Thankful

Eeks...I just looked at when my last post was. I cannot believe it has been that long. I do have to say that I had been a busy lady especially over that last few weeks. Of course a "good" busy! I have to Thank all of my lovely Etsy customers this year. New and returning ones. I certainly have had the pleasure of corresponding with some of the best customers ever! And thank you for the great feedback. I really appreciate all the kind words.

I thought I give you a small peek of just a few cards that were designed for this past holiday season.

I am now enjoying a bit of my down time but, also playing catch up on some last minute holiday shopping, baking and other preperations. Other then that we've had a blast with the kids so far and gearing up for the holidays. Going to concerts, volunteering for school activities, making gingerbread houses, and enjoying the wintery outdoors. They are at that age where everything is so magical and real. I wish I could bottle it up and hold on to this forever with them.

I won't be posting until after Chirstmas so I can take this time to spend with my family and enjoy every minute of it. I am truely blessed! Also, let us not forget the true meaning of Christmas. Our Lord and Savior is truely the most precious gift ever!

Have a Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Winner of the Holiday Photo Card Giveaway

Ugh...so sorry this post is one day late. I've been crazy busy getting freelance projects done and photo card orders completed. I needed a few hours of down time with my family yesterday.

Thank you to all who participated in my little giveaway. I love doing these!

The winner is

Hi! My name is Ryoko from cocostitch. I too am a busy mom: semi-self taught sewer,

part time Entrepreneur, beginner gardner of mini plants, and 6 days a week

head-of-household homemaker. I love your "Speckle Holiday photo card"

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35067786All of your designs

are wonderful, I love the color patterns you use. It just fit my sense.I have been

checked your etsy site a lot and recently I just found out about the sale.

But I missed it. So it would be wonderful if I could win this giveaway.:)

Congratulations Ryoko!

Monday

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did! The 4 day weekend was much needed for everyone here.

Saturday I spent the day with a few good friends in downtown Chicago. It was a perfect day! I just love that city especially at this time of year. All the twinkling little lights on the trees and the beautiful store window displays really put a person in the Holiday mood. It was quite crowded but, the weather made up for that. It was in the mid 50's and for the end of November that is pretty crazy. It was very neat to see people sitting and eating outside of restaurants that offered outdoor seating. We ate at a restaurant on Pearson St. called Bistro 110. Delish! I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to eat in a relaxed atmosphere with great food and wine. We started off with drinks and tried a featured appetizer - Artichoke Stuffed with Brie. YUM!

The rest of the day was spent shopping, browsing, and site seeing. I didn't get too much shopping done but, the day was fun just spending it with friends.

Off to get some shopping done - Cyber shopping! Oh, and make sure you submit here for a chance to win a Holiday digital file from my Etsy shop. I'll announce the winner tomorrow!

Photo Card Giveaway

That's right...Christmas is just over a month away! Can you believe it??? To take a little stress off of your shoulders I'm having a Holiday Photo Giveaway. Visit my Esty shop Winks and Daisies and browse my holiday designs. Leave a comment after this post(make sure I can contact you) and tell me what your favorite holiday design is. One of you will win a digital file card giveaway. What does this mean? Basically, you pick out a design you love, mail me the photos and info you'd like included on the card and in return I will send you a high resolution JPG for you to download at any photo lab. Print as many as you need and your ready to send off your holiday cards.

Contest will end next Monday, November 30th. Good luck!

Sale to end soon!

I know...I know...2 posts in one day! This one is just to let you know that my store Holiday card sale will be ending Saturday night - November 21. So, if you have your photos ready scoop them up now.

BUT...check back Monday for a chance to win a free digital file holiday photo card from my store.

Happy Friday!

Free 2010 Mini Photo Calendar

I spotted these on one of my favorite daily read blogs, iDiY. The calendars are by the Shutter Sisters and we can all dowload them here. They can be customized with any photos and what's super cool is that they are sized to fit inside a CD case. Check out the photo for how you can display them that way. Perfect for any desk space!

Pom Pom Wreath

Oh...I can't tell you how happy the discovery of this DIY Pom Pom wreath made me. When I saw it I immediately remembered how my friends and I in grade school would spend hours making a bunch of pom poms. For what? Anything really. We'd make some for pinning on our coats or you know...the small friendship ones that you'd attach to your shoe laces on your favorite high tops. Okay so I just dated myself with that!

Head over to bleubird to get the low down on making this fun wreath. I think I'm going to break out yarn colors of my daughters room colors and make one to hang up in there. I'm so giddy over this project!!!

DIY Fall Treat Boxes

This weekend was not the typical early November weather we usually see in Wisconsin. Mid 60's all weekend long. We could not have asked for a better weekend to get those last minute things completed outside before winter hits.

I managed to work on a little DIY project despite wanting to be outside all weekend. I was thinking of some cute little gifts to give to friends and family for a small Thanksgiving treat. I ran across this recipe to make these adorable little Sparkling Candy Corn Cookies. How cute are they? They taste great too!

So I thought those sweet little cookies needed a nice little home so I designed a little treat box to nestle them into. About 5-6 of these petite cookies will fit nicely into the box. I've designed a template for you to print, cut and fold up these little boxes. You can print one that has a leaf motif on the top with, "from and to" here or if you prefer one without you can print that one here.

Sugar High

I hope you all had a great Halloween! We did dispite it being only 40 something and windy. The kids really enjoyed themselves and have been on a sugar high ever since.

I ended up sewing a shirt for Tinker Bells costume. It didn't turn out to bad. I don't have a close up of it since I haven't recharged my camera batteries since Halloween. Hopefully the photos will give you an idea.

Happy Tuesday!

Free Art Project

I've had this site tucked away in my favorites for months now. I love everything about Feed Your Soul: the free art project. Being an artist this site makes my heart skip a beat or 2. I think everyone should be able to have an unique piece of art somewhere up on a wall. This site has some fabulous prints by very talented artists and lucky for you and me they are free. Print them on photo paper or cardstock, stick them in a frame, hang them up and smile!

Tinker Bell

Of course my daughter would have to be some sort of princess or girly character for Halloween. Not that I objected but, I knew once my son turned 3 and he insisted on being a fireman that I could no longer dress them in adorable fuzzy cute costumes. This year Leyton will be Bumble Bee Transformer(I'll post pics of him next week) and Maddie Tinker Bell. I came across this tutorial on YouTube on how to make a no sew tutu and thought I'm crafty...I can make this for Maddie's costume. Let me tell you this was so easy and super inexpensive. Fun too! She absolutely loves it! I was thinking I'd attempt to make the wings but, ended up buying these on the Disney store site. They light up, so how could I compete. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do for the top. Any ideas? I may attempt to sew one or dress up a shirt/tank top. I'll post pics when I have that figured out.

Happy Friday!

Makes me smile

This morning I was glancing at The Dieline and came across this packaging for wool by Rellana. Hilarious and clever! Last week at work our company had a contest on who could grow the best mustache or beard. They had a few weeks to prepare. It was quite humorous. So I totally got a chuckle out of this when I saw it.

I'm also loving this cute ice cream packaging by the student spotlight: Joao Ricardo Machado

Definitely makes me smile!

Happy Wednesday!

Honored

Last Thursday I received a convo through my Etsy store site that someone nominated this design for a contest that is being held through the site called: Let's Talk Stationary. I'm not familiar with it but, will definitely mark it as a favorite. It is a stationery designer's resource site that offers a bunch of great perks. I am completely honored that not only did someone really like the design but, took the time to nominate it. So to whom did this - THANK YOU!!! I think I'm blushing here.

I'm also excited to let you know that I've added two new items to the store and have a few others up my sleeve. The first is that I'm now offering 2" round sticker labels. I thought this would be a great item to introduce before the holidays. Perfect for address labels for mailing out those Christmas cards. They can be coordinating to a design that already exists in my store but, I am open to the idea of custom stickers as well. Please convo or email me first since there would be a small design fee included in the price.

The second item is mailing envelope wraps. These are actually a DIY item. I'm offering them as a PDF to match any of my designs. They measure 1.5" h x 8" w and will come 5 per page. All you have to do is print them on sticker paper, cut and wrap. They can also be printed on printing paper, cut and glued/taped on. I'm also open for these to be a custom design. They definitely can jazz up a plain'o boring envelope.

New Etsy Girly Love

Last month I ran across a new Etsy store that had the most adorable mod clothing for little girls. I simply fell in love with Growing up with Charissa. Seriously how cute are the clothes she makes?

The clothes and style are completetly different then any other I've seen on Etsy. I bought this dress(see below) for my daughter for Christmas and I cannot believe how perfect it is. Maddie absolutely loved modeling it. Definitely worth checking out.

...and how about the swirl stitching?!

Oh Pumpkins

On Wednesday I will be a chaperon on my son's field trip to this cute little orchard. I'm really looking forward to spending the day with him and his class. I love this time of year...pumpkins, carmel apples, hot cider, jumping in leaf piles...ahh, lovely fall. I can't wait to carve and decorate pumpkins with the kids this year. I think this will be the year that both will be very excited to do so. I love starting little family traditions with them.

I've seen so many lovely ideas in what to do with pumpkins in many magazines and online but, I still have a huge place in my heart for a good old fashioned carved one. Better Homes and Garden has some great stencils to download. Thought I'd share in the fun!

Early Holiday Sale

Visit my store at: www.winksanddaisies.etsy.com

Where or where have I been...

I haven't been the best at posting lately. There are some good reasons for that...the first not so much but, the "cold bug" has hit our house. Tis the season for that in the midwest! The second is that you may have noticed a small depletion of my designs in my Etsy store. I was contacted by another online card company that wanted to carry some of my designs. Since I released a good 18 or so designs to them I've been busy designing new ones to restock the store. Since I work part time for a company and freelance I've been trying to create in between all of that. Anywho...I'm very excited about the company that asked, Photo Affections. They have a great preview option of the designs so you can see what your photo card will look like before you purchase it. Check them out and you may just see some familiar designs.

Here are a few new Holiday card designs.

Lovely Rings

Even with the cold weather we've been having these flower rings make me feel all warm in side. I think I'm missing spring/summer already!

1 Just Peachy; 2 Wired Design; 3 Viridian; 4 Royal Princess; 5 Ruche; 6 Anthropologie

And the Winner is...

Thank you to all who participated in my little giveaway! With the help from my little assistant a winner has been chosen.

First... the names were put into a bowl.

With a twirl of the bowl the name was picked...

And the winner is...

Congrats Blue.Crayon! I will contact you today. This was fun and please look for another little give away in October. It'll be a chance to win one of my digital Chirstmas photo cards from my Etsy store. One less thing to cross off the list before the holiday craziness starts!

Decorative Bird Print Giveaway

These little prints I designed are getting pretty popular in my Etsy store. It's Friday and and I thought what better then to have a little giveaway. All you have to do is go to my Etsy store and tell me which design(s) are your favorite by leaving a comment. Please be sure to leave an email address I can reach you at. The winner will have their choice to which print they would like to receive. The contest ends September 24th at midnight. The winner will be announced on Friday the 25th.

Always

Okay, I'm sure I'm not the only one out there lately that is dealing with tired and emotional roller coaster children these days. With the school year in session my kids are up and down with all sorts of emotions. Even though it can be draining at times we reassure them that no matter what their little attitudes do to us that we love them unconditionally.

Have you heard, seen or read this book called Always by Ann Scott? It's a sweet little book that shares the joy of unconditional love no matter what sort of things your child does. Little sayings like, "Do you love me when I eat my peas? Do you love me when I don't?" Not only does it have the sweetest little message but, the simple illustrations are so darling and they convey the message perfectly.

My kids have it offered in their Scholastic magazines through school but, it's on Amazon as well and priced for $11.99.

La Plates

I just found this blog site a few weeks ago and she really posts some great deals and fun giveaways. This one really tugged at me because of all the pattern fun. La Plates can be custom created allowing you to choose the pattern, color and fonts.

If you have kids and want to preserve their artwork try Make-A-Plate. Our sitter for the kids have done this with them since they were infants. We now have 3-4 plates each that the kids artwork is on. They eat off of them all the time and it's so fun to still hear the comments they make about them.

2010 Clever Calendars

I spotted these lovely letterpress calendars from Linda & Harriet. The simple designs are right up my alley. What is even more lovely is that they double as postcards. Once you are finished with the month flip them over, cut the month part away, write a note to someone special and drop it into the mail.

How cute is April?

Shoe Love for Kids

I just ran across this shoe site - Vincent Shoes. I'm in love with their styles. So fun and stylish! They actually have some great sales going on so check them out. I will be!

Another Holiday Design

I've added this Holiday design to my Etsy shop. I have a few more new designs I'm working on and will have them displayed in my shop next week. There are some from my last years batch that I added as well. Enjoy your 3 day weekend!!!

Mr. Kindergartner

Tuesday was officially the first day of school in our area. I really didn't think I'd get that emotional when I saw Leyton off on his first day. Only because last year he attended 4k which he still rode the bus to and from school and was gone for the morning. So I had gone through all of it already. Last year at this time I saw an unsure and shy little boy climbing up those bus steps and sitting amongst other equally unsure kids. This year he was completely different. He knew the routine...and as if he almost didn't need my guidance. That is when the tears came in. I saw this little boy in a years time become so confident. Oh, how I love and cherish this kid. He is seriously a gentle soul and I'm so proud to be his Mommy! snif-snif...(wiping the eyes).

So, I found this picture of Leyton taken when he was 2 years old last week going through some old files. I thought how fun it would be to have him stand with his red Wisconsin Badger football for a first day back to school photo. I'm hoping to do this for every new school year as long as he will let me. Again...snif-snif!!!

DIY-Kids Reward Punch Cards

With the school year just days away I know that there will have to be some sort of routine started again. Summer lazy mornings will soon come to an end - blah! I know that I will need my children to help out to make things go a little more smoothly in the morning and at night.

To make this fun for them I decided to make them reward punch cards. So far I have them designed for brush your teeth, pick up bedrooms(toys), and finish homework. The last is more for my son but, my 3 year old daughter is way too excited not to have any preschool homework. I may just have to fudge that a bit. Both kids love shoving "pretend" plastic cards in their wallets so I thought this would be fun for them. Plus they get to punch a hole in the card - bonus for them! I plan on having them printed for each school week within each month. If they have all the holes punched(with my supervison of course) they will get one surprise small trip at the end of the month. ei: to the kids museum; inflatable funlands, and etc...

This has gotta work! If not with my kids at least I will get to share them with YOU. To print them for a boy go here. For a girl go here. It's best to print them on heavy card stock.

Here's to wishful carefree school mornings and nights!

Envelope Accessories

A few little ideas to dress up mailing envelopes. Go ahead say "hey" to that someone and make it look all fancy!

Labels by BOHTIEQUE DESIGN

Stamps by Modern Art Stamps

Lined Envelopes - Red Stamp

Back to School

In one week I will be sending my son Leyton off to kindergarten. I know I will still be a wreck even though he did go to 4k last year which was for 1/2 day 5x a week. There's just something about him now going a full day that is so hard to take in. Perhaps because for the next 13+ years he will be doing the same thing. I've been so lucky to be able to be home during the week for a great majority of his life. My daughter Maddie will be attending 3 year old preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2-1/2 hrs. That is also crazy to think about! She is ready for that and asks almost every day if she can go to school yet. Is that a girl thing?

Here are some back to school finds that I'm hearting...

1. Dabbawalla back packs - isn't this adorable?

2. Nix Baby socks - love the bright colors.

3. Waste Not Saks reusable cloth snack bags

4. Oshkosh B'gosh clothing

5. Goodbyns lunch boxes - you gotta check these out. They are not only adorable but, are a green product. Even the stickers used to decorate them are printed with vegetable based inks.

6. Graphic shirts - GapKids