Tuesday Treasury Shout Out: Mouflon and Handmadeology

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Thanks so much to Sarah of Mouflon for including items from all three of my shops in this beautiful treasury!  My Peach Blossoms bracelet is first row second spot, my "Reaching Skyward" photo is second row fourth spot, and a couple of my destash polymer clay roses are bottom row second spot.  Sarah is in Ireland and is a fellow member of the Handmadeology team.  Take a look at her beautiful shop here.  Thanks again Sarah! 

A Peek at our Easter in Pictures

Easter Egg Hunt at Ticondaroda Farms in Virginia

Hitting the slides at Ticondaroga Farms

See Saw fun at Ticondaroga Farms

More See Saw fun at Ticondaroga Farms

Leading the Easter Bunny to Kim's front door
And the reason for our visit to Virginia...
My baby sister Kim had a baby girl!  Meet Maxine Amelia!
God Bless.  I hope your day was beautiful, however you celebrated it. Click on any photo to enlarge.

Mix It Up Monday: Bluebells and a Peek into My Insanity


How the heck are you? It's been a little crazy around here, so I've been a bit slow on the blog front!  Here's a new piece I created, ready for my next Spring show; I call it Bluebells. I love incorporating these lucite flowers into my Bling Bracelets. It gives them a whole other dimension.  I get so lost in creating Bling Bracelets that I cranked out four yesterday afternoon before I even realized it! 

Between work and my art, April and May are my two busiest months of the year. I have four major work events in April and May, and three of them are actually my biggest events of the year.  April 7, we had our annual Student Government Spring Fling, where I dished out 800 slices of pizza in less than two hours.  It's essentially just a huge gathering on the green, where we provide food, music and a year-end party-type atmosphere.  Next up is our annual college-wide High Honors Luncheon, which is tomorrow. This is for all the graduates completing their degrees with high honors or summa cum laude. The most stressful part of putting this gig together is that all the top brass of the college attend, so we have to make it all look flawless.  In the midst of all this, I'm preparing or our annual campus Student Awards program April 28, where we'll be giving out individual awards to nearly 75 students. 

And then there's the granddaddy of them all: Commencement.  Imagine the task of getting approximately 1,500 students lined up and into their seats on the Arena floor, getting them all across the stage, and getting them back out....in less than three hours...without a rehearsal.  This year we've added another twist to it as we are combining ceremonies.  In the past, we've had a morning ceremony that included all our credit programs, i.e. associate's degrees and bachelor's degrees, and then an afternoon ceremony that included our non-credit programs, i.e. adult high school, GED, and technical and career certificates. This year, our president has decided he wants everyone in the same ceremony.  Thus my estimate of 1,500 students... Last year we had 1,097 in the first ceremony and 284 in the second, and our enrollment has grown dramatically over the past three years.  I actually wouldn't be surprised if we end up with more than 1,500. I'll be a very happy camper about 3pm on May 7 when the big show is over! 

To add to the stress of the big show, we do a Bachelor's Breakfast the morning of the ceremony on the upper concourse of the Arena. The breakfast is at 9am; the ceremony starts at 11am. RSVPs started coming in to me today.  And don't even get me started on the college's current Institutional Effectiveness process and my process team leader self....  My brain is fried. 

Then there's the fun stuff. My first big spring show was the last Saturday in March in Tallahassee.  Springtime Tallahassee is actually my favorite show of the year because it's such a fun atmosphere, and I get to see lots of old friends.  Next up is the Tifton Love Affair Fine Arts Festival in Tifton, Georgia, April 30-May 1.  Mermaids and Mamas Artful Adventure 2011 is May 14-15 (space still available!), and I've gotten a request to do a second Mermaids and Mamas for a private group June 4-5.  And I have all these book ideas floating around in my head, and my book table is all set up crying for attention! 

And then there are those two little redheads and that darling husband of mine to work into the mix.  Thankfully my girls are getting to the point where they are great little workshop helpers, and my DH is one heck of a van-loading machine, not to mention our chef extraordinaire (without him I'd be a LOT skinnier).  You may say that I bring this insanity on myself.  Partly maybe. The work-related projects are simply part of my responsibilities at the college.  Now the fun stuff, sure, that's done by choice. But I think without the fun stuff, the work stuff would really drive me insane.  Capacity...it's all about capacity.  I started getting off on a really long tangent about capacity and art groups and Facebook groups and overcommitment by technology, but I'll save that for another post.  For now, I just need a nap. Bring on Summer. Tell me about your crazy world so I can take a break from mine!

i-Hanna Postcard Swap


My track record with postcard swaps is not the best.  I've participated in five now.  One of the five, I never managed to get my card out (and didn't receive one either, thankfully!), and of the other four, I only received one card. But what the heck, I'm a glutton for punishment, so I thought I'd try again!  This time I participated in i-Hanna's swap.  Hanna's in Sweden, and I love to read her blog.  We were to create 10 postcards and then she sent each of us a list of ten people to send our cards to.

There are more than 1000 cards crossing the globe!  Of my ten, six were sent out of the country.  Here I've shared my top three favorites of the 10 I made and sent off on their merry way.  I stuck with the same basic theme since, as is par for the course for me, I waited until the last minute to get them done!  I wanted to do some sewing on them but I never got that far.  You can see all 10 of the cards I created in this Flickr set. I'll share the postcards I receive soon! Hopefully I'll get 10 back!  How about you?  Any good postcard swaps to recommend?

Tuesday Treasury Shoutout: PetCollage and Etsy for Animals

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Don't you love all this pink!?  I'm definitely a pink girl.  Thanks to PetCollage for curating this pinkalicious treasury featuring Etsy for Animals team members.  What, you don't see my photography or my jewelry included here?  Nope, what you do see though is an item from my supply shop, second row, second spot . Yep, I have such a wonderful overflow of supplies that I needed to set up a supply shop to destash some of it.  I add to it about once a week when I get the opportunity to photograph my extra bounty.

Hop on over to PetCollage's shop here.  I love her custom collage below.  Visit this treasury in all it's clickable link glory here, and be sure to visit the Etsy for Animals blog here.  

April and May Free Bling!


Time for Free Bling Friday! Random.org picked comment number 37 as the winner of March's Free Bling, so congratulations to Katy from Pennsylvania!

I have a crazy couple of months coming up, so I'm combining April and May's free bling giveaway.  How about my "Coming Up Daisies" photo on a 1" glass tile. The pendant comes complete with a silvertone ball chain cut to the length of your choice. To be eligible to win, simply visit either of my Etsy shops (here for jewelry and here for photography) and leave a comment in the comment box below with the link to your favorite piece along with a way to reach you and where you’re from by midnight Thursday, June 2. Want more entries? Tweet, blog or Facebook this giveaway and leave another comment with the link. The next winner will be drawn via random.org Friday, June 3. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email updates or subscribe in the reader of your choice over there in the right column. And be sure to join my Facebook Fan page for Fan specials. Thanks for stopping in!

Howdy Folks! Meet Mater!


Happy Mix It Up Monday evening to you!  Last weekend, we drove up to a conference in Atlanta for me to accept an award.  I received the National Programming Advisor of the Year award from the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities.  I was totally shocked and quite honored!  DH kept calling it my "major award" and wanted to know if I was going to get a leg lamp.  Some of you will get that.  The rest of you need to watch the movie The Christmas Story.  :-)  We love to take the back roads when we travel, much more interesting stuff to look at, and we found this guy in a junkyard in south Georgia.  Blog friends, meet Mater!  Mater, say hello to my blog friends!  "Howdy, folks!"   

For those of you who've seen the movie Cars, you know who Mater is.  We are big Cars fans around here, and Mater is by far my favorite character in the movie.  When I saw this guy, I was "happier than a tornado in a trailer park," as Mater would say, so we had to stop so I could photograph him.  The girls said, "Look, Mama!  Mater found his cover!"  You see, in the movie, Mater has lost his hood, but whoever painted this fella captured Mater's eyes perfectly.  The side of the truck reads "Tater's Towing," but I think it's been a while since this fella has towed anything. You can find him in my Etsy shop here.  Now, I'm off for my Monday night Antiques Roadshow date with DH!