2013 Week by Week Week 20!

I have had a super, duper exciting week! I cannot wait to share the details with all of you! Right now, it's hush hush. If I learned anything last year during the attempt to move halfway across the country fiasco, it's don't count your eggs before they hatch, or more appropriately, don't share wonderful possibilities until they are a marvelous reality! :)

But I can tell you, I have had a great, exciting, productive week! Thanks to you guys, Lu & Ed reached a HUGE milestone on Tuesday! 400 sales on Storenvy.com! EEEEEK! All thanks to you beautiful people! A huge thanks to all of you who have adopted Mon-stors, shared my shop, and supported me over the past three years!

This week was also filled with lots of good food, friends and family! :) Many jokes and much laughter. ♥

Some of our good friends over for game night! :) Halo, Mario Kart and Battle Ship!

I spent a lot of time in the studio this week! I have over a dozen Mon-stors and plush cut out and sewn that just need faces that I will be working on this week for my shop! Here are the ones I finished + listed lastweek! You can see more photos of them in my shop! :)

Aside from sewing, I have a new found passion - gardening!  On Mother's Day we planted some pepper plants in our tiny raise bed with our squash and strawberries and kale. On our deck we set up a little container garden from seeds with broccoli, beans and a blueberry bush (we have to pick up a second one so they produce berries!). And wow, our seeds sprouted so fast - If you follow me on Instagram,  you have probably already seen the crazy amount of  pictures I'm posting of my sproutlings! I'm obsessed, I check them every few hours! 

Broccoli just four days after being planted. Two hours before this pic there was just one sprout!

Bean sprout just 5 days after being planted!

Bean sprouts just 6 days after being planted!

I am so thrilled with how well our tiny garden is thriving! I can't wait for our first harvest, it is going to reduce our grocery bill so much. Which brings me to something I've been wanting to share for a while, but haven't had time to write it all up. So here's the short version!

Since March, I've been on a very healthy diet due to painful ovarian cysts. I did some research and I dropped coffee out of my life and replaced it with delicious fruit smoothies made with spinach and almond or soy milk. I started eating loads of spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and kale, legumes, fresh fruits and veggies and replaced our milk brand with all organic free range milk and boxed dinners with grilled or roasted veggies or salads, and other small delicious changes, like instead of the standard stack of mayo, pickles, and lettuce on my (vegetarian) burgers, I put ranch, spinach, and cucumbers - so delicious, so nutritious! - and instead of fries we eat carrot slices or grilled vegetables! And you know what? 

I don't have painful ovarian cysts any more, after just two months on a healthful diet. It's amazing. I feel GREAT. And ever since I removed coffee from my life, I have SO much more energy. So much I had to start exercising daily, otherwise I couldn't sleep well at night with all that excess energy at the end of a day! My body feels great, my mind is more creatively charged than ever, I wake up and am just excited for the day - no hazy stumbling to the kitchen for coffee, no groggy mornings, no need for anything other than waking up to get my day started. I wake up and my mind is awake, alert, and active!

It's seriously so awesome what a few simple things can do for your mind and body. If you are looking to take control of your health, ditching coffee is the first thing I would recommend doing. I have been drinking it for 20 years, but I stopped cold turkey. I replaced it with water and smoothies with energizing fruits and veggies packed with nutrients and never suffered caffeine withdrawal headaches. You just have to make that choice to start making better choices. Once you make that choice, it only gets easier and you find yourself making more and more healthy choices! :D

Anyway, sorry for the health rant! :) I just get really excited with how marvelous my body feels after making some simple changes, and I want everyone to be able to feel like this. :)

Here's to a great, healthy, beautiful, sunshiney week! :) Happy Monday!  Keep your peepers on my Facebook page for pictures of new Mon-stors!

The cuteness!

Okay, for real, how cute is this?!

I just discovered this cute new shop called Things by V early this week in our Storenvy community group on Facebook and I am already a huge fan of her needle felted kawaii cute creations!

Pop over to her shop, check it out, and envy a few of her products! Let's give her a huge Storenvy welcome! Below, you will find other great Storenvy shops to browse! Show your support for indie biz - check out a few shops and share with friends if you find one of interest! If you like a shop, be sure to follow them on social media as well - the links are typically on the left hand side of the shop! :)

Have a Storenvy shop? Click here to add your link! 
This link up is a great way to connect with fellow Storenvy shop owners! Check out their shops, follow them on social media, say hi! Check back weekly to see if your shop is featured!

2013 Week by Week - Week 19

This is a day late because I ended up taking yesterday off. It was a beautiful day, I was feeling kinda tired... So I unplugged from the 'net for the day, watched some TV, did some alterations on thrift store finds, poked around in the garden, enjoyed the sunshine... It was a wonderful day off and I am back in the studio feeling excited, refreshed and eager to work! I think so often we artists with home businesses forget to unplug and really take a off - but it's so important to both mental and physical well-being so you don't get over tired and burned out! When was the last time YOU took a day entirely off from your indie biz?

Also, how was your Mother's Day!? What did your sweet children gift you this year? Tell me all about it in the comments! :D Mine was supremely wonderful!! My son wrote me a letter telling me he would always love me, and that I was more beautiful than the stars. He also wrote "thank you for making monsters" in the letter too! ♥ His gift to me was a potpourri mason jar, filled with sweet smelling potpourri and little bits of paper he wrote sweets messages on so when I miss him, all I need to do is pull one out. Awww! How cute is that!? They made them at school, what a thoughtful gift!

Earlier this week, I did some more super secret running around (Gah, I cannot WAIT to spill the beans!!!) and we did more gardening! We planted lettuce, broccoli and bean seeds, habanero, marigolds and a blue berry bush (now we need to buy another so they can cross pollinate and actually make berries!). We started a container garden on the deck with most of that.We have a small raise bed with kale, squash, strawberries, purple peppers, and jalepenos!  I am so excited to produce our own food! I grew up with a huge heirloom garden and I didn't realize until recently how much I missed gardening! I want to start an herb container garden too - we are going a bit each week together as a family, it's really fun! G loves to help water and weed (we'll see how long that lasts!). :)

Sewing wise, beautiful weather distracted me a bit this week! I have done way more cutting out than actual sewing, but here are the three monsters from this week! :D Check my shop for availability!

 And now, here I am, enjoying a beautiful Tuesday with the windows wide open, about to fill a box with stuffed monsters to send to my aunt's kidney fundraiser event - If you are in Columbia, SC the 18th, please stop by and show your support! It would mean so much to me!! Here is the Facebook event page! They will have a DJ, face painting, entertainment, raffles, a yard sale, artist alley and more!

And that's all I got, folks! Back to work for this monster maker! Happy Tuesday!!