Three's Company

I added three new items to the shop over the weekend.

I decided to try beading on one of my handbags and this is how it turned out,

I named it ‘In the Sky with Diamonds.’ I suppose it could be called Lucy for short. I used glass seed beads, clear and iridescent which give a beautiful sparkly contrast to the grey fabric behind them.

Here’s a shot of the whole purse. It’s reversible as well, so if you’d like to see more images, check it out in the shop.

This bag is also a new addition; it’s OOAK (One of a Kind). I love the black, white and grey blossom fabric that I used here, and I only had enough to cut for one handbag. So whoever purchases this purse will be the only one with these colour/fabric/button combinations. Check the shop for better photos of ‘Sophie Blossoms.’

I realize both of these additions are very grey, but I’ll be bringing back some old favourites that have sold very well in the past this week. So keep an eye out for those. And, as we’re approaching Easter, I added a very pretty lilac handbag that screams spring.

I’ve named this bag ‘Selah’ which is a classical Hebrew term, the general interpretation is here.

This past weekend celebrated Earth Hour; hopefully everyone was challenged with the amount of electricity and energy we absorb from our planet. Let’s keep up with the conservation, not just one hour a year, but everyday, all day.

A New Design

From the suggestion of one buyer, I’ve created a shorter almost clutch like Pixie purse: The Pixie-Mini. I’ve only made two of these so far, one as a special order and another shown below, that just sold from my shop. I’m a little unsure about making many of these sized bags, since our culture is such a fast moving one where women tend to put a LOT of stuff in their handbags. This one is a little smaller and could fit the essential; wallet, cell phone, keys, lipstick, and a few extras. The strap is quite a bit longer, then the original pixie purse, so it rest's a little lower under your arm.

Let me know if you think there’s still a viable market for the smaller style purse.

I love selling, the 58th sale is just as exciting as the first one.

I’ve got a few more bags that I just finished sewing buttons and snaps onto, which will become available in the shop in the next day or two.

Hope you’re having a wonderful Saturday!

Stocking the Shop

Finally forcing some motivation in the midst of morning sickness and exhaustion to add items to my esty shop. It's a slow and long process of finishing a number of 'works in progress' and photographing, editing, etc etc.

It's amazing how much slower being 24 weeks pregnant makes me, it's a little more difficult getting those perfect pictures, bending and leaning. Tho, I'm enjoying the feeling of my baby boy rolling and bumping around in there, I swear he thinks he's in a mosh pit.

Here's a bag that I'm prepping to list in the shop a little later today, I love the navy fabric. It's got such a great texture to it.

I'm attempting to devise a quirky yet catchy name for this bag.

I'm also a Twitter convert, I've given in for the extra opportunity to promote my creations. www.twitter.com/cryst0

A True Artist

There's almost a responsibility that comes along with the ability to create something, sometimes it's simply to share your creation with someone, or maybe even the responsibility lies in the necessity of a creative vision coming to fulfillment.
Erika Reid has taken it a step further, check out her philanthropic exhibition simply titled the 'Abundant Love Bowl Project.' She has opened a temporary blog to post updates about the project and there's also some fantastic photos of her creations (via a slideshow on the left hand side of her blog). Be sure to check out the newspaper article that depicts the purpose of this project.

An Extraordinary Chapter

Thanks to Gary Kelly's blog, I've found one of the great commercials that have been making me so proud to be a Newfoundlander. Check it out;

I love my home

I live in a small province in Canada that is wildly underestimated by the Canada's other provinces and the rest of the world, sometimes by our own fault and some lack of education. It disturbs me really, the false ideas people harbour about my home. I suppose I am a Newfoundlander at heart, but I'm also proud of the strides our province has been making. I'm grateful for the education I've received and am appalled when people consider Newfoundlanders an under-educated population. Hopefully the future generations will debunk this myth.
But it's so much easier to be proud and passionate about my province when I see such beautiful tourism commercials as those that have been produced lately. This one isn't very recent, and it's not the best one, but it's stunning and captivating.

Sweet Child O'Mine

So my birthday was a few weeks ago. It's hard to imagine that I'm 26 years old, sometimes I forget my age and find myself asking my husband just to be sure. I still think I'm 22 or 23. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was.

The reason I bring up the inevitable aging, is because the beautiful Kara sent me 'via' etsy a lovely gift.

It's so pretty and unique, I LOVE it. And I always love getting surprises in the mail. This piece was made by Gina Zetts, and if you'd like to see more of her work you can visit her etsy shop; http://www.ginazetts.etsy.com/

The pregnancy so far, has left me exhausted, sick and feeling like a whale of a person, because my friends requested the chance to see the expansion of my belly as my sweet baby grows here's a shot taken today, at the end of my 20th week.

Wedding Bells

I suppose it's finally time to post a few shots from the beautiful wedding of my stunning friend Kara that I helped out with in November. There were sooooo many great photos, I wish I had time and patience to post a lot more.

Here's a shot by the hugely talented Rocky Strong, who can be found at rockystrong.com, who was also our wedding photographer. It's hard to believe that he does this simply as a part-time, after-school job!

A fantastic shot of Kara and her husband, Ryan. I love this shot, it's perfect in so many ways. I wish I could be back in town with her and our other friends for a few days, visiting downtown cafes and 24 hour restaurants.

A photo of the bride and myself, after she had finished some family photos, and I had been busy deconstructing the 'reception' area. This is our fun 'Betty Boop' faces, we don't typically make this face for all photos.

Here's her wedding cake I constructed for her. I love the orchids!! She has such fantastic taste in flowers. The entire wedding was blooming.

What the world didn't REALLY tell me about Pregnancy

I admit I am enthused and do look forward to July when the child that’s apparently growing in my belly will come out and meet me, yet there are so many things about pregnancy that aren’t exciting.

I’ve always been the type of person who’s been terrified of throwing up. I can’t imagine anyone being bulimic and causing themselves to heave and feel the horridness of your stomach convulsing as the food you so lovely tasted and chewed comes rushing back up. Yet, every day I involuntary spend time feeling that terrible convulsing of my stomach as I’m reminded of what I did eat, or the fact that I haven’t eaten and throw up the terrible yellow bile that collects in your stomach. Disgusting? Yes, very much so.

Yet, one of the more odd symptoms is what happens to your sense of taste. How is it that a person who truly LOVES coffee in all its beautiful forms and flavours could be positively revolted by the smell and taste of it? I’m floored, I’m dumbfounded. I see people on television cradling their beloved coffee mugs in their hands, feeling soothed by the warmth emitting from the mug as well as the beautiful scent wafting around them, knowing with just a sip the energetic comfort that the brew will give them. I see this, I envy this, but it’s only a memory that I covet. Hand me the same mug, and the only feeling I have is revulsion. It feels like insanity.

Or consider this, I’m an avid chicken eater. Sorry for those of you who’re vegetarian or vegan, but its true chicken was often a main dish in my home. Although I admit, I feel like I may identify with you better these days then any meat eater. I’ve never really loved beef, or pork, but ate it to add variety. Yet, since becoming pregnant, I’ve been completely appalled by poultry. I’ve hardly eaten any meat whatsoever, it could be summed up with simply two pieces of bacon, a small portion of beef roast, and a little of a pineapple glazed ham, within the 3.5 months that I’ve been pregnant. (Yes, I’ve been taking multivitamins, although they do hurt my stomach quite often). How is it that a person who cooked primarily with chicken, who would order chicken at a steak restaurant, would have to spit a piece of it into her napkin rather then continue chewing or heaven forbid swallow the morsel?

I now eat simply toast, potato, cereal, potato chips, and chocolate. And you think ‘what an odd combination of foods’? Yes, but it’s the only things that my stomach and taste buds will allow. I am disgusted by my diet, and daily long for the urge to eat something else, anything else. Sadly, that urge hasn’t yet arrived.

Exhaustion, Migraines, and Dizziness; all of which feel oddly related. How is it that I can be doing absolutely nothing and feel completely drained? And the moment I stand up or walk at a pace faster then a crawl I get terribly dizzy and almost black out. Everything feels obscenely loud, the television, the clock, the snowmobiles whizzing past the house, the alarm in the morning, and then light. Everything feels so grossly bright, offending my brain to the extent of an outrageous throbbing, that lasts and lasts and lasts.

Plus a multitude of randomly odd but apparently common in pregnancy things that make you feel completely unlike your former self. Many of which are seemingly inappropriate to discuss here. Want a somewhat comedic and bold easy read about what you may be about to experience once the stick turns blue or that line shows up; consider reading Jenny McCarthy’s book “belly laughs.” It will amuse you and terrify you at the same time. And that’s exactly what this experience is, terrifying to the point where it also has to be amusing in order to cope with the oddness, and prepare for the months ahead. I’ve refused to think to long on the actual ‘labour’ process, eventually I’ll have to face the reality of it, until then I’ll continue force feeding myself toast and potato, praying for a relief to my diet, or any of the odd eccentricities that are apparently often associated with pregnancy. Little did I know.

It's been a long time

Wow, big surprises, big things in store, and so little energy to continue my established way of living.
Curious?
It seems as though I’ve been hiding from the world for months now, though please be aware that I’m far from ‘hiding’. While I was enjoying a wonderful holiday with friends and preparing for lovely Kara’s wedding, I found out that there is a child in my uterus. This new surprise wasn’t planned, but the husband and myself are excited with the new direction our futures have taken. Shortly after returning home, the dreaded ‘morning’ sickness took over my life. I’ve spent the past month force-feeding myself toast and crackers, eating my prescribed anti-nausea medicine, and pre-natal vitamins, all the while half sleeping half watching television as the days pass me by. Let it be known that I am not a lazy person, but this past while any movements my body makes seems to worsen my nausea. Hence, my little Etsy shop has been neglected. No new items have been added in quite some time and there’s only one item left for purchase. I realize I’ve missed quite a bit of Christmas sales due to my inability right now, but it’s important that I take as best care of myself and my baby as possible. I’m currently 9 weeks pregnant, they say this sickness usually passes around the 10th week, let’s hope that is true. I’m ready to start enjoying my pregnancy, and let out my creative energy.

Away

Well yet again, I've had to set my shop as 'away'. It's sad to feel like I'm not promoting, selling, and stocking my shop.

The Hubber and I are currently 7 hours away from our home, our comfy bed and coffee maker at a conference for his work. Which is somewhat like a holiday for us, seeing we have a lot of friends that we get to see each time we come to one of these conferences. As much as I love to sew and create, and sort and resort through my buttons, sometimes it's kind of nice to force yourself not to obsess over buttons and fabric. At least, since I didn't bring Kenny (the Kenmore sewing machine) along with me, I've no choice but take deep breaths, convince myself that everything will still be there when I go back on Monday.

In happy news, my little corner of Etsy has received over 200 hearts! Another joyous milestone!

In no time it'll be November and I'll have a lovely wedding to lend a hand or two in. It seems like time's flying faster then it used to. I suppose being super busy does that. No complaints though!

Etsy Shop Feature: executeme

I'm so behind with the purchases that I've wanted to feature. I've hit a crazy productive streak and have finally prepared this for my fantastic readers.

I purchased a beautiful pair of earrings (there's still some of these same earrings available) from executeme.etsy.com


Here's my experience with executeme!

I purchased these earrings on September 18th and they arrived on September 29th. Just 11 days for shipping, which is pretty good from the US.

Taking a sneak peek into the envelope.

Beautifully packaged! I really love the simplicity with a great attention to detail! It made me want to keep the box just like that, nice and neat.

Here it is again, the name of the earrings are handwritten on the little tag. There are two stunning business cards included (see a better photo of those at the top of this posting).
I eventually convinced myself to take off the rope and check out the earrings. Safely and snugly packaged!

The photos and description of them on the etsy site are very accurate, the colour is exactly what I wanted!

Here is how they look when you're wearing them! Forgive me, I'm not an 'ear' model, but wanted to give an impression of the real SCALE of them.

Although, I have to admit, I had an idea that my experience with executeme would be a good one, this is actually my 3rd purchase from this shop.

My first purchase were these fantastic red earrings, which are still by far my favorite earrings.

I've also purchased a similar style, for Kara. And keep wishing and hoping that more show up like this, so I can buy them too.

Altogether, a great experience with another purchase! I hope this helps with any purchasing hesitation from this shop!