My Heart Belongs to Giant Dwarf

The past couple of months have been pretty crazy. Between having tons of cat troubles, taking on a few additional jobs, watching the general insanity going on in the world, and having many other emotionally draining moments, I have been a bit down. So, a couple of weeks ago, Jose convinced me that I should treat myself to something nice to help cheer me up. That particular something being the beautiful starlette crown by Sue of Giant Dwarf, which I had been drooling over since I first saw it, but wouldn't dream of buying for myself due to our financial situation. When I saw that Sue was offering a discount in order to achieve her 3,000th sale on Etsy, I finally went for it. And I was the lucky 3,000th sale! Sue said she would be sending some extras; ohhhh the excitement!


When the package arrived yesterday, I definitely did a little happy dance. It was a much bigger package than I was expecting, and I literally could not wait to see the treasures inside. I had to document the entire thing of course, it was that awesome of an experience. It seems that Lily was as curious as I was.



She included the sweetest little note.


Lily watched pretty intently as I opened the tissue paper.


My jaw dropped when I saw all of the things Sue had given me.
I almost teared up a bit. She was so generous!


In addition to my starlette crown, she included a starlette sparkler and one of her beautiful rosette fascinators, which is now a retired design. I couldn't believe it.



I am so grateful to Sue for her generosity. It really lifted my spirit, and it made my heart so full to know that such people exist. It made me want to be a better person. Is that too mushy?


This is definitely one of the best things to happen to me. I want to thank Sue so much for putting a skip in my step. And I want everyone who has thought of buying anything from her shop to do so whenever possible, because she is truly a gem. I was lucky enough to have a very brief interaction with her last year at the San Francisco Renegade Craft Fair. She is a very sweet lady, and I wish her all the best with her business as it continues to grow.


I'm definitely going to be wearing her creations often!

Poor Old Boots

I have had one pair of rain boots in my life, and they are definitely past their useful stage. I've had them for a few years, and they started falling apart quite a long time ago. First, the little loops in the back began to break. Then, the left sole started to separate from the boot. Next, the right toe tore a bit, and the hole has expanded to where it is almost from toe to heel. I keep wearing them because they work decently, as long as I don't step directly into puddles. How useful, right?


This past weekend was extremely rainy, and there is a lot of rain in the forecast for at least the rest of the week. I feel sort of silly walking around in my tattered boots, but truthfully I will probably just duct tape the inside of them rather than buy new ones. No stores in town are even carrying them anymore! And I admit, I am definitely on the "cheap" side of thrifty. But I searched online just for fun, and I found some really cute designs. I like the first ones the most; I love the mid-century inspired cityscape. The peacock and geisha printed styles are also very pretty.


1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Sorry for the longish disappearance from blogging; it's been a long, weird, stressful month. I have lots of things to share though, so I will be posting a lot more. I hope everyone is well!

Celebrating the Everyday with Jennifer Young

On Saturday, Jose and I ventured out to an art show featuring the photography of the wonderful Jennifer Young. "Celebrate the Everyday," included everything from polaroids, to still lifes of delicious-looking food, to travel vignettes, and even iPhone photos. She takes phone pictures that are seriously frame-worthy. The best part of the show was that I finally got to meet Jennifer, and she is so sweet! I actually didn't feel ridiculously awkward for once, which if you can ask anyone I've met online first, is saying a lot. We also ran into our amazing wedding photographer, Alex Creswell. Plus there was wine and a free photobooth, so of course it was a fun night.


You might know Jennifer from her fantastic blog, i art u, where she shares her favorite art and design, as well as her own photography and tidbits of her life. All photos in this post are by Jennifer Young; click the photos to see the original source. It was way too hard to pick favorite photos, but here are a few more examples of her work.


Her portraits are beautiful; I love the way she uses light. Her engagement photos are also amazing. I wish I would've known Jennifer when Jose and I got engaged! This is the lovely Taylor of The Little Deer, for her school yearbook. If only I could go back and re-do my yearbook pictures, haha.


Believe me, it is surprisingly difficult to take photos of a group of objects without it just looking like a pile of stuff, but I love the composition in Jennifer's color collections series.


Jennifer has often collaborated with Enjoy Cupcakes, and I have wanted to visit this charming little cupcakery so badly since I first heard about it.

This is just scratching the surface; check out Jennifer's Flickr for lots more. And be sure to stop by both of her blogs, if you haven't already.

It's Business Time

A few days before the whole cat fiasco, I found out that Moo Cards was partnering with Etsy to offer a free pack of 50 business cards to Etsy sellers. I had been wanting to try Moo for a while, and this was a perfect opportunity to do so, since all I had to pay for was the shipping. Since the cards were free, they came with a little Etsy & Moo logo and promotional code, which doesn't appear on paid orders.


My cards arrived about a week later, right in the middle of the kitty drama, so that cheered me up a bit. They came packaged in a little holder with a cute "Yay!" sticker on the front.


The neat thing about Moo cards is that you can use as many different images as you want, though I opted to have a few copies of each image instead of all different ones. My only regret is that I made a mistake on my images with white backgrounds; I accidentally left some random light gray space which I didn't see in Photoshop, but is a bit more apparent on the actual cards. I'll have to find a sticker or something to cover those bits up. But that was my error, so I can say I'm very happy with Moo's end product.


I'm not sure if I'll ever need that many business cards again, but if at some point I do, I would use their services again. They also print postcards, greeting cards, sticker books, and cute little mini cards. If you are an Etsy seller, and you want to get your own free pack of business cards, you can do so here.


And now that I've lured you into thinking this might be a cat-free update, I'll just quickly say that Lily is home and doing extremely well. He lost a lot of weight at the hospital, so right now he's skin and bones (though he doesn't look like it since he's so fluffy), but fortunately he is scarfing up his new food! The day he came home, he sat with me for about an hour and purred the whole time. It was so nice!