I'm so excited!

Tooting one's own horn isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but honestly, this kind of thing doesn't happen every day (not for me anyway)...

I am so excited and thrilled and flattered about this I just have to share!

My simple little Salt and Pepper Tags were picked by Country Living Magazine editor Katie Woolsey when Etsy's Storque asked her to be a guest curator.

Exciting in itself, for sure, but earlier this morning, when I did my daily run through Google Analytics, I see "countryliving.com" as a referring site to my shop...

Click here to see the slideshow on the CL website....

I am definitely not used to this kind of attention, so please forgive me while I act like a complete Yahoo...carry on...

P.S. There are some really nifty choices in Katie's story...Lots of shops I wasn't familiar with, but I have been a big fan of Yeehaw Industries for quite awhile. Their election posters last fall were the funniest things I have seen in a LONG time!

Oh well, back to the usual Manic Monday...Have a great day!!

Until Next time,

Meet the Bowheads...

Thought I'd give you a sneak peak of things I'll be working on while I'm watching the Survivor finale tonight (now that the "Dragonslayer" is gone- thank goodness- I don't care who wins, but I still have to watch) .

These girls are almost done....Remember back in the 80's when we all used to wear those hair bows on our pony tails?

I suppose it might have just been a Texas thing, but the girls who wore those ribbons were called "bowheads", for obvious reasons...so when I found these sweet baby doll stamps, the first thing I thought: "look, bowheads!"


OK...they don't all have bows.
There's a hat or two and some sort of head dress (feathers?), but they all have some sort of accesory on their noggins...


Every group has its' rebel, though. In this case she's a rebel without a dress as well as a hair bling...

I guess when you're brave enough to go to the party nekkid, you don't need no stinkin' bow...

Wonder if that's why she's my favorite?

Until Next Time,

Oh.My.BLEEP.BLEEPity.BLEEP. Goodness.

As Charlie Brown might say:

AR-RR-GGGG-HHHH!!

Being the optimist that I am, I tend to think that nothing will ever go wrong with any of my online ventures. Someone forgot to send that memo to my blog....

As you can see, we've got a whole new look going, not by choice.
But I am really happy with it nonetheless.

I just have to say a few things.

1) Picnik ROCKS!

If angry Kitty at the top of the post is my "before" shot, happy Molly (only the best poochie in the entire universe!) is my "after". I made the banner and all of the buttons with picnik's editing tools, and they were awesomely easy to make...

Let me stop right here to add that it is WAYYYY past my bedtime, so if I sprinkle this post with a few too many "awesome"s and "Super!"s, you know why...

2) There are TONS of great blogger tutorials out there, all to be found with just a few keystrokes and Google!

Blogger Busters was my fave, with tons of different tutorials on almost any change you can think to make to your blog. I just hope that if you decide to make changes, it is by choice. Not by necessity, like me.

It was a heck of a way to spend a VERY pretty Friday...
And that's all I've got to say about that.

Until Next Time,

The Forever House....

Happy Tuesday, fellow bloghoppers!

Many thanks to all for the overwhelming well-wishes and kudos sent to Mr. Sunshine since his return last week. Your kindness is one of the many reasons I love this little handmade online community we're all citizens of...

One thing I did very little of during Mr. Sunshine's deployment was to just sit down and start to paint....whatever came to mind....

There was a time when painting was ALL I did....

That started with his first deployment in 2004.

In between then and now, there was a move or two (or three), some health problems for both me and Mr. Sunshine (and a few other family members), the loss of my Father, and a second deployment . Major creative mojo killers taken individually, let alone racked up, one on top of the other in quick succession.

So it has been a long time since I just sat down and exhaled, releasing everything- the tension, obligations, the pressure to make something with selling it in mind- and just creating for me, myself and I...

I have always, always, been fascinated with houses.

I paint them often. Cute little cottages, folk art inspired saltbox houses, houses for critters (barns), houses for worship (chapels). I think every painter has a favorite subject, like winsome little girls with big eyes, still life florals, whimsical animals, and on and on. Mine is houses.

We moved often when I was a child, and each new house was an adventure, a new start. Maybe it was the new color I got to paint my room every time we moved, I honestly don't know...but moving did not bother me that much...


As an adult, I have lived in many, many houses...not so much of an adventure anymore and new starts are over-rated, specially when you have teens who don't consider this lifestyle exciting.

Some houses I have loved, others I have loathed. But each has contributed at least one tick (some positive, some negative) to my mental check list of what the "forever house" (the one we move into after Mr. Sunshine retires from the military and hopefully NEVER leave again) will, and maybe more importantly, will not have. I pity the poor Realtor who has to deal with me in a few years...

Anyway, I sat down last night and just painted. When I did, of course what naturally came out of the brushes was this wee little purple house.

I sketched a series of three small canvases, all featuring (of course) a house or two, connected by the yellow brick road you see above....

A happy, simple little painting....
this is what happens when I exhale...

How about you?
What is your "happy, just for you" crafting groove?
I would love to read all about it....

Until Next Time,

Moving Right Along....

I promised a few pictures from my new studio....

OK "studio" is a very ambitious word, but I sure like the sound of it, much more so than "work room" which is what I suppose my space really is. Just humor me, if you don't mind too much...My studio is turning out quite nicely, I do believe...

I have a love of all sorts of old "stuff ". If you ask Mr. Sunshine, he would not call it stuff, but as this is a g-rated blog, I won't go there. I'm known to bring home all sorts of misfit bits and pieces, parts of things, somehow separated from their original homes....shutters, dresser drawers, things that even I have no clue as to what their original purpose was. Often I never figure out what the heck to do with these "treasures" (every time I use quotation marks , that's an example of a term that my very patient husband would describe very differently...let's just say one woman's treasure is another man's junk...) and eventually I pass them on, hoping that a kindred soul will find them and help them find a new purpose. I know I'm not the only one of my kind....I suspect some of you might also be secret "stuff" collectors as well...

One of my favorite finds has found a home in my studio.

This is an old cash register drawer, turned upside down and obviously hung on the wall.

Perfect little compartments for all sorts of vintage bits and pieces...

...one of my favorite dollies (made by my friend Chrisi at Sugar and Spice ) and illustrations from vintage Dick and Jane type books (purchased from Chloe Rose Designs )....

I like these old watercolor trays...don't ask me why because I'd say "I just do"...such a bad answer, but some things just are what they are....

The trays that at one point held tens and twenties now serve as storage for my growing collection of vintage children's playing cards (my friend Kath often has these in her shop: I NEED that )....

... close up of my Fisher Price Learn to Tell Time Clock...as a little girl, I played with this til I broke it, but it still looks great! I love the graphics and the colors... fond memories attached to this old toy...

Run Forrest colored Bunnies, Run!!
Another post Easter clearance steal...not sure what I will do with these guys. Remember what I said about the watercolor trays? Ditto....

And I did manage to get a few of those smile inducing plates hung up...this is only about half of them...guess my eyes were bigger than my wall space....

Another found treasure that never had a purpose....
I *think* I got this sweet pale pink glass bowl from my step Mother. I have held onto it through many a purge (remember, I move, on average, every two years... we purge allot!) just because (I seem to do allot of that, don't I?). It's so pretty (the photo does not do it justice) and now it has a purpose- to hold the "thank you" tags I include with every order. It's nice to have them in an easily accessible spot...

And since the theme of this post is turning out to "just because", I'll include a pic that I have no dialogue for, just thought the ribbons were pretty, all lined up like that...and hey, any pic with a touch of Disney is OK by me....

Hope you enjoyed my little photo tour....I am hoping to have some new tags to share with you later this week (and if we're very lucky, maybe even some "welcome home" pics of Mr. Sunshine- how's that for dropping a bomb and running?)....

Until Next Time....

In Case You missed it...

Just in case you are a big LOST fan like me, here's an amusing little recap of last night's Episode...Still working on getting unpacked and settled...will have some new photos to share this weekend...Until then, enjoy!

Sometimes LIFE just gets in the way...

Soooooo.......

Where to begin?? With an apology seems appropriate....So sorry to all of my blogging friends....what was supposed to be a brief vacay turned into an extended absence with no explanation...go ahead, call me a bad blogger- I can take it....

I'll just pick up where we left off , shall I? In an abbreviated version, of course....I will "Cliff note" the past two months (has it really been two whole months??)...

As of my last entry, dated February 13th, Mr. Sunshine had gotten home and we were enjoying some much needed, highly anticipated family time. The next day (yes, Valentine's Day), my one true love, not being acclimated to an Upstate New York winter, forgot where he was and entered a foot race with Junior (you see where this is going, don't you?)....boychild won and Mr. Sunshine got the booby prize- a spiral fracture of his right ankle, courtesy of a nice little patch of black ice.... I have pictures of his swollen and bruised appendage, but I won't go quite that far (you are welcome)...

Needless to say, I got to play nursemaid to a cranky soldier who had come home from a war zone after nine months without so much as a scratch, only to slip on a patch of ice five days after his return and fracture his ankle. The good news is that he had to stay home an extra three weeks, so instead of eighteen days, we got him for almost a month.

But all good things come to an end and Mr. Sunshine did return to Iraq. At this point the countdown is in the double digits, less than a month to go and he should be home for good....

Yes!Which brings me to part deaux of my excuse note....another big thing that happened while Mr. Sunshine was home was that we found out we were moving.....yes again. This was a good move though, from our cozy but extremely dated ranch duplex to an almost new free standing, bonafide, no neighbors to share a wall with house. Best part: I get my own work space back (who needs a dining room?)!! No more sharing with a wii and a playstation and two kids and their friends.


Yay!
Wahhoooo!!
H-a-p-p-y D-a-n-c-e!!

The bad part (or at least I thought it would be)?
I had to do this move on my own, as Mr. Sunshine had already returned to Iraq (not that he would have been much help with his bum foot anyway).

At this point, after almost nineteen years in the Army and eleven moves, the Butler family is a well-oiled moving machine. Everyone has a job and when they do it, everything goes smoothly.

When part of the machine is missing....well, things tend to, at the very least, go more slowly (forget my comment a few lines ago- bum ankle or not, I seriously missed his help)....

So moving in has been a little s-l-o-w....

Stuff everywhere and it all needs a home....my workspace is not looking so cottage chic right now...

But, somewhere amidst the boxes and packing paper, I managed to do a little Target Clearance perusing...Aren't theses plates adorable? I think they will be the center of attention on my studio walls...bright and cheerful...how can you not feel a tiny bit happier just looking at them?

And shhhh...don't tell anyone, but they are melamine! I got all of these dishes for less than $10...TOTAL!

Since I'm still not at the point where I can be creating new things (the studio is in *slightly* better condition than these photos, but not much), I think I will share the progress with you...hopefully it will morph in to a bright and cheerful work space...

Until Next Time,