Time for June Free Bling Friday!

It’s Free Bling Friday time! Congrats to May's Free Bling winner, Jan T. from Tallahassee, FL. Congrats, Jan! For June, you have a chance to win this glass tile pendant featuring my “Breathe” photo. You can find the photo itself in my Etsy shop here. It comes complete with a 16” or 18” sterling silver chain, your choice. To be eligible to win June’s Free Bling, simply email me or leave a comment in the comment box by midnight Thursday, July 2, with the subject line FREE BLING and include where you're from. The next winner will be drawn via http://www.random.org/ on Friday, July 3. Don't want to miss a single Free Bling Friday? Click here to sign up for free weekly email reminders or subscribe in the reader of your choice in the right column over there. Click here for the Happy Shack Designs website.

Graduation? Can't Be!

My girls last day of kindergarten is tomorrow. Tomorrow! Can’t be! I can’t believe my girls are soon to be six and going into first grade. So did you get cap and gown pictures when you “graduated” from kindergarten? I sure didn’t! How cool is that!? Though these grins, especially Sarah’s, speak of the “Say Cheese!” variety, when Sarah showed me her picture her biggest concern was that they flattened and covered up her curls. Ah, the vanity of a little diva. Livvie’s been developing her trademark camera smile; she’s quite the ham.

I’ve been reading a lot of Artful Blogging lately and thought about what I would write if I ever submitted an article to them…the whole “why do you blog?” story…and I realized one of the main reasons I blog is for my girls. Sure, this little ole blog is a great way to share my own artistic endeavors, but as you can see, I also tend to ramble on about my girls. I’ve mentioned here before that I never had the opportunity to learn about what my mom’s life was like when I was a kid. My fault I guess that I never thought to ask while I had the opportunity. I want my girls to remember what our lives were like when they were growing up, so really, what better way than to record little snippets of it for them in writing? I came across a website, Blurb, which will turn your blog into a book. I think that is just a fantabulous idea….you can pick and choose which posts you want to include to customize the book to your liking. Isn’t that just the coolest thing? Blurb, you are in my future.

Summery Greens...

I’ve been slowly but surely trying to catch up on my product photography. It’s kinda funny that I love photography, yet I hate photographing my jewelry. It’s drudgery! Part of it is the timing factor….in the past, I’ve just given in to the fact that photographing my jewelry outside in natural light with two little redheads and one very large brown, highly energetic dog underfoot just was not feasible, so I just stuck to using my light tent at night after the girls went to bed. I’m trying to do more natural light shots now, and I love the springy/summery colors in this one. What do you think?

Special Sisters...

I was outside staining some photo boxes yesterday afternoon and walked backed in to find Sarah at her art bench creating this picture for Olivia. She said, “Shhh, Mommy, it’s a secret! I have to finish before Livvie comes back downstairs!” I thought it was so incredibly sweet. People often ask me about the relationship between my girls…if having twins really is different from different age siblings. I can answer with a resounding yes. Certainly my girls have their moments when they fight and argue just like other siblings do, but the bond that I see between them is truly special. If Sarah wakes up before Livvie, she’ll sit quietly downstairs and ask me every five minutes, “Mama, when is Livvie going to get up?” Livvie will do the same if she’s up first. Rarely will they let us separate them. If I head to the grocery while DH heads to Home Depot, they either both go with Mama or both go with Daddy; there’s no splitting up! They come as a team. We now have this huge Pottery Barn sectional in our great room, yet whenever they sit on it to watch cartoons, they are stuck like glue in one corner, side by side, shoulders touching. I’m wondering if this will change when they get older, but I sure hope not.

As for me, I got a call from my own sibling this weekend, my sister Kim. I’m going to be an aunt! Kim and Rob got married in October and are now expecting. When she told me she didn’t expect it to happen this quickly, I asked her, “Well, you know how that happens right?” ;-)

Sunday PostCard Art: Happy Birthday!

Here are the girlies and my entries for this week's Sunday PostCard Art. The theme this week was Happy Birthday, celebrating the Sunday PostCard Art blog’s first birthday. This is really a fun project for us! I like having the prompt to get things started and we all get to spend an art-filled hour together. Order below is Kelly, Olivia and Sarah. You can see all the entries posted in the comments section on the blog here. These also count as this week's entry in Creative Construction's Weekly Challenge whose theme this week was "Sunday". Lucked out on that one!