Change is in the Air

And I am NOT a girl who is fond of change! As my husband likes to joke "I like my rut, I spent a long time on it, worked hard on it, I made this rut all by myself and I don't want to leave!" None the less God often has different plans for us than we have for ourselves and I am being torn from my rut. My husband has taken a youth director position in a town 4 hours away from where we live now (where I reside in my beautiful rut and planned to be forever). This change comes with many perks, probably the most important being my eviction from the aforementioned rut, as my good friend Stephanie pointed out last night. We will also get a large raise, insurance and retirement (the last two are very new concepts for us!). All this is huge seeing as though we have two little rugrats, both boys, who we fear will eat us out of house and home and have us very familiar with the emergency room staff as they enter their pre-teen years! We do have some prep time for that though since they're 2 and 3 right now. The new church is a large, beautiful church with a wonderful children's program and everyone we met when my husband interviewed was helpful and seemed down to earth. It will be very hard but I have a feeling it will also be very good. Atleast my little business is exclusively online, it goes wherever I go!

Punk Will Never Diecut

Oooh aahh, behold the power of the Silhouette...now I can sell diecut embellishments! And I don't have to spend hours cutting out skull and crossbones, snowflakes and other crazy embellishments by hand, like I was before. I thought my hand would fall off after making my snowflake ornaments by hand! This is one of two sets of diecuts currently in my store.

NOTE: My shop The Beehive is now Papercut Kitchen! Please visit my shop Papercut Kitchen by clicking here.

A Superfantastic Christmas to All!

I had such a wonderful Christmas. The boys are both old enough to get very excited about seeing Santa, looking at lights and getting gifts. We put out treats for Santa this year and told the boys about how he comes down the chimney and brings toys. Our oldest, who is 3.5, was a little creeped out by the thought of a large, bearded man entering our home while he was sleeping, but got over it when we focused more on the toys part!

Santa was very, very good to me and brought me, try not to be jealous all you scrappers and crafters, a QuicKutz Silhouette die cutter. For those of you who are not yet jealous, this is a fantastic machine, about the size of a printer, that hooks up to the computer and will cut out any font or shape in any size without needing to buy cartridges at $60+ a pop. I've been drooling over this bad boy for a year or so and my fantastic hubby got all our family and some friends to pitch in. He definitely scored some major brownie points. I also got a postal scale from my parents, yippeee! Now I can stop cheating myself by charging too low on shipping. Now lets hope the post Christmas sales are as good as pre-Christmas.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and enjoys many blessings in the new year!

Well, Just Spin Me Around And Color Me Featured!

There are these things on etsy called treasuries that you can access from the etsy homepage. They are like miniature museums curated by etsians. The person chooses a theme for their treasury and then selects items from shops, not their own, to be featured. I have my first spot in a treasury, or I should say my Jesus Saves cards have a spot. The treasury is called "don't forget the birthday boy" and will be up for 2 days. The curator is marieflyfly.etsy.com stop by and check out her beautiful beaded jewelry!

Look Ma!

I've gotten my first review, I'm practically famous! A fellow etsian reviewed me on her blog. You can read it at http://shannonsaylor-etsyshop.blogspot.com/ and be sure to check out her shop at ShannonSaylor.etsy.com where she sells her beaded jewelry.

NOTE: My shop The Beehive is now Papercut Kitchen! Please visit my shop Papercut Kitchen by clicking here.

My Secret Love Affair

I have a little confession to make, I LOVE, love, love the post office! I know it's crazy, some people put it right up there with visiting the revenue office, but I can't help myself! I love it that people who seem perfectly happy getting out of their cars in the parking lot are suddenly transformed into an angry mob as soon as they step foot through the doors.

I love the bizarre people and the bizarre lines. It seems it always takes forever to get in and out. The line can be miles long or you can walk in to find only one person in front of you but it's some strange old man with a giant, black garbage bag full of tiny, identical packages that all need some kind of special delivery.

I love listening to everyone grumbling about the post office and yet they're there. I love the fact that the postal workers are unfazed by the grumpiness and are always polite and jolly. I always think they are the kind of people that I could be friends with, they seem strange and interesting and hysterical. When I ask for my package to be stamped "fragile" they pull out an ancient, battered, laminated comic that's been cut from a newspaper. It has an illustration of a package marked fragile that has been mutilated by the post office. I laugh everytime because they think it's brilliant everytime, and so do I! They stamp "spoiled" on my boys hands and laugh "now you can say they've been spoiled by the post office!" I love it when I get to go in by myself and I love it when I have to load my fussy 2 year old into the flimsy umbrella stroller and listen to "Out! Out! Finshed!" and constantly grab his 3 year old brother by the hood of his coat to keep him from socializing his way through the line of customers until he's lost in the crowd. Now that's true love.

Someone Please Organize an Intervention...

...or send me a housekeeper, I'm drowning in my etsy induced mess of a house. I was actually getting into the swing of things with having 2 young boys and keeping up with the housework, then I had to discover etsy. Now I'm a full blown etsy addict. I'm on it every free moment I have, checking to see if I have a sale, posting new items. seeing if someone new hearts my store, reading the forums, looking at everyone else's super cool stuff. It's sad to say, but I'm pretty sure I spend more time piddling around on etsy than I do making stuff to sell! And, you can see by the photo, I have not yet gotten into the swing of 2 young boys, housework and etsy.

Ummm, Ok, it's now 12:30am and I've tried unsuccessfully several times, with my dialup connection to load a silly picture of how crappy my house looks. I'm tired and I no longer care. Just picture a kitchen counter covered like a mountain in crafting supplies, paper, shipping materials, boxes and looking like the slightest breath could cause an avalanche and you are picturing my house. My whole house. We have a small house so my "crafting area" is really right smack dab in the middle of the house and uses up the kitchen counter and often dinning table, but even aside from the craft stuff, everywhere you look in the house looks like an avalanche in the making. Now I'm off to dream land and maybe someday I'll get some pics to load without a hassle!