Lots of Peace and Love Around Here

Well lots of wallets with peace and love themes. These are my newest custom pieces I just finished. I really like the colors in the billfold. I will have to experiment further with those. So I haven't been around for a few days mostly because I got a few custom orders and I was sick at the same time. One of those tricky illnesses that make you think your better one second and the next second you feel like crap. I am still a little wobbly, but ready to join the living once again. Today will be another day of custom order fun. I have a wristlet to make and a jewelry piece to finish. I love it when I am busy! A little overwhelming but much better than sitting around wondering what to start next.

Tomorrow, Ciaran and I are having lunch with friends and searching out some fresh leather pieces. I am finding myself in need of some bright colors again. My supplies are starting to diminish a bit. Eek! I love my lime green suede and my salmon orange suede and they are almost gone! So I will go searching for some more fabulous colors to call my own. That's my plan and I will hopefully be able to stick to it, sickness or not.

Sleepy, Sleepy, Yawn, Yawn

I am dragging today! Mr. Ciaran was up late and woke up in the middle of night crying, so he came to bed with us. I have been dragging all week so a night of a tossing, turning, kicking, and crying toddler didn't help very much. I feel like my eyeballs are going to drop right through the bottoms of my feet. They are HEAVY!!!!

I got to hang out at the mall yesterday. It was crazy! The college students are heading back to school, so they are stocking up on goodies for their apartments and dorm rooms. The little ones also start school in the next couple weeks, so lots of new school outfits and the grouchiness that goes with shopping for such things between parents and their children. I actually witnessed an argument about a frying pan between a mother and her son. She wanted him to have the frying pan and he he told her he didn't need anything like that for his apartment. He wasn't planning on cooking. I would have loved to hear the whole argument but there was a better one that had just erupted about a backpack happening in the next isle. I used to really want to go out and shop for clothes when I was little. My mom made our new school outfits when I was a kid. Of course I didn't appreciate it back then but after years of witnessing the hysterics of back to school parent/child snarliness about what top/pants/skirt/shoes he or she should get.....I am now ever so appreciative of my mom's efforts.

I wrote my first Etsy pen pal letter yesterday! I hope my new pen pal enjoys reading it. I love pen pals, I love writing letters but often I run out of anything interesting to say. I don't want to ramble, I want to ask meaningful questions and genuinely get to know my new friend. The trouble is that I am a babbling idiot by nature. I get started on something and I can't stop talking about it. Same darn thing with writing. I have a really hard time cutting myself off. I am trying but I have a ways to go. So for now I will stick to short and sweet. Not my entire life's story all smushed into one little envelope.

Oh well, off to mangle some more sweaters and dismantle some leather clothing, I have lots of work to do.

I Love Custom Orders

I just got a couple of custom orders and I have to say I get really excited about doing custom orders. I find it challenging. It is nice to take a break from the daily to do list for my business and work strictly on a custom order. A few years back, I don't think I could have done a custom order for the life of me. Too much insecurity I guess. Now I just like the challenge of putting another person's idea or design into one of my products and still having it look good when it's done. My favorite custom order was for my sister, who just wanted an interesting copper necklace with an ammonite set into it somewhere. It took me a while to figure out what to do with it but when it was done I was really proud of it. I love that "I did it!" feeling. I have also failed at a lot of my attempts to pull designs together for other people, so the little successes that I do have are so appreciated. As much as I love being in my own creative world and hanging out with my own ideas, it sure is nice to visit someone else's world for a while.

I am Not Sure What To Title This

I don't really have a theme today. I was awful sickly yesterday and again today, I am not feeling that great. Oh bother! No one really wants to hear about all that stuff anyways. Sorry, I will ramble on about something else.

I finished a new little wallet as shown above. My first creation out of the gorgeous pumpkin orange suede I got a couple of weeks ago. I am really liking the flower appliques. I am not really the biggest fan of flowery things but I am liking how these pieces work together.

Now I am back on my quest for white or off white leather. I bought myself some iridescent red pigment the other day to try out and man does it look neato! I am thinking that I would like to try a cuff or a neck piece with that color. That would be wonderful! I have a few Etsy related projects to finish first. I want to keep them top secret until the persons that are receiving them can see them first. I love surprises....but only when I get to surprise other people........well, sometimes I like to be surprised too, but only nice surprises. Nice surprises make me happy, scary or mean surprises make me want to poke the surpriser ( I don't know if that is even a word but I am going to use it anyway)in the eye really hard. Well with that note, I am off to do more sewing. Have a great day all!

The Park of My Dreams!

I wish I was in this park today. It looks so peaceful. Not that I am stressed out or anything. It is funny when I see a photo of a beautiful place I can just imagine how it feels and smells. This was a park Mark and I visited while we were in Ireland. We stayed overnight in Tralee. Our B&B was a bit of a walk from the bus station so we decided to leave extra early to make sure we could catch our bus without having to rush with our huge backpacks on. We both had to pee before we hopped on our next bus so we stopped at this park's restrooms. Then we wandered around the park for a bit and took a few photos. It really was beautiful. I wanna go back! Hopefully someday soon.

I had a busy, busy day yesterday. I didn't plan it that way, it just crashed down on me at the last minute. I procrastinated around the house all morning doing little things here and there and then when it came down to making it downtown for errands I suddenly remembered why I wanted to leave earlier. It seems that I forgot about a couple of errands. OOPS! I got everything done, but I hate rushing around at the last minute.

Today I will be working on a small custom order and a couple other little items for my shops. I am hoping for productivity. We will see what happens. I woke up feeling like I could sleep all day, I tried going back to sleep but I kept waking up to Ciaran poking me in the nose and eye with his little slobbery fingers. Best way to wake up ever. Nothing like a slobbery eye or nose to get your day going!

O.K. Old Bike Dude, You Are Trying My Niceness

The newest wallet is done! Yay! I decided to try to bulk up my icraft shop, so I listed it there. Black and red with polka dots, the best color combination ever!

So you may wonder why I titled this post the way I did. I will tell you because I have been fussing about it for the last day or so. So Ciaran and I are pedestrians, well, I am the pedestrian, he gets to cruise around in the stroller. Anyways, being a pedestrian and a responsible mama, I am super careful when I cross the street. I can't even count on my fingers and toes anymore the number of times we have almost been hit by a driver not paying attention while driving. Just the other day a man made a left turn into the intersection Ciaran and I were in the middle of. He just kept going, luckily I pulled Ciaran out of the way. I don't know what happened other than he just wasn't paying attention. Every other car in that intersection was stopped for us, but this guy just kept going.

A few days later, Ciaran and I were headed home from downtown and were getting ready to cross the street at a very busy intersection. Both lanes of cars saw us and stopped for us. There was a line of about four cars on each side, all of which waited patiently for us to cross. There was a guy on bike coming down the way quite a bit and I figured he had plenty of room to stop for us as well. So I push Ciaran into the street and then I see the guy on the bike coming up on us at full speed, then struggling to brake and cussing me out at the same time. Dude! come on, you had to see us from way back there, all of these cars did. Luckily Ciaran and I were able to get out of his way so he could pass us up at top speed and cuss me out some more. I muttered a few things about bikes being vehicles too and that the rules of the road apply to bike riders too. I did spice it up with a few very colorful words which I will not repeat for you here, I will let you imagine. It's more fun that way anyways. Anyways, I was so angry I wanted to chase the guy down and scream in his face and break his bike, but I didn't.

I did see him the next day, still riding at top speed, not paying attention to anybody or anything around him. I hope if anyone gets hurt from his recklessness, it will be him, not some innocent bystander.

Another Beautiful Sunny Day!

......But no coffee! How did that happen? AWW NUTS!!! I really need some this morning too. I spent the night with stinker on the couch. I guess he had a bad baby dream, he woke up screaming at about 1 am. Poor little guy couldn't quite calm back down either. So I didn't get very much sleep. So there goes my energy for a day's work. I don't quite have it today. I need to finish up a few projects to get them ready to put them up for sale. Then I need to get back to work on my newest sweater project. Other than that, I just need to get my work space cleaned up and usable again for sun catcher making. First, I must get Yui his medication. I guess the plan is to now, get dressed and get out of the house and get a big ol' coffee for our walk downtown. I always feel a little better if I can get outside and get some exercise and fresh air. Ciaran just has a blast no matter what we are doing. Maybe we will go have lunch with Mark too.