sheppard girls

On to the backyard

After nearly five years of complaining about it, I would like to introduce, our new deck table.

It is old and chipped and the legs collapse!  From Hunt and Gather.  The dad and the grandpa are almost finished with the new deck, although the fact that the wood has to "cure" for several months and I am stuck with a plywood colored rectangle off the back of my house will probably be the bane of my summer, I think it looks great.  I am moving on to other things, since Weft and Warp has not gotten back to me about my very favorite umbrella ever.  And I have a new love with these chairs for around the firepit. 

 

The entire family agrees that they are sick of carrying old folding chairs out each time we have a fire, and I think these are the perfect blend of traditional and modern, plus they are recycled and local, who could ask for more!

Craftstravaganza recap

 

Thanks to everyone who came by and who came to buy!  Can you see that there are practically icicles forming on those bibs?  Can you see the dad in the corner huddled over his cup of coffee?  The building at the Fairgrounds isn't heated, and the morning of the show was freezing.  Some of the people near the front door said they had snow on their booths. 

 

Needless to say, I didn't sell out of headbands this year, so I will list a few of my new patterns on Etsy right away.  But I had a lot of fun visiting with shoppers, and the vendors near me were very sweet too.  I am glad to have a few days to get things back to normal around here before next weekend with two sales.  Then show season wraps up for me, just as soccer, tennis and birthday party season begins. 

Crafts

I hope some of you are able to come see me at the Craftstravaganza, this coming Saturday, April 26, or at Crafted Together on May 3, or Spring Fling on May 4.  You get the idea.  Craftstravaganza marks my first full year doing local indie craft fairs.  I spent most of the coming week a year ago, not sleeping, rushing around and crying.  And it ended up being be so fun.   This year promises to be even better, craft show wise - not the crying.

If you stop by my booth, please say hi.  Here's a little incentive:

Last year I reconnected with Gretchen, and I think Becca, is stopping by too, so at least I will have a few friendly faces.  See you then! 

Nine

 

The big one will be turning nine in June.  She doesn't need much for presents, but I really want to give her something that is thoughtful, even though I am pretty sure she would be equally excited about an iTunes giftcard.  Someday I hope she will look back and think, man that was an awesome present.  She is "passionate" (her word) about design, specifically interior design and architecture, so I would like to get her some gifts that show her that I support her interests.  I recognize that it is pretty easy to be excited when you kid loves the same stuff you do.  I might not be as keen if she was passionate about say - volleyball or Guitar Hero.  I had the good sense to email Martha, who is an architect and had some great ideas, and Holly at decor8.  Holly was nice enough to share my question with her readers.  Look at how many amazing ideas I got!  I am so gonna rock birthday number 9.

Giraffes - who knew?

I can hardly stand how much I love this fabric.  It is destined to be bibs, but how cute would it be as a skirt?   Giraffe must be the zebra of this season.  I got this very similary inspired skirt for the little one just the other day. 

 

Cuuuute

Have you seen how amazing all the people on Poppytalk Handmade are this month?  So adorable I didn't even notice my own stuff.  I skimmed through the first page, and thought "gosh I don't see sheppard girls up there".  And I look at it everyday.

Sales, sales galore

 

Come see me at PoppytalkHandmade this month for their Mother's Day and Kids marketplace.  My little homepage is all set up.  Not since I started using Typepad did I spend a more fustrating and SLOW couple of hours.  I resized all the photos in Gimp, just to discover that I needed to save each one.  Duh.  And since I didn't have the foresight to move all the photos to one folder, or to even save some of them with common sense names - how was I supposed to remember that I saved a zebra print headband as "wild thing" - I had to relocate each photo, reedit it and then save.  Yikes.  Thanks goodness the owners of the sight are patient and have a good sense of humor.

Outdoor living

Yesterday it snowed, but I still have gardening on my mind.  I am set to become one of the guest contributors to this gardening blog, and what's a girl to write about?  Still no outdoor table, actually not even a deck at this point, but how much do I want this umbrella? 

It too has been popping up all over.  I wonder what the neighbors would think?

What they are fighting about right now 4.8.08 3:23 pm

What they are fightin about right now - Who had more snacks during the day.

I heart craft show season

We are back from spring break and I have had to quickly change gears to begin getting ready for three (3!) craft shows I have coming up in the next few weeks.  I am really excited about each of them, so I thought it would be a fun little bit of chaos to do all three.  It hasn't been quite so hard to get back to work since the weather in Florida was 85 and sunny and the weather here has been 33 with snow flurries. 

These are the little swag items I got ready for Craftstravaganza.

The first 100 people get treat bags.  Just before they opened the doors last year, the dad looked outside and said there was a line as far as the eye could see.

These are little felt magnets along with little fabric covered ones.  The button ones are so simple, yet so darn adorable.  I would love a big glass jar of them.  I will be selling them in bunches of five with a little vintage magnet/blackboard.