Gift #4 - Jodie Marshall

On the 4th day of Christmas Jodie Marshall gave to me...

An awesome blue and green lampwork lentil bead, a handmade keychain made with hemp twine, and some handmade baby lampwork beads, and a cute little handmade note pad. Thank you Jodie, your beads rock!!

On the 3rd day of Christmas Deborah Boschert gave to meeeeeeee......

I love how Deborah packaged her gift! Actually, I love how all the swappers packaged their gifts. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a packaging whore (sorry, but that's the best way to describe my love of pretty packaging) She used a brown paper bag, folded the top down, and stitched it shut with a satin ribbon and a paper tag. How sweet is that?! Also, check out my super sweet necklace, it's from my amazingly talented friend Cherrie Fick. It's got an owl on it, I like it a lot.

Look what was inside that cute bag, a sweet little pin cushion, complete with pins, a felt flower and handy ribbon loop for hanging! I love it! Not only do I love it, I needed one! Bonus! Who ever said I was hard to please?! ;}

My Nana gave me an awesome sewing machine back in September, it's far more advanced than I am in the world of sewing. It's my New Years resolution this year to learn how to use it like a boss! It's a Babylock Quest, and it's got more buttons on it than my computer, possibly even more buttons on it than all 4 of my computers combined. So far I have made a tote bag, it's pretty much the first thing I've ever sewn using a pattern, it turned out nice. Anyhow, I really needed a pin cushion, and was not going to settle for a store bought one, I wanted a handmade one, and now I've got one, with a pretty felt flower on it to boot! Thanks Deborah! It's awesome!

12 Days of Christmas gift swap, day 1 and 2 :)

I am super excited to be participating in Lorelei Eurto’s Twelve Days of Christmas gift swap.
Here is how it works…
Lorelei picked 11 of her blog readers who showed interest in the swap to participate. I was so happy to be picked, I just LOVE giving gifts, ESPECIALLY handmade ones, and even more ESPECIALLY to others who really appreciate a handmade gift, so many times I have given something handmade as a gift, and I can tell that the recipient is thinking ‘Oh yay, another one of your crafty concoctions’ SO, exchanging gifts with 11 other crafty peeps is super exciting for me.

The 12 of us made little gifts and packed them up and shipped them off to each of the other participants. Here I am with all my gifts.

 

Each one has a number on it, the number tells us which one to open depending on which ‘Day of Christmas’ I am number 7, so on the 7th day of Christmas, the other girls will open the gift I sent them. You will have to wait until the 7th day of Christmas to see what I sent.

It was so much fun getting a little package in the mail day after day.

Some of the other participant will be blogging about this exchange, here is the list of participant and the day each of their gifts will be opened. Please join me in this lovely celebration and share the joy with my fellow swappers.

1. Lorelei Eurto
2. Jennifer Heynen
3. Deborah Boschert
4. Jodie Marshall
5. Amy Freeland
6. Katie Nelson
7. Me - Amanda Cargill Austin
8. Rachel Stanley
9. Emanda Johnson
10. Melissa
11. Charlie
12. Lori Burek

Day 1 - Christmas Day, we each opened our gift from Lorelei

No, my nostrils are generally not flared like this, I have no idea why I look like Miss Piggy in this picture :/ whatever.

I got this sweet bracelet made of old buttons, which I LOVE! It’s so very me, I have an obsession with old buttons! This bracelet has found it’s new home with me, and I have a feeling we are gonna be together forever, I have so many outfits that this bracelet will complement PERFECTLY! Thank Lorelei, I love it!

Day 2 - Jennifer "Jangles" Heynen

Today I opened this sweet little Ceramic Ornament from Artist Jennifer "Jangles" Heynen! This little guy is going to hang out with me all year long, I love stars, it’s going on my inspiration board to see each and every day :) Thanks Jennifer!! It's so cute!

I hope you all had a holiday filled with happiness and love! Stop by tomorrow to see what I get on the 3rd day of Christmas :)

Artists Helping Artists Silent Auction

Several artists in the blog community have decided to band together to help a fellow artist in need. I have given a monetary donation myself, and would like to do more, can you help? Yes, yes you can help! You can help by bidding on these embossed Vintaj Brass earrings! :) They are the perfect color for the upcoming holidays, right on into Valentines day!

I am starting the bidding at $15, which is less than I retail these at in both my Etsy shop, and retail storefront.
Would you like to be the winning bidder?
Please leave a comment along with your bid. If you are the winning bidder, you will receive an invoice after the close of the auction. There must be a way to contact you. If you have email preferences turned off in your profile, please leave your email.

Bidding will be open from December 8th - 11th at midnight.

Many people are auctioning items to help out! Please visit these the other artists below and place your bid!

List of participants:

Heidi Post

Marie Cramp

Barbara Bechtel

Erin Fickert-Rowland

Keirsten Giles

Andrew Thornton

Lori Anderson

Karen Totten

Kristi Bowman-Gruel

Nan Emmett

Maire Dodd

Amanda Cargill Austin

Janice Everett

Rebecca Anderson

Shannon Iko Chomanczuk

Heidi Post http://expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com/

Marie Cramp http://skyejewels.blogspot.com/

Barbara Bechtel http://secondsurf.com/

Erin Fickert-Rowland http://elysianstudiosart.com/

Keirsten Giles http://www.cerebraldilettante.blogspot.com/

Andrew Thornton http://andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/

Lori Anderson http://www.lorianderson.blogspot.com/

Karen Totten http://starryroadstudio.blogspot.com/

Kristi Bowman-Gruel http://dreamsomedesigns.blogspot.com/

Nan Emmett http://spiritrattles.blogspot.com/

Maire Dodd http://mairedodd.blogspot.com/

Amanda Cargill Austin http://www.seashoreglassgirl.com/

Janice Everett http://jlynnjewels.blogspot.com/

Rebecca Anderson http://songbeads.blogspot.com/

Shannon Iko Chomanczuk http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/

Feel free to return and bid again!

Happy bidding!

Gratitude is the best attitude

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your day is filled with love and good company

Thank you for taking the time to stop by today, I am thankful for you :) Planning on doing some holiday shopping? Everything in my shop is on sale from now until Monday :) Happy Thanksgiving!

Jewelry box faves

I got an awesome jewelry armorie for my birthday...

...I'm slowly filling it up, I started with some of my favorite pieces of jewelry. These 2 necklaces are from Jade Scott

I love everything about these necklaces...

...the colors; I pretty much only wear these colors, so they are totally versatile despite the unique mix of textures and colors.

Custom Boro Pendant Necklaces from The Venerable Bead

Blue Boro and Swarovski earrings by Janice Everett, harvest colored pair by Cherrie Fick.

Another obsession of mine...little handmade travel bags, coin purses, clutches...

Stand-by lip balm, for when I lose yet another open one...I admit I have been known to 'accidentally' misplace a flavor if I have gotten bored with the taste, just to open a new flavor...that's not to say it wasn't a nice flavor, I just happen to get bored really, really quickly...I like to pick up my lip balm from Ophelia's Apothecary

Can you guess who made what?

Think you know which jewelry designer made what? Share your ideas in your comment :)

Much obliged :)

I am just tickled by the number of delightful people who stopped by my humble blog during this recent Bead Soup Blog Party :) I loved having you! Thanks for the comments <3

My trip home

I spent the past week down in California...that place full of memories; both good and bad...

And now I'm home...I'm a little happy, and a little sad about that...

 

 

WINE grapes!!! I love vineyards, whenever I see them I think of Neocork, and all the good times I spent in that dysfunctional office...I miss those guys...

I don't know if I was even really allowed to be there in that vineyard, the barbwire fence was so low though, I had no trouble stepping over it, the grapes were calling my name to come closer and take their photo...

Dear Restaurants of Oregon, get your crap together and start producing meals like this...It's not that hard, really...

After waiting for years and years I finally made it to the new California Academy of Sciences. The Academy recently opened a new facility in Golden Gate Park, a 400,000 square foot structure that houses an aquarium, a planetarium a natural history museum and a 4-story rainforest all under one roof.

This thing was an awesome orange and purple color, it kinda just scooted around the bottom of the aquarium, but in a really cute way.

These are sharks, they are scary and will eat you if they smell your fear...just sayin...watch out.

Eighty skylights in the roof, supplemented with metal halide lights, enable the growth of lush, tropical plants found in various rainforests around the world.

Living plants include numerous trees, dozens of shrubs, and hundreds of flowering plants. It was really humid in that rain forest, kudos to them for making it so darn lifelike!

I never pass up on the chance to take a picture of an orange flower...enjoy...

Look, a real live butterfly :)

The skylights were pretty awesome! The design of this building was far more innovative than anything I have ever seen in real life.

Generally I can't handle aquariums this big, they like totally freak me out...but I really didn't mind this one...

The de Young Museum, from the living roof.

The living roof.

Some crazy animals...

Some rare type of African unicorns...

Zebras...fierce ones...

Hungry penguins...it was really close to their lunchtime...That's all for tonight, I'll have to finish sharing the rest of my trip details another day...