yikes!

Thanks to all of my amazing customers.... I am up to my eyeballs in orders!  Between all my orders, my little ones, my hubby, getting ready for 2 Fall shows and sleeping a few hours a night... I am about to meltdown! :)  So I have put my shop on a wee vacation just to get caught up on orders... and celebrate my son's 2nd b-day! 

The GIVEAWAY is still on.... so enter soon!!!   I will be announcing the winner SEPT 2

Pegged will re-open on Aug 30th! 

I still have about 5 open spots for November wedding cake toppers and there will be plenty of time to place holiday orders.  I will also be posting a holiday preview in a day or two... so check back here and see what cute little ones will be up for grabs this holiday season! 

First Official Giveaway!!!! ***CLOSED***

(This giveaway is CLOSED as of 9/2/11)

Very excited to announce my first official GIVEAWAY!!!!

One luck follower will win these precious bride & groom ornaments!  They stand 2" tall and come on a red satin ribbon.  The color of their hair, bride's flowers & groom's tie can be customized.

How to enter:

1) Follow my blog!!!  (1 entry)

... I just added a 'follow' button to the blog, so hopefully it works! :)

2) Leave me a comment telling me who the ornaments are for

and how you would customize them! (1 entry)

3) Spread the word of this giveaway by your Twitter, Facebook, 

blog or Pinterest! (1 entry)  Just make sure to let me know! 

The winner will be announced on Sept 2!

.... planning on having a giveaway every month until December, so check back often!

Fun New Treasury Feature

Fun new treasury my Harry Potter trio was featured in....

 

'The Boy Who Lived' by QuiltedBlissByNadine

snow fine art photo... TremontMarketp... $25.00	Ginny Weasley Katewheels $5.00	Evil Wizard's t... evietees $23.95	Harry Potter Glasse... Mclaserpro $3.99
Enchanted Golden Sn... glnker $3.45	6" Dark Mark V... thewarped923 $5.00	Deathly Hallows Hor... TheClayPony $20.00	SALE - Wizarding Wo... andreadespot $16.25
Voldemort LEGO key ... boxhounds $10.00	6, DARK IMAGES pend... TheThinVeil $4.50	Two Wizards & a Mud... Pegged $48.00	Stamped No Good Har... Serenitystorms $8.95
Azkaban Prison Neck... MadamePoindext... $49.00	HOGWARTS CREST -cut... TheAppleTailor $11.99	Unicorn's Blood... BehaveLittles $10.00	Platform 9 & 3/4 Pe... oiiseau5 $10.50

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Telephones & Rhinestones Feature

A few weeks ago I was featured on a super cool Canadian blog called Rhinestones & Telephones ... check it out! Thanks Sarah for taking an interest in my shops!

Gift Idea

I am up to my ears in orders (thankfully) but really need to get back to the blog! So while my daughter is at VBS and it is just little cub and myself... I thought I would get in a quick post.

I LOVE homemade gifts and so does my family! Well, at least that is what they tell me because they get a lot! So this Mother's and Father's Day, I made these super cute, easy name pictures with my little ones! But it is a good idea for any holiday or just a special gift.

I went to JoAnn's and bought very large (about 3ft tall) paper mache letter and sprayed them white. They don't have to be perfect because you don't really have any close-ups of the letters.

Then I took A LOT of pictures of each child with each letter and then some together. This was no doubt the hardest part. Not only because it is hard to get a 1 & 3 year old to participate in a photo shoot.... BUT because you need a lot of different shots to choose from depending on how you are going to frame them and I wanted the letters to be somewhat the same size in each shot I used. So overall, it took me about 3 weeks to get all the photos done. About every other way, I would take the kids in the backyard or when we were at the park I would bring a letter and see if I could get any good shots.

One of my favorite pics is the one below.... both children smiling and happy (very rare)! But when I went to choose which shots to use, I realized I needed all vertical shot and no matter how many times I tried to re-shoot the same set up with the kids.... it didn't work! So in the end, I was not able to use it... but I still loved how they turned out!

I also had lots of shots I could not use for other reasons...

In the end, all the grandparents and Daddy loved their personalized pics!

No I have 6 huge letters in my garage and am not sure what to do with them.... but am sure I can figure out something. I am hopefully going to try and do the project again in 5-ish years.... just to have a fun comparison of how much the kids have changed.

ahead of schedule...

this does not happen too often.... but I am actually ahead of schedule right now with my wedding cake topper orders.....SO i can accept a few more orders for July weddings... and then of course still have spots open for August too!

here are a few recent orders... some have not made it to my shop yet but will soon!

mini bride & groom... great for cupcakes or ornaments!

my 'studio'

hi... sorry to have been gone so long.... between an extremely busy wedding season, traveling and a 1 & 3 year old... i have barely been able to keep my head above water!!! but life is slowing down, a bit, so i am able to get back to blogging... yea!

even tho i have been crazy busy with wedding cake toppers.... i have LOVED every minute of it! thank you to all the brides!!! i love the thought of getting to make something you will use on such a huge day in your lives.

changing the subject.... i have been asked a lot lately 'where i do all my work'.... and i then reply 'my home studio.' now at this point i am sure some of you are envisioning those extremely organized, beautiful, organized, colorful, organized, super cute studios you see on blog and featured artists on Etsy.... and in my dreams that is what picture too..

.... but in reality, my studio is really my dinning room, where my husband and i pushed the dinning table against the china hutch and squeezed in a antique drafting table (that my hubby got me for my birthday ... i very much heart it!!!).

Notice the "Time Out" bear chair under my table... i bet you don't see that in a lot of studios! :)

my naked little ones...

stock & displays from my last show.....

my wonderful new paint rack i got from Paint Racks Etc

some current July wedding orders in the making....

little projects to finish in my 'spare time'...

but the BEST part of working in my unglamorous, not so cute, extremely unorganized studio is the little visitor who drop by...