Earth Hour!

Hi Friends,

Just a reminder:

Please help the global movement this Saturday, 3/28, and turn off your lights (and all your electronic equipment, gadgets and gizmos) for one hour from 8:30-9:30pm for Earth Hour.

Join me in doing something by candlelight for just an hour on Saturday and possibly help do something for global warming. Or at least send a message to all those politicians world-wide that we all care about global warming and that real action needs to be taken yesterday to combat it.

If you're not convinced or inspired, check out the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CRs-7lRlPo

Thanks friends. And while you're at it, buy locally and ride your bike.

Chocolate and Steel: *.*.*.*GIVEAWAY*.*.*.*

Chocolate and Steel: *.*.*.*GIVEAWAY*.*.*.*

Ali turned me on to this great blog and giveaway for a really pretty ring! All of her stuff is really nice, so check out the Chocolate and Steel blog and website!

Flowers!

Green with taupe flowers, varied colored beads
(I'm wearing the small one in my hair today for St. Patrick's Day!)

Burgundy flowers with brown-y lilac beads

Taupe flower with pink beads

After coming across an excellent how-to on Craftzine for making organza flowers (thanks so much, Tresa for this great how-to!), my friend Ali and I decided we love them and want to make lots and lots and lots of them. After a long and exciting trip to the beautifully new JoAnn's, we came home with an armload of shades of organza fabric, beads, and ribbons.

Our palate so far...
(I'm sure it will grow with the next fabric shopping trip!)

The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent figuring out a good general flower shape to cut out, practicing burning the edges without burning the actual shape too much, and then sewing beads into the center.

Little poppy-like flowers

We're planning on making lots of these, then turning them into hair clips, brooches, headbands, bracelets, and belts, as well as leaving some of the large one plain for filling a pretty bowl with in place of real flowers. The main source of inspiration for these is the craft fair in May (my first ever!!) which falls right before Mother's Day. Ali and I are hoping the between spring and buying something pretty for a mother or friend, we'll sell lots. (Fingers crossed.) If not, if you're friends of ours, you may be seeing these again as a birthday or Christmas present...

Now if only we could figure out how to make them smell as pretty as real flowers...

New Etsy Shop!

So I just opened up a shop on Etsy- Truepennie! (truepennie.etsy.com) While I haven't actually posted anything for sale yet, I'm in the process of getting everything else set up so things will be smoother later on. For now though, here are a few examples of items that I will be selling soon:

Example of "Farthing" (small size bag)

Example 2 of "Farthing"

Example of "Florin" (medium size bag)
(item sold- first one!-to a great motivator, Alison.--thanks!!)

While I've dreamed of owning my crafting business since I was very little, I had filed it away in the category of "dreams that more than likely will not happen" along with swimming with dolphins and being able to do the splits. So since this is happening now, maybe the others will too! I've recently begun practicing yoga on a regular basis after all...

I owe it all to my cousin, Stephanie, for providing me the motivation and initial encouragement to get this whole process started. I made the original plastic bag purse for Stephanie as a birthday/Christmas present, and because she loved it so much and showed it off to all her friends, she planted the seed that I may be able to actually make some money doing one of the things that I love best: crocheting. (The other things that I love best include dancing, cooking, and acting silly with good friends.)

Thanks Stephanie!

The Original Bag created for Steph