Well, yes. I do.
At least most of the time.

One of the reasons it’s the most funnest job in the world is the fact that no two days are ever the same.
I wake up in the morning and go to work without any inkling whatsoever as to what I’ll be doing for the day.

That might sound like there’s no planning or scheduling, but that’s not true because without a calendar and a schedule nothing gets done and out the door when it should.
What it DOES mean is that through the course of the day I get to talk to many different people about many different projects and solutions to many different needs.

This time of year my life has mostly revolved around banners for the County Fair. Banners of all shapes and sizes. Most planned weeks in advance, a couple last minute (yesterday, Ack!)

This bit of loveliness (I love this one so much!) that I present to you was ordered in plenty of time so that we could work our designer magic and create something that was way beyond our customer’s expectations.

Dragon Wings and Sparkly Things

(I love it when I pull the banner or sign out and the customer bursts into happy tears.)

I really do have the funnest job in the world.

Just in case you’d like to have something this gorgeous for YOUR craft booth or business, click on over to Writings on the Wall and drop me an email, or give a call – and before you know it you’ll have tears in your eyes too. No extra charge for tissues.

Will work for Java custom tile and wonderful bags of Java

Yesterday afternoon we encountered a banner emergency.
The new manager of a local grocery store came in to my shop with a frantic and frazzled look on his face.
He had a rolled banner tucked under his arm and 2 hours to make it ready for  the rodeo arena where it would be displayed as a sponsor banner.
The problem?
No grommets to hang it with.

Well then…
I resisted my natural tenancy to lecture and tell him that if he had ordered his banner from ME it would already have grommets in it. He already knew that. He was aware of this fact by the stack of nearly finished banners spread across my work table. Banners with GROMMETS in the corners.

He begged. He pleaded. He found the perfect bribe.
That’s right folks.
He offered me coffee. Lots of coffee.

So while I pushed my already scheduled work aside to install the desperately needed metal rings, he zoomed back to his store and loaded up on several different flavors and blends in big ol’ robust bags.

So now he has a banner at the rodeo and I will be well caffeinated for the next two months.

I love my job!

Am NOT!
It’s summertime. I’ve been outside.
I’ve been…. ummmm… busy. Making stuff. Thinking about stuff.  You know… doing stuff.

But…
Fall will soon be upon us. It’s almost here.
Why, the county fair is next week and that marks the end of most of the summertime activities for most people.  School starts, vacation’s over, the days are a little cooler. (We’re certainly ready for that!)
It also means that we start puttering INSIDE the house and getting ready to nest up for the winter.

That means I’ll be bringing you some how-tos and some links to other places that are all about making your home cozy and reflective of you and your family.

New things coming up and I am so excited!

I’m reminded of a song from my Sunday School days:

Oh what do you do in the summer time? Do you  (I can’t remember the list of things, but it was long and made up of stuff that kids do in the summer.)
Oh what do you do in the summer time? Is that what you do? So do I!

Ballgames, camping, working in the garden, slapping mosquitoes, endless hours laying by the pool waving for the cabana boy to refresh your juice drink…

Family reunions. Weddings.
Is that what you do? So do I!

We put together these two bits of gorgeousness for our friend Trudi. One for Mother’s Day and the other for her mother in law’s 99th birthday.
Trudi brought us a big stack of really cool photos to look at, but she already knew which ones she wanted to use.  So we scanned them and  arranged them and made a nice little montage with an antique background  for each block. Then we printed and mounted them to the blocks.
The photos were not originally sepia toned, but by tinting them it made them blend together better.
(Pay no attention to that messy worktable in the background.)
Wouldn’t these make a wonderful giveaway or presentation for a family reunion?
How about a wedding?  Anniversary party?

Now that you’re all inspired to make something like this for your own family, click over to Writings on the Wall to this page right here and see how we can make this happen for you.

Glass blocks ain’t just for Christmas, you know!

While I will be enjoying a little of each of those in the next couple of days, today I am at my shop CLEANING!  (ack) I had no idea you could pack that much sawdust into a semi-small room. Now the vast majority is in trashbags and on its way to the dumpster.
The rest is in my hair. Now I know what I’ll look like in a few years when I go gray.

It’s been overcast and rainy today, so I’m not missing any sunshine opportunities by being indoors.

I don’t mind the rain in the spring when its not really cold,  just a little coolish.

And I really don’t mind it when I can look out my bedroom window and see all the green and the beautiful honeysuckle just on the other side of the glass.

Enjoy the weekend!

Mother’s day is always a busy time for us and I’m happy that I can be here to pull someone’s backside out of the fire with a last minute gift or two. I would make fun of the wait-till-the-last-minute people, but I’m just as bad or worse. That’s why my mom’s new computer game was stylishly wrapped in snowman gift wrap…

There’s been some sunshine pouring down in to our neck of the woods — yay! maybe now I can ditch the flannel shirts until next fall- – and that means signage on vehicles.

I spent a few  hours yesterday designing and then applying lettering to a truck. I love it and so does the owner.
As you can see, we offer vinyl lettering not only for your walls, but for your business and business vehicles as well. Logo design too.

Big red truck logo

Big red truck second shot

Honk and wave if you see him driving down the freeway. He’ll have NO idea why you’re acting like that, but he’s a really nice guy so I’m sure he’ll wave back.

It was a beautiful day to spend some time outside – made even better by the fact I get paid to do this! (Sometimes it’s pretty great to be me.)

Well…
If you need a little help with your gift giving, you know I’m here to help ya out.

There’s still plenty of time to order something wonderful that’s customized just for the special mother in your life.

A big wonderful clock, perhaps?

A nice tile for her dresser?

Something sentimental for the wall?

And of course….
there’s always a gift certificate just in case you know it’s just easier to let Mom pick out what she wants.

Click over here to the Mom’s day stuff and have a look for yourself. (It’s okay to choose something for yourself too, cuz it saves on shipping to combine more than one item, you know.)

There are a number of layouts in the store for you to choose from, but if you need something custom give me a call or drop an email, cuz you know I want you to have exactly what you want.

This past weekend I held my breath and moved all my websites and this blog to a new host.
Worrying about all the things that could go wrong took way longer than the actual transfer. Several hours and a whole lot of coffee later, we’re up and running on a new and just a little bit zippier server.
Yes, I spent hours and hours scratching my head and mumbling just so that everything looks exactly the same and nobody can tell the difference, but I know and that’s good enough.
Trust me… it’s better.

Now Mother’s Day is coming up way too fast, so I’ve gotta go and upload some of the great designs we’ve made just in case you need something for your mom.  I might need something for my mom too.
Maybe for her bathroom…

It was a crazy busy day what with running errands and filling orders, but part of what I needed to do was outside so, Yeah! loved it.

I drove a few miles up the road to Deweyville (great name, huh?) to put some lettering on a truck that just happened to be sitting in the farmyard of a huge sheep farm.
First of all, it smelled like onions… could smell them even before I got out of the car.
Did you know that sheep are the only animal that can digest and thrive on onions?  Since this is true, and there are many, many onions grown in this area, all of the culls or leftover onions are dumped in piles for the sheep to eat.  Pre-flavored mutton, kinda-sorta.

And there were lambs. Little lamb sounds filled the air. Thousands of lambs. All of them calling to their mothers and each other. It was quite a chorus to work to.

Did I take my camera so that I could show you all the lambs?
Of course not! Arghhhh!!!
I always have the camera with me, except for today. Sorry about that.
Just close your eyes and picture long spindly legs and short woolly hair and little floppy ears… now multiply that by a really big number and imagine them running and tumbling in to each other.
Cute, huh?

Along with spring comes the inevitable spring cleaning. I’ve been doing that too. The result will be showing up here and on Writings on the Wall in the next few days. Check back, cuz you won’t want to miss out.

I received a facebook message asking me if I knew that the website was looking a bit peculiar.  Ummmmm…. nope. Thanks for telling me!

Arghhhhh!!!!
It would seem that the turkish underground subversion terrorist dorks are getting their message out by hacking unsuspecting websites and hijacking their homepage.
Again I say ARGHHHHH!!!

I won’t start into my diatribe about the senselessness of hacking someone’s website, especially if you’re trying to make a political statement. (Somehow I just don’t think it brings anyone over to your way of thinking. Especially if they don’t speak Turkish)
Just leave my stuff alone, you… you… stupid hackers!

I said  many bad words and called my tech support. They are always helpful and friendly. But they  left me on hold so long that I figured out how to fix it myself.  Yay me!
There  for a few brief moments I was basking in the glory of being a Geek Goddess.

I had to change my compromised password so now I have a new password that is so secure that even I can’t get past it.

But now…
to carry on with my Geek Goddessness…

I made a font!
I’m so darn proud of myself. And it was fun too.
I named it “Bit O Curl”
It makes me so happy I want to do another one… so if you need me I’ll be parked in the computer room with a gallon of coffee and the music blasting.