Behind the Camera: Entertaining the Children in Storm Season...

We were supposed to go to north Georgia this weekend to visit my oldest and dearest friend Becky in Atlanta and my great aunt Olivia just south of Chattanooga, but the gods turned against us. See, my magic bus (read minivan, but I’m way too cool to drive a minivan) is acting up. Engine’s running like a top, tires are fine, brakes are fine, A/C is cranking out ice-cold air. So what’s not working, you ask? The radio, the CD player, and most important when taking two five-year-olds on a seven-hour drive, THE DVD PLAYER! Add to that the fact that we couldn't find anyone to watch Isabelle, all the kennels were booked, lovely Gustav and Hanna are churning in the Gulf and the Atlantic, we decided we just better stay home. Which brings me back to entertaining two five-year-olds...(as you see in this picture...)

Earlier this week, I shared pictures and a brief note about our challenges with Tropical Storm Fay as she took up residence over North Florida for three days, and I think I mentioned we lost all electronic means of entertaining the girls. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not a big proponent of TV. I don’t really watch much myself at all (except for Antiques Roadshow and TLC’s What Not to Wear, but that’s another story), but when your children are up by 6am, your DH leaves for work at 6:15am, and you are responsible for getting yourself ready for work, your kids fed and ready for school, lunches packed, taking the kids to school and getting yourself to work on time (which remarkably rarely happens), a little Between the Lions and Max and Maya on PBS can be your best friends. But last week, we had no Between the Lions or Max and Maya for five days. Now grant you, we did get power back after a day but did not get cable or internet back for five days, and there’s just so much Barbie Mariposa on DVD you can take. “Take them outside!” you say. (Did you miss the part about the tropical storm hanging over us for three days?) Oh sure, we’ll take them outside and let them play in the river, which was literally in the backyard.

Public schools closed down the Wednesday before the storm hit, so that meant I either had to take the day off or take the girls to work with me. Luckily, I work in Student Life so taking them to work with me was not that big of a deal…..until I had to keep them entertained. No amount of banner paper, markers, or drawer full of kids’ stuff I keep in my desk would do. Nope, the novelty of being at Mommy’s school was just too distracting. Once they got ALL THAT STUFF OUT, they decided they wanted to play hide and seek instead…in my office suite…under my desk, under my assistant’s desk, in the bathroom, in our workroom. The cuteness factor was even wearing off for my 19-year-old college students working in my office, so by 11:30 am, I gave up and we went home, and we were home the duration of the week. Barbie and friends posing for their photo session in this picture.

While we were able to enjoy a fairly decent day on Thursday, even with rising waters, the storm started hitting us full force Thursday night, and we lost power from about 3 am Friday morning until about Noon Friday. By then the storm was really on us and the water was rising quickly. We resorted to letting the girls watch jaunts of Barbie Mariposa and Little Mermaid between tearing the house apart with toys everywhere while DH and I sweated out the rising waters. We ended up with about an inch of water in the house on the ground floor on Friday, but thankfully we just have a painted concrete floor down there and were able to get everything up off the ground.

Even after the storm passed late Friday, we still couldn’t let the girls get outside too much because we still had so much water everywhere. We live on a narrow island, essentially a road with houses on both sides of the street…the St. Johns River behind us and Brown’s Creek behind our neighbors across the street, and the two literally met. Our house was an island. This picture was taken 48 hours after the storm came through. So we continued with movie marathons, dress up parties, photo sessions, card games and random art projects throughout the rest of the weekend while trying to clean up the mess outside. It was a momentous moment for me: I did not even attempt to pick up inside the house for four days, and I still haven’t really cleaned up yet a week later. We were so grateful for Monday and back to school and work again! Our tides are still not back to normal; we’re still getting about a foot of water in the backyard with each high tide as Gustav and Hanna are gaining strength. Please say a prayer for those Gustav's path. He looks like a whopper of a storm.

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Free Bling Friday! The BIG 5-0 Special!

It’s Free Bling Friday time! Congratulations to Free Bling Friday Number 49 winner, Kate E. from Hawaii! Yeah, Kate! Since the next entry will be my 50th Free Bling giveaway, I’d like to do something special, so here’s the deal. What you see here in the picture is one, yes ladies and gentlemen, just one little sample of what you can win for Free Bling 50. The winner of Free Bling 50 will get to select any pair of earrings currently listed on my website the day of the drawing. Keep in mind that I have a show coming up next weekend, so some of what you see now may not be there after the show, but I have also quite a few pairs that I’ve yet to list! So my promise to you, my lucky winner, will be to have at least the earrings portion of my website completely up to date by the next drawing so you’ll have dozens to choose from! To be eligible to win this special Free Bling, simply email me or leave a comment in the comment box by midnight Thursday, September 11, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. The next winner will be drawn Friday, September 12. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders. Click here for the Happy Shack Designs website!

CC Weekly Creativity Challenge: Wedding

My wedding had several memorable events. The first actually happened about a week before the wedding. You see, my grandmother made my dress, yet three weeks before the wedding, my dress was still just a pile of material and lace in her sewing room. I knew she’d get it done, but it would be a last minute scramble. A week before the wedding, she finished it and asked me to come over and model it for a few of her friends. Everyone oohed and aahhed, and then I went back to her room to take the dress off. It was at this moment that Nana’s dog Penny felt Nana had spent entirely too much time with that dress and not enough time with her, so she promptly took the opportunity to relieve herself on it. Nana hit the roof; I was amazingly calm and told her, “It’s okay, Nana! We’ll take it to the cleaners and they will get it out!” as she chased the dog under the bed. And they did get it out…most of it anyway…there’s still a nice reminder of a stain on the unlining of the train.

And then there was the actual wedding itself. DH called “Time Out!”, football style, smack dab in the middle of the ceremony. During the rehearsal the night before, the pastor really minimized the amount of verbage she gave him at once, so he told her she could give him a little more. Apparently, day of, she gave him a bit more than he could handle. The whole church burst out laughing. All we needed was a whistle and a couple black and white striped shirts.

Post wedding, my best friend Becky actually spent our honeymoon with us! (Too long of story to describe the reasoning behind that! It was a destination wedding!) We were scuba-diving one day, and while DH was taking a break on the boat, Bec and I came up on a small nurse shark. Small to me anyway, being a veteran diver. Becky, on the other hand, freaked. She kept motioning to me and pointing at the shark while flailing around madly. Icould literally hear her through her mouthpiece……(abbrevieated to keep it clean, and she rarely cusses)…” g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark!” DH said he could even hear her words popping out of the bubbles as they broke the surface. Truly, it was a harmless little four-foot nurse shark. Really can’t even take nibble out of you! It was a memorable week….

Go on over to Creative Construction to see all the "wedding" entries, including the pictures I shared with my post.

Fat Book Entry #6: Cowgirls


I had a lot of fun with this one! One of our swap members sent out a great website with all these vintage cowgirl pictures on it. When I saw this one, the old Mae West quote “So many men, so little time...” quickly changed to “So many cowboys, so little rope...” When I showed this to DH, he said, “So were you a little trollop or something when you were younger? The nerve! :-) Don’t you like that word? Trollop? It’s always cracked me up. I kept this design simple because I really wanted to highlight the picture. No faux postage on this one either since I wanted to keep the picture as big as possible. I started by covering my card stock with that fun orange gingham paper. Rather cowgirlish, don’t you think? Then I inked the edges of the photo to make it stand out a little more, placed it on a piece of solid green paper cut with stamp-edged scissors, added a strip of ribbon on one side, my quote on the other, and embellished the rope with little rhinestones. Very sparkly! So far, this one and the Go Go’s Retro entry are my two favorites. Next set of themes are “Snarky Mothers” and “Famous Women”. I’m currently stumped, so send me your suggestions!

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Behind the Camera: Very Soggy, but Still Here!


Yeah, Fay has finally moved on! Fingers crossed for those of you still in her path. Though, heck, she could have died out by now; I haven’t seen the news or weather channel since late Thursday when we lost power. Power came back on midday Friday, but we still don’t have cable or internet at home. A little secret to learn about those HD TV’s: if you lose cable, you can’t even get local stations as those HD TV’s don’t have antennas. Being the weather geek I am, that was torture for me. Here we are with a tropical storm and I can’t watch radar! I live for radar! Anywho, we had quite the little water adventure but luckily came out fairly unscathed. Very soggy, but unscathed. There were a few moments when we thought we were going to lose the boat and the floating dock, but luckily, the tide turned around just in time. You can see my pictures from the storm, with comments, in my Flickr account here.

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Behind the Camera: Tropical Storm Fay

Have you ever wondered how to entertain five-year-old twins during a tropical storm? Well, the cabin fever finally got to DH and he just went outside to tramp around in the river...I mean backyard...and, of course, the girls wanted to follow. So what the heck, we aren’t dealing with lightning and thunder right now, so we might as well let them get outside and burn off some energy. Though I’m not sure how much energy DH pulling them around in the kayak in the backyard is burning. You can click on the photo to enlarge. So far, we’re doing fine. We’ll have some minor (hopefully) flooding, but I don’t think it will get to the stage it was during the back-to-back storms we had in 2004, when it was all I could do to keep DH from paddling his kayak across the street, and we were a mere inch from the water making it into the house. Obviously, we’re out of school today (and haven’t lost power yet), and it looks like we’ll be out of school tomorrow as well, so I’m sure we’ll have a few more shenanigans before Fay leaves us. Hope those of you in the area are weathering the storm okay.

CC Weekly Creativity Challenge: Chocolate


I’ve been playing around with digitally framed TTV photography and created this shot of our chocolate lab Isabelle. I can’t believe she actually sat still long enough for me to catch this portrait. She’s just over a year old, but still a puppy…..a very large puppy. My entry for this week's challenge! Click here to see all the chocolate entires.

Fat Book Entry #5: Independent!

Here’s entry #5 for my Fat Book swap. Since I’m so new to all this stuff, I’m really learning a lot about my “style”. And vintage, it’s not! I’m so drawn to color that when I do stuff that’s not very bright and colorful, I feel like a fish out of water. The topic for this one was “independent”. As you can see, I chose Amelia Earhart. I stuck with the faux postage idea for this one. I covered each piece (remember, I have to do 10 originals of each entry!) with pages of a 1980 atlas, and then added the stamp I created and the embellishments. I think what I do like most about the piece are the quote and the picture. That quote really makes you think, doesn’t it? And she seems happy and ready to tackle the world in this photo.

I enjoyed reading more about Amelia on Wikipedia again. She's such an interesting figure in history. Years ago, I read a fiction work based around Amelia, and I still have it. It’s called “I Was Amelia Earhart”, and it was written by Jane Mendelsohn in 1996. There’s a short excerpt on the back cover that sums up the book: “This is the story of what happened to me when I died. It’s also the story of my life. Destiny, the alchemy of fate and luck. I think about it sometimes, under a radiant sun… Today when I think of my former life, I think of it as a dream. In the dream I am another person. In the dream I am the most famous aviatrix of my day, a heroine. I am Amelia Earhart.” I think I’m going to have to reread it now! Stay tuned for entry #6, Cowgirls. I had a lot of fun with that one! See the rest of my entries so far in the Challenges and Swaps category over there in the right column.

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Wonderfully Scary...Change


Nobody warned me. Nobody told me how hard this would be. But fighting back the tears, I found out first hand how hard it is. I’ve told you that my girls start kindergarten next week. We knew that was going to be a hard transition for them. But in looking toward that, I failed to see how hard yesterday, the last day at their current school, would be. Not for them, but for me. They’ve been at this school since they were six months old…babyhood, toddlerhood, pre-school, pre-K…it’s all been there at this wonderful little faith-based school. It’s all we’ve known. And as I signed them in yesterday morning for the last time, the tears that quickly came caught me a little off guard. I hugged Ms. Mary, thanked her for everything she’s done for my girls this year, and then told her we’d be back to visit. Then I went to see Ms. Barbara. Funny thing about Ms. Barbara. For whatever reason, she moved with the girls every year except this last year for pre-K. She was with them in the baby room; she was with them in the toddler room and the two-year-old room; she and Ms. Belinda were their three-year-old preschool teachers. It wasn’t until pre-K that she was no longer their teacher. Yet every morning when they got there this year, and every afternoon before they’d let DH walk out the door with them, they had to hug Ms. Barbara’s neck.

I have to admit, the first couple of years, Ms. Barbara was not my favorite teacher. She seemed a little hard on the children. But by preschool, I saw how much she truly adored them and they her. Yes, she made them mind, but that was really a good thing, wasn’t it. She helped mold my girls into the well-mannered five-year-olds they are today. So yes, I had to see Ms. Barbara. As I was walking into her classroom, she was sitting down trying to straighten up and prepare for the last big day. When she looked up and saw me, she said, “Oh Lord, not my girls’ Mama, I’ve already been crying enough this morning!” Before she even stood up to give me a hug, we both already had tears streaming down our faces. I wanted to hug a couple more necks but I had to get out of there before I truly started sobbing. Wow. Unexpected…

Change is inevitable. I know that. Yet this thing called parenthood brings in so many new elements to what that change is. I’ve been so anxious for my girls’ making the change, hoping and praying that they’d adjust well, trying to allay their fears by telling them how exciting and fun going to “big girl school” will be, that I completely overlooked my perspective of the change and its effect on me. I sit here today a mother. But not the same mother I was before yesterday morning. A short fifteen minutes of time changed me. I’m sure this happens to all Moms at some point. The realization hits that while we can guide and nurture and hope to mold who our children are, ultimately, there are other people in their lives that at times may have an even greater impact, and we are so incredibly blessed that these people have been in our children’s lives. Those are the Ms. Barbara’s and Ms. Belinda’s, the Ms. Tammy’s and Ms. Mary’s, and the Ms. Gaye’s and Ms. Jackie’s and Ms. Tawnda’s of the world. How do we teach our children to say goodbye when we are struggling so terribly with it ourselves? My girls didn’t see my tears this morning. I know after a week or two they’ll adapt just fine, as children always do. But I know they’ll have tears of their own when this realization hits them…when they have children of their own who face a milestone in this wonderfully scary thing called “growing up”. I pray I’m still around to help them through that day.

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Free Bling Friday Number 49!

It’s Free Bling Friday time! Congratulations to Free Bling Friday Number 48 winner, Nathalie B. from Quebec. Nathalie also has a nice blog, written in both English and French. Go check it out here for your daily French lessons! Congrats, Nathalie! This week’s entry features some fun beads I got in a swap, so I thought they’d be perfect for a Free Bling pair. Yellow/orange disks hang above clusters of green leaves with purple crystals for flowers. This really fun pair hangs just a tad under 2” in length on sterling French wires. As always, if you are this week's winner and prefer posts, just let me know and I'll be happy to switch them out for you. To be eligible to win this pair, simply email me or leave a comment in the comment box by midnight Thursday, August 28, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. The next winner will be drawn Friday, August 29. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders. Click here for the Happy Shack Designs website! My Summer Sale ends today!!

Dreaming of Being a Guitar Hero

Drooling….I have most definitely been drooling over this guitar. I play the guitar and take weekly lessons, which my guitar teacher Gary refers to as my once-a-week-supervised-practice, since Mondays at 5:30pm are most often the only time I pick up my guitar. Not that I don’t want to practice more, mind you! There’s just that whole time factor issue I deal with…that and the fact that whenever I’ve tried to practice at home, I have two little redheads trying to “help” me. Sure, I could practice when I’m home alone, right? Now, there’s a concept! Unfortunately, rarely am I home alone these days. So for now, I’m thankful for my once-a-week-supervised-practice. Actually, my family is not truly convinced I really play the guitar because they never hear me play it at home. When I got home this past Monday, the girls asked me how my “guitar boyfriend” was. I’m sure DH put them up to that. He has all my “boyfriends” categorized. Now should I ever become the singing, guitar-playing sensation I am in my dreams (you know, the same dreams in which I’m married to Jon BonJovi), this is the guitar I will have. It was handmade by an amazing artist from my Etsy for Animals Street team, Isaac Willis of West Corinth Studio. Isaac and his wife Heidi Shaulis are a husband and wife team who work out of their home in West Corinth, Vermont. Heidi paints animals for the most part, with cats being her favorite subject. Using a refined glazing technique she obtains spectacular depth of color in a unique folk art style. Isaac strives to produce the finest handmade jewelry boxes and furniture with the lowest carbon footprint possible…..and of course, amazing guitars like this one. I want it….bad. Any leads on the winning lottery numbers this week? Check out Isaac and Heidi’s work here! You can read more about this guitar and see more pictures of it here. And then be sure to check out the Etsy for Animals store here! 100% of the store’s sales benefit the Etsy for Animals charity of the month.

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Behind the Camera: Nobody Home...

I’ve been getting very interested in a type of photography called Through the Viewfinder (TTV). To achieve the TTV look, you essentially take a picture with a modern camera through the viewfinder of an old viewfinder camera. Or you can use one of the many tutorials available on the web to “fake” it! That’s what I’ve done here. I used a tutorial created by Paul Grand and a free TTV frame by Nesster (you can find both of these guys on Flickr just by searching their names). Do you recognize the picture? It’s the shot I took on Big Talbot Island that I shared with you here. Pretty cool, huh! I will definitely be doing more of this!

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Dreams Revisited

I cross-posted my Insomnia of a Creative Addict post over on Creative Construction, and it generated quite a bit of discussion amongst the group there about dreams and how you achieve them. This group of gals is really extraordinary. I’ve only been a contributor to that blog for about a month now, but I already feel a great kinship with these creative women. I’ve really been enjoying the discussion and all the positive energy over there. Reading the comments on that post made me reconsider my perspective a little bit. Miranda talked about whether or not what she was currently doing was her “life’s work”, and felt that maybe it wasn’t exactly what she dreamed of. Is it what she’d be doing if she won 10 million dollars? No. But then she realized that what she is doing is benefitting the greater good of her clients, many of them non-profits, and that’s very rewarding.

I’m currently in St. Petersburg with my students for a Student Government meeting. Is this what I’d be doing if I won 10 million dollars? Um, no. Then I thought about what I’d do if I did win that 10 million dollars. I’d probably just enjoy life with my family in a nice house on the water where we can pull up a crab trap off the backyard dock and bring up fresh seafood for dinner; or where we can just press a button and plop the boat in the water to take the girls over to the sandbar to hunt for hermit crabs; or where the girls and I can spend hours “creating art”, as they like to call it, in our own workshops. Hmmm…wait a minute! I am enjoying life with my family in a nice house on the water where we can pull up a crab trap off the backyard dock and bring up fresh seafood for dinner, as evidenced by these pictures. And I do live in a place where we can just press a button and plop the boat in the water to take the girls over to the sandbar to hunt for hermit crabs, as evidenced by the 26 hermit crabs currently taking up residence in our aquarium…my Lord, where have Nemo and Marlin gone, and aren't we missing some starfish? And I do live in a place where the girls and I can spend hours creating art in our own workshops, though more often than not, they are still invading my workspace just steps away from their own. :-) Is guess that’s a pretty darn good dream, don’t you think?

And I guess while I may be experiencing some career burnout causing me to consider making a change, I do still have a pretty darn good job. I know that I have the ability to make a huge positive impact on the lives of these students (and I know that at least one of them regularly reads this blog...maybe one day she'll actually make a comment!). Am I stretched for time? Most certainly. Would I love to venture into new territories with my creative endeavors? Absolutely, and I will. It might require a little time restructing, but I will. Will I go back to school to further investigate my art therapy idea? I’m definitely looking into it, but you know what? If I can’t work it out, it’s really okay, because overall, those comments made me realize that in many ways, I’m already living a dream. Wonderful family, happy home, and dolphins in the backyard. How can I truly ask for more? How about you? Maybe you are already living pieces of your dreams too….

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Etsy for Animals Treasury

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Here’s another fun Treasury I was included in..top row middle! This one includes members of Etsy for Animals, which I told you about here. Special thanks to theknottysheep for including me in this! I particularly love that cute little mouse by TheHouseofMouse in the top left. Please go check out their shops as well as the Etsy for Animals store, where 100% of all sales go to the EFA charity of the month.

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Headed for the Front Page: Maddox Studios

I met another lovely Etsian late last week, Amanda of CaptureCapeMay. She’s a wonderful photographer! There’s been a lot of talk on the Etsy forums lately about the same artists being featured over and over again on the front page, so Amanda started a thread looking for people who’ve never been on the front page. Heck! Before this past week, I don’t think I’d ever even been included in a treasury, much less on the front page, but as luck would have it, I’ve been in two treasuries this week! I’ll share the second one with you tomorrow. Anywho, Amanda and I have been chatting and we’re going to feature some of these unknown artists on our own blogs, so here’s my first entry. Isn’t this a lovely shot? It’s by Erin over at Maddox Studios. She’s a stay-at-home mom who also makes jewelry; her husband does some illustrating as well. Go take a peek at what they have to offer!

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Summer Sale Extended!


I’ve listed quite a few simple pendants over on my website. Since I’ve been so behind in getting my website updated, I’ve extended my Summer Sale through August 15. Of course, if I’m still behind on getting listings posted by August 15, I could extend it yet again… Go take a peek!!

Insomnia of a Creative Addict


Note: Written at 2 am this morning..in my stupor, I forgot to post!.. Do you ever have so many creative ideas running through your brain that they keep you up at night? Thus is the insomnia of a creative addict, and it has descended upon me tonight. I’ve been laying there in bed thinking about how I’d like to revamp my website, how I can rework current projects to use for other secondary ideas, how I can change up my product pictures, how I’d sure like to sew some fun little dresses for the girlies, and most importantly, how I can find the time to carry out all the new ideas I’ve been dreaming up…

Mixed media, photography, jewelry design, 2-D art, 3-D art, fiber and textile arts, what have you... At one time or another, I have tried or wanted to try every bit of it. Sometimes that drive to create is so strong that it truly does keep me up at night. I read through the profiles and stories of the women over there on Creative Construction and I wonder how they manage to do it all without losing just a little bit of their sanity. Hmm…maybe that’s the key! You do have to lose a little bit of your sanity to do it all! I know many of my friends would agree I lost mine a long time ago.

At times, I’m envious of stay-at-home moms, whether they work from home as Mom or in another field on top of being Mom. I’d like to think I’d have a little more time to create if I were in their shoes, at least while the kids are in school, yet something tells me those of you in that situation might disagree. So maybe whether we work inside the home or out, we all face the same challenges, just in a different form?

So do you make a change? How do you make a change? I’ve been thinking about it, just don’t know quite how to go about it. Sometimes it seems we get trapped in our own little situations and can’t figure out a way to get out. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. Given the time, I think I could make a go of my creative endeavors full time, whatever form those creative endeavors may take. Yet there is a mortgage to pay and kids to raise, so for now the idea of me quitting my day job scares the heebie-da-jeebies out of me, not to mention my DH (yes, that’s a technical term, heebie-da-jeebies; either that or I've been watching too much Madagascar with the girls...“I like to move it, move it; you like to move it, move it; we like to move it, move it....Move it!” sorry, it’s 2am...). I’ve been trying to make the switch to teaching full time, which would give me much more time, yet with the changes and new programs being added at the College, that just might require a doctorate degree before too long. I’ve given quite a bit of thought to that whole going back to school thing, and I’ve realized that if I went back to school, it probably wouldn’t be to earn a doctorate in English or Higher Education. You know what I’d love to pursue instead? A master’s degree in Art Therapy. A good friend of mine and I have long had an idea in our heads about a program combining art therapy, music therapy and pet therapy. She’s a counselor, collage artist, and dog lover; I’m an I’ll-try-anything-once artist, musician and dog lover with a strong public relations background. Just dreaming here, but haven’t big things come from little dreams?

What are your dreams and what are you doing to reach them? Tell me your secret dreams, and maybe you’ll give me a kick in the pants to chase mine. Or maybe you’re already living your dream. How’d you get there? Do tell! Inspire the rest of us! In the meantime I’m going to try to get some sleep…while I think about designing a new journal cover…and that cute little polka-dotted peasant dress…and that mixed media piece featuring Isabelle (hopefully you will see this picture again in another form!)…and, oh yes, I guess I do need to get some new jewelry designs made since I have four major shows coming up this fall…and…oh, what the heck! Who needs sleep, right!? I’ll just hop in my Magic Bus and go get some Red Bull…

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Yeah! I'm in an Etsy Treasury!

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Yeah! I was selected for an Etsy Treasury! Yippee! Thanks so much to DeepSeaFibers for including me. That’s one of my pendants in the top right corner. This Treasury will expire about 2am Friday night/Saturday morning, so you may miss it, but if not, go take a peek here! My Summer Sale is happening in my Etsy store as well as my website, so go take a peek there!

Free Bling Friday Number 48!

I had a bit of a blonde moment on the last Free Bling post when I said the drawing would be a week later than the registration deadline. Um, doh! So now it’s really time for Free Bling Friday today! Congratulations to Free Bling Friday Number 48 winner, Aimee R. from Shawnee, KS. Aimee has a fun little blog, too. Go check her out here! This week’s entry pairs fun little polymer clay blue roses with light blue chalcedony briolettes and peridot Swarovski crystals. They are very swingy! They hang nearly 2” on sterling French wires. As always, if you are this week's winner and prefer posts, just let me know and I'll be happy to switch them out for you. To be eligible to win this pair, simply email me or leave a comment in the comment box by midnight Thursday, August 14, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. The next winner will be drawn Friday, August 15. I'm trying something new with the comment box here, so if you register that route be sure to check back to see if you've won if you don't have a blog I can link to and find your email address! Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders. Click here for the Happy Shack Designs website! My Summer Sale is in progress!