GaGa for Garlands Swap

Just wanted to jump in here and mention that I am participating in the GaGa for Garlands Swap. I love garlands-this one will be fun and only one swap partner. My partner is Robyn. We've already exchanged information so we're ready to roll.
All of the gifts from the Hippity Hop Easter Swap have been exchanged and opened and now I must post my pictures. I have to honestly say that this was a great group of women to swap with. All of the gifts I received were inventive and down-right adorable. Some, but not all, of the women have Etsy shoppes. I am still enjoying my treats and hate the thoughts of packing them away.

SweetBellaBug

Wow-another sweet friend, Bethanie, has jumped on the Etsy bandwagon and opened a little store. It must be the desire to see Spring arrive-both my friends are busy making sweet things for their shops and they have a soft, Spring-like look about them. I'm all for Spring. We woke to more snow this morning, although it's supposed to be in the 50's by week's end. Ah Pittsburgh!

Anyhoo, check out Bethanie's shoppe here. Sweet Dreams is an example of one of the vintagey-look items she is selling. Such a sweet sleeping baby surrounded with glitter and vintage buttons. Cute on the door of baby's room, don't you think? Bethanie also doesn't have a blog but I think you can email her through Etsy. Also note...there is a picture of a "real" beautiful baby on her Etsy store page and that would be the adorable Miss A, Bethanie's little girl. Miss A is the happy baby (in the picture above the sleeping baby) who comes to play with me most Thursdays. She is happy in this picture because we've been watching out for squirrels together...long story for another time! Although we're not "real family", she is very special to me...and David, too.

So-any more friends out there with Etsy shoppes???

Dandelion Wishes

I am fortunate to have some very talented friends. One of my dear friends has decided to take a leap and list her things on Etsy. Her name is Mimi and she makes the sweetest soldered charms. Some are made using vintage images or bits of vintage hankies or lace. I have one with my initial that I wear every day. You can see her things for yourself here. Now, we just have to convince her to start a blog. Here is one of her lovelies. Wouldn't this look cute in someone's Easter basket?

I just want to say that this picture of Charlie, taken at 2 months, has been our screen saver ever since we got it. Every time we turn on the computer this picture makes us laugh. I know...I'm gushing again. I'm a Gram...gushing is allowed! *wink*

Hippity Hop Easter Swap banner

Here are the pictures of the banner I made for the Easter Swap. The pictures are in Flickr, too, but my sister doesn't know how to access them so this is for you Barbe.

I took the pictures of the individual pennants before they were tied together with sheer brown dotted ribbon. Each pennant is 5-inches wide by 6-inches long. A good size to hang over your kitchen window while you do the dishesAs with many other things, they look better in person. I am hoping my swap-mates like them. Thanks for taking a peek.....just don't tell the green group.

If you look to the left of this blog you will see a banner for the Hippity Hop Easter Swap hosted by http://www.boobyfish.blogspot.com/ that I have been working on. You can see a tiny peek of part of my project here. This is the biggest swap I've participated in and seeing who the other artists are in my group, (that would be the green group) I am just a tiny bit intimidated. (OK, hugely intimidated!) It will be exciting to see what beauties come my way. If I can figure out how to upload to flikr, I will post pictures there.

So, I'm back in the blogging saddle again. I promise not to be gone for so long. I don't think I'll be posting every day but feel free to link to any of the bloggers on my favorites list-they have pretties to look at and sometimes even recipes for some delicious goodies. Thanks for dropping in on me today.

Did you miss me?

It's March 4. I haven't posted anything for almost 2 months. When this happens with other bloggers they say "bad blogger". Well, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. I envy those bloggers who just write a little post EVERY DAY, and then show a picture of beautiful things they've made since the day before AND cooked a delicious meal from scratch, all the time tending after small children or working full-time. My hat is off to you.

What do I do?

I spend too much time reading their blogs, whipping a meal together in the last 30 minutes before David comes home and of course thinking about this guy at the top of my entry. Since my last post Charlie (with his parents) came to visit us in January and we just came back from visiting him (and his parents...hahaha) He's now almost 4 months old and smiles just like this most of the time. We love this boy (and his parents too)