My Holiday Wishlist...

I adore this great bed! I saw it on Etsy last week and squealed! It's lovely! Check out all the other goodies in this shop here.

What's on your wishlist?

Boxing Day for a Newbie

So, as a Texan, I have never celebrated Boxing Day. I totally enjoyed this post on the Oh Happy Day site explaining how they celebrate! I think I'll have to start celebrating it too -- sounds fun and eco too! Read the whole article here>

Gift Wrapping?

So as we get closer and closer to Christmas, there seem to be more and more items to wrap. I'm using reusable fabric wrapping this year. These beautiful free gift tags will be the perfect compliment. They are from the Orange You Lucky Blog, see them here.

Happy wrapping!

Happy Trees!

I recently arrived at a local library to teach kids about origami. I was delighted to see that we would be hanging out in a happy mini forest.

My Holiday Wishlist...

I love Mark's work and this little beauty is a wonderful collaboration! Check out all his creations, here.

What's on your wishlist?

A Recap of the Jingle Bash 2011

The Bash was a great success and tons of fun! Morgan from Etsy put together a lovely photo recap. If you weren't able to make it to the Bash, check out her album for the highlights here.

Saturday Search: Holiday Garland

Customer Service Rave

I know these days it's rare to get customer service that you can rave about. So, when it happens, I feel the need to tell people about it...

I recently ordered some coupon cards from moo.com for my Etsy shop. Moo was great about keeping me up to date on what was going on with my order. There's a bot called "little moo" that emails you to let you know when your order ships and sends your tracking number so you can see how close it is to your door. The cards arrived wrapped all cute with a sticker that said "YAY!" keeping them all closed up safe in their little container.

My cards came out better than I imagined and I can't wait to start handing them out! When they're gone, I'll be ordering more from them for sure!

If you want to try them out, you can get a 10% off discount by using this link to their site.

My Holiday Wishlist...

My Holiday Wishlist...

I'm a letterpress lover and I have to say that this calendar just makes me happy. It'd be perfect on my kitchen wall so I can see what day it is while I'm getting breakfast together! Check out all Rhonda's beautiful letterpress pieces here in her Color Box Design shop.

What's on your wishlist?

Green Source Visits White Rock Local Market

This past Saturday was the last White Rock Local Market for the year -- it was cold and sunny. Green Source DFW stopped by to chat. Read more here>

My Holiday Wishlist

As adults, we no longer write Santa letters...but we all have a wishlist of some sort.

Yes, I'm an adult but some days, I feel like a kid! I would love to wear these on a Saturday when I am running errands like a mad woman -- they would just plain make me happy! :) They might even shave time off my to do list!

I love the yellow ones and they come in other colors too, check 'em all out on smallfly.

What's on your wishlist?

Mark Your Calendar - it's December 8th!

Be Sure To Enter The Giveaway on EcoKaren's Blog

EcoKaren is giving away one of my itty bitty bags tomorrow on her blog. Make sure you head over to her blog and enter for a chance to win!

Friday Find: Rhino

Wordless Wednesday: Honey Bear

Lovely Discovery!

In my adventures celebrating Thanksgiving, a friend was telling me about a "new to me website" called Social Goodies. The things you can buy there as gifts are committed to doing good and once you've purchased you get a Goodie voucher to decide where Social Goodies will donate 20% of the amount you purchased! LOVE IT!

Good + Good = Great!

Love this idea!

Attention Chocoholics!

One of my friends makes these every once and a while and they are so good they never last long. She shared the recipe, so I'm sharing with you too!

CAUTION: These may become addictive!

Cookies for Chocoholics

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Ingredients;
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 tsp of Mexican vanilla
1 1/4 c. of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 1/2 tsp of double acting baking powder
3 tbsp of cocoa powder
1/2 c. of semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. of chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions;
1. Cream butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl.
2. Combine vanilla and egg in a small dish and scramble before adding to the creamed butter and sugar mixture.
3. Mix well.
4. Add the combined dry ingredients in two additions and mix well.
5. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and fold in gently.
6. Spoon walnut sized scoops onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.

This dough freezes well in case you want to make a double batch and freeze some for drop in guests.

Friday Finds: Doily

Thankful Thursday

Although I take a few minutes each day to think about what I'm thankful for, I had to take a little extra time today to share about it.

I'm truly thankful to all of you who support local artists and handmade. I'm also thankful that the percentage of day job to handmade job time has leaned heavy on the handmade side this year. It has allowed me to grow as a person, share with others and be all around happier.

A big THANK YOU!

Wordless Wednesday: Bagel

More Chairs, Part Five

This Chair is from Midnight Snack.


This chair is from Ferrochie.

See previous chair posts here.

Tomorrow is the Day!

The 4th Annual Jingle Bash is tomorrow! So excited! This is my fourth year participating and it is always such a great show! If you're in town, c'mon by and check it out! All the details are here. You're invited to join in all the fun!

Wordless Wednesday: Chocolate

A Very Windy Day

I was at the White Rock Local Market yesterday and it was incredibly windy. From the weather reports, sounds like we had 35 mph wind gusts through the morning. Wow!

Thank you to all the cooperative people who helped hold things down during the big gusts and helped us all keep a sense of humor. There were many Wizard of Oz jokes.

I was delighted to get home and have a hot cup of tea!

See you there next month hopefully sans wind! :)

Saturday Search: luchadors

This little guy made me giggle. I hope he makes you giggle to. See him in his home shop here.

More Chairs, Part Four

This chair is by The Pig and The Peacock. A little birdie told me the peacock's head is made from soap.

See previous chair posts here.

Wordless Wednesday: Musical

More on the Chairs, Part Three

Here's a peek at another chair from the Etsy Dallas charity event.

This one is from Rachel of ReGeared.

I love the unique interpretations each artist gave their chair.

See previous chair posts here.

Wordless Wednesday: Magnolia

More Chairs, Part Two

This chair from Anne of Modest Ambition.

This chair from Cindy of Yellow Bug Boutique.

Check out the previous chair post here.

Third Thursday: Owl-O-Ween

Third Thursday at the Trinity River Audubon Center was so much fun this past week! Third Thursday is like an open house kind of evening once a month where fees are waived and the public is welcome to explore the center.

I love this cool owl costume, don't you? The person wearing it made it themselves! Nice work!

The Center was celebrating Owl-O-Ween! They had several types of live owls there on display and experts were talking about the differences between many kinds of owls and answering questions.


There was a group lead on an "Owl Prowl" and all kinds of fun owl-centric activities.

They were all beautiful and I wanted to take them all home with me.

Wordless Wednesday: Birdcage

A Quickie Update

I posted an invitation to the Etsy Dallas Charity Event recently. I just wanted to give a quick update that we raised $1326 for the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center. YAY! As soon as they are available, I will post some pictures of the chairs that were sold to raise these funds going to a great cause.

Here's a sneak peak of one of the chairs from Regal Cottage called The Sweetest Matryoshka and her Regal Chair.

More photos to come soon!

Wordless Wednesday: Spain

Sign up to win a Pair of Eco Chic Bobbies!

Be sure to stop by DarcyandBrian.com to sign up to win a pair of my Eco Chic Candy Wrapper Bobbies. These are a lovely treat for Halloween without sugar! :)

Good Luck, I hope you win!

Friday Finds: Magenta

It's Tonight! Hope to see you there!

Wordless Wednesday: Cowl

EcoMonday: Farmer's Market

This weekend, I had a booth at the White Rock Local Market. Many vendors were concerned about the possible traffic because it was a huge sports weekend in DFW. Although traffic was a little lighter than usual this month, I think the buzz is building for the next couple months and we had a great time. Have you thought about where you might do your holiday shopping this year? The Farmer's Market is a great place to find fresh produce and herbs, handmade soaps, wines, olive oil, and handmade goodies of all kinds.

I love selling at the WRLM -- everyone is SO nice! I can meet other vendors, get first pick of awesome produce and learn what other small businesses are in town. Being there builds a sense of community and it's great to see the same faces each month. There are always babies, kids and animals -- a true eye buffet that keeps things light and entertaining.

It's so important to support your local Farmer's Market and local economy. Find a Farmer's Market close to you by entering your zip code at localharvest.org

Happy Eco Monday!

Friday Finds: Watercolour Bird

Wordless Wednesday: Peaceful

What About Anniversary Gifts? Year One

Anniversaries are the celebration of a date when something special happened. The founding of a country or date of a wedding. For wedding anniversaries, there is a set tradition of what makes an appropriate gift. I'm starting a special series here to discuss the traditional and modern twist suggestions with options of handmade items that would make lovely gifts that mark a special occasion.

The first year gift tradition is paper. So, something like this personalized stationery would be a thoughtful and beautiful gift.

ColorBoxDesign has a beautiful array of letterpress monograms to choose from - I'm partial to these Victorian Notecards, $20/set








A more modern twist on first year anniversary gifts is clocks.

This Recycled La Villajoyosa Bonbones Espana Tin Clock $38 is available in my etsy shop, La Alicia. Something like this would be perfect for a couple that loves Spain and Bombones.

What are your favorite kinds of anniversary gifts?

Over Abdundance of Plastic Bags

I do my best to use my reusable bags but every once in a while, one of these pesky plastic bags sneak home with me. Greenwala has 18 great suggestions on how to reuse them. Read all about it here.

Friday Find: Custom Stamp

My friend Anne of Modest Ambition recently raved to me about a stamp that she ordered on Etsy. I'm always delighted to hear raves about Etsy sellers, especially from other Etsy sellers.

It wasn't until a month or so later that I found myself in need of a new stamp. I asked if she would share her source and she did. Her stamp came from hugfishandorange, a cute little shop on Etsy located in Hawaii. I sent a convo to them to see if they could do a custom stamp for me and to get an estimate. Their response time was quick and the estimate was reasonable. Hooray! So I sent my art and placed my order. The stamp (pictured above) arrived the following week wrapped so cute. YAY! I love that you can see, if you look carefully, how someone carved it by hand. I'm currently deciding what to mount it on - acrylic, wood, etc.

I've been stamping it on all my packages and on my thank you notes! Thanks, hugfishandorange, I love my stamp!

Treasury Thursday: Music

Wordless Wednesday: Texas

Do you have an ICE CARD?

Recently, a friend asked me if I had an ICE card. "What the heck is that?" was my response. It's an "In Case of Emergency" card. It has some basic information on it about you in case for whatever reason you cannot speak for yourself. People also keep ICE documents on their phones and tablets as well. Feel free to downoad this template and fill it in and put it in your billfold. You never know, it could save your life.