Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to every Mom out there!

Enjoy your day!

The Big Reveal...

Well is is Happy Tuesday!

Happy Cinco De Mayo to all! Let's celebrate just because we can!

First the big reveal...

If you recall, I started out with just materials yesterday



And now today we have this..



TA DA!

Actually this is an inspiration piece as well. Our nephew Levi is graduating from Colorado State next week. I am sending one of these cards to him!

If you have a graduate that you would like to congratulate, this card is in my etsy shop here.

Today's birthday shout out is from Ann B. Davis who is 83 today. Our beloved Alice from the Brady Bunch.

Seriously who didn't love Alice? My favorite "Alice" episode is when she secretly sent Jan the locket because she was a middle child like her. (Actually, Jan was sooo misunderstood. lol). And by the Brady reunion time to know that Alice and Sam the butcher finally tied the knot, well that made the whole thing!

So I could not find a Brady Clip that I like so here is a commercial from the '80s in her Alice character for Shake-n-Bake.



Thank you Ann B. Davis for your very many Brady years. Happy Birthday and many, many more!

One more thing..
My other blog, It's A Fairy World, my topic is kindness today. Would you please carry out at least one ROAK today. For me? Please? Thank you in advance!

Have a great day!

Happy Birthday Audrey Hepburn

Howdy Howdy Howdy

It is Monday! Everyone stand up and cheer. This means that all that crap that occured last week has washed away to a beautiful new week! Yea!

So what are we going to do this wonderful new week. Work, explore, take care of business. What ever we stinking want to!

So now that's out of the way.

I am working on graduation cards that will be available tomorrow. Here are all of the materials. I feel like the cooking show, here are all of the ingredients and let's she what she can cook up in just 15 minutes! They should be cool, I can see them in my head. lol



Today is Star Wars Day. "May the 4th be with you!"

Today is also the anniversary of the birth of Ms. Audrey Hepburn. She would have been 80 today.

I do not remember really any of her movies sadly, the clip of My Fair Lady seems familiar. And I know that she made the original movie Sabrina (which the remake is one of my favs). What stands out about Audrey Hepburn to me is class and a great sense of the importance of helping others. She was a world class humanitarian working with UNICEF and she blazed the trail for the likes of actors like Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie to get involved with matters other than Hollywood.

Here is clip from Roman Holiday that is very cute:



I think there is an Audrey Hepburn film festival in our future!

Well every one have a great day and

Happy May Day ~ Happy Birthday Kate Smith

Hello To All!

I hope that this post finds you well on this May Day.

So what is May Day other than and distress signal? Actually it is rather interesting.

In the Celtic traditions, pre-Christianity, May Day signified the festival of Beltane. Which was the start of the summer season. The herds of livestock were driven to the fields and a new fire was built that would be kept going all the way til it was time for the next festival.

May Day is also a cross quarter day, marking the half way point between the sun's journey from spring equinox and the summer solstice.

The May Pole was a fixture in many towns and was decorated for this festival to signify to new growth and vitality of Spring. Traditions like hanging flowers on doors of the homes in the villages and picking a May Queen become more prominent in the late 1700's and are of the British and Puritan influence.

In the late 1800's May Day became the symbol of international labor as worker's gathered together to demand better working conditions including the 8 hour work day. This relates to the Haymarket Square affair in 1886 Chicago. After employees decide to strike a machinery plant when fellow workers were killed due to unsafe conditions. This lead to further protest, a bombing in the crowd with a lot of bloodshed and the eventual public hanging of 7 convicted criminals. Ewww

In 1958 President Eisenhower signed a proclamation naming May 1 as Loyalty Day. A day to re-proclaim our loyalty to our country. Some areas of the country celebrate this with parades and festivals.

Which brings us to our Birthday Shout Out which is the late Kate Smith. Today she would have been 92. She was a talented singer that was featured on radio shows in the 1930's and beyond. Her most memorable recording was her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America".




You had a wonderful gift Ms. Smith and we are all grateful for you sharing it.

So we have come full circle celebrating the beginning of the growing season, to the celebration of labor to the very reminder why we as so blessed with the freedoms we have.

Go out and dance around the May Pole or just brings some fresh flowers in your home. Celebrate what a great country we have. And celebrate all of those who fight to keep our country great!

Another Giveaway and Cloris Leachman

Hello to All!

First, I'd like to tell you about another cool giveaway. Another twitter pal @sevidesigns is giving away an adorable handmade buttercup bag. It is in the most delight Lila Tueller fabric and a must have for the complete summer wardrobe! All the deets are on Katherine's blog, Sevi Desings. Make sure you browse the whole blog and her shop too, so many deligtful things!

Today's birthday shout out is to Cloris Leachman. Who is a young 83 today.

This woman is insane! Do you remember her performances on DWTS? She was a riot. And her list of performances on TV, movies and stage is very long according to her wiki entry.

Well, she has been an avid supporter of PETA for years and apparently a devout vegetarian. If that is what it takes to be that vibrant at 83, then I might just be throwing out the hotdogs again!

So happy birthday Ms. Leachman and many, many more!

That is all I have for now. Quite frankly, it is 4:25 am, and I am going back to bed! lol

Have a wonderful day!

Ultimate Promo GiveAway Alert!!!

Hello Friends!

I am writing to bring you great news. A favorite Esty seller of mine, Self Production Design is having a give away! Their shop has all of these really cool items that sellers like myself can use to promote their personal endeavors. I think that one of my favorite items is the scratch off card that you can give to customers to encourage future business. I love, love, love clever things and this lands right near the top of the list!

So right now go and visit their blog Self Production Design. They have all of the deets about the contest and so many other cool things that you can use if you are a eager artisan like myself!

Reflections on Life

Pictured is my Grandma. She passed away last Tuesday. She was 89.

Grandma was ill for a long time. Throughout my memories I could always remember that there were certain health issues that plagued her and would show up periodically. She also had osteoporosis, that was very advanced making her very fragile and it hampered her getting around some.

To be quite frank these last 15 or so years we were not very close. Large gaps of time would pass and we would not have any contact at all. She had other parts of her life to focus on and so did I. And really that is the way the adult world works after all.

I have some very fond memories of Grandma. Spending time with her, baking apple pies, crocheting and embroidering, and getting candy bars from her secret stash in her closet. Mars bars...but that is a different story for another day.

We had known the end is near for quite a few days and that was the beginning of the tidal wave of emotion that is released when someone in the family passes.

Since I could characterize my relationship with Grandma as love/dislike, I started trudging through all the memories, did my share of finger pointing, picking out the things and situations that I didn't reap from and explaining why I didn't go out of my way for her. Mind you, my family is fairly good sized, so it was not that I was the only grandchild. So I was singling myself out amongst the others that I am sure were doing the very same thing as me.

What made me feel better in going into the wake and the funeral was holding on to those memories, my special ones knowing that no other person in the family had those exact memories and that made them special because they were mine.

Throughout the services Sunday and Monday, I listened to others speak of Grandma. Some of it was things I knew and some of it was things I never heard. Some of it was so outrageous that I was stunned that we were all referring to the same person!

How could she be so different with so many different people? At some point when I got older, did she just decide to be a different person?

I have realized that she was all those things, to all of us. And no matter how well you think you know a person, they are different things to different people.

Then it flashed in my mind, why wasn't she those things to me? Why did I miss out?

I think the best answer is that we are not everything to everyone. Does that make sense? She was the teaching me to make apple pie Grandma to me and she was the make sure that you did your homework after school Grandma to another. And that is okay. I can see that now.

Part of our life is learning lessons. One way is to actually experience situations and the other is by observation. To be honest. I am beginning to believe that the observation part is way more important than the experiencing. Well it has to come first at least.

If I look at my Grandma's life just as an observer, I can objectively pick out the things in her life that I would never want to experience and the things that I look forward to, like the joy of being a grandparent someday.

And while actions in her life would be considered wrong whether it be fact or opinion, I am able to view those and put them somewhere in the back of my mind, for future reference. Later I can call upon them for comparison on situations in my life. Learning lessons.

So Thank you Grandma for the lessons you have taught me even if you didn't mean to.

And Thank you to all of God's creatures for the lessons you have taught me even when you didn't me to.

Also, remember, we are all being taught the lessons, we are teaching each other, every minute of every day. I guess the trick is to take them in and heed them when necessary.

Rest in peace Grandma.