Inspired by Sweet Georgia Peaches

Peaches #1

It’s peach season here in suburbia Georgia.

 

Sliced Peaches

While the Georgia Peach Festival has come and gone,
peaches are still in season well into October.

 

summer ginger peach

With peaches come sweet thoughts of peach tea…

 

peach crisp

And who can forget… peach cobbler.

But peaches also bring me another kind of inspiration…

fire-opal-agates

Thoughts of fire opal agate

 

pearls

and carnelian colored pearls.

And you? How do you find inspiration from the season…through colors, through shapes, or is it something else?

 

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion {affiliate link} series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! {affiliate link} You can start at any time.

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Bump Update – Week 32

Week 32! I was just telling Jason yesterday that this week feels like it’s gone by so quickly. Thursday didn’t feel like Thursday. Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur. Strange how that happens.

He responded with, “Soon we’ll be looking at her 1 year birthday, 3 year birthday, first day at kindergarden, middle school photos…it will all go by so quickly.” Made me a little sad (and I’ll admit I’m tearing up at the thought of this right now.)

But back to the present. I know I normally write these posts on Saturday morning, but tomorrow we have plans. I’ll do a photo later tomorrow and post on my Flickr account.

Anyhow, tomorrow we are attending our one-day Childbirth Preparation class here in Cumming, GA. Despite having one of the most distinguished maternity and newborn hospitals in the country (Northside Hospital) just an hour away, I’m excited that we are able to do classes locally. That’s mainly due to the brand new Women’s Center built here at the Northside-Forsyth campus:

How beautiful is this building, right? Inside it’s more like an upscale hotel than a hospital, but more on that some other time.

Tomorrow’s classes won’t be at the Women’s Center, though. Tomorrow we find ourself in the classroom building, just adjacent to the center. I love how all of this is less than 5 minutes away from the house. Despite all the niceness, I guarantee you we will be hanging out here for a while before heading in for our birth. I try to avoid hospitals like the plague.

So what else is new this week? We had a mix up with our bedding a few weeks ago and the piece not ordered finally arrived:

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I’m really loving the monkey girl.

Also, the baby shower is next weekend, so DeDee was kind enough to offer to buy me a dress for the shower as my birthday present. I’m loving the colors and print:

Dress for Baby Shower

Hopefully it will arrive in time… and fit my pregnant belly. I cannot describe how difficult it is to find something nice to wear if you fall into the plus size category.

Right now, it seems like the cute things are only made for regular sizes or if you do find something, it looks like your grandmother should be wearing it, not you. I’m not a fan of muumuus.

After a massive search for something to wear, we’ve decided that if we were seamstresses, we could make a killing in the “plus size maternity wear” department by creating young, stylish clothing for plus size maternity with an affordable price range. Just throwing that out there for those of you who can sew…

Hope you guys have a good weekend!

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Gulf Oil Spill: Clean Up With Crafting!

Some of you may know this about me, but my husband and I used to own two red-eared sliders. Jason and I bought these two tiny turtles as a wedding present for ourselves in Florida from a mall puppy mill…er…pet store. We didn’t know any better when we purchased them (meaning, we should have attempted to purchase our turtles from a reputable reptile dealer) and were happy and content to bring them into our family.

Over the years, we spent tons of time taking care of our turtles until their individual demises. Turtles are meant to live long lives. Unfortunately, one of ours was visually impaired. His eyelid never fully separated, so he had trouble seeing his food to get at it and defending himself from our other male turtle, among other things. He passed away at 6 years old. Our other turtle passed away a year later. We can’t explain it, other than he was lonely which doesn’t make any sense to us, since turtles are solitary creatures and generally do not need company.

Needless to say, turtles are still very close to our heart. We’ve continued to maintain our turtle website off and on throughout the years. And of course, when events like the gulf oil spill occur, my heart breaks to see all these mammals, birds and sea turtles coated in oil and dying in the clean up fires.

Dirty South
Dirty South by kk+, on Flickr

gulf_death_turtle2
gulf_death_turtle2 by sum1nil, on Flickr

Fortunately, there are organizations out there concerned about the health and safety of the marine wildlife. Even BP Oil Company, the cause of this particular catastrophe, is making efforts to monitor the affects of the oil spill on the marine life after coming under close scrutiny due to how they were handling their cleanup:

Rescued Turtle is Examined
Rescued Turtle is Examined by BP America, on Flickr

But the real heroes of this story are the organizations who have always cared. The organizations who have been there for the marine life from the beginning. What’s even better is that there are other organizations trying to help out as best as they can. Craft Hope is one of those groups.

Craft Hope Spreading seeds of hope one stitch at a time

Craft Hope is currently running a project where they are helping out several organizations by sending them handmade wash towels and rags. I have to admit, I’m generally a sucker for whenever the craft community comes together for a cause. Finding this project on Craft Hope was definitely a treat and I couldn’t wait to get started.

However, due to the overwhelming goodwill and donations by amazing crafters, Craft Hope has supplied the gulf coast relief organizations with towels for years! Years! Can you imagine? How awesome is that. Unfortunately for me, since I didn’t get a chance to help out, Project 8 is now on hold. If you’ve known about the project, but haven’t made the towels for donation by now, you can stop. There’s literally no place to store them… Just look at one of the stash photos that Kim, the project volunteer, had ready to go in her house:

Craft Hope Project 8 and Kim D.

You should also see the rest of the box photos and read her blog post on the delivery of the boxes to The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies.

Craft Hope did mention in their post that they would be checking with other organizations this week to see if there were others that might be in need of the surplus of hand towels. Make sure to check their blog for Project 8 updates.

How about you? Did you participate? I’d love to see your photos and/or blog posts on the towels you made. Leave me a comment with a link to let me know!

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! You can start at any time.

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Help Me Pick A New Backdrop

One of the things I fret about in regards to my jewelry is taking an attractive photo. If you’ve sold online at all, I’m almost positive you’ve heard time and time again that your photos have to be good enough to grab a visitors attention. I’m always looking for ways to improve my product shots… and so should you.

Part of the process involves thinking about the background I use to shoot my jewelry photos. I know I’ve struggled with selecting backgrounds and improving my current look. With this “break”, I’ve felt that it was time to think of a new look, a new feel for my jewelry before I come back full force.

This past week, I decided to be deliberate about searching for a new background. I originally started photographing with flowers as a prop. I know that I’ve always loved flowers:

But you have to admit, sometimes their beauty can be distracting.

You also already know I favor feathers:

But “been there, done that”… a lot!

The thought crossed my mind to use a bed of glass beads:

Yet, I figured it would make it difficult to photograph the jewelry laying flat. Which has left me to narrow down my new background selection to two choices. This first one I found by chance:

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I’m in love with the idea of the bokeh background, but I’m not sure how I feel about the glass as a “stand”. I think changing the color of the glimmers to something that will compliment the colors in the jewelry would be a good idea, too… in theory.

The other choice was to go with something dark, but with a pattern like so:

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Right now I’m partial to the brown mat. But I need your help bloggy friends… looking at these photos, I want to ask your opinions. What do you think about these last two photos in regards to a background? I want to avoid buying props for both backgrounds, so I’m looking for some direction from you!

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion {affiliate link} series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! {affiliate link} You can start at any time.

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Bump Update – Week 31

Week 31

We’ve (and again, I mean the awesome Mr. Jason) made a little progress this week in getting things ready for baby girl. With a switch in the amount of people available for service calls at his job, he hasn’t had as much free time to work on projects. I know dealing with people can be stressful, so I try to let him unwind and don’t make demands on his time.

However, he did make progress on a present we got from my mom. When she visited in June, she surprised us with a glider and ottoman that she found at a yard sale. At $10 out-of-pocket, that was an amazing steal. The only thing needed (because surprising to us, we’ve come to realize we’d like things to match in the baby room… if you saw our house now, you might not think so) was a paint job and reupholstered cushions.

My mom and my aunt (the seamstress extraordinaire who made the fabulous burp cloths) took care of making us some new cushions. All that was left was painting the glider and the ottoman. So with two $1 bottles of spray paint, Jason has managed to get the first coat down on the glider:

(Don’t mind our garage mess. We had to start making room for baby girl somehow!) The chair already looks fabulous. I wish I had thought to take before pictures to show you what it looked like when mom brought it home.

Due to certain events, I also found myself babysitting my practice baby girl, Alexa, this week:

My practice baby

(“Practice baby girl” sounds horrible, doesn’t it? lol) It was an interesting eye opener with Jason at one point saying, “I guess we’re going to have to get used to talking over the crying.” Lucky for me, Jason has an entertaining face and was able to take care of her while I got dinner ready.

196.365

I love her to bits.

Other than that, there’s nothing new to tell. Maybe next week will bring more activity.

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Favorite Custom Orders

If I’ve missed anything about the jewelry business, I’d have to say it’s the custom order requests. I always appreciate custom orders. They provide a type of validation you can’t get from simply selling an item you created. Having someone ask you to create a custom piece is always an amazing feeling, no matter what you are creating. Wouldn’t you agree?

Just to reminisce a little, here are links to a few of my favorite custom order posts:

Last Minute Mother's Day Present

Last Minute Mother's Day Present

 

Latest Custom Order

 

Custom Order

Alter Ego

 

How about you…do you have custom orders that you loved for any reason?

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! You can start at any time.

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Bump Update – Week 30

Week 30

Holy cow, I’ve hit the big 3 – Oh! It’s funny to think back just two years ago I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have children. I find myself wondering about the why and the how of events. I’m a firm believer you never really know the “why” of an event, but that is the past and I am truly happy in the present. Like Master Oogway of Kung Fu Panda says:

“There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present.’”

So I’ll dwell on that no more.

We picked up a steal this week! Made a trip to the outlets to find me a much needed pair of oh-so-comfy preggo shorts (they really are!) and decided to stop at Pottery Barn. Lo and behold, we found this cute ceramic giraffe bank:

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She has a little chip on her ear, which is no biggie really. A quick whisk of nail polish and no one would be the wiser.

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Just in case, at checkout I asked if they had anymore. The manager said no, so I thought to myself, what the heck, might as well ask if they would discount more since it was the last one and it had a chip.

Would you believe we got lucky? She gave it to us half off AND gave us the 10% discount the store was running that day if we purchased it as a final sale. I would have bought it without the discount, so of course I was happy. We adore that little giraffe…chip or no chip.

With no rush for anything else this week, we decided to put the stencils on hold and went swimming…a lot! Picked up a floaty noodle for me and some goggles and dive sticks for Jason. Obviously, I’m not much up for diving, but I can still throw them for him. We also practice tons of waterbending. I’m sure the other adults just looked at us like we’re crazy, but it’s so much more fun in the water than out.

We were also able to secure a place for the baby shower. It’s a big relief for my friend Dee, as every place we checked was either not available or simply not returning our calls. Short notice emails have gone out. If you are expecting one and didn’t get it, let me know. I suspect the list I gave her was far from complete.

Oh…almost forgot…more animal cuteness. Our bedding and accessories finally came in:


And the stuffed animals we got for ourselves…er, I mean, baby girl are too adorable:

Friends forever

Sweet little flower

How cute are these feet?

How cute are these tails?

I have a wall project in mind for them. Very excited to share once I’m done.

Finally, we had our hospital tour. It was nice to see the facilities. I was a bit camera shy, so no photos, but the rooms are great and all private. That’s fantastic, since I wasn’t looking forward to sharing a room, but didn’t want to pay the difference insurance doesn’t cover. We also saw three itty bitty babies in the nursery when we walked by – all with black hair. So very sweet.

Jason is folliclely-challenged. I am clearly not. Maybe we should bet on how much hair baby girl has when born?

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Kanzashi in Bloom Giveaway

I hate to say it, but I tend to forget to visit some of the sites I like. Eileen of bluebirdluxe is one of them, since she has some of the best book giveaways around:

Kanzashi In Bloom Book Giveaway by BlueBirdLuxe


Right now, she’s running a giveaway for Diane Gilleland’s Kanzashi in Bloom book. I’ve always loved kanzashi since I ran across it on Etsy. I even had this book on my Amazon wishlist at one time, just never purchased it since I try to have just one vice at a time. ;)

There’s only one book to win, so if you miss out, you can always pick up Diane’s Kanzashi in Bloom: 20 Simple Fold-and-Sew Projects to Wear and Give on Amazon. Go comment now for your chance to win! I’ve already entered three times myself!

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My Favorite Tool

It’s funny to think that while change is a constant and inevitable, some things never change. A while ago, almost 2 years ago to be exact, I wrote a post on my favorite tool for the Etsy Blogger’s Carnival. Simply put? A dowel.

Day 226.366 Because it's the best tool ever...


And even while I have not been creating jewelry for sale since earlier this year, I still think of the dowel as the best tool I own. For a simple $0.25, it helped me create a numerous amount of designs, something I could have done, but not so expertly without its help. The dowel has paid for itself a million times over.

How about you…has your favorite tool changed over the years, or is yours still the same trusty tool you’ve come to know and love?

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! You can start at any time.

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Free Etsy Tips e-Book by Catie’s Blue

I’m a big sucker for helpful bloggers…especially ones with a giving spirit. So of course, when I saw my friend Brandi of Catie’s Blue fame sat down and put together an e-book chock-full of the Etsy wisdom she’s garnered over her 3 years of being open on Etsy, I had to give her a little press!

I just glanced at it last night and it definitely has a lot of useful tips. Go support her and check it out!

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