Flossy

I got some new hotness fabric from an online retailer and made a FABULOUS Euro sham for our bed. I'm going to post a picture later because I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. Not like pillows or pillowcases are super-hard to make, but it has been a long time since I busted out the old Pfaff and started getting crazy. I also made some sweet little birds for my cousin's in-utero baby (we're calling him/her Baby Pickle at this point). I think I'm going to turn them into a mobile or something. I'll be posting pictures later this week.

Nick and I are leaving tomorrow to go to Charleston with his family for his uncle's annual New Year's Eve oyster roast. I don't like oysters, and I've never been to an oyster roast, but I've heard there will be beer there, so I am definitely into that. I think there will also be some ice skating going on, and I feel certain I will be grievously injured if I partake. So I might sit out on that, although Nick I'm sure would be really excited if I actually skated with him. I'll have to weigh the options--bodily harm vs. making Nick grin....I'm still thinking.

Christmas was lovely--this is the first time in a few years that I haven't been sick on Christmas Eve, and I made it through all of Midnight Mass. This was the first Christmas with our new choir director, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Kevin brought in some amazing musicians, and we learned the Charpentier mass (parts of it, anyway). It was lovely, and not nearly as exhausting as the past few years have been. Nick and I had a great time with our families, and spent a happy first Christmas together! I also got some VERY exciting Christmas presents this year, and I'm INLOVE with everything I got, but there were a few standouts: a new easel and some fabulous art supplies from my sweet Dad (aka, Santa Claus); a HOT purse from Nick's parents, and of course the obligatory "Our First Christmas" ornaments, which I actually really like.

It's a slow news day. We're leaving for Charleston with the fam tomorrow morning, and I'm sure the ride down will be filled with Barbie movies, our nieces arguing (they're 7 and almost 4), and some interesting catchphrases. The latest from Delaney was during the younger kids' nightly tubby. A toy fell and she said, "Whoa, that was close! It almost hit my penis!" She just heard the word for the first time the other day, and apparently was itching to use it! I love the things that kids say. I'm taking my journal, so hopefully I'll have tons more exciting news to report when I return.

Au revoir!

The new hotness

Two things: 1. I successfully (by myself and with no help from anyone) managed to create not one, but TEW (that's how it sounds when I say it, according to my sweet husband) new Etsy banners and avatars! That's right, people. Using only my meager Photoshop skills, Microsoft Word (for crap's sake), and Mac's Pixelmator, I created two tres chic (I think they are, anyway) banners and avatars. 2. I created a new Etsy identity, an alterego, if you will. Since hawleywood is my jewelry store, and the whole tagline is "handcrafted jewelry fabulosity," I didn't feel right about listing non-jewelry items, so I created a whole new shop for my fabricrafts, as I like to call them. I have probably painted myself into a corner, but I will probably only sell like three things anyway, so it shouldn't be too time-consuming. So anyway, my new store is called Sew Sharp! (my new last name is Sharp....clearly I'm not that creative when it comes to naming things), and it will feature lovely knitted and sewn creations by yours truly. Look for that to start up in January.

I've been thinking more and more lately about quitting my job and making things full-time. I'm not actually going to do it, because God knows I certainly can't afford that, but it's my dream. I would love nothing more than to make jewelry and sew lovely things and sell them on Etsy for a modest profit. As long as I can pay the bills and have a little extra to put toward our dream of owning a home, then I'll be happy. I don't need a bajillion dollar salary or a title. Quite frankly, I'm really not all that happy in my current job, and I really wish that I could resign and concentrate on school and crafting full-time, but again, those pesky bills get in the way of that dream.

If I could quit my job right now, I would be done with classes in one term, and I could student-teach next fall, then I would be done with my master's! How exciting! Unfortunately, unless we win the lottery or discover the cure for cancer I just don't see that happening. Ideally, I'd like for Nick to be able to quit his job and finish school first, and by then I would *hopefully* be done with school and could be a full-time craft diva. Ah, daydreaming....

In any case, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday (just in case anyone actually reads this and I'm not just talking to myself here), and please check both Etsy stores in mid-January for new fabulosity!

Nothing says "Christmas Cheer" like chasing down a shoplifter

First of all, Merry Christmas!

Second of all, I have a funny story, which ends with me getting a free bike! So, Nick works at a pharmacy, and shoplifting is rampant there any time of the year--baby formula and cosmetics are the usual items of choice. However, as it gets closer to Christmas, people either get more desperate or dumber (you decide), and go for things that are harder to conceal under a jacket. Tonight, the store manager happened to notice an awful lot of rustling on the "haircare" aisle, and walked over to see what was going on.

Apparently, the (rather large) man in the aisle was making so much noise because he was stuffing a boxed Conair trimmer up his shirt. The manager picked up the phone to call the police, and the shoplifter started running. He managed to make it outside the store, where he jumped on his bike and sped off into the night. A vigilante customer ran to his truck and began chasing the thief. (Yes, I live in the South, where people do things like that.)

After a few minutes, the man driving the truck caught up to the shoplifter. The driver pulled a "COPS" move and killed his headlights, then swung his truck around in front of the shoplifter, whereupon said shoplifter slammed into the truck and tumbled over the hood. After he regained his balance, the shoplifter ran off into the night, leaving his bike behind. The customer, apparently satisfied with his citizen's arrest-of sorts, brought the bike back to the pharmacy and wheeled it inside.

When they arrived on the scene, the police told the store manager they didn't want the bike, because they had enough stolen bikes at the station, and not enough room for another. The store manager offered me the bike, and of course I'm not going to refuse a free bike, not even a stolen one. Lucky for me, the bike is in pretty good condition, and is only a little rusted in some places. It just so happened to be a girl's bike, and a lovely shade of purple, to boot! After a lot of maneuvering, and only a little cussing, I got the bike loaded into my car and home safely! FYI, I haven't been on a bicycle since I broke my arm by falling off of one in the fifth grade. This should be interesting.

I'm hoping to get a lot of crafting done in the next few days. I plan to take on these storage boxes designed by JCaroline Creative, some baby accessories for my cousin who is expecting her first child, and I hope to finish some scarves that I started knitting, oh, about a year ago!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, have a safe and wonderful holiday season!

Jess

WOW

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged!! Well, I am now an old married lady! We celebrated our two-month anniversary yesterday! The wedding was everything I hoped it would be and more. It was the best day of my life, and I'm so glad that we are married! The honeymoon wasn't quite as wonderful, seeing as it ended after two days with a trip to the emergency room in Highlands, NC. Apparently, Nick had been walking around with a broken tailbone and a pilonidal cyst, the combination of which apparently resulted in a clusterf**k of intense pain. Nick is all healed up now, and back to playing hockey. We are as busy as can be, with work and school for both of us, but I don't know what we would do with ourselves if we suddenly had time on our hands. Life has been crazy hectic as usual, but I'm hoping things will simmer down after Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, my cousins, my sister, and I have decided to give each other homemade gifts this year, which is awesome. The only bad part is I haven't actually started making anything yet. I do have some jewelry that was listed in my Etsy shop that I can give (that is, if I'm willing to part with it...I'm still kind of stingy about my creations, sadly). I've taken down the shop for now--there's just been too much going on between work, grad school, getting married, and everything else! I'm hoping to have it back up by Valentine's day, with oodles of new and exciting stuff, so between now and then I'll be crafting away!

In my "free time," I have been exploring several FABULOUS and wonderful blogs...forgive me if I am a little slow on the uptake. I'm sure everyone else in the world has heard of them, but I am clearly behind the times. I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on design*sponge, which is amazing for many reasons, mostly because there are just so many great ideas and artists featured! I'm also hooked on knack, for her unbelievably gorgeous furniture facelifts and design aesthetic. As if that isn't cool enough already, the artiste behind knack lives and works in Greenville, SC, where I was born, raised, and have never left! How cool is that? I can actually see her work in real life. Pretty cool, I think.

I'm currently obsessed with several things from IKEA, but as we are poorer even than church mice, I can only look and wish and dream and hope about all the lovely, inexpensive, needing-assembly furniture we could have in our house. I'm going to undertake several projects while on the Christmas break, the first of which being to recover my ugly old office chair that I use in my sewing/art/craft room. I'll post a before and after (if I can figure out how to do that...sad I know, but I am Blogger-illiterate). I will also be crafting some new crafty craftiness, but more on that later. Craft.

Hopefully now that school is out until January (ugh) I'll be able to post more frequently and figure out how to upload pictures. I'm not sure if my problems are due to using Firefox or what. Hmmm...I shall have to think about that.

Until later, much love and other indoor sports (thank you, Judy Blume, for that, my most favorite phrase).

Jess

HOLY CRAPTASTICAL

Life has been EVEN MORE crazy than usual, if you can believe that. About two weeks ago, I noticed that water was dripping from the thermostat. It's electronic, so I knew that was no good, but I couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. Then, about a week or so ago, I walked into the laundry room and stepped into a half-inch of standing water, which by the process of elimination (and the fact that I could hear a waterfall) was coming from inside the wall. Seriously. I called the plumber in a panic, and he came out, cut a huge hole in the wall, did some craziness under the house, torched the pipe, and called the whole thing a day.

He also told me that sewer gases are leaking into my house. Yes, I said SEWER GASES. As in poop. FOR REALS. I was disgusted, but didn't know really what to do, so I just said, "Eww," a lot, and that seemed to suffice.

The Serv-Pro people came out that same day to dry up the house and remove the flooring because there was water trapped under the vintage 1980s vinyl my grandparents had installed in the kitchen and laundry room. I left Michael, the Serv-Pro person, to do his thing, but after a little while he called my name in a strange tone of voice. I ran to see what was wrong, and he peeled back the vinyl flooring to show me an inch of MOLD growth under my floors! DISGUSTING!!!! It smelled like an old man broccoli fart, and looked like about 8 different kinds of nasty. Michael slapped that vinyl back down and taped it up with a whole roll of duct tape. He said they wouldn't be able to remove that flooring until they could set up a vapor barrier and come back with hazmat suits (0r however you spell that). Yes, I've been living with mold for almost 2 years now. Awesome.

Michael moved to the next room affected, which was the den. He pulled up a corner of the carpet, and then called out for me again. He said that since the flooring appeared to have been put down before 1980, it most likely had asbestos in it. Again, AWESOME. He cut out a square to be sent to the lab to analyze, and then went on his merry way, leaving two gigantic fans and two gigantic dehydrating machines to suck and blow all the water away.

A couple of days later, Nick called me in a panic, and said that there was water all over the laundry room floor again. I called the plumber again, only this time I was a bit calmer since I had done this before. The plumber met me at the house, having just come from THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Again, FOR REALS. He had been hanging a door at his grandmother's house, and somehow, the door fell on his hand, fracturing it. So the poor plumber came out to our house at 10:00 at night and turned off the water with his forearm and left hand because he couldn't use his gimpy right hand. Sad.

The next morning, he brought a compadre over, and together, they set about to fixing things while I went on my merry way to work and a meeting at the United Way. After the meeting ended, I noticed I had three missed calls from the plumber. Clearly, this was not a good sign. I called him back, and could barely understand him because he was so hoarse. He hadn't sounded sick when I left, but I thought maybe it was just a cold coming on. WRONG. He couldn't talk because he'd been all up under my house where apparently there is MOLD EVERYWHERE. He had breathed in all that mold (without a mask) and it for reals bobo'd him up. Unfortunately, due to the mold, and the fact that he did not wear a mask, he could not stay under the house to fix the leaky pipe. There was also the slight problem of dryer lint. You see, apparently, my grandparents had the dryer vent go from the dryer to under the house, so in the plumber's words, there is about 4 inches of lint on every surface under the house. This normally wouldn't be a problem except that in order to fix the pipe they need to use a blowtorch. Blowtorch + lint = BOOM, so that's probably not a good idea.

Since the pipe can't be fixed, the water had to be turned off to avoid flooding the house. This means that Nick and I are currently residing in his parents' house. Did I mention we're getting married in six weeks? GOOD TIMES.

The above drama is the reason I haven't been posting any new items on Etsy--the Great Flood of '08 has been taking all my time and energy, but new things are coming soon!

I need to give a shout out (yes, I said that) to Ken's Plumbing in Greenville, South Carolina. They are, officially, the BOMB. Even though the pipe can't be fixed for now, they were super nice and fixed the first leaky pipe without a problem. It's not their fault my house is old and bobo.

Also, I need to give another shout out (did it again) to my wedding photographer/videographer: Goodman Photography & Video. (www.goodmanphotograpy.com) They are pretty much the shizznit. They have been so wonderful to work with and so understanding of the sudden financial burden put on us by the house. Please take a minute to visit their site, and if you like what you see, recommend them to someone you know!

Thanks for reading my verbal diarrhea!

OH SNAP!

I just figured out how to add my Etsy Mini to my blog! So much easier and cooler-looking than uploading pictures! SWEET

Shell jewelry is here!!!

Finally, after wanting to make beach jewelry for pretty much my whole adult life, I have done it! I've only posted two things on Etsy, mainly because I'm greedy and I've been keeping the others for myself! I would make some this weekend, but unfortunately, I'm working all weekend (LAME!). Tomorrow, I'll be at the Saturday Market in downtown G-Vegas (that's Greenville, for those of you not from the Upstate) for the YW. My co-director and I will be at the booth fro 8:00-10:00 am. Fun fun.

At 10:30, I will be at the YW, getting ready for Looping on Monday. (If you don't know what Looping is, go here.) The teachers, some of their spouses, my co-director, myself, and a few other admin staff people will be moving furniture, cleaning, making signs and labels, and doing pretty much anything else to have the classrooms ready for Monday morning when the new kids get here. After that, I will probably collapse on top of the covers with all my clothes on and the lights blazing when I finally get home.

To be totally off-topic, I had a wonderful time at church tonight. This evening we celebrated the Assumption of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary, for the non-Catholics), and it was a great service. Our new choir director, Kevin, is great. He is patient, encouraging, extremely talented, and above all, fun to work with! I had to cantor (not like on a horse, that's "canter"), and I was super nervous, because you pretty much take your life in your hands when the organist is at the back of the church and you're down in front. I had gotten used to singing with Adam (our old choir director), and we had a good rhythm. I was terrified something would go wrong, but it didn't, and I didn't fall or do anything else stupid. We sang the Biebl "Ave Maria" (look it up if you don't know it--it will change your life), which will also be sung at my wedding in 2 MONTHS! We sounded great and it was the most laidback Holy Day of Obligation I've ever experienced! Yay!

After mass, I went to The Bohemian in downtown G-Vegas for a bite with some of my friends from church. It was pretty much the most relaxing night I've had in a long time. Now, I'm curled up on the couch writing this with the cat at my side, and Nick is playing crazy killer video games in front of the tv. How's that for a hot date night?

PS speaking of dates, we saw Pineapple Express the other night and it was awesome!! It might be the best movie I've seen all year, but I don't know because I really can't remember anything beyond a week ago. Sad, sad.

If anyone is interested in my other blog, here's a link: www.blog.myspace.com/jessi0130.
It's not for the faint of heart--there is a lot of colorful language, some off-color (and probably downright lewd) references, and a whole lot of personal information about me, but if you're brave just add me as a friend and tell me it's for my blog. I like to think it's entertaining.

And finally, here are some pics of the shell beebobs I've listed:

Thanks for looking!





http://www.hawleywood.etsy.com

Whoa, it's been a crazy long time since I last posted. We (Nick, his mom, dad, sister and her three children, and my mom) just got back from a relaxing week at the beach after two crazy weeks of madness. First, we were housesitting/dogsitting and then babysitting, which Nick really did not enjoy. After that, we went straight to the beach, so I haven't slept in my own bed in three weeks! It's good to be home, but I have A LOT to do. Cleaning is first and foremost, and then once I've de-skankified the house, I'm going to sit down and make some sweet jewelry.

I saw so many beautiful shells at the beach that I had to bring some back and be a big cliche and make some beach jewelry, so look for that soon. Please note that new pictures of me modeling baubles will be even more freckled than usual, so don't be frightened when you see a forest of freckled skin around necklaces, rings, and earrings. It's just me.

I have been thinking a lot about our upcoming wedding festivities. Nick and I have done some thinking and we've decided to downsize both the wedding and the honeymoon. Things were just getting way too expensive, and at the end of the day, all that really matters to us is that we get married. The other stuff is just icing on the cake (pun intended). We've cut down our guest list, I'm going to call the cake lady and downsize that baby, and then call the travel agent to downgrade on the honeymoon. We had decided to go to a resort in Cancun, Mexico, which would have been amazing, but it's really more than we can afford. I don't want to go into any more credit card debt than I have to, and having a lavish honeymoon is just not worth it to us. We would rather drive somewhere closer and just have time away to spend with each other; the place really doesn't matter.

I feel much better about the wedding planning since we've decided this. I am a lot less stressed about it. Really the only big thing I'm stressed about is my fitting this Thursday! YIKES! A week of beach fun and food has not done anything good for my waistline (or my butt, but let's not go there), so I've got to hit the pavement today and do some serious running or walking. It's about 90 million degrees out and 400% humidity, so I might stick with walking, at least for today.

I think that's all the interesting news to report! Hopefully now that I'm back for a while I can spend time making jewelry before school starts back (Aug. 25). Yikes again.

Please visit my Etsy store of fabulousness: hawleywood.etsy.com

Thank you!

New items coming soon!

I've been working on some new earrings, necklaces and bracelets!! Hopefully I'll be able to photograph them tomorrow and get them up on the site. I also ordered some sweet business cards from VistaPrint.com FOR FREE!! They have a deal right now where you only pay shipping (if you leave the back side of the cards blank), so I jumped on it and ordered 250.

I also ordered some gorgeous new beads tonight! Can't wait for those to come in!

In other news, our wedding invitations came in and they are BEAUTIFUL!!! I am even more excited to get married, but anxious about getting the invitations out on time and not forgetting anyone! I still have to figure out my bridesmaids' gifts, the bridal luncheon, and and what the groomsmen are going to wear. Oh yeah, and we have to decide where we're going for the honeymoon and book it!!! Forgot about that part. I'm thinking Punta Cana, and Nick is going along with that, so I think that's where we'll end up. All-inclusive beachfront is the way to go.

That's all the news for now! Please keep checking my site for more updates!

http://www.hawleywood.etsy.com

My first sale

YAY!!!! A lovely person bought something from my Etsy store today!! I kept hoping someone would buy something, and then it didn't happen....I almost thought it never would! Thank goodness it did! Having someone purchase something means that I really do have talent and I can make things that other people like. Or at least, that's what it means to me. It's one thing for your friends and family to tell you that they like your things, or even wear them. But it's another thing entirely for a stranger to actually buy one.

Today is a great day.

Update

I finally got my new chain, wire, and findings in!! Yay!! I've made some lovely new things and have started getting them up on Etsy.com. I'm hoping that things will pick up (and I'll actually sell something) soon. For now, I'm off to the pool and hopefully to get inspired by all the pretty colors!

Keep checking the shop for new items--I try to post daily or at least every 2 days.

Have a lovely Father's Day!

hawleywood.etsy.com

Pics!

These are some pictures of my jewelry. To see more please go to hawleywood.etsy.com, and buy some if you're feeling extra adventurous!!

-J

First post!

Yay for my first post! I am starting this blog as an extension of my new shop on Etsy: hawleywood.etsy.com. My dad finally convinced me to start selling my jewelry online, and hopefully I'll have moderate success!!

Here's hoping! And here's my Etsy Mini: