It’s been rainy, gloomy and cold here in Cary… supposed to be super windy and stormy tomorrow. There are still tiny stubborn patches of snow sprinkled around where the sun can’t reach them. I’ve been perched up in my office, glittering by chandelier with a nice hot cup of tea, gazing out the window at all the rain. Every once in a while a gorgeous red cardinal will sit in the small tree out front, then decide he’s had enough and flutter away to find some shelter. I think we’re all ready for spring to arrive :)

I’ve been procrastinating on these art boards… I guess it took a gray day for me to sit down and finish what I started…

Glitter makes any gloomy day 100% better! AND it gets you thinking… what else can I put glitter on??

I have a zillion ideas swimming around in my brain (at any given moment at least)… my fingers can’t keep up and that is frustrating! I have dozens of new designs cued up to become an art board, pendant, greeting card or art journal entry… does one really need to sleep? Just wonderin’.

But sometimes, I’m so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of these ideas, that I break down and turn on (guilty pleasure alert) Judge Judy instead of creating… because I believe she’s working hard enough for all of us, really.

Normally… said ideas would be sketches, half-finished paintings, emails to myself or they get lost in the Tasmanian devil that is my office… I’ve found a new solution (Thank you Brian!). It is the elephant (aka Evernote). I will share this link, but will go into more detail further :) Long story short… it’s amazing. Double amazing if you have an iphone. And it doesn’t look like much, but utilized properly… (or semi-properly in my case) it’s the organizing tool you’ve always wanted :) More to come on that later!

Going to get some sleep… she said reluctantly :)

Trees!

Burbank at Night

Mod ripples

Regal Meg-a-Moo

“What was your prize?”

us

I’m putting together a postcard series to mail to friends and family. 4 postcards all bright and cheerful, tied together with a bow. Oh, and in my spare time I’m going to hand-decorate, address and adorn each.

Or perhaps a phone call to each person would do the trick. When am I going to squeeze this all in???

In other news, Nathan’s Random Number Generator is being used a LOT by you blogging giveaway folks. Isn’t it a million times easier than printing 20 pages and cutting each name out? **nodding** yes. I wanted to participate in the One World, One Heart giveaway… but alas… I’m just too swamped this year. I’ve been promising to do a giveaway for MONTHS now. I’m a liar. I just lie all the time. Just when you blinked, I lied again.

I know people who have won things I’ve given away once upon a time. They exist. (Sandy, raise your hand!) hehehehe :) When you least expect it… I’ll give away stuff. Yep.

Now, really and truly… sleep.

I *heart* art.

I feel sort of stupid… I accidentally kicked a wicker basket and thought to myself… hmmm… that hurts more than a stubbed toe…

by 3:30 am I went to urgent care and got this awesome x-ray taken:

I love x-rays… anywho… the right baby toe is broken and nobody ever told me that a broken baby toe would cause so much agonizing pain!! My foot is mostly black and blue… a lovely shade of cyan… and I can’t walk. And, I’m acting like quite the big baby. I was given pain killers but hate the things… so it’s Advil-city for me!

Enough about me… how are you all doing? :)

eeek!!!!

This has been a very odd Season I must say… hard to explain, but it feels totally different than the other 4 years. When I can put my finger on it, I will blog about it. Perhaps it’s just me?

Like many of you, I’m sure you purchase things you feel you can use “at another time”. I have several rooms full of these sorts of things. Including assorted paper lanterns. I had 4 in primary colors. While they were pretty alone, they needed something. So I dragged out my remnant box o’ ribbon and started embellishing the heck out of the lanterns.
	It’s a tad hard to see, but I hung the 4 lanterns in my candy/cupcake/garden party section. I glued stripey grosgrain ribbon around the middles of the lanterns then tied all sorts of fun ribbon, including curly ribbon, to the bottoms. It really gave it a fun look :) I also ran out last week and got tons more candy. A ten year old child made the comment… “those twirly rainbow lolli-pops are really good!” to which I replied… “I don’t care how they taste, really… I just love the way they make the display look!” See, obsessed.
Colorful spirals of pure sugar… it’s a good thing…
I got some fun new things from Cupcakes and Cartwheels (Two’s Company). Cupcake tealights…
	and an apron that says “gnome is where the heart is”. I got these because of Alicia. She wants to erect an army of little garden gnomes, facing out, on her front lawn. North Carolina, you have been warned.
Oh, and I got two more art boards done… “party cakes” with glitter icing on the cake…
	And “Real Lemon Flavor” where the “Real” is red glitter… I think it’s sort of snazzy :)

I got the boxes out for the giveaway… be on the lookout, winners! And YOU could be the next winner, you just have to keep checking back ;)

Last but certainly not least, Sue brought up some charm bracelets… aren’t they awesome???

“Paris” Bracelet

“Mother’s Day” Bracelet

“Easter” Bracelet

And I thought I would share my “power lunch” from the other day. The Star Cafe in Montrose has added Diane Salads to the menu… get one! They are awesome!!!

Yay! It’s almost Friday!!! And we are going on our adventure to Las Vegas soon!!!!

On Sunday we helped them load their two dogs into kennels and got them to the Delta terminal at LAX and onto a plane. Seeing their house empty then watching Scott leave made the fact that they are leaving a reality… So, Alicia and I had a good cry. She’s going to stay here another week or so then head over to her new home on the East Coast. I really wanted to join her in driving across the country, but with Easter upon us, I can’t miss any time at the shop.

People move all the time, friendships change… but these two are our best friends. The four of us could just hang out and bbq and have a great time, hit Disneyland for the evening, go to the beach… or in the case of the other night, go bar hopping in search of karaoke and laugh our heads off all night. They were the first ones over when I was having a crisis at the shop and no amount of late night unpacking or heavy lifting kept them away. I’m really going to miss their Sunday wake-up calls for breakfast… “Hello sunshine! We’re right outside your door, open up!” I would answer the door with an angry grunt, but deep down, I was happy to spend a lazy day with them.

“Hey muffin, I have this idea… will you log onto your computer so I can tell you?”
“But, you’re on the phone now“
“Just log onto your computer!”
*silence and typing*

I’m going to miss you guys!