Homemade ice cream clogs arteries, makes dog happy

It tastes like heavy cream, sugar, and Oreos. So it's pretty good.


You know how sometimes, like once a month, you have a conversation with your spouse/partner/roommate about how it seems like you must hemorrhage money because you just don't know where it all goes? No? Well, I guess you're not as good of Americans as we are.

To celebrate Memorial Day weekend, we bought an ice cream maker, because everyone knows that there's nothing more American on a national holiday than frivolity and gluttony. And blowing stuff up, but we don't want to scare the dog. In fact, we're really doing the dog a favor by fattening up on ice cream so she has more comfortable laps to sit in.

Oh this could be bad....

I've listed my first treasury on Etsy, which is AWESOME. It gave me an opportunity to riffle through my favorites and add some new favorites and put some aesthetically-pleasing sweetness together. For the creators it's a smidge of advertising that goes out to all the folks who view the treasuries. I think I've found something else to spend too much time on!

Hot for Blue and Green

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My first dreamcatcher

I found this hanging on the bulletin board in my old bedroom at my parents house and decided to take it home. Maybe that's what my mom has been mumbling about ("disaster...can't find anything...your stuff out of the house...").


Nah. I'm sure it has more to do with the years and years of schoolwork she saved. Rightfully so; I operated on near-genius levels until I hit adulthood. Like my dentist says, once you stop growing you're basically just getting older. I always enjoy our little chats.

Anyways, my old brain can't remember exactly, but I think this was a Girl Scout project from sometime around the fifth grade. Sure, I was a socially and physically awkward preteen whose athletic inclinations amounted to playing Tiddly Winks, but I could sure center the hole in my dreamcatcher. Seriously, arts and crafts were the best part of childhood and I'm still holding on for dear life!

Baby goods of a delicious color

Tiny sweater....


and tiny hat/mittens set....

Wanted: one pair favorite shoes

These are my most favoritest shoes ever and my damned pinkie toes have managed to bust through the seams. Plus they look like crap. They have *technically* been my yard shoes for quite a while, but I still wear them all over the place and it's getting embarrassing. What would Stacy and Clinton say?! I got them at Payless (sorry, Stacy) a couple of years ago and I can't find another pair anywhere - but I NEED them! Please...I beseech you! Pray, find me a new set of these magical slippers! Go! To quote the villain from one of the best movies of all time, "and don't come back without them!"

Random, non-craft-related post that is also not about the other non-craft-related things I sometimes post about.

I'm going to start doing this every morning.

Whaaaaaaat?

I made it into another treasury, this one by SuzAndRoo!


It's the Two is Better Than One mini sweater. And here is my favorite item from the SuzAndRoo shop:


I've really got to start making treasuries - I love how people pick colors as themes. It's pretty.

This is the life.

Watching hubs do some upper-body P90X. There's a lot of grunting and impressiveness. I am lounging on the couch with the dog and the computer, having just eaten some chocolates.

I totally took a walk today. That was my exercise the right amount of movement for me. Plus I worked in the yard. Now I think I'm going to go make cupcakes.


* Not my husband. Mine's hotter.

FIRST TREASURY EVER!

Ok, I don't really get the treasury thing, but that's because I'm relatively new to Etsy and because I spend too much time playing Mafia Wars to figure it out - yet it's still very exciting that one of my items is in this treasury by Sacred Suds. This is it:


And there are many other pretty reds and greens represented. Yay! Thanks, Andrea!

If your craft show table represents your life.....

mine is apparently somewhat cluttered and very distracted. Several people asked, "did you make all of these things?" Yes. I'm troubled by a short attention span and busy hands, so we end up with dreamcatchers, drawings, knitting, jewelry, pins, and a pile of miscellanea.


I'm pleased with the way the table turned out and the show was pretty awesome. Not that I made a ton of money, but the planning of the event was immense and it was a gratifying success. I was lucky enough to be trusted with writing the press release. Glad to have that experience under my belt. And very grateful to the handful of peeps who really made the show happen. It was busy the whole day with people who heard about the show from every avenue we tried to exploit. Bwahahahaha! Athough, almost all of my customers were people I know.

I'm considering the implications of this...are my items marketable/useful to the general populous? Why am I trying to market to the general populous? Wouldn't it be more lucrative to pick a target market? Who is that market? At least this is clear: people I know are sweet and supportive and fabulous. And they have good taste.


I learn something every time I do a show. This time, I learned that taxes are to be feared. I'm pretty sure that, despite my peaceful demeanor in this picture, I'm thinking about IRS hecklers* and debt collectors and lawyers and Jehovah's Witnesses** who want nothing more than to collect my soul because I didn't follow statute 3.593726 under the small business filing codes.***


* I know, I know. You're just doing your job.
** I have nothing against Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm sure that my following statute 3.593726 has no effect on them wanting my soul.
*** This statute does not exist. Right?

This was a 12-hour work day and I'm worried that I shouldn't eat chocolate before bed but I'm going to do it anyways; and some last-minute thoughts.

First of all, I've just received communication from a company where I recently applied for a job, got all excited because it would be awesome, and had an interview. But I'm not hired. Boo. Of the 170-some applications, only six people were interviewed, and I really appreciate them sharing that information because it does make me feel a little less crappy. Oh well. ONWARD!

Tomorrow is the Spring Market and I think I'm ready. I spent the entire day making final arrangements. Here's how it broke down:
5% of day = bringing wallet downtown to forgetful husband; having lunch with said husband
5% of day = regular life-sustaining tasks like eating dinner, taking bathroom breaks, playing Mafia Wars on Facebook, and blogging
25% of day = updating inventory, packing everything up, other misc. show-related tasks
65% of day = making my table banner

Aaaaand here it is....


Don't let the simple looks fool you; this was a monstrous undertaking by my standards. Not being a sewer, and having not one but two "vintage" sewing machines, I was delighted to get away with only having to sew two long, straight lines - one at the top of each banner - and it went incredibly smoothly (except for when the bobbin ran out and then the other time when the thread broke).


The more tedious part was using the paper cut-out letters from Becky's Cricut to trace backwards letters on the black felt and then cut each one out.


Ironing them onto the flags was made pretty tolerable with episodes of General Hospital.


But even catching up on my stories would not have eased the torture of the MOST tedious part: cutting the flannel flags with a very old and very dull pinking shears. Thanks, grandma.

No, really. Thanks to my grandma, I don't have to buy things like pinking shears and sewing machines.

Now I'm going to eat my chocolate and hope that tomorrow brings lots of customers to offset my perpetual joblessness and that the people I sit next to are entertaining (and if they're not, that they leave me alone) and that Betty White does some sweet sketches on SNL.

Owl update

You may or may not remember Asma Owl, but now there's a new owl in town and he's for sale!


He has already gone national in his short life. I started him right before we went to Omaha for a surprise birthday party (why can't I quit you, Omaha?) and finished him on the ride down.


He is the quintessential "me" item. Made him up as I went. I did redo the eyes a couple times to get the colors right, though.


Don't have a name for him yet. If he doesn't sell at the craft show this weekend, I'll have to think of one before he pops up on Etsy.

Sheldon the turtle

Gah! Naked!


I just remembered that I never posted about this guy because it was a gift and, you know, I didn't want to spoil anything. But now baby Parker is here and Sheldon actually went on his slow-but-merry way a while ago.


I messed with the pattern so it doesn't look like the original, as usual. I just love that the shell comes off. I think this was the last project I did pre-craft show madness time. Speaking of which, back to it!