. I'm thinking that an at-home light box is needed as well as a new camera. But again, that new camera is not really in my immediate future.

quilting madness

This past weekend, I made a trip to the International Quilting Festival with some of my lady friends. It was about 10 million times larger than I had anticipated and extremely overwhelming! Allthough many people were snapping pics of the quilts on display, the signs telling me not to made me scared that I would get in trouble by the quilting police! So, sadly I don't have any of the quilts to share with you, but I did snap a few while shopping around over 1,000 booths of quilting fabrics, notions, and goodies! Next year, I would like to have some projects in mind, so that I can snatch up all of the super unique and awesome fabrics.

happy friday! heartthrob edition.

Yay! It's Friday!

I've recently been watching a lot of Freaks and Geeks and have been reminded of an old Hollywood crush.I thought I would share some other heartthrobs to help get through your Friday.

Jake Ryan from 16 Candles

A timeless classic...


Trip Fontaine from The Virgin Suisides

Definitely not the nice guy, but he'll still melt your heart (and then leave you in the morning.)

Daniel Desario from Freaks and Geeks

Kinda makes me want to relive 1980, or just live in 1980. What a dream.

Do you have any timeless Hollywood crushes?

halloweeney (a bit late) and other ramblings

It has taken me some time to realize that it is now NOVEMBER (seriously, where did the time go?)

This year, I wanted to decorate my house for Halloween and the Fall season, though, getting ready for upcoming shows have forced me to put other craft projects on hold. Christmas is just around the corner and my previous tennant left me a 6' faux tree for me to decorate. Hooray!

Rather than decorating, I had to work on my Halloween costume. I went as Don Draper's lover from Mad Men. Even though Don has a new lady almost every week, most people thought that I was Faye or Peggy. It didn't really matter either way, but I think I did a good job looking like I was at least from that era. My mom helped me with the hair. I (surprisingly) didn't take any photos but was able to grab some from other people's albums on facebook.







Starting the weekend of October 23rd (my first show...pics are coming soon, I promise!) I have had something to do every single weekend and it will continue that way until the middle of December.

Here's how it goes:

This weekend: First Saturday Art Market show and attempting to fix my car with my dad. (I cannot put gas in my car, which is SORT OF a problem....I'm hoping it's just a clogged hose. I'm SO thankful to have a handy dad that can teach me these things!)

Next weekend: My bestie, Erika is coming to visit (I am SOOOO excited about this!)

The next weekend: the WHAM show

The weekend after that: I guess I have that weekend off! But will be getting an oil change and my car inspected at the last possible second before my tags expire.

The next weekend after that: show at Sew Crafty.

And that takes me into December with just a few weeks to complete my holiday gifts, cards (if I get to them this year, I've been totally slacking in that department!) and holiday decorating. Not only is my schedule jam packed in the evenings and weekends, we are getting busy with holiday cards at work! It's really great and is totally putting me in the holiday spirit.

This time of the year is always super crazy, but really fun! Bring it on!