Treats For You, Tricks For Me

Hi Mozzie here!  I had this great idea, since this is my first Halloween I wanted to pass out treats, but I was told I was too small to give out candy.  *Sad face*  But then I thought we should have a sale so that some of my buddies could find good homes.  Can you think if a better treat!?  If you want to adopt one of my pals, just e-mail Kelly using the link at the right, and she will send you a paypal invoice with the adjusted price. 

What I didn't know is that I was going to get tricked into wearing this silly pumpkin hat!!!  BOO for me!  I really wanted a fancy mask!  *Frowny Face*

Happy Halloween & bear hugs, Mozzie

And The Winner Is...

I reached deep down into the jack-o-lantern and pulled out a number!

Are you wondering if it's you?

It might be....

Ok actually I used random.org to get the number...there was no jack-o-lantern...

the

winner

is...

yes I am making you wait for it...

but here it is....

Which means Tyler from Teds 'n Such  is the winner!  Congrats Tyler!  All I need now is a mailing address and he will be on his way to you!

Thank you all for participating.  Watch for another give away near Christmas!

Hugs, Kelly

Happy, Grumpy & Reminder

Despite what you may think, this is not a post about dwarfs...Snow White is no where in sight.  But lets go ahead and start with grumpy and get that out of the way.  Then we can move on to happy things!

Ok so I am feeling a bit grumpy about Etsy.  I haven't made a post about Etsy in years, but I really do need to get this off my chest.  I don't rely on Etsy much, but I figure for 20 cents a pop, it's worth it as an online portfolio to reach people who might not see me otherwise.  I like to shop on Etsy sometimes though.  They implemented a feature a while back where they had suggested items from your favorite shops on the front page.  It was great.  I really liked seeing what people whose work I like and buy, have made recently.  It certainly prompted me to buy a few things that I might not have.  It was also handy for the girl on the go.  Plus my own page views have dropped by about 95%.  But with this new person in charge they have removed it.  Apparently the thinking is that people should pay for extra advertising. Money hungry little buggers.  They also removed the pounce and a couple other features that were effective.   On top of that they have removed the just listed section!!!  This seems so counter intuitive to me.  They were still making a profit from the items sold, probably more than they will on the items sold through people who will pay to advertise.  So why...why Etsy...WHY?  I am not going to pay for advertising through them.  I just do not understand this cut off your nose to spite your face line of thinking they constantly employ.  Ok small rant over...now on to the fun stuff!

Now for the happy!  YAY!  As you see I have posted a pic of my dining room.  (Penelope snuck into the pic under the chair...I didn't even notice.)  This weekend we finally...FINALLY started redoing the house.  R painted the walls.  Isn't it lovely!  He also bought me a new china cabinet which I need to put the stuff back into.  But that's for tomorrow.  Today I have to put up Halloween decorations.  I also want to repaint the painted part of the chairs white. 

When I used to live in a condo I dreamed of the day when I had a house and could decorate it any way I wanted.  I had a million ideas.  But when we moved into this house 12 years ago the trouble was I had a million ideas!  I couldn't settle on anything.  So a while back R put his foot down and said pick something woman it's time!  I am so glad he did.  I had forgotten how much I love color.  Of course we are both Leo's so naturally we have to have warm colors.  I don't care for cool colors in my home. 

When I go to visit my parents in a couple weeks he is going to do the living room and kitchen.  I can't wait.  It's going to be beautiful!  I already have ideas for the bedroom and the downstairs too.  My house is going to be fabulous!  At least I think so.

Lastly I want to give you a reminder...tomorrow night is the drawing for Caution Mouse so be sure to enter if you haven't already!

Have a lovely day!  Hugs, K. <3

Edit:  One trip to World Market later and we have new chair cushions, lantern and placemats!

~*~ Autumn Pumpkin ~*~

One of my favorite quotes is by Henry David Thoreau;  "I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."  If only Henry had a velvety mohair pumpkin to sit on, he could have had the best of both worlds!

I normally don't make things without a face, but just for fun I wanted to do a little pumpkin.  I really like how it turned out.

My Autumn pumpkin is available on my website at http://www.blondheart.com/

News Worthy

When I was a kid, every evening we sat down to watch Walter Cronkite deliver the news.  For a child, this was pretty boring.  But I was always fascinated by Mr. Cronkite.  He seemed like such a kindly man.  Even when the news was terrible he gave the impression of being a member of the family who had a reassurance in his demeanor that everything would be alright, behind the words he spoke.  He had something that is desperately lacking these days.  He had grace, and he was able to maintain it even in the worst of times.

Back in those days even though nearly every American watched the news religiously, it was still a personal choice.  You could watch the evening news or read the paper...and that was it.  Those were the only two ways to have the news delivered to you.  If you chose to take the day off from knowing the evils of the world...you could enjoy a blissful day.

I stopped watching the news about 20 years ago.  We lived in Connecticut and many of the stations we got were from New York City.  They had a way of over sensationalizing everything.  My cut off was one day when I watched an anchor woman tell a story about a horrific incident that had happened.  She was smiling.  I mean like beauty pagent smile type of smiling.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I know that reporters are supposed to detach themselves from what they are reporting...but really...smiling over a crime so horrific I that I won't even tell you what it was on my blog?  I couldn't watch anymore.  Knowing things too horrible to imagine on a daily basis, and knowing that you can't do anything to stop them just wreaks havoc on your psyche after a while...especially when they are told with a smile.  As a bear maker I have to be a little bit on the happy side or the bears look depressed.

I have been avoiding the fact that I am sick all week.  Sometimes I think if I ignore it, it will just go away and I will feel fine.  Today I had to own up it.  I had a sore throat and an earache that progressed pretty far.  As a result of finally admitting to myself I am sick, I was in a differnt kind of avoidance mode.  I have one last little Halloween piece I want to do, and I did get it cut out.  But I didn't feel like sewing.

Part of my avoidance of work today was to read the news online.  Like I said,  I don't watch the news unless something specific happens that I really want to know more about.  I never read the paper.  Ever.  R tells me what he thinks I need to know.  It's not that I want to go through life with rose colored glasses on or that I don't care what's going on in the world.  The problem is when you have the type of memory I do and remember huge amounts of what you see in print, you don't read the paper because it sticks with you forever.  Again..happy bears...

In our computerized times it's hard to avoid the news though.  It's on the splash page of our server every time we log in.  It's almost impossible to turn it off too.  It's on our smart phones.  It's everywhere.  Part of the fallout of all this constant bombardment of news is that sometimes the media seems to run out and things are reported that aren't really what I would consider news worthy.

While going through the 20 pages of news on my server, there was the usual stuff of course.  But most of it was just blather...among other things, there was something about a child who has a rare medical condition that causes her to eat glass, something about a movie star who is suing Amazon for revealing her actual age, and some nonsense about a family with 19 kids who have banned TV and pets from their home...um ok.  Then I came across another headline that read that the First Lady wore pink twice in one day.  I didn't bother to read any of those articles because I don't consider that news.  My reaction was so what?  I wore two pair of grey sweats back to back...stop the presses!  Ok so maybe I don't have the same mass appeal that the First Lady does, but still...who cares?  Is this really news?  It isn't even a human interest story in my book.  So she wore pink twice in one day...maybe she was in the mood for pink, or maybe it was because it's National Breast Cancer month.  I don't know...and I don't need to know.

Do we benefit from all this pointless information that is passed off as news?  I don't think we do.  I think it's just cerebral litter laying on the side of the information super highway.  My new rule of thumb is this...if Walter Cronkite wouldn't have reported it...I am not going to bother to read it.

~*~ Cybil And Sabine ~*~

Surprise!  My pumpkin men turned out to be girls!  Meet Cybil and Sabine.  These lovely ladies have been added to my website at http://www.blondheart.com/

Sneak Peek And A Reprieve

I have been so stressed this week you have no idea.  I have been trying to get everything done before I left on Monday to go visit my Mom.  While I was looking forward to seeing my parents, I was not looking forward to the two day drive.  Especially when I had to finish mice and pumpkins and decorate for Halloween and pack all my things from my china cabinet and curio cabinet and pack my clothes for the trip and clean...and do a mountain of laundry...and...sigh~

When I got up this morning I knew I wasn't going to get it all done.  Ok well I could have if I didn't want to sleep from now until then, but I am sort of fond of having a little sleep because it makes me more alert and functional and just generally more pleasant.  So I finally broke down and called my Mom and told her I wasn't going to leave until Tuesday. 

Why all the packing you ask?  Well because R was going to take the week off and paint while I was gone.  Why was I driving you wonder?  I have things I wanted to take to my Mom and flying wasn't an option to get them there.

But my Mom said they were going to come around the beginning of December so she could pick stuff up then.  And she suggested perhaps I shouldn't come at all.  But I felt bad.  I had promised to come and I don't like to break a promise.

So since I don't have to take all sorts of things now, I am flying!  But not for three weeks.  Which lifted a weight right off my shoulders.  Now I have time to get everything done properly and then go!  YAY!  Plus it also means I can actually stay longer at their house.  YAY!

Now about this sneak peek and pumpkin by candlelight you see above...well when I posted the last group of pieces I had done, my little pumpkin man was adopted within five minutes.  I know a lot of you e-mailed about him and were disappointed you missed him.  So I have two more.  They aren't dressed yet, but they will be later today and posted then.  I just thought I would give you a heads up that they are coming!  Until then...I am going to go off to bed.

Hugs, K <3

A Blog Give Away!

I promised you a surprise a while back...well here it is!  Now I have to tell you I am a bit late on getting it done, because as usual I am behind. 

I know I haven't done a blog give away for a while but I have mixed emotions about them to be honest.  The last one I had, the person who ended up winning had just raved about how much she loved it in her comment to the post, and then when she won she never claimed it.  I waited several weeks and tried to contact her numerous ways.  So I felt rather embarrassed and foolish, I had worked really hard on it.  And after all that time had passed, I didn't know what to do with the piece.  So as you can imagine I wasn't in a big hurry to try it again.

On the other side of the fence, I know what it's like to enter a blog give away and want the piece sooooooo bad.  Then to not win and have no other way to get one like it.  There was a Christmas bear a few years ago I wanted more than anything and that was what happened.  I would have happily bought one like it but there wasn't one for sale.  So in case I am not alone in feeling that way, I have made a second mouse...Boo is available on my website at http://www.blondheart.com/.

On to the details!

Caution is 4 1/2 inches tall, he is hand stitched of African mohair, hand dyed, and has glass eyes.  He will arrive in a ceramic pumpkin with his spooky little sign that says "Caution."  (He is really friendly and not at all scary though.)

To enter you must post about it on your blog, leave me a comment with a link to your post, (just one comment please) and be a follower of my blog.  International readers are welcome to enter too.  A couple give away pieces have gone overseas before!  That's it, and you will have a chance to win my little Halloween mousey!  Easy huh!

The winner will be chosen by randomizer on October 25th at 11:59 PM MST. 

Good luck!   Hugs, K. <3

PS...

 

Not to take you away from all the fun of the previous post I made this morning, but I also wanted to tell you that the five new pieces-three halloween and two regular bears are finally on my website at Blondheart.com 

Hugs, K. <3

Edit:  Seedric the pumpkin has been adopted so he is no longer on the site.  More will be coming!

The Church And The Barn

Yesterday I got to have one of those girl days that I love so much!  My friend Carol and I do this a few times a year.  We usually meet in Castle Rock which is about halfway for both of us. I have told you about the places we go before, but this time I had the for thought to bring my camera...so you can actually see what we did!

First we went to eat at The Old Stone Church.  It's one of the oldest churches in Colorado, but it's been a restaurant for many years.  The food is just amazing!  I had a hazelnut crusted chicken over pasta with a cilantro pineapple butter, and a little bit of cranberry walnut salad on the side.  Yum!  Carol had shrimp and goat cheese enchiladas with a chipotle cream sauce...I almost had that.  She let me taste it...it was insanely good!  

They also gave us a basket of flat bread with chimichurri sauce to dip it in. The sauce was SO good that I was dipping my chicken in it. The server asked if I would like some more, and I jokingly said I would like a whole jar to take home. She said they did sell it by the jar, and when you bought it..you got the recipe for it too! Naturally a jar came home with me.

Next we headed down the block to The Barn.  It really is an old barn.

It sits right next to the Purina Chows company.

But inside it's unassuming exterior lies delights that can barely be described!

Every vendor gets a little room for their wares.

This is just a small sampling of the many rooms!  They have a real eye for vendors that fit a certain style and it would be easy to spend thousands in there!

While I didn't spend thousands, I did get some lovely little treasures, including the grey scarf in the back, some small reproduction french letters, a key chain and two necklaces.

I also got a carved crow, and a couple of handmade flowers.  I didn't show you everything I bought.  I got a lovely feather flower but Penelope was trying very hard to help me with it so I decided to put it back on my jewelry amoire safely out of little kitty paws reach!  I got some really pretty leg warmers and a truly beautiful headband with a flower on it too.  I am wearing the headband though, so it didn't make it into the picture either.

This is just a close up of the swan lake and the Paris necklaces I just had to have!  

They have added a small building to the left of the Barn called The Barn Too, which was filled with more delights including the shabby pink table with it's scalloped edge.  I thought it would make the perfect stand for my TV, so after some careful maneuvering we managed to get it into the back seat of my car!

It was a really fun day, and also so great to see my friend.  I know if you knew her you would love her as much as I do.  She is just this fun, cool, sophisticated lady with a little bit of an edge...there is NO ONE else like her!