HELP!

I have a major addiction..ETSY! I can not stop buying from it!! AHHHHHHHHH
here is what I bought within the last week or less :( :)

Wall Hanging Clock - Cuckoo Clock - Orange
from decoylab



1970s Retro OWL with Moons - Mounted Rubber Stamp
from sideshowstamps


Crocheting a Scarf - CROCHET KNIT CRAFT - Mounted Rubber Stamp
from sideshowstamps


1970s Retro OWL with flowers - Mounted Rubber Stamp
from sideshowstamps


1970s OWL BORDER - Owls Stacked on Tree Branches - Mounted Rubber Stamp
from sideshowstamps

Origami Crane necklace
from luxedeluxe

Vintage Childrens Art Animals Polka Dots Alphabet Scrapbook Accents
from candyconnection22


Animals in Love Vintage Valentine Images on CD Scrapbook Crafts
from candyconnection22

ICE CREAM SOCIAL Christmas

Happy Christmas from ICS! We had our christmas party and exchanged gifts, and Kat showed Doug how to really bowl on the Wii.
haha All in all ,we all got great secret santa gifts and had a GREAT time...see you all next year girls! and hopefully we will have an edition to our group..ERIN!
oh, and check out Luckydog in the middle of us, he just had to be in the picture..haha

What a bunch of dicks..at Dick's!

I would first like to start by saying that I have been in a GREAT mood! I love Christmas time, I love being happy and seeing other people happy. anyway, I went to Dick's today to return something and to buy a treadmill. ( I am sick of not fitting into my clothes!) So I am going to make this LONNNNNNG story short. I asked a salesperson to help me with buying a treadmill, he told me to take this form that he filled out with info and take it to the costumer service....I went there and was ignored by some lady with a stick up her ass. I'm not gonna go into what happened cause it is long and painful..bottom line, I left with an Eagles sweatshirt for myself..(from the exchange) and with NO treadmill cause the "Customer Service" wouldn't answer me and procceded to help 5 other people (who were there way after me) before I gave up and left. bottom line...they are a bunch of Dicks! actually just the one lady, the kids working there who probably get paid a ton less, were more helpful.

Musicians in the family

Here Kristie teaches Regan how to play drums, the guitar, and of course the great Zylaphone!

Squidfire Craft Fair

So we went to the Squidfire Art and craft show in Baltimore Maryland on Sunday. It took us just about 2 hours to get there.My sister, Rach and I had so much fun. First off I was toddler free, Regan spent the night at Gamie and Pop pops on saturday night because we were leaving at 8am....or supposed to anyway. So we went out to dinner saturday night and spent my wonderful gift of 100 dollar gift card complements of the cheesecake factory from having office supplies in our food....(see previous post for story)
We sipped mojitos...or gulped them and had great appitizers..the entrees were not so hot. Then Sunday morning, Kristie drove while Rach and I were getting a litlle scared of the city we saw when we got off the highway..I kept thinking..this could be really bad. (see photos)
BUT then we arrived at the Lyric opera house and were happy by the look of the neighborhood. It was a litlle intimidating since we had NO idea where we were or what was around. We didn't go get food all day cause didn't see anything in the 2 block radius that we had paid attention too. We did, however, have a major sugar rush fron only eating candy that Squidfire had given us as a treat. Thank god they gave us bottles of water too! THANKS!
So we set up the table with like 5 minutes to spare before the doors opened.( I took the photos before the doors opened. Our table is in the last picture in the left corner of the room) It was a very relaxed and happy place to have our very FIRST craft show:)
We met a few nice vendors and LOTS of great customers. I could not believe the great responses we had from people about all the toys I made. And most of the customers got stuff for themselves...not just for kids. It really was a great time. I sold a total of 599 dollars worth of stuff!! Anj sold a few things, people LOVED her hats but we didnt have enough space for all of everyones stuff.
My sister sold lots of scarves, which was amazing because every other person sold hats and scarves. I was just pleased that I made enough money to cover all my expenses, that's really all I care about. I learned alot of things too. I was surprised to see how many people take credit cards and checks. We did take checks, and hopefully it will pan out..hehe Maybe in the future we will use credit too. Alot of people didn't buy stuff for that reason :(

So I learned:
-always bring your own food and bottles of water.
-Be organized
-take credit and checks
-spell check your price signs..(haha, seriously how embarrassing)
-having 2 people to help is way better!
-and when you start selling things, DO NOT go walk around with money in your pockets...because you will spend it ALL..oops
at least they are all...mostly christmas presents:)
THANK you Kristie,Rach for helping me with everything.
THANK you Anj, for taking care of my puppies while we were gone and for being so supportive :)

next time...ICE CREAM SOCIAL needs to do a craft fair..with 2 tables!

My new Zombie bear

Getting ready

BALTIMORE......YOU GUYS ARE IN FOR A TREAT :)

CRAFT fair!

Craft fair!

the color of change

The colors of the landscape are changing. I look out my window, and this is what I see. For a few days only, will the leaves exactly match my seasonal tablecoloth. It has only been a year since moving to a place with such changes. And its during this season of the year that will always remind me of moving into it.

The Buske Wedding11/03/2007

The newly wed Jonathan and Julie Buske got married on a beautiful saturday, out on Long Island, New York. It was held at The Swan, which was absolutly gorgeous. There was a beautiful room nicely decorated and overlooking the whole outdoor gardens complete with waterfalls and a large pond with water fountains. It was so lovely:) The centerpieces were the best I have ever seen!. Blood red roses, dozens and dozens of them. I had to make sure I took one home.( I did) The gifts were boxes of Godiva, which tasted so amazing, of course, and made the 3 hour trip home more enjoyable.

BUSKE wedding...

Here is a self portrait of Doug and I at the wedding, I LOVE this picture, look how great the gardens were!!
more pics sooner rather than later..

So long gang.

Here are some pics of the gang of animals now living temporarily in "The Future Perfect" in Brooklyn New York. Just until they get adopted by you guys :) pssst the holidays are coming!

THAT'S why they call it The Cheesecake "FACTORY"

Here is the letter I wrote to "The Cheesecake Factory" after getting a large order to go for our friends and us yesterday
.....
I would like to complain about a situation we had with our food, for the SECOND time. We have only had food from this new restaraunt 3 times. the 2nd time, on my birthday, 2/09/07 I had a piece of a number 2 pencil in my quesadilla. The manager said, we dont even use pencils here..which was found to be a lie when we returned the food (it was to go) and on the greeting station is a bunch of pencils! I actually took a bite of food with the pencil in it. anyway, they refunded our money.fine. yesterday we had a large to go order again, we finally got the courage to eat there again after months and months...Then My husband goes to take a bite from his steak and sees somehting shiny in his sauce. IT WAS A STAPLE. Now if he actually ate that, you would have a lawsuit right now. I could not believe that something like this has actually happened, AGAIN! I am amazed. Do they pack the food in the office??

I am outraged by this and did not want to take it back to the place because we were treated so poorly last time we had something in our food. Since this has happened to us on 2 separate occasions that were months apart, I am sure that there are alot of other things like this going on with this place. I am requesting that someone investigate this location to ensure that something horrible does not happen to someone. I am also requesting a full refund from our dinner. Of course, I have the reciept with no totals on it. (I guess you don't want people to realize they over paid for shitty food) I would like this information to be forwarded to the approprate people and I would appreciate a response as soon as possible. Thank you,I also want to tell you that we get our food to go because we have a 2 year old,who will not sit in a restaraunt. If she ate a pencil or a staple, you would be getting a letter from a lawyer. Please take this serious. Hopefully this would help to improve your policies at this location, cherry hill, NJ and others like it. thank you for taking the time to read this.

Gee, I wonder if I am going to get a response....haha NOT I can't WAIT to order from there again, maybe I will call the news and go "undercover" really, what are the chances that this happened to us twice? with office supplies! something strange is going on there. seriously strange.

*******UPDATE********
I just got a call from the cheesecake factory people. They are sending us a gift card, and informed me that they put the togo orders together at a station where there are office supplies.....SO I would assume our office supplies that have made it into our food came from the carelessness of the workers that put the food together. They did apologize and also said that thier "TO GO" orders do account for a large part of thier profits. He also said that he is giving us a giftcard to proove that when we eat there again, they can do things correctly.....we shall see!

ladybug pics

HAPPY HAPPY

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :*)

I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GOOD TIME TRICK AND TREATING. I will be stealing my daughters candy all night long..shhhh. I also wanted to tell everybody, Me and some of my "Ice cream Social" crochet circle will be at the SquidFire DIY craft holiday market on December 9th 2007, in baltimore MD. http://www.squidfire.com/ It should be lots of fun! I am also working on some art pieces for a gallery in philly. I will have my own art show! YEAH! but I will give more info when I get it, it will not be til next year, but the things i am making for it now, are amazing! I am so excited to see how other people will react to them. talk to you later :) and see ya in Baltimore!

CELEBRATE 100!

Today I hit my 100th sale. YEAH!

Wholesale order

So I feel like I am doomed if I do, and doomed if I don't. I got a huge custom wholesale order for a shop in Brooklyn, NY. It is called the Future Perfect. I have been working on all the items for like ever it seems. I am in the home stretch. I have become so attatched to the little animals, that I hate to let them go. But I need to do it. So instead, I will just take pictures of them and hope that one day I need to make more for them, and for others!
I still have a huge peacock I have been working on for months I think. I finally have it mostly figured out design wise but not construction wise. I never thought making a softie would be so challenging. But I guess my background as a tattoo artist really just won't escape me. I try to make everything perfect and exactly what the customers want, while still trying to be creative. Anyway. It is the middle of October, the leaves are falling, and it's almost 80 degrees out...something is just not right in New Jersey..besides the high property taxes.

Obsessed

I love owls..
Crochet pattern coming soon :)

ETSY ETSY ETSY

(my most recent ETSY purchase)
I have become obsessed with Etsy, as many other people have also. I have bought way too much stuff, and plan to buy even more :) Last year I gave books and homemade baked goods as christmas gifts. This year, it will be either books (The Green Book, or The Secret. If you don't own them, you MUST) OR items from Etsy. I have already thought about what to get people...if anything. We just recently paid off our credit card debt (all 11,000 dollars) with a home equity loan. We still have monthly payments, but we will save money in the long run. ANYWAY. would you rather get a crappy gift, that your friend will end up in debt over, or something hand made, from the heart...that will be cheap? Well, after wasting all this money on gifts, year after year, I am so done with buying crappy gifts. I think what did it was one year my husband and I spent soooo much money on christmas gifts for my mom, and the next summer she sold it all at a yard sale. SO think twice before you buy something stupid, just so you have something to give. If they don't like the gift of you just being there, than they don't deserve even that!

ANYWAY, the point of this post was that I am about to hit the big 100 on my ETSY site. So far I have sold 96 items :) YEAH!!!!!!
but for some reason I have nothing to show for it :( I need to stop going to AC Moore. I buy everything because it's so cute! I can't help it, I have a major addiction. SO what should my SALE be once I sell 100 items? I thought of buy one get one free..but I just don't know.

CONGRATULATIONS VICKY AND JOE!!

(Vicky and Joe when we all went to the zoo)


Congrats to Vicky and Joe on being engaged!!!!!!!

Here is what she writes.....

Fureal. After 5 1/2 years.

It was really awesome.

We climbed up these massive hills called King Arthurs Seat, legend is, he was buried there. Anyway, these hills overlook all of edinburgh, scotland. So we almost made it to the top when i got an asthma attack, bugged out, cried about it, and plopped myself down. We ate dinner as the sun went down. Then he proposed. It was amazing. Afterwards, we were walking down and lost our path in the dark. We ended up on a wet and muddy path. We fell onto our backs a good 5 times, gave up, and slid on our butts down the whole hill. haha. I will post pix when I get home. Of our view, of course, not sliding down on our butts, cause we were too worried about getting down in one piece.

OH, and Did I mention, I saw her ring today, it is AMAZING! It is a heart shaped diamond! One of the most beautiful rings I have ever seen...I'm jealous. What a lucky girl :)
(good job Joe)

new amigurumi

Here some new little guys. A bunny, a kitty, and a puppy modeled after my crazy little jack russell, Vegas.
There is Vegas in the picture up top, with Mike Barone on his B-day and Regan :)

men are from stupid, not mars

My husband is leaving the house to go to the store

I say "Can you bring me home some flowers?"

He says "I'm not going anywhere that sells flowers."

true story.

stay at home mom

A stay at home mom is worth over 136,000 dollars a YEAR, if she were paid for the work that she (or he) does....That would be a great paycheck..but we don't get lunch breaks, do we?

My favs

This is my favorite perfume, today. Sparked by a birthday gift from my friend Anj, (she got me the Philoshophy "birthday" gift set) I have been obsessed with all thier products ever since. I really LOVE the hand cream but I couldnt find a picture of it. I couldn't decide which perfume to by, even after having samples of them from sephora. So I decided to get 3 of them. "Amazing Grace", Falling in Love, and "Baby Grace" I just alternate between them all, it's great cause I don't get sick of the scent. And thankfully I got 2 of the scents in miniature size :)
P.S. My birthday is February 9th....in case you need any ideas for my gifts. also in 2008... I WILL BE 30 years old.. :) :(

Fall means hayrides

We went to a farm down the street last weekend. We had so much fun. We went through this huge corn maze, and totally got lost. They give you a 3-D map to look at while your going through the maze. So you have to wear the 3-D glasses the whole time. Which are kinda annoying. I think it would be so fun and scary to do at night. They should have people dreesed up to scare you while your walking around at night!

Fall is almost here

The leaves are falling, and all the huge bags of candy are out in the grocery store. you know what's coming..HALLOWEEN!
Get ready. Here are my teddys for halloween, Mummy, FrankenTeddy and the Teddy Ghost. all are available at my Etsy store!

Yarn stash

Etsy featured again!

I made the OWL, top right corner

Coney Island