My pretty brown and blue bird bag

I just received the prettiest bag ever sent to me from Charlotte. She is just the best ever at what she does. Her sewing talent is incredible. I absolutely love it and can't wait to use it. I still have another bag she made in my purse and it is in great condition so I am not sure what to do yet. She makes such wonderful stuff that I did not really need a new one just so wanted one.
I had picked this out recently from her STORE. It is just perfect for me. I like to put my lip liner, gloss, mints, business cards, coupons, and whatever else ends up in there. So not only is it beautiful it is very practical.
Charlotte is a friend I had met online on Ebay of all places. We got to chatting and became friends. She loves God and that is the best thing for a great frienship. She is such a wonderful encourager to me and I am so blessed with her friendship. We even met up one time for a meal in Lancaster, PA. What a neat thing to do after speaking with each other online. What a great family.
She did not let me pay for it though. What a stinker. I purchased it from her Etsy store and she refunded my money.
So if want an awesome bag check out her STORE. You will not be dissappointed.
Thank you Charlotte.

Beautiful Birthday Weekend

Sunday when the birthday girl did not want her photo taken.

This weekend we celebrated my oldest 14th birthday. Whew! I am getting old. Anyway we did not really plan much ahead as life has been busy enough. So Saturday I slept in a little late. Everyone was already up and about. So we thought let's invite my family for dinner and my mom suggested we go to the Camden River sharks game. So we went to Christina's choice Texas Roadhouse. It was us four, my mom, Ray, my sister, and we brought my two nieces. It was a great meal and they brought over a saddle and had the all the people yell YEHAW for her birthday. No pictures of the game but it was alot of fun different than pro baseball. They play music and do lots of fun games during the breaks. After the game all the kids can run the bases. My husband took the kids down, Rachel took off, Ashley was not far behind, and Maddie my 3 year old niece lost her flip flop and got knocked over by about 4 kids. She was a trooper though got right up and ran the rest of the bases. LOL! Crazy kids.



Sunday in our jeep after church and on way to the shore.



Ocean City's shore view from the boardwalk.



Dad and Rach after playing mini golf.

We headed down the shore on Sunday for a quick bite to eat. We ate at Smitty's Clam Bar on the water where you can just sit outside on stools. I had baked scallops and clam chowder and it was yummy. Christina had fried shrimp and Chris had the chowder and grilled tuna. We had a great time and they were putting up the dinner menu around 4 pm and they had such yummy choices. We will have to go back soon for dinner. (Although it will have to be right at 4pm we drove by later and it was packed with no seats and lots of people waiting.) We walked the boardwalk looking in the stores and waiting until we were not full so we could eat dessert. We left the shore earlier than usual and decided to get WaWa ice cream to take home and eat.

What a wonderful weekend. Thanks Christina for your birthday celebration.

Oh my goodness I am freaking out, LOL!

It was almost exactly a year ago we came home to our coffee cup spider on June 8, 2008. You can read here. I was going to get the clothes out of the dryer and for whatever reason I looked into the washer. I was not going to put clothes in and thank goodness I did not just throw in towels like I usually do. Oh my goodness can you imagine reaching in to this monster. I could not believe how big it was. The photo does NOT do it any justice. It looks like a baby. It was not it had a huge body and I was freaking out. Ugh! I am itchy right now and scared to do wash tomorrow. What was it doing in the washer??? It may have come up from the crawl space. I don't know but I hope if it had family they stay where they belong outside. We have not seen any bugs except the occasional centipede. We just had the exterminator out last week for a general spray. Well, I must admit I missed the first time killing it.(My husband always misses and they get away.) So I drop the first steel block on him, but did not get close enough for fear of the thing propelling onto me like an alien. It did not run after I missed it just spread out. So I quickly tore everything apart for another steel block to drop on it. This one killed it enough that it was stuck. EEWWW!!! So my husband had to get gloves for the clean up. I think I can pass on doing laundry tomorrow until my memory of the terrible thing fades. LOL!

Sunday's church what fun

Well, a couple of Sundays ago we woke up late for church. Now we could have probably got ready real quick and been reasonable late to church. I asked my husband about having church at home. I thought it would be nice and relaxed since we were late. He agreed and I said I would get a quick shower and as soon as I was finished we could have church. Well as I got out the shower I was welcomed with my youngest and my husband scurrying around in the hallway laughing and being silly. Yo would have thought it was Christmas morning. I made myself a cup of coffee and turned to see this podium made of 2 card bard boxes taped together and a sign of the events. It stated that Daddy was the preacher and it had our music/song selection, Rachel was in charge of bible reading, and I was in charge of prayer request. They had so much putting that all together. It was funny to see their excitement. We sang songs, read the bible, and really got to talk with the kids in an interactive setting. We had alot of fun that Sunday. :)

Happy Memorial Day

Check out the new lowercase letters that will be for sale. So many of us want to have something different than the uppercase letters. The custom letters sell for $350and up and you need to wait weeks to receive. I have these for sale in my store Joyfully Crafted for $178 the price includes shipping. They measure (2mm) 5/64th of an inch for letters like b, d, f the other letters like a, c, e will measure 3/64th (1.2mm) the perfect size for stamping different blanks. Not too small not too big. I am excited to offer them to you. They were easy to use. Most custom letters do not have a thumb groove, but they are stamped with the letter on the side that you need to have facing you. The letters were easy to line up because each letter is perfectly on the steel stamp. They leave a nice impression in the metal very even and precise. No need to worry about hitting the edged of the stamp on your metal like you might do with other stamps if you don't hold perfectly upright, because these stamps are rounded towards the letter. I was very pleased with the lowercase letters and I hope you will enjoy them as much as me.

It is Starfish time

I have made so many over the years. This is such a popular and unique item. There are not always my favorite to make those starfish can be difficult to get just right in between the glass, but when it is all done it seems all worth it.
I have so many exciting Beach themed items coming. I can't wait until they are done and selling down the shore. It is almost Memorial day weekend.

NOTE: I had an email from an how to make glass art pendant ebook customer asking me where do I get my plain metal ball chain from and it disappeared in my inbox. So I am hoping maybe you are checking in here. I feel terrible that I could not answer the email. http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Ball-Chain-and-More

Key to my beach house

Well one can dream right? My new sterling silver skeleton key chain. Coming soon as a necklace.
I have been so busy with Mother's day orders that I have not had time to post here or do much of anything. Although I was thrilled to do so many gifts this season and I hope everyone had a wonderful day this past Sunday. Happy Mother's Day and thank you for letting me be a part of your gift giving. I am looking forward to doing some new designs that I have on paper and in my mind. Just have to get through some orders that came during and after the Mother's day frenzy.