~45~ 1st Sale!

It's official, I had my very first Etsy sale!  

I was extremely excited last to night to receive a request for custom made "Will you be my bridesmaid?" cards.  I had made these beauties for my own wedding/bridesmaids, and on a whim added them to my Etsy shop when I set it up in January.  It is now the most viewed and favorited product in my store.  

After messaging back and forth, we settled on a design style and color scheme.  I hope that the bride-to-be and her lovely ladies love the cards as much as I loved making them!

~44~Black Friday

I am not normally a Black Friday enthusiast.  If there's something that catches my eye, I will venture out, but never at the crack of dawn-usually more like around 9 or 10.  This year however was my first time braving the early morning "rush".  However, since Black Friday deals were starting Thursday evening, it really was after the rush.  Jake had to be at work at 6:15AM, so that he could leave early for the Iowa State game.  I decided to drive him to work and then head out to my stores of choice.  The first stop was Walmart (which I have loathing, firey hate for, but Jake wanted to go, so off we went).  The parking lot was DEAD and completely open.  It was very unexpected.  There was nothing too amazing there, just a couple movies.

After I dropped off Jake, I headed to my favorite store-Target, to see if by chance they still had their 32" TV for $147.  They of course did not, but I was pleasantly surprised to find another comparable and possibly even better TV for only a little more.  It's a 32" Westinghouse LED HDTV.  We got it to replace the TV in my craft room-which is a hand-me-down tube TV from the 80's and is so old, it only has 1 antenna input line.  In order to watch a DVD, I have to connect my VCR to the TV and the DVR to the VCR (Ha, that's a lot of letters/acronyms for one paragraph, isn't it?)  We're going to do a bit of a TV shuffle.  Currently we have a 42", and a 32" in our living room-for prime football watching, and a 26" in the bedroom. Now that we have the new TV, we're going to put the new 32" in the living room because it's an LED TV, making it slightly better than the LCD that's there now, put the old 32" in the bedroom, and the 26" from the bedroom into the craft room.  Our 2-year TV upgrade process is finally complete-all Tube TVs are gone!!

Goodbye old TV

Hello new TV!

 Aside from the TV, I was excited about their deal for a 6" pre-lit Christmas tree.  Normally, I am 100% for a real tree, but since we're currently living in an apartment, I have to settle for a fake tree.  I was worried that they'd be all sold out since it was a door buster deal, and  a pretty good price, so I was very pleasantly surprised that they had one for the taking. I already have it up and decorated-and it looks beautiful!

The last stop was JoAnn Fabrics.  They advertised an OttLite for $20 and they normally retail for $100, so I was happy to grab it while I could. I also got a new Cricut cartridge that I had contemplated getting a while back, but wasn't really sure if I would use it, but with them being so cheap today, I decided to finally get it.  It's the Everyday Paper Dolls.  Finally, i got some holiday ribbon for my Christmas cards and another craft that I have in mind, and materials for my Father-in-Law's Christmas present. 

All in all, I think it was a pretty productive day!

I have some Christmas related crafts that I'm already working on.  

Be on the look out for posts about those soon!

~43~My Favorite Things v11.21

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!  It is also Wedndesday, so that means it's time for another "Favorite things" post.  For once, I actually have craft-related items on my list!

Between work, grad school, and well, life in general, I sadly have not had any time to craft.  To feed my desire to craft, I've bought some new stamps from Stampin' Up that I am SO excited to use.  I am seriously itching to make cards.  Now that I am no longer working at the Y on Saturdays, I'm hoping to have some more free time to do so. Ha. 

I bought 2 sets of clear stamps.  The first is "Petite Pairs".  The other is "One in a million".  I chose these stamps because I was wanting stamps that I could easily use on cards, and adds to my database of sentiments, something I didn't currently have a lot of. I already have tons of card ideas swirling in my head.  The first I made for a good friend's baby shower next month, but I won't post it until after the fact.  Definitely one of my new favorite cards!

My other favorite thing for this week is something I've had for a while, but just never remembered to share.  If you remember eons ago, in a previous favorite things post, I mentioned my love for scrap book paper.  Well, I have had paper coming out of my ears-I have so much. Being the organized person that I am, I was going crazy having too much paper spilling everywhere.  So, I did a little bit of researching and found exactly what I had been looking for.  It's a ten drawer, moveable cart that holds 12x12 paper.  Best of all, it has a hard top, which can act as a shelf for my Cuttle bug and Cricut Cartidge binder. It has made a huge difference.  I can sort each drawer by color with the first 6 drawers for the ROYGBIV colors (minus indigo), another drawer for neutrals-black, browns, white/cream, a drawer for sparkly paper, and the bottom 2 for my patterned paper.  

Finally, Thanksgiving brings a lot of my favorite things-namely, food.  While yes, I adore my family and getting to spend some stress free, quality time with them, the food is what I really love about this holiday.  That and getting 5 glorious days off. This year, my parents and grandma are coming to Des Moines to spend Thanksgiving here!  Traditionally I drive home and spend a few days with my family and MN friends, so while I will miss seeing my friends, I am very thankful hat I do not have to spend almost 8 hours in the car this break.    The absolute best part of Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie and fresh whipped cream!  It really wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it.  My dad and I will be getting up tomorrow morning to get our baking on-per tradition-and I've got all of the supplies ready to go!

What are your favorite things about Thanksgiving?

~42~ Lame-O

It's probably no surprise to any of you, but I am pretty lame.  It's seriously been three weeks since my last post-and my efforts to get back in the blogging habit have failed.  Miserably.  

This past week I wrapped up round 2 of fall conferences, which went very well-but it definitely makes for a long and exhausting week.  Grad school is also going strong.  I'm currently taking a class about cultural and linguistic diversity in classrooms and how to best teach for those differences.  It's been a very interesting course so far and I am enjoying my learning.  It's hard to believe that after this week, it's already half over!

In addition, I've been eagerly getting ready for my Chicago trip next week.  I will be there from Wednesday evening to Friday evening taking in as much as I can about current math practices and resources to bring back and share with my schools and district.  I'm excited, but also a little nervous.  I just hope everything goes smoothly and that the NCTM conferences is everything that I expect/hope it to be. 

Aside from that, I have had some exciting things occur recently.  My cousin and good friend from high school both got engaged last month, and both have asked me to be a part of their weddings! I am so thrilled for them, and so excited to be included in their planning and festivities! I've never been a bridesmaid before (only a bride) and so this makes it even more exciting!  I have found that I really miss the planning and creative part that I loved so much during my own wedding planning, so to be back in the saddle feels good.  I have an AWESOME, but super secret project going on right now-which I will excitedly share once it goes live, but until then, it has to stay under wraps. 

Tomorrow, I promise to have a fresh new "Favorite Things" post.  

(*I have it all written, I just need to get pictures added before I publish it. *)

Until then,