A Great Honour

I am a huge, huge fan of Jody Bergsma Designs.  She is an artist located in the Pacific Northwest....Bellingham, WA to be exact...and her work is featured at Ben Franklin Craft Stores up there.  I did a whole colouring book of hers, I have a Sagittarius magnet and also these two stickers on my car.

This one is especially significant as it features PNW animals with Native American/First Nations designs for the wolf, bear and eagle.  I am desperate to replace this sticker because I am going to have to get a new car eventually and I need to have this on whatever new car I get.

Jody did a beautiful illustration of Sasquatch with some other PNW animals and featured it on Facebook.  I was pleased that this was taken seriously and not done as a goof or 'silly' type of picture.  She asked people to submit titles for the picture and the title with the most 'likes' would get a print.  I thought of one right away and I checked the comments to see if anyone else thought of it too.  To my surprise, no one did.  So I typed 'Guardians of the Forest'.  To my utter shock, it got well over 200 likes and my title was selected for Jody's print!  What an honour to title a picture by my fave artist!!!  WOW!!!  

Please be sure to visit her website, Bergsma Gallery Press, to view more of her beautiful and charming works of art.  I'll be framing and hanging it in a place of honour.  Thank you SO MUCH Jody!!!!

More Goodies!

One of the drain pipes needs to be fixed and this giant icicle formed.

I had a real off week, last week.  Felt like crap, couldn't get warm, crying real easily and which culminated with a killer headache from hell on Sunday....just one of the lovely hormonal byproducts of middle age.  Like a beacon of light, I got that package from Tracy with the sugar cookie mix and the very next day I got another box full of flat backed glass blobbies from Kim!

PLUS chewsticks for my fuzzies!

Of course Sagan demolished his in no time, then sat on the couch, with his eyes flicking back and forth between Pepper still munching her chewie, and me, with a dejected look on his face.  I couldn't stop cracking up. 

I looked down at Bean and she looked up at me like this, which only made me laugh harder.

Eventually she tired of hers as it was rather large and Sagan left it alone for awhile which surprised me, but he finally finished it off later in the day.

So the day I had my headache, the only thing I managed to do was sew beads to this little doily bowl I made a few weeks back by spraying starch on it and letting it dry over an inflated balloon.  It didn't make the bowl as stiff as I wanted and it began to collapse under the weight of the beads.  So after they were sewn on, I tried spraying more starch on it but that still didn't work, so I coated the back with mod podge and let it dry.

Then I got up on Friday, checked my email, and was excited to see that I won another giveaway, on the Krafty Max Originals blog/Facebook page!!  I won a bracelet but I haven't gotten it yet. 

And then I got this from Michelle!

Goodies!!!!!

I enter a lot of giveaways on blogs and Facebook and every now and then I hit a lucky streak.  I recently won a strand of beads from Happy Mango Beads .  

Instead of breaking them up to use in separate projects, I decided to string them all into one necklace.

Then I won this awesome strand of Christmas themed bracelet beads from Krafty Max Originals, also on Facebook.

That moment you walk into your fave store and overhear them 

discussing your comment on Facebook

My fave shop in town posed a question on Facebook:  "What do you collect?"  I commented, "the question is really what don't I collect?  Marbles, beach glass, beaded purses, postcards, glass of all kinds, craft supplies...shall I go on?"  The day it snowed, I walked down to that shop and as I opened the door, I heard a woman telling her colleague, "We asked what do people collect and this one person commented, 'what don't I collect' and she listed all the stuff she likes!"  I said, 'That was me! I'm Joanne!'  We all had a good laugh.  

So what did I find this day?  A jar of marbles with a cute store label on it.

A mason jar full of beach glass.  Since I won't use my own stash for crafts, I have to purchase it.

Not too bad!

This bag used to have velour or velvet on it, as you can still see it around the microbeaded designs.  It was really reasonably priced at I think $10.

A ruby red 'chicken in a basket' and a pretty cut glass pyramid that turns all colours depending on the light.

Then my dear sisterfriend Jaime's mom asked me if I would give a home to a vintage German shepherd figurine that she had and I was happy to!

I was given these books by author Pamela Foster in appreciation for using a comment I left on her blog, Wounded Warrior Wife, for her book.  I have read both and they are excellent reads.  Ms. Foster married a a man who suffers horribly from PTSD from his service in Vietnam in the mid-60s.  He takes her on a wild ride through life and as a result, she has done and seen some amazing things, all the while trying to survive her husband's PTSD symptoms and triggers.  

A few months ago I treated myself to this amazing beadwork hairpiece.  The price was so reasonable and I know how much work went into it.

Then Butterflies of Cape Cod posted some butterfly wing pendants they had available on Small Business Saturday.  I was dying to get the Madagascar Sunset Moth one so I jetted down there.  I asked if they'd sold any of my jewelry and she had $79 to give me! I was so excited because now I could also get a Blue Morpho butterfly pendant too!!!!  These are real wings, harvested from insects that have already passed away naturally.

Russell & I stopped by McDermott's Glass Studio and they had a bargain table outside, which contained 2 large marbles that aren't quite perfect.  One is a beautiful cobalt blue.  It's so dark it looks black.

And another unusual marble with a hole in one side where you can see inside.

It, too, is very dark but in the bright light there are lots of cool colours in it.

Recently I was looking around for some Victorian house design stitching patterns.  I didn't mention it to anyone, so imagine my utter surprise to receive this in the mail from my dear friend Debby out in Washington! Along with pretty window crystals to add beads to!!!!!!!!!

But the absolute BEST gift of all, that my sweet amazing man got me...and us....is a generator!!  We fell bass ackwards into a really good deal on a Champion brand one and I am so relieved that we don't have to cope with a multi day power outage this year.  As long as I can have a space heater, a light and the fridge plugged in, that's all I need.  It kind of looks like this one I snagged off the internet.

How lucky and blessed am I?!  VERY!!!!!!

Giveaway Wins!

I was so surprised to win three giveaways on Facebook.  Down at the bottom is a $10 gift card to a really cool store in Maine called Mexicali Blues.  Total Deadhead place.  On the top right is a sticker from Grateful Dead Books that I got for answering a trivia question correctly.  The top left set & Shakedown Street are from Parking Lots of Grateful Dead Tour's Facebook page.  They'd asked Deadheads to post their best picture taken at a Cal Expo show in Sacramento.

I didn't think I'd win with this one because it's blurry, but it's the full moon coming up from behind the stage during Drums, which, that evening, was extremely Celtic sounding and it was like Mickey & Billy were drumming up the moon.  As the full moon got to this point, they both hit their drums simultaneously & loudly, then stopped playing.  The crowd was so mesmerized that there was a beat of total silence in the arena, then the Deadheads went wild with cheering & applause, then the drummers started up again.  

I just love entering contests...I love winning even more!