Beadin' By The Sea

There's a lovely woman named Debora who has started visiting this blog. She's the proud owner of Beadin' By The Sea. I first discovered her work through a Project Wonderful ad that was placed here after I Twittered about free ad space. I have to tell you, I absolutely fell in love with her pieces!

Here are some of my favorites...

This one


and I love this...


and this one...


Aren't they lovely?

I love them so much that I'm buying that sweet little ring for myself. I can't wear my wedding bands to work, because of the prongs, so this will be perfect!

You can find more of Debora's work at Beadin' By The Sea. I also encourage you to check out her blog. She's a wonderful artisan and I am so honored that she stops by, reads and comments on my little blog. Thanks, Debora! I wish you all the best at ArtFire!

Craft ADD

I had to laugh at myself today. Okay, I do that quite a bit, but today took the cake.

I was thinking about Handmade News and writing an article about crafting ADD. It's a serious affliction, you know. Well, before 10am I had cut a new batch of soap, boiled eggs for Easter egg decorating, took pictures and created a Crinkly Baby Block of Power (see the pretty picture below), and rearranged the entire living room.



My dining room table has the remainders of my frantic need to create. It's funny really. The table is heaped in fabric, buttons, thread, paper and items I don't even know the name of. Serious Craft ADD. And here I am, sitting at the computer desk, with my back to the dining room.

Thankfully, Mr. Gym Mama doesn't come home for an hour. That gives me time to clean up, shower, get the kids ready for Grandma's and pretend none of this happened. What a mess.

Oh, and to top things off, I hit "Enter" instead of shift when I was working on the Handmade News application and sent the application in without some very important things. Like my name and contact information. Lovely.

GymMama is on ArtFire!

Register on ArtFire.com

What is it? Well, ArtFire is a lot like etsy...but easier! Easier to search, easier to find things, easier to sell things on. Since exercise is hard, shouldn't finding handmade things be easy? (hehehe...totally unrelated and didn't make a lot of sense...just go with me here!)

Anyway, I've opened a Gym Mama shop over on ArtFire.com and for each person who registers the shop will get credit. So, if you make things and want to sell them online sign up as a Verified Seller. Seriously, you can't beat the $7 monthly fee considering there are NO listing fees and NO final value fees - ever. You can list as many things as you want - even a gazillion! And if you're one of the first 5,000 shops to sign up that $7 fee is for life.

If GymMama gets 10 Verified Seller accounts opened through the referral link by 12/31/08 we'll never have to pay. Why is that so exciting you ask? WELL, no fee = more money donated to charity. You see, 20% of all profits from the sale of items in the store will be donated to charity. No fee = less overhead = more profit = bigger donations. See? It's a GOOD thing!

If you just want to browse and shop or open a free shop that's awesome too! Just put GymMama as the referring shop. We won't get credit for the free store for life, but it will help in a contest for a scooter. Don't ask.

So, click on the link above, register, sell and shop. Oh, and our link is:


GymMama.artfire.com