Happy New Year

Wishing you all the best for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!!

Laurel

Shopping!

I've been spending way too much time on Etsy lately.

Have you been there? 

It's a place where artistic or crafty people can set up shop and sell their handmade wares.  Or where they can sell their extra supplies or vintage items.

I have a shop there and have managed to take pictures and post over 80 items so far.  I need to take more pictures of jewelry, but I'm saving that for next week.

Etsy also has a feature called Treasury Lists.  Anyone with a sign-on to Etsy can create a Treasury List.  You add the web address or URL of 16 items that are for sale on Etsy.  You can choose a theme or have random items in your list.  For example you could create a treasury with all things black and white. 

I created two treasuries this week:  the first was based on my name.  I did a search using the word "Laurel", clicked on all the items that struck my fancy, then copied and pasted the web address into my Treasury List.  How fun is that?  One of those items has already been sold, so that's why there are only 15 items.

So click on the links below, bring up my lists, and enjoy.  Or shop!  Shopping is good!  'Tis the season, right??  So enjoy my lists and a couple of my favorite lists and see if there's something there that you just have to have!   

So here are my lists:

Lovely Laurels

Angels we have heard on high!

And a couple of other fun lists:

Ringing in the new year with Sunshine

For the home black

Enjoy!!

Countdown to Christmas!

We are officially at less than a week before Christmas 2011!

Hope you have your Christmas shopping started if not finished.  If you need gifts for special people on your list, check out my Etsy store here StoneWingDesigns Etsy Shop and use the coupon code 20PERCENT for 20% off your total purchase.  I'll do my best to get it there before Christmas.  You can use Paypal.

I had to put my jewelry supplies away a week ago so I could make Christmas cards.  So instead of beads and findings, I have paper, stamps, ink and glue all over my workroom.

I finished about 30 cards on Saturday that I mailed off today.  The line at the post office was almost out the door, so I bought more stamps right next door at CVS instead of standing in line for an hour.  It's the little blessings that matter, right?

As for the rest of my cards, I'm done with the stamping and watercolor painting.  Now I just need to trim the pictures and get out the patterned paper stock and put the cards together.

I love painting each card with different color combinations and then matching the colors with patterned papers and stamped words to make each card unique.  I use all the colors of the rainbow, including purple, yellow, orange, blue and brown in addition to green and red.  In fact, the only way you'd know some of my cards are Christmas cards is by the pictures and the words.  Some of my favorite stamps are of snowmen and angels and I use them every year.  I don't keep track from year to year of which cards go where, so hopefully the same people don't get the same picture every year!

So I'll be spending a few more days with paper and glue while my favorite holiday CD's play in the background.  Keeping me company again this year are Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, and my all-time fave Mercy Me which I love to play over and over again!  Then there's Amy Grant, piano music, and even a Hammered Dulcimer CD called "An Olde English Christmas". 

My favorite song?  "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" because it reminds me what all the fuss is about.

Merry Christmas to all!

Laurel

A Christmas Wish

I heard the angels sing last night, and their voices filled me with awe and wonder.  The songs still echo in my mind and heart:

    Peace on earth good will to men!

    What child is this?

   Joy to the world!

   Let heaven and nature sing!

This is the season for shopping and baking and mailing greeting cards and wrapping presents and planning dinners and going to parties and seeing relatives and running madly from one activity to the next.  There's so much to do and so little time left in which to do it that we push ourselves through the days and weeks hoping only to survive the holidays with a little sanity intact.

Sometimes we forget why there's a holiday in the first place.

So....

My wish for you is to hear the angels' voices that still sing praise and worship in honor of the babe whose birth we celebrate. 

This Christmas, may you be filled with the things that truly matter:

His peace and joy!

A few of my favorite things

I do enjoy lists, so thought I would try my hand at it.

1. Sara McLachlan on the CD player, over and over again!  Love her voice.
2. A large cup of Hills Brothers French Vanilla Cappuccino which DH just bought me. 
3. DH for restoring my cache of cappuccino after I ran out (see #2).
4. Pride and Prejudice DVD with Colin Firth.  An oldie but a goodie!  I save it for sick days and it always makes me better.  (cough cough) Oh darn, do I feel a sick day coming on???
5. Sense and Sensibility DVD for the same reason as above.  Both versions.  The longer the better. 
6. Which naturally leads to Jane Austen.  How did she do it without the internet, Facebook and blogs???  Of course, there were fewer distractions, but go without indoor plumbing and a hot shower each day?  Get real.
7. Sunday afternoon:  reading the paper, puttering around the house and DH making Sunday dinner.  What's in the oven, dear?
8. The Avalon Tea Room in White Bear Lake:  it's been too long since I stopped in.  Love their tiny shop and restaurant.  I always have the following: a scone with lemon curd and Davenshire Cream, finger sandwiches and the soup of the day.  And, of course, tea.  Whatever the special is for the day.
9. Rocks.  Ok, be more specific.  How can I narrow it down??  Stones I've used in the past week:  Red Creek Jasper, Larvikite, and a cool black stone like Snowflake Obsidian only with brown spots instead of gray.
10. Writing.  I forgot how much I used to enjoy writing.  I just reconnected with several romance authors from my old group, and it reminded me of how long it's been since I wrote every day.  I stopped writing in 1997.  The same year I started making jewelry.  At least I still get to be creative.  :)

Not sure if I'm a very good list-writer.  Should they be a bit more concise??  Or can I ramble a bit?

Happy Sunday!

Laurel

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Yes, there's snow on the ground in White Bear Lake, Minnesota!  Not more than a couple of inches, so it's just enough to give a hint that Christmas is but THREE WEEKS AWAY!

Do you have your shopping done?  Or are you like me--waiting for inspiration to strike so you'll magically know what to get (and where to buy it) for each person on your list?  Not that it ever does.  I read something once about a woman who buys all kinds of things for gifts, and then she has to figure out to whom she can give them.  Unfortunately, I saw myself in that picture. 

There are some people for whom it's easy to buy.  Those people are not on my list.  Sometimes I think I should add them to my list just so I can buy the gift and cross it off my list.  Then at least there would be some progress being made!

In addition to NOT shopping for gifts, I have made NO Christmas cards yet.  Not that I'm in a panic.  Yet.

I HAVE been making more jewelry which I'll show off here in case you still need some gifts for the friends and family on YOUR list!  You can buy my wares on Etsy.  See the cool little interactive icon on the top right of my blog?  Click on my store name, StoneWingDesigns, and you can see my listings.  Or click on an item and you'll go to the Etsy page for that item. 

I'm offering Free Shipping for the month of December on Etsy. 

And for those who read my blog, I'm offering 20% off everything!  Just use coupon code 20PERCENT when you check out.

Happy Shopping!!

Laurel