Paris Petite Box Swap Reveal

My swap partners have received their boxes, so I can now reveal to you what I sent to them.  I had so much fun decorating these match boxes!  I used some of my favorite papers, pages from a French text book, vintage laces, and some grand adhesions that I've been holding on to (hoarding). 

I filled the boxes with lots of vintage laces and trims, some velvet flowers in their favorite colors, a stamped tag, an antique calling card from my collection, and some crown ledger paper punches:

I hope they loved it!  My partners Linda and Catherine sent me the most amazing boxes!!  As soon as we can get some sunshine here (go away Tropical Storm Alex!!!), I'll take some pictures and share the loveliness with you.

Thanks to Heather for such a fun swap, and for being such a fabulous hostess!

Lace Tags

I got inspired by these yummy pastel candy colors over the weekend, and whipped up a few lace tags.  They're in the shop if you're interested!  Stay tuned soon for my Paris swap box reveal....

Paris Box Swap Sneak Peak

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on for the Paris box swap.  I'll post more pics when my partners receive their boxes.  Don't want to spoil the surprise!  :)

Good News, and Bad News

First, the bad news.

Just a few days ago, I was here:

And here:

And just before that, I'd been here:

and here:

And now I'm not.  (Coming home from vacation is haaaaard!  Especially from a Disney vacation.  Sigh.)

But the good news is that I'm home, and it's good to be home!  The shop is open, and I've been keeping busy adding new trims and laces.  Here are some other new goodies that are either already in the shop or will be by the end of the day today:

Hope your summer is off to a great start!

Where Bloggers Create: Welcome to my Studio!

I'm so happy to be participating in Karen's Where Bloggers Create II event this year!  I'd love for you to have a peek around my studio/office.  I wish I could I could show you every nook and cranny, but the awful truth is: there's just too much mess and clutter in here!   But hopefully I can show you enough to get an idea.

I am very fortunate to have a small spare bedroom that we've turned into my office.  It's crucial for me to have a dedicated space, because my craft supplies and the inventory for my Etsy shop were taking over the house!  When we moved into this house a couple of years ago, I chose a lovely light green shade for the walls in here, and had all the trim painted cream.  It's a soothing backdrop that goes well with all the other colors and laces that I have going on in here.

As I mentioned, this room is a mixture of my personal crafting stuff (which seems to be constantly growing -- I'm a bit of a hoarder!) along with my shop inventory of linens, laces, trims and vintage ephemera.  This old armoire (also pictured above), which originally belonged to my parents, holds much of my shop inventory:

I've found that I can never have enough bulletin boards!  I've got one hanging to the right of my desk, and it's slowly filling up with pretty tidbits of things that make me happy, including a receipt from our hotel in St. Bart's on our honeymoon (13 years ago!), and some antique lace pattern cards:

My 39 Squares stitching project is also pinned up there, since I haven't figured out what to do with it yet.  Here's a closer shot of that project:

Across the room, I hung two empty white canvases so that my daughters could hang their art and create an "art wall."  It's constantly changing, and I love it!

Under that, I have a large organizer that holds some of my scrapbooking supplies.  (Did I mention that I have a bit of a hoarding problem with crafting supplies?)  On top of that, I have my postal scale, a statue of Mary, a dress form hung with rosaries and pearls, and a basket that is quickly filling up with lace remnants.

This basket really comes in handy -- whenever I need a little something for a project, I have these delightful little scraps all ready to go!

One of my favorite decorations in my office is the perfectly frivolous vintage pink gown that hangs on the closet door.

It's lovely and pink and oh so vintage-y, and it makes me smile.

I also enjoy my bluebonnet paintings, which hang on the wall to the left of my desk, and right above my Cricut.  (Us Texas gals love our bluebonnet paintings.)  These are old and imperfect, but I like them that way.  Someday I hope to have a whole wall covered with these.

There are piles of lace and trim all over this room! Some are waiting to be photographed for the shop; others need to be measured for customer orders:

 

 This little vintage wedding cake topper is the first in what I'm afraid will become another fast-growing collection:

My last pair of pointe shoes -- I keep hoping that I'll wear them again someday, but for now they get to hang next to the TV and class up the joint a bit:

So that's a little peek inside my studio/office.  What do I do in here?  Well, most days I spend the majority of my time on my Etsy shop.  Between finding new fun things, getting them listed in the shop, and filling and shipping orders, there's very little time left to do anything before my girls get out of school for the day.  But I do still try to make time to make things!  :) 

I'm a pretty avid scrapbooker, but lately I've become so distracted with embroidery and with papercrafts, I've fallen woefully behind on both of the girls' books.  My summer goal is to get caught up!

Here's a peek at my current embroidery project -- Amy's Counting Our Blessings stitchalong:

I love this project!  I've got a dedicated blog now, just for stitching, which you can visit here.

Papercrafting and collage has really caught my attention in the last year.  I particularly love making journals:

Once I caught the needlepoint bug, I started combining papercrafting with needlework, in the form of these vintage dress tags:

Thanks so much for coming along on a tour with me!  I hope you enjoyed it!  I'm off now to blog hop -- I can't wait to see all of the other wonderful creative spaces!

A Sneak Peek at New Trims

My shop is currently on vacation, while I take a bit of a summer holiday.  But I got some fabulous new trims in, and I wanted to give you a peek.  These fun new items will be in the shop, along with some other lovely new surprises, when the shop returns on June 20.  I hope you'll stop by and shop with me when I return!  Until then, enjoy these sneak peeks.  Happy summer!!