Hold On Tight

Yesterday was an emotional day.

I had an absolutely wonderful day at the St. Andrews Craft Fair. The weather was near perfect (except for the wind gusts that threatened to blow away my ultra-light-weight paper jewelry). The fair-goers really had an awesome response to my jewelry so it sold better than I expected and I know my friend Angie had something to do with that (Angie is the "A" in our NABS Scrapbook Group). She volunteered to help me out at the fair, so she showed up wearing all of my jewelry and became a walking, talking advertisement for my little business. And it worked.

(I know, I know....I need a big sign.)

Angie is moving back to her hometown in Michigan this week and she is going to be missed by so many people here in Florida. Our NABS group is just not going to be the same without our vowel.

(Angie and I at our NABS Halloween crop last night)

After the long day at the craft fair, I came home to grab a snack, a shower and some scrap stuff and headed out to our Halloween Costume Crop.

(Group Photo)

(This is N.A.B.S - Nancy, Angie, Britten, Sharon)

Even though we lost touch for awhile, we have all been scrapping together for several years. We re-discovered each other through another scrapbook group on meetup.com in 2009 and when that group fizzled, Angie and I formed NABS in June of this year.

While it is always great to crop with these girls, it was a bittersweet night because we knew it was Angie's last crop with us. I hate saying good-bye. I'm just not good at it.

I also learned yesterday that a few of my scrappy friends have also been dealing with deaths of loved ones and job loss. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Happiest of Halloween everyone.

Into every life a little water must leak...

Wait. That's not how the song goes.

The pile of wet wood you see above is my 5-month old floor.

Yes, it's been a damp 2010.

I came home Monday around noon to find a couple puddles of water in the hallway and the powder room. I thought maybe the toilet was leaking a little. Brian thought so too. Until I walked into our bedroom... and the floor squished.

We've got a leaky pipe....somewhere under the concrete slab the house sits on. Until they figure out where that leak is and get it fixed, we have no running water. Which sucks.

The plumber is here now so I am just hoping and praying this is fixed....soon.

_____________________

Now on to some happier news...

A bride-to-be and her mom purchased two of my rings at the craft fair a couple weeks ago. She liked it so much that she asked me to make her bridesmaids rings to wear at the wedding. I also made her these cute little boxes. Her colors are burgundy and brown.

Yep, that is a paper flower...dipped in enamel to give it high gloss and protect the paper.

It took me several tries to perfect the process for these rings but I just love how they look. It's just a fun piece of jewelry (and for $7, it's cheap too!)

________________

The last news I have to report is all about Club Ruby...and it's BIG!

Starting tomorrow - October 28 - Club Ruby will be opening up a basic membership to EVERYONE for FREE! There will also be other higher levels of membership with lots and lots of perks that will be available at a ridiculously small cost per month. So be sure to check out the Club Ruby site tomorrow for all of the details.

I was also asked if I was interested in a promotion to Master Designer for Club Ruby. My answer of course was "HELL YEAH!!"

I have loved being a part of such a talented Design Team and working for Megan and Sean has been a fantastic experience. They are so down-to-earth and superbly genuine. I love that they love what they do.

Country Day

Our (Christian) preschool isn't celebrating Halloween, they are celebrating Fall with a Country Day for the kids. They couldn't wear their Halloween costumes, but they could dress in country western attire. Since we don't really have much of that laying around the house, I wanted to make the girls a couple of t-shirts. I started with a stencil I cut with my cricut and some fabric paint, but that didn't work out, so I dusted off my sewing machine and did a quick applique with some felt I had. The t-shirts are Disney...a super find I discovered at the Dollar Store - for a buck!

The shirts look cute....from a distance. As soon as the teacher saw them she said "I see that Mom got crafty!" Uh-oh.

I'm sure the girls will someday refuse to wear my handmade creations...so I'm going to do it while I can. Even if they don't always turn out so great.

Custom Order

For Melody

*Happy Dance*

This *Happy Dance* is for getting through my first craft fair -- without any (visible) signs of a nervous breakdown. Which - for me - is a major accomplishment.

(Thanks for the pic Darlene!)

It might not look overly impressive, but I worked my butt off to get the stuff you see on that table made for the fair. And it really turned out to be a positive experience. The other vendors were friendly, the people running the fair were helpful, and the customers had nice things to say about my jewelry. (Although my friends and family have been very supportive and encouraging, it was good to hear that people who weren't related to me liked my stuff.)

I sold more than I thought I was going to, which was a nice surprise. I even got a couple custom orders and some customers said they would be looking for me at the next craft fair on the 30th.

Having just this little bit of success has given me a boost of self-confidence that I really needed. My etsy store desperately needs my attention...plus I've got some design ideas for Christmas floating around in my head. The sales I had today...along with some kind words from strangers...will give me the motivation to keep going.

I owe my NABS friend Darlene a HUGE thank you for volunteering to hang out with me today. She gave up most of her Saturday to help me and I can't put into words how much I appreciated that. She's a veteran craft fair vendor so her advice and support (as well as her black tablecloth and anti-pasta salad) was so valuable. I'm hoping she wants to get back in the craft fair circuit so I've got a partner to do these shows with. It's so much more fun with friends!

More Cute Clips

If this one doesn't sell, at least the girls can wear it...

This one is inspired by Boomer...

See the resemblance?

Hey Look! New Stuff!

Ever since I finished up my 3 Club Ruby Design Team projects for October, I've been making items for the craft fairs I have coming up.

Everything I've made so far as been for grown-ups. But I definitely think I'd be crazy not to tap into the little girl market so here are a couple new things I've been trying out. Luckily I have two girls with tons of hair to model for me. (These would look a little silly if I had boys.)

If I can get some more made, I might stick a couple in my etsy shop too, just to see what happens.

Once Baylinn saw this headband with the crown, she wasn't interested in trying on anything else.

Pumpkin barrette.

Bat barrette.
Crown barrette.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The Gift of Gab?

Whoever coined this phrase never met Breena.

The child loves the sound of her own voice. She talks constantly. If she can't think of something to talk about she just makes statements. I call her Captain Obvious.

For instance:

"Momma, you having coffee. You wiping off the table. You wearing black. You a girl. I'm a girl. Boomer's a boy. Daddy's a boy." See what I mean? Captain Obvious.

It might be the worst in the car. Breena tells me how to drive ("slow down!" "stop!" "go!"), makes random statements like "trees don't talk," and then she loves to attempt to get my attention while I'm driving with "look at me momma!" and "watch this!"

I took them to the mall yesterday morning and Breena talked non-stop in the car until the usually quiet Baylinn actually yelled "Stop talking!"

Brian says to ignore her. That just makes her more determined. "Momma, you not talking. You not talking to me? Momma. Momma. MOMMA! What's wrong Momma?" Holy crap.

She has invented her own language:

"papa ernie" = pepperoni

"the crap store" = the craft store

"scraperate" = scrapbooking

"sip sups" = flip flops

"apple starts with a b. Baaa. Apple" (we are working on this)

The irony of all this?

Last week Brian and I went to the girls' preschool for their Open House. Both teachers told us how "quiet and reserved" Breena is. I'm not kidding. They thought Baylinn was the first born and the dominant twin because she can be quite bossy - especially to Breena - while at school. They said they actually "felt bad" for Breena because Baylinn takes things from her and tells her what to do. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. We thought maybe the teachers had them mixed up, so we gave them a quick quiz, but nope, they knew Breena was the red-head.

Go figure.