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Thursday, March 24, 2011

New designs in the shop!

Woo hoo! I'm so excited about 2 new designs I've added to the shop!

Here they are:



Glass Marble rings and Wall decor- these are very very recent ideas that I was able to make- and there is more on the way! I'm so happy to be able to add new things to my shop. I feel like I'm finding my niche. :)

Hope your week is going great! Its almost Friday, yay!

Have a fantastic day.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Friday Finds

Sorry its been a bit quiet here lately, I've been crazy busy. I'm working on some new designs for the shop, and we are house hunting! Its really exciting. We think we found our place. *Fingers crossed!* The blog kinda gets put on the back burner when I'm busy like this. Sometimes I wonder if I'm talking to a handful of you, if that? Oh well, I have wanted to do this for so long, so I'm not gonna give up now. :)

(---->If you are reading this, thanks! You rock.<----)

Happy Friday! I love Fridays. I'm stoked because I have an Aunt and Uncle driving through in about an hour and I get to visit with them! They live in Nebraska so I don't seem them too often. It'll be nice. Other than that, my hubby is on spring break (he works for a University) for the next week so we're excited!

On to the finds.

how cute is this gnome hand towel!? eek! found: here


this print by my husband is so awesome! i love it. :)


i can't remember the source for this, but i really want to make one for my daughter's room!


this artist recently bought a bow from my shop, so i checked out hers and was blown away by her papercut art! this piece is so amazing.


this travel journal by susie ghahremani is so sweet. my mom always had us fill out journals when we went on vacation. :)


Well I better run, have a fantastic Friday! :)

Monday, March 14, 2011

Stickers for Emma

I clicked over to Melissa's blog today, and read through a few posts to find a story I wasn't expecting. It's about a girl named Emma. Emma is 11 years old, and is currently undergoing chemotherapy for a growing tumor in her face/neck/head. It is very odd timing that I found this today, as I was thinking just this morning about a high school classmate who passed away about a year ago from cancer. His name was Clif Aldridge, and his mother was my drama teacher my freshman year. I didn't know him very well, but anytime I saw him he was smiling and very friendly to me, and others. I was thinking about him today and how sad it is that he died so very young (at 24 years old). I pray for his family, and for Emma and her family as well. There is so much more I wish I could do.

Luckily enough- Melissa has asked that people send Emma stickers (she loves to collect them) and get well cards. Here is her address if you feel inclined to do so:

Miss Emma Love

PO Box 2849

Burleigh Waters, QLD, 4220

Australia


Melissa is also talking about helping Emma's mother make beanies/bandanas for the hospital where Emma is receiving treatment. (more on that below)

Here is Emma's story (as told by her Mother, Leanne):


In July 2010 our 10 year old daughter was diagnosed with a tumour in her face/neck/head. This is not the sort of news any parent needs to hear.

Emma went in for surgery to remove the tumour on the 9th of September and after a mammoth 10 hours we finally got to see her. The surgeons were hopeful that they had managed to remove 99% of it unfortunately it had wrapped itself around the carotid artery so they could not get it all. They did however tell us that it was a possibility that it would not grow anymore and just lay dormant. This was definitely our wish.....


She had her next MRI scheduled for beginning of November which would show us if it had grown. In November we had her back to the hospital as her jaw was not healing where they had broken it so she then went back under to have the maxillofacial surgeons repair it again. Surgery was successful and we were home two days later (minus a few teeth and a little less jaw bone) the teeth and jaw will be fixed further down the track.

On the 21st of December Emma complained of a lump appearing in her temple. Both Stuart and I were hopeful that it was just a haematoma or something similar but deep down I think we both knew what it was. Emma went in for a biopsy the following day.

Results would not be available until after Christmas so at least we could get through Christmas in denial and thinking all is ok.

It is a tumour again....... It has grown back to 70% of its original size within 6 weeks. They are not going to operate this time as they would prefer to see if chemotherapy would work. She was due for her first treatment on January 5th, just one day after her 11th birthday.

The treatment had been going well and Emma did not suffer any major side effects apart from the odd feeling of nausea. She had 8 weeks of chemo when she noticed a lump in her cheek. Yep you guessed it, here we go again! They took another MRI and confirmed that the tumour had now moved down into her cheek, which meant that the current chemo was not working. On the 7th of this month Emma was admitted to the Royal Children’s Hospital where she underwent a stronger dose of chemo. This one is given to her once a day for 4 days per month and will last for a total of 5 months. Both of the chemicals that she will be receiving list hair loss as the most common side effect. She has started to lose a tiny bit and has already picked out the wig that she wants.

She is a tough little girl and is hoping that if we all get together we can make heaps of beanies and or bandanas, that we can donate to the Hospital. They do have a few but they are very old fashioned and not very appealing to children. Emma wants to see fun bright colourful funky ones for the children to pick from.

We managed to get a big smile from her this week as she finally got her first Blythe Doll. And so the addiction has begun..............

Saturday, March 5, 2011

I ♥ Birds

This makes me laugh. :)



Have a great weekend, and remember- just put a bird on it!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

BLACT'S!

Last night I made Year-Round Corn Chowder for the first time, from the recipe in Hands-Off Cooking. It's the third recipe I've made from this cookbook. It was really easy to make and yummy, but it was really thyme-y, is that a word? Haha. Next time I will use half of the thyme that it calls for. I should also add that I scored this book for $5 at Big Lots! So cool.

Anyway, I bought already-cooked bacon for the recipe.. And had some leftover today, so I knew I wanted to make a BLT. But I wanted it to be fancier. I read on allrecipes.com that some people make BLT's with avacado and I wanted to try that.. But with a variation.

So I made a BLACT. What is a BLACT, you ask? A Bacon, Lettuce, Avacado, Cheese, and Tomato sandwich! Phew, that's a mouthful. (A delicious one!)
:)

Here's how I made it. I fried a couple slices of bacon for just a couple minutes in a pan, then took it out and let a paper towel soak up the extra fat. I put some butter on one slice of Italian bread, then stacked up provolone cheese, the bacon and sliced tomatoes on the other side of it. I then slathered it up with mayo, then put the other piece of bread on top. I added butter to the top slice. I grilled on both sides until golden-brown. Then I removed it from the pan, opened the sandwich, and added lettuce and avacado pieces.

And this is what it looked like:


I also had Kettle Brand barbeque chips- SO good. And a Roy Rogers to drink. :)

YUM YUM YUM!

I'll probably have another one for lunch tomorrow. I don't mind eating the same things over and over. Do you?

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Happy March 1st! (And Music Monday, on a Tuesday)

It's March already!?!? I can't believe it. The sun is shining, its a new month, and spring is almost here! There is a lot to be excited about. :)

I wanted to announce that the winner of the giveaway is Jill Kozlowski! Congratulations Jill!

I'll be having another giveaway soon, so stay tuned for that.

I'm anxiously awaiting the mail each day, because I have zippers coming! (Its like Christmas morning whenever I get a package with new zippers or fabric, haha.) New pouches will be on the way very soon. I'm excited to get sewing. If you are ever in need of genuine YKK zippers, Jennie from Zipit is a fantastic seller. She is very friendly, ships everything super speedily, offers bulk discounts and has a great assortment. :) Check out her shop!

Well I'm off to drink my iced Mocha and listen to some Sufjan Stevens with my son. I'm so obsessed with his All Delighted People EP. AMAZING. I also like that he's sings about God and Jesus. That makes me really happy. I'm just going to "out" myself right now. I'm a Christian and I love the Lord. Not gonna try to hide that at all. :)

Here are videos (really just the songs) of "Enchanting Ghost", "From the Mouth of Gabriel", and "All Delighted People (Classic Rock Version)" by Sufjan, from the EP I mentioned. Enjoy!







Have a fantastic day!