Product Review -- Sagegold Soaps

Next up for review is soap from one of Etsy's many soap makers, Sagegold Soaps. I've tried several different shops for their soaps, but keep coming back to Sagegold for several reasons.

Number 1 is that Kerry makes fabulous soap! But what sets her apart from other soapmakers and makes me go back and buy again and again?

One of the main reasons, and I have to confess is a bit superficial, is that it looks like "store bought". What I mean by that is, that I was having trouble convincing Roland, sweet corporate guy that he is, to try any handmade soaps. I'm not really what he objected too, but just couldn't do it. As you can see by my photo, the Sagegold soap comes wrapped in that nifty cellophane with a label, and looks like a bar of soap you might buy at the drugstore.

Kerry also has a wide selection of fragrances and many that I would consider unisex. Not too fruity or flowery, just good, clean scents. These also appealed to Roland, so now I buy her 4 bar set, choosing two scents for him, and two for me. I like mine a little on the fruity side. Her scents are also not overpowering, but just right.

The final reason that I keep coming back to Sagegold... my skin feels marvelous! The lather feels like silk, and you just know there is nothing harsh next to your skin. And when you dry off, that clean, smooth feeling stays with you. There is never a dry, tight feeling that you get with commercial soap.

Kerry only sells her soaps on Etsy, but I discovered that she has a website where she also sells lotions, insect repellent and lip balm as well as her soaps and other gifts. You will learn more about her and how she got started on both her Etsy site and her website. Go visit Sagegold! You won't be sorry you did!

My rating for Sagegold: A+

Weight Loss Wednesday

I haven't done one of these in a while, but no time like the present! Weight Watchers is kicking off their Lose for Good campaign. Get all the details here:

www.loseforgood.com

While you're at it, click on these lovely items that are found in Etsy shops that donate all or part of their proceeds to worthwhile charities.

Do a search on Etsy for 'charity' and you will certainly find a seller that supports a cause that is near and dear to your heart.

Organizing, A Necessary Evil

Ok, not the most exciting of topics, but it has to happen. You know when you walk in your studio, and then you just walk out because you are too overwhelmed with all the clutter and stuff. I know. There are TV shows devoted to the clean up of the clutter and the recipients are SO relieved!

Well, my studio isn't quite ready for a Clean Sweep, so to speak, but my scraps had gotten out of hand. I know. I can hear you now... scraps? Seriously? But any seamstress or quilter will totally understand. I mean, you might NEED that 5" piece of fabric for something, if for nothing else than to test a stitch. And do a search for scrappy quilts, and you will get tons of hits.

Here are the before pictures:

And the after:

You probably can't read the little labels, but I sorted by color and have 6 groups: white, black, red/pink, blue/purple, yellow/orange, and green/brown. In case you're wondering, yes, I did throw some stuff away!

Now I just need to find some inspiration and get to work!

Road Trip -- Watkinsville

Yesterday was a gorgeous, hot day, and perfect for a little adventure. I had read about a pottery exhibition nearby, and convinced Roland that instead of hanging around the house, we needed to get out. I was just about over my empty nest depression!

Lunchtime saw us heading east toward Watkinsville, a little town just south of Athens. Quite a different drive this Saturday than in recent years when a September Saturday would see us all in red and black, ready to cheer on the Bulldogs. But I digress. Lunch was at a newish sub shop called Submarina, in a strip shopping center on Sugarloaf Parkway. The GPS was on the fritz, due to some unexpected falling off the window last weekend, but how hard can it be to find the Oconee County Arts Foundation building in Watkinsville.

Turns out, a bit harder than expected, but Roland's trusty Nokia phone with GPS got us there! There was 2 parts to this pottery exhibition, called Perspectives 2009: Georgia Pottery Invitational. The first we ventured into was this white building that indicated we would find a giant pottery sale!

Those people on the left were watching a pottery making demonstration. Inside, we found several aisles of treasures!

After roaming the aisles for awhile, and seeing lots of lovely pottery in different styles and techniques, but not buying anything, Roland discovered part 2. Turns out, there was a gallery exhibition as well in another, better airconditioned building. I don't have any pictures of that, but the same artists were represented, but the gallery appeared to show their best pieces. Some of those were for sale, but some were not.

All this pottery viewing left us quite thirsty, and since we were so close, we headed north about 8 miles into Athens. Seemed quite strange not to have anyone to visit (see post about daughter's graduation), but Athens does have a special place in our hearts anyway.

We stopped here, at The Grill, for a milkshake and a root beer float before heading back to Atlanta. Heading home after that, we decided more road trips will definitely be in our future (and not just trips to see football games)!

Product Review -- Frame Purse Making Kit

I've read lots of interesting features on amazing Etsy artists, and seen lots of great pictures of items while browsing, but now and then I'd love to read about the actual product. So, here we go. Everything I review will be something that I have personally purchased and used.

My first product review is on the Frame Purse Making Kit sold by U-Handbag. There it is in the picture from her Etsy shop. It's so cute, and I've been dying to try to make this kind of clutch purse. I make other clutches, so it's not a stretch for me, but needed the basics.

First of all, fast shipping. I think it took just about a week to come from London to Atlanta. Everything you need is in the kit except thread and glue. The thread was not a problem. I'll get to the glue in a minute. I dove right in and made it the day it arrived.

Lisa's pattern is so easy to follow, and she herself describes it as "easy peasy". A couple of notes. Follow Step 1!! At least the part about reading all the way through. I've been sewing for over 30 years, so sometimes I take little short cuts, and this pattern was no diffeent. All went well until Step 10 and the gluing.

To start with, I didn't have the glue she recommended, but hey, I'm a crafter with glue. Got out the E6000 and even have a long pointy tip thing, but it seemed to be just too thick and didn't come out in a smooth line. Next up was Fabri-Tac, a glue that I highly endorse, and have used often in attaching trim to window treatments. But my bottle was not new, and the tip was cut a bit far down, making the hole a bit larger than desired.

Still, I'm impatient, and wanted to see the finished product, darn it! I forged ahead, mostly making do with the fabri-tac, but I had neglected to read the part about "working with one side of the purse at a time". Oops. Once I started to stuff the edge of the purse into the channel of the frame, well, it was a gluing nightmare. After getting it all over my fingers, and having it squish out around the edge, I did somehow manage to successfully insert the bag into the frame. Mind you, this has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the kit itself. Just a reminder that this kit maker knows what she's talking about!

Bottom line: If you enjoy sewing and trying new projects, this one is a very fun and satisfying one indeed. The fabric and frame included are high quality, leaving you with a wonderful finished product that closes with a satisfying snap. Here's my finished purse. Not too bad, but I need practice.

Besides buying U-Handbag products on Etsy, you can also purchase them via their website, U-Handbag.com, and check out her fun blog for more tutorials on making handbags.

My rating for the kit: A+

Back to School

The Etsy Blogger Team's Blog Carnival is always so timely and topical, and this time is no different. What does back to school mean to me? For all those Etsy Bloggers with the young children heading off to elementary school, getting up early, making lunches, and mounds of homework... enjoy it if you can, because all too soon back to school will mean something totally different. Time flies is a saying that really is true!

My oldest graduated earlier this month, but my youngest is just starting his sophomore year in college. Back to school for us meant last minute packing, with nagging on my part, and declarations like "it will only take me an hour to pack all my stuff, mom" on my son's part. Shopping was kept at a minimum this year (unlike heading off to a freshman year) so that was good.

So, after a day's worth of packing (that was one LONG hour!!), last Saturday we headed north, spending the evening walking around campus, scouting out the new dorm, checking his mailbox for the coveted parking permit, and a last evening of bonding. OK, honestly, after dinner he met up with his friends that he hadn't seen in a couple of months, returning to the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. We didn't even hear him come in, but about 2:45 a.m. I heard my husband shuffling around, and then a frantic, "have you heard from Kyle?" Um, no, I was sleeping, and my cellphone was somewhere in my purse across the room. But then, he said, "never mind, he's here sleeping." About 3 feet away on the sleeper sofa.

Sunday, after snagging a prime unloading spot by the dorm, we had a nice "free" hotel breakfast, and then the unpacking started. Kyle's dorm room is so small, that it's crowded with 2 people, downright uncomfortable with 3. He's so happy to be there, though.

Mama and her Baby Bird in his new nest

Since getting home, I have been wallowing around in our nest, which seems much too big for just the two of us, looking for birdies to take care of. I should snap out of it soon, and enjoy sleeping through the night again. Life is so much easier when you don't know what time they get home or what they've been doing!

August's Etsy Blogger -- Memories for Life Scrapbooks

The featured blogger for Etsy Bloggers this month is Edi from Iowa. As you can guess by the title, she's makes scrapbooks for her shop, Memories for Life Scrapbooks. I love these unique word albums that she makes:

But I think my favorite albums are from her Simply Stunning collection. Here's a great one for all the memories you made this summer:

Edi is one busy girl, working as a machine operator while working on her MBA besides running her delightful Etsy shop and blogging. You can read more about her by clicking here, or (until August 31) on the Etsy Blogger Featured Blogger logo just to the right.

Where Have I Been?

Added on Friday, Aug. 14: Just checked into the Etsy Bloggers message board and discovered this is one of the topics for the blog carnival! What luck!

Well, it seems that I am no longer grateful on a daily basis. Not so, dear friends, just haven't recorded anything here for what appears to be several weeks. I've been preoccupied with things out in the real world like daughter's graduation and party, and guests, and her move, and just all the other more mundane parts of life. My Etsy shops have been neglected as well, but a few lovely buyers have stopped in to both of them and I am truly grateful for them.

So, with all that busyness, some time in early July I decided we would need a vacation. After taking my mother and mother-in-law to the airport last week, 6 of us headed southeast to the Georgia coast. Specifically to St. Simon's Island. And we had a lovely time. Lots of pictures were taken, but here are a couple. The first is our view of the Atlantic Ocean from our condo balcony. The second is standing on the beach looking back at our condo. See the red swim trunks hanging from the balcony? That was ours!

Featured Etsy Blogger -- Miesmama

I'm just going to pick right up where I left off. I know, I know... where are the three things I'm grateful for everyday. Well, my internet was out since last Thursday. True story. So I do have three things for today, but before I get to them, the Etsy Blogger Team's featured blogger is Becky, an upstate New York crafter that writes Miesmama, and runs her Etsy shop of the same name.

Her blog is really cute, and right now she's writing about the best things of summer, and I'm really enjoying it! She has great pictures. In her shop, you'll find lots of "handmade goodness". Things like felt pins, garlands and goodies for your hair and home. Here are two of my favorite things:

Tooth Fairy Pillow


Ouchless headbands adorned with
Cute Felt Flowers

OK, now for my three things:
1. Beautiful summer weather right now with cool mornings, sunny afternoons, and delightful evenings.
2. Anthony at Comcast.
3. Quiet.

The Evil Serger

OK, everyone at Bernina, no freaking out! But you have to admit that sergers can be a wee bit intimidating, what with all the threads to be threaded. And when you pull open the little door at the bottom with the hooks and diagrams, and threading that is just not intuitive, well, it's enough to make just about anyone go running for cover.

So, I bring this up today, because I spent the better part of two hours trying to get mine back in good working shape after it started doing weird things a couple of days ago. The best plan would have been to get out the manual before I started, but it was (and remains) MIA. With no other choice, I boldly cut the threads, looked at the diagram, and rethreaded. Giant loopy stitches resulted, followed by cursing. I played around with the tension. Still giant loopy stitches. More cursing.

More looking for the manual. More cursing. Looked inside, and one line wasn't threaded right. Ack! Decided to rethread again. Then the lightbulb went off, and I changed the needles, too. Bingo! That was all it really needed.

That makes the three things I'm grateful for today:
1. Bernina, for making a top notch product, that really makes me think.
2. Simple solutions.
3. Napping. OK, that one doesn't really have anything to do with sergers, but naps are great, aren't they!

Recovering

Or is it re-covering? Either way, I wanted to share this great project I've been involved with. My daughter may argue that it's really HER project, and it is. I'm more of the project manager/supervisor, and was the chief seamstress in charge. She and her fiance bought a dinette set off of Craig's List, but hated the practical, but ugly, salmon pink vinyl that adorned the chairs.

Nobody remembered to take a before
picture, but here are the remnants in the trash.

After a quick trip to the fabric store (she is The Decisive Bride, after all), they returned with enough fabric for one chair. After stripping off the old vinyl (not an easy job), I showed them how to measure and make a pattern for each piece. They did the cutting out and pinning, and I sewed the pieces together. As we progressed, the pinning, and therefore the sewing, got much more accurate!

Teamwork on the Pinning

And on the stapling.

Satisfied with the first chair, they returned to the store, and bought enough for the other 3. This past weekend, the pinning, sewing and re-stapling was in high gear, and the project is really almost done. I should add that they removed the pedestal stand, and Thomas has done all the repair work and repainting on those. He's taken most of the chairs back to Tennessee for final re-assembly.

This whole project has made me grateful for thriftiness, creativity, and willingness to jump right in and try something new!

One Almost Finished Chair

Happy Birthday, Roland!

Today is Roland's 49th birthday, so I'm dedicating my three things to him! I'm so grateful that I was set up with him on a blind date almost 30 years ago! Wow, that sounds like a long time ago. I guess it really was. I'm so grateful that he asked me to marry him more than 26 years ago (we'll celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary in October). And, I am so grateful that he is such a wonderful father to our two children.

The picture of our happy family was taken last year at Kyle's high school graduation.

Introducing a New Blog...

... and making it a part of my 3 things for today. You see, I am so grateful for the ambitiousness of my daughter. She is enjoying the planning of her own wedding so much, that she thinks she would love to be a part of the wedding industry in some way. To that end, she has started a blog, The Decisive Bride. It's a bit sparse now, but stay tuned!

Today, I'm also grateful for positive test results. Positive, as in, boy, this is good news! All my bloodwork from last week's physical is in the normal range, except for my cholesterol. It's slightly elevated, but the good kind of cholesterol is also high (which is good), so it all balances out and makes it just fine.

Finally, I'm grateful for water. We woke up to no water this morning. ACK! Of course we all had somewhere to be, and needed to take showers. Thankfully, it was back on by about 7:45, and we were off to the races. Living in a major metropolitan area, you just don't expect to not have water, and when it's back, you really are grateful!

Today's Three Things

1. I'm grateful for ice cream. Just about any time, any place. Not any kind, because I do have my favorites, but I love low fat frozen yogurt just about as much as the full fat kind. And it's almost time for my nightly treat! Yum!

2. Netflix. I love that I put the DVDs in a list, and they show up in my mailbox, and then when I'm done, I drop them in a mailbox. No fuss, no muss. So far, only one snafu when Hotel for Dogs showed up unexpectedly. The nice Netflix customer service guy said I could go ahead and watch it, and I did, but really, I think skipping it might have been a better idea.

3. Great old situation comedies that have come out on DVD. Tonight (thank you, Netflix) we're watching WKRP in Cinncinnati that came out in 1978. So funny!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Three things for today:

1. I'm so grateful to know Joanna Adams, pastor of Morningside Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

2. So grateful also that it rained today, which meant we didn't have to water our plants after a hot week without any rain.

3. And finally, grateful that the drought is over in Georgia and that we CAN water our plants if we need to. Of course, restrictions are still in place, at least for Fulton County. We can water on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays with our odd-numbered address. Click here for more info.

Happy Birthday, America!

Photo by David McNally, USAG-Yongsan, June 23, 2008 and courtesy of U.S. Army

I am so grateful that I am an American! I love the 4th of July, and all the celebrations!

I am so grateful that the founding fathers had the foresight to sign the Declaration of Independence in the middle of the summer, so that our celebrations can be all those fun things like road races (congrats to all the local Peachtree Road Race runners), swimming parties, adventures at lakes and beaches, picnics and cookouts, and warm summer nights lying under the stars on a blanket watching the fireworks! I'm sure that's what they were thinking when they signed on July 4, 1776!

And finally, I'm grateful to my friend, Kila, of Go2Girl, for giving the Inventing Weddings blogger my name. I was featured today! Check it out at inventingweddings.blogspot.com.

Gotta Love a Sale!

The three things start today with my love of sales and a shameless self promotion. I am always so grateful to find a great sale. I mean, you know that it could be last season's stuff, but who cares?! It's a deal. I'm offering just such a deal at Down the Street. I've added a huge clearance section with everything 25 to 50 percent off. My shop direction has evolved (that will be another post), and these items, while still great, are no longer part of my vision. My most hearted item is also in the sale, so enjoy. And shop!

Today, I'm also grateful for car repair shops that offer great customer service. Thanks, Phillip at Professional Automotive Repair.

And the third thing I'm grateful for is great writers. I love to read, and don't do it quite as often as I'd like, but thanks Stieg Larsson for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My current read. And it's quite a page turner, keeping me up past my bedtime.

Summer's Top Five List

It's the Etsy Blogger team's Blog Carnival time again, and it goes so well with my new gratefulness series! This Carnival is exploring either your favorite summer recipe (I'm not a big cook, so you're out of luck on that one), or the five things you love about summer. And I do LOVE summer, and on top of that I'm always so grateful when it arrives, so you guessed it... my 3 things I'm grateful for become the 5 things I love about summer today. Here goes:

1. The Heat! Yes, you read that right. I love living in the south where it starts getting warmer in March, and stays warm through October or so. And in the middle... summer... it's downright hot! OK, sometimes the humidity can be annoying, but that's what air conditioning is for.

2. The carefree days. OK, well, yes, I'm an adult, so my days are not really all that carefree, but it's more of an attitude about summer that lends itself to less frenzy and more relaxing.

3. Grilling and eating outside. I know. You can grill anytime, but there is something about cooking out in the summer that is less about cooking, and more about an event. Plus, it keeps your kitchen nice and cool.

4. Summer thunderstorms. I love the way that the heat builds up all day, and come late afternoon, the giant clouds roll in, thunder and lightning ensue and when it's all over the air feels so fresh and clean.

5. The beach. Really, any vacation, but there is nothing like the hot sand and the cool surf to soothe the soul. So load up your beach bag, and hit the road!

Have a marvelous and safe summer!

Monday, June 29, 2009

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1. my personal trainer, Kathy. She makes me push way harder than I would working out on my own, and my body is that much stronger for it.

2. gas grills. Grilling out is such an easy way to cook, and the kitchen stays cool and reasonably clean. It was grilled chicken tonight. Yum!

3. Etsy, for giving a chance to stretch my creativity, and really work on my selling and marketing skills, which are mediocre at best.

Three Things

A blog confession. I am not really a great blogger. I don't seem to have the will or stamina or drive to keep at it, and make it fresh and lively and exciting. Yet, I can't seem to let it go. For now, I'm going to attempt to catalog 3 things every day that I'm grateful for. Not original, I know. Probably not that ambitious either, as I've seen other suggestions to list at least 5 things. But, hey, I'm starting slow and we'll see where this takes us as an exercise. Some days, that will be the extent of the entry. Other days the focus will be on another topic, but will end with the three things. That's it. No other rules. Let's get started.

Three things I'm grateful for on Sunday, June 28, 2009:

1. A husband that gives his heart and soul to everything he does.

2. Second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc.) chances.

3. My ripening tomato.