Archive for the ‘Life at Home’ Category
Hi Everyone,
I am now blogging at a different blog address. Feel free to explore this older blog, which has some fine content. But, make sure to pop over to the new blog. Life is so very precious, and I like to inspire faith and happiness. When you go to the new blog, make sure to click the “Follow This Blog” button in the top right corner.
Click here to visit my new blog~!
“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
~ William Morris
Well, I found my marbles, but are they mine to have? If so, I’m going to have to win them. So, why am I telling YOU about them. Now you’ll comment on the blog and be my competition in the giveaway. I love these marbles~! I want to win them.
OK… Let me tell you about my buddy Rhett. I saw a photo of this lady and I wanted to know her. She has such a funny expression on her face. You can tell that she is smart, and sassy. She has to be hilarious, too. I ended up on some “teams” with her. She has personality…. it bubbles over the top. So, now I get to know her bit by bit. Check this out… the name of her shop is, \”Rhett Didn\’t Give a Damn\”. It makes you think twice, doesn’t it. Then the questions. “What was she thinking, why that name? What does she sell?” Well it seems to be vintage stuff… but not just anything she can put her hands on. It has to be special. So, go look at her shop, and see for yourself: \”Rhett Didn\’t Give a Damn\”.
AND…. Click on the pictures of the marbles to have a chance to win them…. But don’t actually win them…. I WANT THEM~!
At Hayden Brook Studios we have 3 sets of hands making jewelry. There is Hayden (me), Brook (my husband), and Terry (our great buddy). Terry and her husband Dan have an amazing garden, full of flowers, herbs, and veggies. They are so serious about their garden that they start a bunch of stuff indoors to get a jump on the season. They compost intelligently. And, when they have extra money, they’ll most likely invest it in garden related products. Brook and I get a few of the perks of having friends with an enchanted garden…. SUPER-SIZED zucchini’s to make carb free pizza…. cilantro…. fresh tomatoes… ya know…
BUT, this was an unexpected perk…. the birth announcement in triplicate of the Praying Mantis Hatches. How amazing~! You can blow these photos up by clicking on them…. You should really do that. They are awesome photos~! (Dan is a photographer…. as you can surely tell.) And below these photos, there is the note that Terry sent to describe what is going on… their National Geographic Moment.
You can read about the benefits of having these little guys all over your garden: NATURAL PEST CONTROL WITH PRAYING MANTIS
Here is another treasury of really cool photos/items that I have “curated” on etsy (link below), the online craft show. This treasury did rather well statistically. It went to page 2 of etsy treasuries. (That is very good~!) And as of today, it has over 400 views. It is fun to make a treasury…. but the competitive goal is to get a treasury onto the 1st page, or better yet the main page of etsy.com (click here to see what i mean… etsy.com). Then where it says: Handpicked Items See more… click on the “See More“… and that takes you to the list of the top treasuries, page 1. My college friend Kelly has been getting treasuries onto page one on a regular basis these days. That takes strategy, and time~! (To see Kelly’s Page, stained glass items, and access her treasuries, “Click here for Kelly”.) She said, it is fun to see the treasury climb the pages~! Now I know what she means. It was fun when my “Glass House” Treasury (see my last blog entry) went to the top of page 3…. and this one went to the middle of page 2.
But you may wonder why we make these treasuries. Well, mostly it is fun. But, it is also reciprocal. We make connections with other people who make treasuries… and we all promote each others’ work… we all get more exposure, presence, visibility.
AND… I love the Mad Hatter chair… too bad it is in New Zealand~! Go check out this Kaleidoscope of colors treasury~!
Click Here to visit the page: Kaleidoscope of Rainbow Color to Celebrate Spring
I curated a “Treasury” on etsy. I chose a theme and found interesting photos and items to go with that theme. These are fun to create. But, there is an added art… We try to get our collection onto the front page of the “etsy” website. One of the rules to making a treasury is that we’re not allowed to promote our own work… only that of other exhibitors of this online craft show. I am having fun. But, I am also meeting other people who like to make treasuries. So, maybe you’ll see the work of Hayden Brook Studios in someone else’s collection.
Link to Event: If You Live in a Glass House, Don’t Throw Stones
I made a “treasury” of items on “etsy”. Some may ask, “What the heck does THAT mean?” Well, it is a collection of items I like that follow a common theme. There are links to read more about each of these items. In this case, I have written about hand crafted body care products. I have been amazed and impressed with the all natural bath and body products on this online craft show, called “ETSY”. I have a new outlook on the type of products I will allow to come in contact with MY body. I guess it makes sense that most of the lotion you put on your skin sinks into your body. Skin is an organ. How about dental care? People take medicine sub-lingually (under the tongue). That means the toothpaste has 2+ minutes to enter my bloodstream. When I look at lists of ingredients 2 miles long, and wonder what I am putting into my body, it is scary. No wonder there are so many bizarre illnesses, like cancer and chronic fatigue. We are poisoning ourselves incrementally every day if we aren’t paying attention to what we are putting into our systems. Anyway, I put together a collection of LOVELY bath and body care products, even for DOGS~! Come visit my treasury and investigate these really cool stores.
PURE Natural Clean FUN Treasury
I am so excited. We just ordered these cute little business cards. They are 1/2 the size of a normal business card… very cute. They give you the option of putting a ton of unique images on 1 side of the card. So… look what I did. I went into our Hayden Brook jewelry photo archives and took details of our jewelry and cropped them into the shape of the cards. I chose to use these 18 images on the one side. The other side says our name, our medium, and our web address. We ordered these because we got The Philadelphia Museum of Art as a wholesale account, and they wanted our work on small cards. I almost ordered something completely blank… but then I pulled my friend Lynn’s business card out of my purse. It was a tiny Moo Card. It hit me that this would be a good answer. So LOOK~!~! I am so pleased. They arrived last night. We had so much fun putting that order together for the museum gift shop.
Thanks Lynn~! Here is a link to Lynn’s Online Store: UnaOdd
Link to Moo Cards: Moo Cards
Our buddy, Michael Mullaney (Publisher, Editor, Sales & Webmaster of The Cape Cod Maritime Guide) just contacted us this week. He is trying to attract a more diverse group of tourists/ fishermen/ and lovers of Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod to his website and publication. He offered us a space. Here is a Cape Cod Specific Ad we came up with… just for Mike! Now go check out what he is into… pretty cool stuff going on ~! Oh man~! Who wouldn’t want to go to Cape Cod~! I sure do. Well, look up the Cape Cod Maritime Guide when you are planning your trip! Maybe you’ll even run into Michael Mullaney himself! Tell him Brook and Laurie said “HI”.
This image is a link to see it larger… On the Cape Cod Maritime Guide…
Brook and I have had the immense pleasure of being best friends with this perfect animal. He was very loyal, very sweet. He made a great buddy for 10 years. We just lost him last night. I am grieving today. I will miss him terribly.
Samson was a chocolate chihuahua, 6 pounds. He had the demeanor of a teddy bear crossed with a rag doll, come to life. He liked to stay close to us wherever we went. He was Brook’s little shadow. Most of the time we would take him with us when we would travel. He would see his carrier come out, and he would beam with joy… marvelous tail wagging wonderfully. The tail was great… very expressive. When we would say his name he would wag it slowly. If we would say his name over and over fast (SampSampSampySamp), he would wag it real fast. So cute!
Last April I felt a lump on his side. We took him to the vet immediately. We weighed his options and decided to keep him on 2 medications. Operating would be too complex as he wasn’t aging as well as we’d hoped. He did quite well for 7 months. Then the tumor started to grow really aggressively. Arthritic bones were having trouble supporting the extra weight. Samp slowed down a lot in the last week. He didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain, but breathing got more difficult, and walking, too.
We kept praying that he would fall asleep and not wake up. We would bring him to bed with us over the last 4 days, because we didn’t want him to die alone. We knew he was getting closer… though still not “suffering” enough to have him put down. Yesterday he decided he was done eating, even his special favorites. We took him out for a nice walk, carrying him. He liked it. It was a good last day. We thought we’d have to take him to the vet today. But around 1AM last night, he woke us up to say goodbye. He was snuggled up to Brook, and we were with him for his last breath. It is a sad kind of relief that he then died. We didn’t want him to suffer. He lived well, and died well. Strong and brave. He was a great gift to us from God. A great delight. I will love him for the rest of my life.
Meet Lilly. This is our new kiln. She just came this week. Brook and I are learning to work with precious metal clay (PMC). We are trained in traditional silversmithing techniques. But, we love to keep learning new things. This was an obvious choice of what to learn next. PMC is fine silver particles in a clay form. When the clay is fired, the binder burns away leaving only fine silver, 99.9% pure fine silver. It is not so easy to work glass into the metal clay. There are some finicky rules, like melting points! Not every experiment is yielding perfect results. But, overall we are pleased. We are going to be introducing several lines of PMC jewelry at the Rosen Show this February… we’re developing them now as we experiment. Brook was more ambitious than me… He took some photos of his exciting new experiments. Wanna see?
