News

Nov 14, 2011: Deal of the Day - SAVE 40%!

Today's special:

Marked down from $52.00 - NOW $31.20

Astral Projections

Nov 11, 2011: Regarding inquiries with no replies...

Hey, if you've emailed me in the past week, and havent heard back - please try again!
*and please make double-sure of the return email address!*
My contact form has no way of spellchecking that.

I've gotten a couple of inquiries to which I haven't been able to respond in just this week alone , and for those my replies have bounced back with error messages: "sender does not exist".
I haven't been ignoring my inbox - I just haven't had any way to get back to you! And then of course, I have no way to reach out to tell you that, except to maybe post this here and hope you'll try again...

Nov 09, 2011: Deal of the Day - SAVE 50%!

I've decided to start having random sales again.
Today's special:

Marked down from $47.00 - NOW $23.50

Lollipop Factory

Oct 14, 2011: New Sales Items

I've just placed a whole new set of items in the SALE section - lots of stuff I'd like to clear out! Look there for some good deals!

Oct 02, 2011: Shop is reopening

OK guys, my wrist appears to be doing better though the fine motor skills are still a bit shaky (Things I miss the most: ability to blow my nose and wash my hair with both hands :P Nothing like a dumb injury like that to make one realize how much we take stuff for granted!)
I was able to do a little bit of work for the first time in a long while so I'm reopening the shop, but custom orders and wirework are going to be delayed a bit longer as I heal.

The cart should be working again for in-stock items though.

Sep 09, 2011: Back in Oregon

So we're back! Vancouver is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
I'm completely starstruck with the city and am really wanting to find a way to make it my home.
But we're back for now and the kids just started their new school - we came back just days before they were jumping into things so it's been a very busy week here.

Now the bad news is, just before we left, we went for a lovely bike ride along the seawall, and during that trip, I gripped my front brakes too suddenly on a slight slope and found myself flying over the handlebars headfirst into the pavement. Thank goodness I was wearing my helmet - I thank my lucky stars for that as I managed to end up with little more than a headache as a result.
And then my bike crashed down on top of me and I was sporting some lovely shades of Amethyst and Plum purples on my chin for about a week there. But for the most part, I got away in pretty good shape. The one exception being my left wrist, which I really smashed up and managed to sprain. I'm healing but it's a slow process and I've been told by the doctors that I'm not to do "strenuous activity" like opening jars for a while, so I'm wearing a wrist guard and generally being gentle with it.... which means that my ability to do wirework is a bit limited for a while.

But I am healing well enough that I should be able to open shop again at least for selling items I've already made, and for beadwork not involving heavy wire work. I have a hectic weekend to get through as we try to catch up on obligations that piled up over the summer, but I'm hoping that by next weekend I should be opening up again. Stay tuned...

Jun 28, 2011: Shop Closed for the Summer + our bread book!

So, my shop is closed until September as we finish up packing for travels. If you've noticed the jewelry stream has been quiet in general lately too, it's because I've been working on this project with my husband - an e-book for anyone who wants to learn how to bake bread!

It's finally published and I'm very excited about it!

The Fresh Loaf Pocket Book of Bread Baking
The Fresh Loaf Pocket Book of Bread Baking is a concise introduction to the art and science of bread baking. The emphasis here is not on teaching you how to bake specific recipes, though the ten recipes contained within span a broad range, from basic French bread to whole wheat sandwich bread to chocolate-filled brioche. Rather the thrust of this e-book is to empower you to understand why particular recipes produce specific results so that you can develop recipes and formulas on your own. More than anything, this e-book is about learning a fun new hobby which will have you creating delicious and surprising new treats for your friends and loved ones in no time.

      Get the Kindle Version here from Amazon.com for $4.99.

      A Nook edition is available on Barnes & Noble's website for the same price.

By the way, if you don't have the device, Kindle and Nook e-reader apps are free and available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Window Phone. So you can buy and download books from those storefronts without actually needing a Nook or Kindle device.

     Download the Kindle app for your platform here >

     Download the Nook app for your platform here >

So, if you're considering starting out a new baking hobby, check out our little ebook for about the price of a loaf of bread :)

Wishing you all a lovely summer!

Jun 25, 2011: Last Chance before Summer Break!

I'm closing shop tomorrow as we're now very busy with the packing and logistics of our summer break. I'll be back and plan to reopen once we're back in September after all the dust settles. I suspect I'll be antsy to get back to creating with lots of new ideas then!

Jun 01, 2011: It's Game Day! 20% off Stanley Cup Sale Event

Today is June 1st, GAME DAY!

Now, folks that have known me for a while will also be aware of the fact that we've been making quite a few visits of late to our neighboring Canada in the beautiful city of Vancouver in British Columbia. Well, this summer, we're actually going to take an extended visit there - we have a place lined up near the UBC campus where we're planning to spend a couple of months visiting the local sites and experiencing the culture.

Vancouver, meanwhile, is currently on fire with the status of their hockey team making it to the Stanly Cup finals! We're rooting right alongside them, and to celebrate the event, I'm having a giant 20% off sale for everything in my shop throughout the Stanley Cup finals.



Enter the discount code "GOCANUCKSGO" where it says the "Redeem a gift code or coupon" in the shopping cart of my website before checking out to get 20% off your order.

May 28, 2011: Signs of Spring - photo post

We've been taking advantage of the few breaks in our weirdly wet weather to go explore our local signs of spring.
I've been meaning to share some highlight pictures, and we've been tweaking some layout details on the website a bit today, so this is a great time to share those with you all!


We did our annual trip to the tulip fields in April.


My daughter's comment: "Can you imagine if they were to do an Easter Egg hunt here?"





More recently, we did a tour which took us east along the Columbia River Gorge and then south to visit parts of central Oregon new to us.


The wildflowers are going crazy along the gorge right now!




In Central Oregon, we visited all three sections of the John Day National Monuments. This picture was taken at the Clarno unit. There are all sorts of fossils to be seen around here. In fact, one stop which we'd finally managed to get to do this year was to visit the town of Fossil, where there's a hill behind the high school where you can go and collect fossils. The nice folks over at the paleontology visitors center there helped us identify what we found! It was surprising how easy it was to find neat stuff - and it's the only place in the United States where visitors can dig for fossils!


After fossil hunting, we took a hike through the Sheep Rock unit of the monument park on the Blue Basin trail and it was like walking on another planet.

In fact, you start to feel that Oregon could easily have served as the set for most of the Star Trek series, as there are just so many places in this state that feel like another world.


The Painted Hills unit is no exception!





We look forward to new adventures and travels this summer!

Mar 29, 2011: I'm back!

I'm back in town and resuming service :)
We had a wonderful visit to our nation's capitol, saw many fantastic landmarks and a bunch of the Smithsonian museums. We even got to see the president's motorcade drive by - TWICE! I am sure the kids will remember it for a long time to come.

We also really enjoyed a break from our Oregon rain!

And then we went to Boston to see my sister's wedding.
My beautiful sister is married now - it was a lovely ceremony and a beautiful visit - and the whole wedding and preparations were absolutely fairytale perfect too - many lasting memories made on this trip!

:)

Mar 15, 2011: Out of Town until April 1

My baby sister is finally getting married! We're heading back east to celebrate with the family! Both kids are excited about visiting and getting to take part in the wedding too.

I'm closing my shop since I'll be away from my jewelry and beading supplies for a couple of weeks - I shall resume normal business when I return at the end of March. Until then, you can still get gift certificates emailed, but orders are on hold. I can reserve a special piece if you have your eye on it and want to claim it, but no orders are going out and I can't do custom orders until I get back.

Mar 07, 2011: I can't believe he's NINE already!

The weekend before last, we celebrated our boy's 9th birthday.
NINE! So crazy - our little starfish boy so grown up already!

This year, we celebrated with a pie fight in the backyard. This was a messy but so-much-fun event!


First the kids made their pies with giant tins of pudding and whipped cream (and don't forget the sprinkles) and then they got to go throw them at each other. The kids were having almost as much fun making the ammunition, stockpiling them, and planning out their course of attacks, as they did in the actual pie-fight.






I think the adults watching spent as much time laughing as the kids did!


Oh yes, there was a mess! Good thing we had giant bins of warm water handy for cleanup afterwards!


Then we celebrated with cake and pizza. I decorated the cake in Olympic god-theme, since the boy's been super into a book series called Percy Jackson & the Olympians.



And then the kids wrapped up the day with some street hockey. It was a very fun day and I think one that we'll all be remembering for a long time. And we were so grateful to have a weather break with no more snow and no rain yet too!

Jan 23, 2011: I've decided to lower shipping rates

I had been meaning to try to figure out a paypal bug that was causing folks checking out using paypal to get charged the higher flat-rate fee on all orders, including small ones with light things like earrings, and just decided to scrap it with lower shipping rates across the board. Just easier for everyone, and a better deal too - and besides I'm not doing as many large heavy orders these days so I think it's just a good thing all around.

So anyway, the shipping rates should have been lowered for all domestic orders to $3.50 - still a flat rate so you shouldn't ever be paying more - if anyone finds themselves getting a higher charge now, let me know and I'll refund the difference as I haven't yet had a chance to test this out but I think I have it working right in both Google and Paypal checkout systems.

Oh, and incidentally, it should have fixed it so that folks in Canada should be getting a lower $4 shipping rate as well.

All orders over 100$ are still free shipping - that hasn't changed.

Dec 13, 2010: Happy Birthday to my little one!

My littlest one turned SIX this week! Hard to believe she's grown so fast - that little baby in the photos that I have sprinkled around on my website (like this one) is of her when she was super small!

She had a fun roller skating party with friends

This year we let her have a big party with a bunch of friends - it was very fun for all!

We were even surprised to find that Santa came to visit (this was surprising to all of us actually!)

and afterward there was rainbow-cake!