Stone Soup Video - make your own!

Thanks to Matt at 1000 Markets for suggesting animoto as a fun promotional tool! Animoto is a small, very user-friendly service that takes your still photos and turns them into a little video montage, complete with soundtrack. It's very easy to create a 30 second video (and for a small fee, of course, you can upgrade the image quality).

I imagine I'll spend a lot of time this weekend uploading photos of my kids doing goofy things. Wait until they can see themselves on film.

There's no place like home

I've been working on lots of these little houses lately. They've been very popular at craft shows, and they've become my regular donation for charity auctions. I like the idea of a house as a symbol of love and security, and it seemed like an appropriate donation for the local charity that's dearest to me - Cradles to Crayons, which provides clothing, school supplies, baby gear, books and other essentials for low-income and homeless children. I have two young daughters, and when I look at them and think that there are other kids out there, just like them, who don't have all the things we enjoy, my heart hurts. Home should be a safe, warm place where kids don't have to worry about anything, and so many children don't have that place...it's hard to imagine that in this country where so many of us seem to have everything in excess.

I'll be taking my 7 year old daughter to Cradles to Crayons next week to spend some time volunteering in their warehouse and to help her learn about the challenges that other kids face. I want her to be able to see how blessed our family is, and to understand how important it is to share what we can - especially now, with Christmas approaching, when so many kids are thinking about all the things they want.

Why not do some of your holiday shopping at a fundraising auction this year? You can visit Cradles to Crayons' auction and can find plenty of other charitable auctions at Bidding for Good.

Buying handmade, and buying through auctions that support charities, is a wonderful way to give back to your community this year.

1000 Markets!

I've just set up a new shop on the beautiful 1000 Markets site. I'm excited both about selling there and about doing my holiday shopping (well, so far I've found a ton of treats to buy for myself, anyway).

If you haven't seen 1000 Markets, go take a look!

Change We Can Believe In

Indeed. :)

Perhaps I'm an elitist, but I'm so excited about watching a public dialogue that's intelligent, interesting and calm. And I'm so happy that my seven year old daughter still doesn't fully understand why electing a person of color or a woman is that big a deal. It gives me hope for her generation. Her four year old sister plans to be President, and will run on a no-smoking platform. ; -)

A Little Wednesday Gift

To celebrate my new Fundamentals collection (see photo in yesterday's post), I'm having a little giveaway. Comment on this blog post, and I'll add your name to a drawing for a pair of Hammered Dome earrings, pictured here.



Happy Wednesday!

The Fundamentals Collection

I've been selling these simple, versatile pieces at shows all summer. They're crafted of hammered, polished sterling, and they pretty much go with everything. I wear a bracelet like this one almost every day, and the hammered dome earrings have become my "go-to" earrings. My morning routine isn't exactly leisurely - I usually shepherd my kids out the door and hope that I'm lucky enough to have grabbed matching shoes, so I rely on these simple earrings to pull what I will loosely call my "look" together. The texture, which catches the light beautifully as the earrings move, is just enough to make them striking.

I'll be adding some of these pieces to my Etsy shop later today.

It's Becoming a Trend, I Fear

Hmm. It's Monday morning, and my thoughts are a bit single-minded today so far. Seems like my last post was about not sleeping, too...seems to be a disturbingly common theme for me lately. I find myself daydreaming with visions of this:

When my coffee kicks in, I have a long list of projects to do. What's worse - using dangerous metalworking tools when I'm groggy or when I'm overcaffeinated?