Black Friday Through Cyber Monday

Hello hello hello! I am happy to announce a huge sale in both my shops! I am offering 10% off storewide and worldwide shipping! Plus an extra 10% off that for my wonderful blog readers :) just mention code "blogsale" at checkout! http://artkitten.etsy.com and http://susanschaffer.etsy.com

Holiday Craftacular

Tomorrow we have Thanksgiving at our house for the first time. I have refurnished the dining room chairs, made a table runner and bought all the fixings. Now to scramble and clean the house! I am very excited to have my in laws and good friends over to celebrate. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the annual Holiday Craftacular here in Madison and I am exited to partake again this year. If you happen to live in the Madison WI area, please stop by and see me!

New Commission

This was a bit of a rushed order; customer purchased on Tuesday and it went out on Thursday, but I think it turned out pretty good considering!

Miniatures 2009: Portraits

Update: The show was a success! Check out pictures here.

I was invited awhile ago to partake in a Miniature Portrait Show, at The Art Studio - a gallery in Cutbank, Montana. The opening is this weekend and I wish I could go but can't really make the trip to Montana! Here are my two pieces for the show, they are 4" x 6" (maximum size for the show was 6" x 6").

I f you happen to live in Montana, please check out the show!

Sam - 2009

Lucy - 2009

Halloween Party 2009

spooky mice and creepy cemetery

Passing out the "brains"/ Maya and her friends

Specimen jars

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything (I meant to, really I did!) but I have been focusing most of my energies on substitute teaching this year hence not as many products in the shops and no blog posts. It is hard to juggle a job, family and everything else! But I did manage to have time to throw a Halloween party for Maya this year and probably spent more time on the decorations than I should have (but they turned out so cool, I won't take them down until Thanksgiving!) Here are a few examples of the decorations (most of the ideas I got from marthastewart.com) and Maya and her friends having fun at the party. It turned out great! I made ghoulish punch in my canning jar/cauldron (with frozen ice hands) and a yummy green spider web cake (I wished I would have gotten a good picture of the food table, it was so neat!). The kids (all 15 of them, yowza) played pin the teeth on the vampire (Maya's idea) freeze dance, and the old Halloween stand-by, guess the body part (you know, spaghetti brains and peeled grape eyes) and at the end I told a ghost story. The kids had a great time and were thoroughly sugared up to send back home to their parents. For decorations I made tons of bats which hung from the ceiling and walls, creepy mice silhouettes for the stairs and baseboards, spiderwebs and spiders, a creepy cemetery scene, and my favorite: specimen jars with cabbage as brains and floating eyeballs and spiders. I bet you can't guess which is my absolute favorite holiday ;)

First Day

Maya had her first day of second grade today. She was so excited to go today, she would not stop grinning. She had her grandma, me and both daddies taking her to school, too!

"Bees are Stupid"

Well yesterday didn't quite go how we planned.

So Nathaniel, Maya and I decided to take a hike through the woods behind our house yesterday morning. There are some beautiful trails and acres called the Eagle Heights Woods and a trail-head literally 10 feet from our new house, so we wanted to check it out. We were walking for about a half and hour when Maya stopped to look at a flower and then started screaming. A bee (or more likely a wasp) had stung her. As she was pretty upset we decided we would head back home. I started walking with Maya back and saw lots and lots of bees swarming and quickly turned around.

Nathaniel picked Maya up and we started walking away quickly when Maya screamed again, she had been stung again! We walked until we were far enough away that we could set Maya down and she started screaming again as she had been stung again and again! We took off her clothes and she had three bees inside of her pants and shirt. We rushed home (the whole time Maya telling us she hated the woods and that "bees are stupid" and by the time we got back Maya's whole body was red with little welts everywhere and she was itching like crazy.

So on to the Emergency room. Maya was shaking she was so freaked and upset and extremely scared she might have to get a shot. (The doctors were all very nice and gave her the meds by mouth since she was breathing fine) We were in the emergency room from noon until 5, when Maya's welts had finally disappeared.

We went out to eat at Tex Tubbs and when we got home almost all the welts had reappeared and she was itching all over again. Back to the hospital (the doctor's said if the rash reappeared we had to take her back to the ER). After long hours of sitting and waiting (I think they get paid hourly) we were allowed to go, and did not get home until 9:30, exhausted and haggard.

Maya was a trooper the whole time, poor girl, but she did get to watch tv and play video games all day.

But she is fine, and now we know what kind of reaction she will have if stung by bees. The same thing happens to me as well (I did get stung on the butt, too, but I didn't get hives this time).

poor Maya was so tired by the time it was all over