OwenMania

Thank you to all for my wonderful shower this weekend!  Especially my Mom, Christy, Becky, Charlotte, and Dodie...and of course to my Grandma for graciously letting us use her house!  You can tell by the pictures that they put a LOT of time and effort into the planning and execution of the day.  When mom found the idea for this party theme, we both thought WOW, that is the coolest theme ever.  The original party was a birthday party, but it flawlessly transitioned into a baby shower.  (If you ever need a party theme, or party inspiration, check out Hostest with the Mostest, greatest party site ever! 

Check out that fantastic diaper cake!  Elmo + Yellow submarine = Awesome!  Mom, you out did yourself.

Carter, you are looking snazzy!

The peace sign necklaces were a creative twist on the "baby game" where you normally get a pin or something similar and if someone catches you saying baby, they get your pin.  Collect the most pins and you win.  Much easier to play with those cool necklaces, plus the kids loved them.  How great are the OwenMania guitar picks?

 The original party had a very elaborate Octopus's garden, Mom's version easy for anyone to do!  No crafting involved.   Sissy, you did a great job on your onsie.

Who can have a Beatles inspired party without chocolate mustaches and fun signs?  The duck punch was a cute touch too!

Give small children giant lollipops, small children will end up under the bed.  Strange.

Owen, you have some pretty fantastic Grandma's that can't wait to meet you.  Don't worry, I will make them take off the scary glasses first.

Thank you again to everyone who came out to celebrate this new little life.  It was much appreciated! 

In the next few days all photos will be up to download in the usual place.

In Like a Lion

January turned out to be an exceptional month for my Etsy shop.  It started out with one of my curated treasuries getting picked for the front page.  (If you have never made a treasury, you should give it a try.  It is a great way to discover unique things for sale on Etsy.)

Getting picked for the front page is a really big deal to us sellers on Etsy.  It brings in a ton of views to your shop.  I average about 6 shop hearts a day and 3500 page views, and on the day I made it to the front page I ended up with 6000 page views and 24 hearts.  That is a crazy amount of shop hearts, at least to me.  This is what the front page of Etsy looked like on January 3rd.

So I am pretty pumped, for some this is a once in a lifetime kind of thing.  I am working a couple of days later and notice that I am getting a ton of hearts again.  Then I get a message from a fellow etsian,

 "Thanks for getting me to the FP."

I assume they are talking about the 3rd.  I go to Etsy.com and lo and behold, there I am again.  On the FP with this beauty!

Another 6000 views and 18 shop hearts.  WOW!

So the very next Monday I am again in my shop, answering conversations and I get a message:

"Congrats on the FP."

I think, there is no way.  I go to the front page.  Even better than one of my treasuries being picked, someone else made a treasury and featured one of my wedding trees.  Fantastic!

That's me down in the bottom left hand corner.  This baby earned me, get ready for it, over 10,000 page views and 31 shop hearts.  Crazy!  I know I will never see numbers like that again, but it was sure nice to see the one time.  My tree got 41 hearts on it's own.

January has been an amazing month for the shop.  It was like winning the lottery being on the FP not once, not twice but THREE times.

And it did not go out like a lamb.  On the 30th, I noticed a spike in hearts on an item that barely gets noticed this time of year since it is not wedding related.  I do a little investigating.  One of my art prints was hand picked by etsy for their Valentine's Day newsletter. 

See the silhouette art print under personalized?  Oh yeah, that is mine.  Not only is is my item but it is actually a silhouette of kids, Bryan and I.  So we are Etsy famous :)  This is even better than being on the Uncle Al show when I was a little kid.

Aren't we cute?

New Blog!

New blog design that we are very excited about!  More fun stuff to come :)

Sissy is working on it...