Sold!

It has been crazy and fun this month and last! I have been selling my Bullet Key chains like hot cakes! Of course, I never really understood that phrase. How can something sell like hot cakes? Are hot cakes that great? I just figured they were just pancakes. Well, to each there own. Anyways....got off track there. Sells on Etsy have been great. Christmas was looking pretty bleak until things started to sell. I have been able to buy some Christmas and other stuff. I hope the sells continue. I know that it will slow down. :( I have reached 90 sales!! I would love to reach a 100 before Christmas.

It's almost here!

Well, my cousin got hitched. Whats funny is that he married my cousin. Let me explain.....Roman (aka the groom) is my cousin on my moms side. Shaela (aka the bride) is my cousin on my dads side. Who would've thought they would hook up. I think it's great! They look so cute together. I am very happy for them. I have posted several photos on my flickr. His sister (aka JessiLynn) also has some, of course! :) Besides the wedding things have been crazy around here.

My Sister-in-law's kids have the chickenpox. Two more of her kids have it now. I feel bad for her. I keep waiting for my kids to show up with spots. We will see. If they do, I hope it's after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. :)

Just a little kitty cat

My husband has been gone for about a week. He has been parading all around the woods, hunting for elk. His dad and nephew have been with him. They all got drawn for muzzle loader for elk. They have been having fun. It's rained and snowed on them. Saw several elk, but no shots. Until one day...my husband (Shawn) was walking through the woods and spotted not one but two cougars. They were about 80 yards out. Shawn watched them and waited. So far the cougars didn't know he was there. When they got about 20 yards, he fired. He dropped the one in her tracks.

I think about it and can't believe it. We have been hunting up there for the past 10 years and we have only seen glimpse of these amazing animals. My husband and his family have been hunting up there for about 20 years and have only spotted a few. I know how dangerous these animals can be. I am very thankful Shawn saw them first. With cougars you never know. I think these animals are amazing and beautiful.

Stocking Stuffer for Men!!!!

Do you have a hard time shopping for a guy? I know I do. Of course my husband isn't so bad, but when it comes to my Dad......well, that is a different story! I am here to make it a little better. My husband bought a key chain a long time ago that had a bullet on it. I thought, how hard could this be. My husband has all the re-loading stuff, so I raided his stash. He has so many casings and such. I enlisted my father-in-law to help me. He figured it out and voila! we have a bullet key chain. I want to offer different calibers eventually. Right now, I just have hollow point 44's. So, if your man likes to hunt or maybe hes a cop or how about that teenager that just got his driver license, look no further. These are the perfect little gift for the stocking!

Christmas is almost upon us!

Oh my! Tis the season and Jingle bells and Ho Ho Ho's. I am so not prepared mentally! But you don't have to be. You can get your Christmas cards right in my shop! Just think, all you have to do is email me a photo and I do all the work. I send them to you and all you have to do is hand them out. Task one is done! Then on to the fun stuf.....road rage, penny pinchers and " darn it, that lady took my toy out of my basket!" All the fun things of Christmas shopping. Maybe this year will be different...........Well, I plan on being nice and let the lady have the toy. I mean, after all, if she is willing to take it out of your cart, then you should turn around and pat her on her back and say " Well done, I hope your child has better manners." And then proceed to kill them with kindness. :) I just love the Holidays! I think I will eat my fudge and stay home. Do my shopping online and grin at everyone that is yelling " did you see that! She cut me off! " Don't get me wrong, I do love the holidays. I already have plans for gifts. I'm not real excited about this holiday though. It will be hard not having Brian around. I know it will be hard on the family. I just pray that we can still smile and just remember those good holidays when he was still with us. So I guess you could say that I am a bit sour about the holidays. But time marches on.......

Knitting my brains out!

I have been going crazy with the hat making! I can't seem to stop. I just sit down and whip em out. I average about one to two hats a day. Sometimes I will get a scarf in there. I have been trying to fill my shop up on Etsy. I think it's starting to get there. I have already sold four hats! Please come by and check them out. I try to get them on my Flickr too. I love to do custom orders. I did one for Thosegreathousewomen. She needed a hat that was bigger and wild. So I whipped one up for her. I am very happy with the result. I can't seem to stay away from the yarn isle any more! My slogan should be "Hand over the yarn and know one gets hurt" :)

Pendants with my Photos!

This is so neat. EliNOpus was wanting photos to put on her pendants. I offered a few and wame, my photos are a necklace! They look really great. She is really nice to work with and I wish her many sales. Of course it's great exposure for me too. :) Be sure to check her shop out.

Back from Mom and Dads

What a trip! We spent a month and a half with my parents. It was great! My husband had a job in there area. I was sad to leave. I know that sounds crazy. Anybody would probley be done in a week. I mean, we are talking about living with your parents. I thought for sure that Shawn would clash with my mom. But they were both on there best behavior and managed to get along just great. Don't get me wrong, my mom and husband get along just fine. It's just those little things that get in the way. The kids had a blast! Being spoiled and all. I am happy to be back at home, but it's a bitter sweet. It's hard coming back to life where we lost a loved one. Shawn lost his brother while we were away. He had sepsis. It's really rare. It was horrible. I hate seeing my sister-in-law so sad. They have four kids. I just pray that I can be there for her. I want to be a strong shoulder for her. I love her and the kids. It's been hard coming back. I know as a family we will get through this.

This photo is from a winery in Benton City, Wa. It was Crush Weekend. This winery is Terra Blanca. My brother did a show on it. You can check it out here http://www.northwestjourneys.com/ Just click on the videos on the left and go to Terra Blanca. It really amazing.

My logo

I have been working on a logo for my shop Artistic Image. I dragged out Shawn's Fender, paper and a pencil. I began my sketch. I really like it so far. I am hoping Jess can help me with the coloring of it. She does such an awesome job. I am sure that we will come up with something great!

She made me cry

I got a wonderful surprise today. I was checking out all my spaces, and there are to many, and I noticed at the top of my Flickr page there was a little envelope saying I had a new message. It's always nice to get one. This time, it was a little different. Before I go on, let me do a little history for you. Jess and I started this 365 days of photos. We have to take a photo everyday for a year. It's a big goal. Well, I don't have a pro account and ran out of space on my flickr to post anymore photos until next month. We are a little short of money, so I figured I would just get caught up on the first. It would make it a little harder to do the 365 Days. Now, back to my little envelope. It was a message from Jess saying that she bought me a gift. And that gift was a Pro account. I was stunned and so surprised that I cried. I know, it's silly but it's not often I get such a surprise. I thank her so much and I will put it to good use! Now we can continue our journey of 365 Days without any interruption's. :0 So in honor of Jess and her givingness, I give her this award.

Love ya Jess! Can't wait to see ya

Feature Seller has Bright Ideas

An inventive Etsy seller. Mkendall Photographs has taken the photograph to the next level. Be sure to browse every page in her shop. Each photo is a wonderful work of art.

A little tid bit from the artist:

"I have been a painter for many years and the past few took an interest in photography. I began layering my images over each other to make collage (that's how my paintings are). That's grown tremendously and thus my etsy shop was born. I try to incorporate repeating images such as typewriters, light bulbs, polaroids and christmas lights. I hope you like what you see!"

Be sure to check out Mkendall Photographs

365 Days Update

I have managed to take a photo everyday for six days. I will be posting my 7th one later today on my Flickr. I have to say that it was harder than I thought. Last night I remembered I didn't take any photos that day. I was working on a wash cloth and thought " hey, i'll take a pic of this. Afterall, it's something in my life i'm doing right now " It's not the best lighting, but it will do. I wondered last night as I was uploading it, if Jess had posted hers. She hasn't yet. Hmmmm, gonna have to get on to that girl :) Each photo has a description for it on my Flickr. Be sure to check it out!

I got an Award!

The Nice Matters Award!

Jess was so kind to give this award to me! I didn't even know that people did this! In that alone says that there are many nice people out there. :)

I won't try and make a speech. I don't know if I could beat Jess' Grammy Speech :) I will say that it is very sweet that she sent this my way. Jess has been like a little sister to me. I only have a brother and he is 7 years older than me. So having Jess around was nice. I know that since I got married and moved away our relationship has been kinda up and down. I feel bad that we didn't keep in touch that much. Now...things have change and it's all because of Etsy. Since she introduced me to it, we have been chatting and brainstorming together. It's been really great! I am so glad that we now have a common ground again. Not that we never did before. Jess got married and has a child now. I feel that we have grown closer because of it.

Jess, just know that I love ya and always will be here for you. :) And thanks for the award!

365 Days

Jess and I have started a new adventure. We have teamed up to keep each other motivated and on track. We are to take a photo everyday about our day for a year! Thats right, 365 photos! I just now getting my first one up. Every Monday, I will have a new post about how I am doing. You can see all the photos on my Flickr. I will try and do a recap of the week for all those who are keeping tabs ( like Jess ) :)

Here is my Day 1 photo. We are about to paint our trailer. We rolled out some kraft paper to protect the boardwalk and steps. I brought out some crayons and the kids had a field day. My daughters face was so dirty this day. She touched the trucks wheel and then proceded to touch her face. Yuk!

I've been Tagged!

Whats this you might ask? I have no idea except to let everyone know a little about yourself and learn more about others.
My cousin Jess (aka Sparksfly) has so kindly tagged me. And I am so lucky to have only three letters in my middle name. Ha.... to Jess :)

Here are the rules:1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of their middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.3. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

K= "Kind" I feel like I am a kind person and I hope others think the same.

A= "Artistic" I know, thats stealing my blog name. But, I do feel like I have inherited a gift. My Grandpa and many of my Aunts and Cousins are wonderful artist. I sometimes feel like I don't do enough and that i'm wasting my talent. Some people have even told me that. Maybe I don't have enough confidence in myself. One of these days, I will sell my drawings of my trucks and be darned if anyone tells me different. Wow, I didn't mean to write a novel! Moving on now...

Y= "Yo Yo" Some days this describes me perfectly. I feel like all I do is go back and forth cleaning up after my kids and husband. While going back and forth, my brain is thinking of all the things I want to get done for myself. So, I find my life has a Yo Yo effect. I'm afraid one of these days the string is going to break :)

So now I am off to Tag 3 other wonderful people if they want to participate. Be sure to check out there blogs

To and Fro
Joey & Aleethea
Blue Moon

Feature Seller is Smashing it Up!

Smashgirl Mosaics

"I'm an obsessive plate smasher(mosaic artist) who lives by the beach in Sunny California. When I shop, I beeline for the pretty ceramics and dishes aisle, while my kids hold me back. Some people hide their candy from their spouses, I have to hide my dishes. I seriously have hundreds. I'll be smashing into my golden years! My husband wonders why we eat on plain white Correll dishes...well, I can't smash those ones, so they are safe from me. The best Mother's Day gift ever from my kids was a shopping spree to buy plates! It was so fun! Take a look in my shop to see what my broken dishes become!"



smashgirl.etsy.com

Come back often to see other Smashingly wonderful Etsy sellers doing what they do best "Crafting".

Treasury

I was browsing through the treasurys and found me! I was excited to see my Dodge emblem. I thought I would share it with everyone! :))

Through the Viewfinder

Here's the deal..... I have been seeing more and more of this type of photo. Jess (aka Sparksfly) is the one to introduce me to it. I wasn't sure about it at first. Then I started seeing what others were doing with this technique. I thought wow! this is cool. Jess has been doing some awesome things with it too. So I did some research. I figured I needed some expensive equipment, but I found out I didn't. I just need an old camera and my new one. So I went through some of the old cameras I collected from garage sales and what you know, I have one that would work. It's a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash. Now before I go any further, I will explain the definition of Through the Viewfinder (aka TtV). It's taking a picture with one camera through another camera. I dug out my priority mail boxes and made me a contraption. So here is my first shot with my contraption. It needs a lot of work but I like the outcome so far.

My first SALE!

I am so excited! I made my first sale in my photography shop! I was beginning to wonder if anyone thought my photos were buyable. I'm glad someone thought so! I hope to sell many more. I feel like I have improved so much. I hope to continue to learn more everyday. I have been chatting with a lot of photographers on Flickr. It has been a great help. I see things now that I would have never seen before. So look for the future in my photos. Watch me grow.

The Car Show

Shawn and I took the kids to the car show here in springfield. It was hot and muggy! I was hoping for a bigger turn out. But we still saw some pretty amazing autos! Shawn and I found our future car. It was a '65 Mustang GT fastback. It was totally rebuilt. It was awesome! I have photos from it but I have work to do with them. By the time we got through them all, Sydney was asleep in her stroller and Cole was dragging. I needed another shower! It was nice to get back in the car with the a/c going full blast! I worked up one shot and come up with this. I like how it turned out. Of course, I wouldn't post it if I didn't like it :).

Antiqued

This was so much fun to do! I found some really great tutorials online and ran with it! I have been trying to master Adobe Photoshop 7 for some time now. Well......we all know that, that is impossible! There is way to much to consume. One step at a time. Maybe by the time i'm 80 or 100 I will get it all. Of course, by then technology will be beyond my imagination and no one will remember adobe. Then theres the chance that I will be to senile to even understand. Boy, it's not looking good is it? Upward and Onward! I will try to cram as much as possible in my head. So wish me luck!

Etsy Poster Contest

This was so much fun! I loved looking through shops trying to find just the right thing. I started with a black and white. I had to add Sparksfly, so I added her cactus with red. I love it! Then I came across some green and blue and had to add. I think it turned out great. There were so many to choose from. It was hard to decide. So many talented people and to few of spaces on the poster! I hope you like.

It's just me and the computer

What a day! The kids are finally in bed and I am enjoying some stir fry. It's been crazy around here. I've been working on photos for my nephews baseball team. They are going to the State Playoffs in Portland. If you saw them the first game they played, you would not believe how far they have come. What a group of troopers. They are all around the age of 10 and 11. I've been taking pictures like a maniac! I wanted to offer the parents a group shot along with an action photo of their kid. I hope it goes well. I have two done! That makes 10 more to go :)

X-Ray Vision

I have found a way to see the goods! I have been messing around with photoshop and came across this. I love the way it looks. I want to experitment some more to see what else I can come up with.

This photo was of an old Kodak camera we have. Well, I should say one of the many we have. I collected them for a while. I ran out of room for them. I think are very interesting and we actually have one that still works. My husband has messed around with it and managed to get some pictures developed from it. It's work, not to mention not cheap to use. I think I will stick to my modern camera! The other photo is of my daughter on the beach at Winchester Bay, Oregon. I think it turned out cute and unique.

Blogger Street Team Orange Theme!

Orange you glad you stopped by? I know, I know...... This headwrap was created from a thread idea. I have been particapating in the "Want a sale?....." thread. I asked everyone what color I should do next. It was unanimous! Orange along with a Lime green one too. So I made two. This Orange one was fun but a little out of my color favorites. You see, I live in Oregon and I am a Duck fan. And of course, the Beavers are the rivals. And there colors happen to be orange and black. I made myself do it and it turned out great. I love making these. They are a lot of fun. I hope you like it too!

So much, So little

It's so hard trying to find the time to everything I want to do. My list is ever growing! There's so much I want to offer on Etsy. I am enspired everyday that i'm on there. There are so many talented peoples. Right now i'm trying to consentrate on my photography. I want to excelle in this. I feel that the options are endless! Thus, so much to do and so little time to do it in. My life is a little crazy right now. My two kids and home keep me busy. Not to mention the hubby:) I am trying to juggle to many things and can't decide what I should stop doing. I love to quilt and make different things. I found that beading is fun, but like I need another hobby! So I think I will get rid of that one. I will never stop quilting though. I just love fabric! I want to gain some ground in the photo department. Start collecting equipment.

My mini vacation

I just got back from my parents house. It was so much fun! It was like having a mini vacation. We sat out in the sun and went swimming in the pool! My mom is the greatest. She is an amazing person and a wonderful gardener. She has some of the most amazing roses. My dad and her have made it into a hobby and a work of art. I took lots of photos and got some really nice shots. I hope you enjoy them!

I hope to offer a large selection of photos in the future. My collection is ever growing. I hope you take time to check out Etsy.com. It is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. You can find just about anything!