Of Giveaways, and Gray Slippers, and Great Ideas...

Top o' the mornin' to ye! :)

Well, don't know about you, but it's gotten pretty chilly in my neck of the woods! Whew! Time to unpack my winter clothes... and put away some of my beloved t-shirts and capris and bermuda shorts! There's just something nostalgic about finding soft, cozy sweaters and becoming acquainted with the other half of your wardrobe all over again... :D

And I'm trying not to dread those mid-winter months when I just get so tired of wearing knee socks and long johns... sigh! ;) But spring always comes again. A cheery thought. :)

For now, though, it's still Autumn, and the many oak trees around my log home are dropping a bountiful harvest for squirrel and interior decorator alike! :D I picked up some acorns just for the fun of it, and was wondering what to actually 'do' with them, when I found this stellar idea:

See? See the jar at the bottom of the picture? It's filled with acorns and tiny pinecones! How CUTE! We have some old mason jars just like that! *bingo*. :D I just LOVE the amazing interior decor photos on this blog, it's so creative and artsy it  almost makes me want to do handsprings...

And then for something I've been working on:

(this is not my main crochet project, just something I tried in between working on that) :) I found this slipper pattern and thought "Oh! I want to make those!" So I tried it... I made myself a little slipper in shades of gray, and even crocheted a little flower to go on top... I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, but I thought I'd tell you about it anyway. It looks just like these... (only cuter.) ;)

The pattern for these sweet slippers can be purchased on Etsy here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/62872279/crochet-slipper-pattern-oma-house?ref=em

That's where I bought it! :D

And it was only $5. I mean, come on, that's a pretty great deal! :D 

And how cute is this branch decorated with little crocheted leaves! An adorable way to use up your leftover yarn bits! :D The free pattern for this project and several other charming ideas can be found here: http://easymakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/03/page-under-construction-crochet.html
I want to try making one of these in burnt oranges, crisp reds, and golden yellows... :D


And lastly, a giveaway for a cute Sense and Sensibility e-Pattern for a "Tea Gown" can be found HERE.

Very pretty, don't you think?

Have a lovely week!

Random Odds & Ends

Hi Blog readers!

I felt like writing you a note tonight, and this is it! :D

First item of interest in my list of things to impart/confess/relate: TOMORROW is the day when we will be going to the End of Ultimate Frisbee Season Party! First, we meet at the T family's home for a dinner of delicious chicken from (where else?) Chick-Fil-A. Then we'll head over to the field and play frisbee like wild things (I've been exercising and getting in shape all week, so Bring It ON!) :D I'll let you know how the game goes. :)

Second item of interest:
My facebook account is no more. My family and I decided that FB wasn't something we wanted to be involved in, but we gave it our best shot and I'm glad we at least looked into the possibility. I enjoyed a brief glimpse into the lives of some friends I hadn't heard from since I was a little kid. I will definitely miss the closer contact I had with the lovely girls of like mind from the Meditations of His Love blog, but I still have several other ways to keep in touch with them. Some of the stuff I saw on Facebook was, to be candid, disturbing. It's like an alternate world, facebook... and people feel emboldened to post all sorts of foolish, ill-judged things that ordinarily they would not say in real life. Not to mention how much TIME I was wasting on there! :D So, for several reasons, I will not miss you, Facebook.

Third item of interest:
I have some super blog posts planned for you! One is about burned bread, (trust me, you'll love it) one will be stuffed with pictures I snapped of the pretty fall leaves changing their hues outside my home, and one will showcase photos of an intricate crochet project that has been occupying me for some time. :)

I've also got plans for some way awesome blog backgrounds for you, and will be releasing some in the very near future!

So, till then, I am, yours truly,

The Dangers of Mr. Darcy

That must be one of my most intriguing blog post titles. :D I'm sure you're curious about what could possibly be dangerous about Mr. Darcy, the most popular hero of all the popular Jane Austen novels.

First things first! :)

Mr. Darcy, when we first meet him in the book... or in either of the two newest movie adaptations... is proud. With rather good reason... he comes from one of the oldest families in England and owns "half of Derbyshire". He's incredibly wealthy.

He's also handsome. And tall. With an inscrutable air of mystery about him.




And then he meets this girl... Elizabeth Bennett.

She's witty, and captivating, and beautiful. Three things that we all like to imagine ourselves to be. 

Mr. Darcy's heart is softened. He falls head over well-shod heels in love with this girl, Lizzy, who comes from a rather ordinary background. Just observe the look of tender adoration in his eyes in the picture above!

They eventually marry, and live happily forever after.

So what's wrong with that? What could possibly be so terrible about a wholesome story like this?

Nothing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this story. I actually enjoy it very much myself and own both a copy of the book and 2 different "Pride and Prejudice"movies.

 Herein lies the danger, my sweet friends:

One word - Obsession.

I've done it too! Before you start to think that I'm pointing fingers, let me say I am as guilty of imagining how wonderful it would be like to marry a man like Mr. Darcy as the next girl. :D

What is wrong with this whole situation is.... when we young ladies begin to absorb ourselves in imaginary worlds of fantasizing about now-perfect heroes, we lose sight of reality. (Now-perfect being even better than perfect, because he has learned his lesson and now will never fail us again) And therefore, when reality smacks us in the face as we blindly run into it while in some daydream about tall, dark, and handsome (RICH) men, we quickly grow discontent.

Girls, real guys are not like Mr. Darcy.

Real guys are not rich. They do not live in perfect mansions with millions of dollars in the bank and servants at their beck and call to banish every miniscule need. Most guys are not wealthy. The style of life which you would be accustomed to would not include your own maids.

This means... you have to do the cooking. And cleaning. And laundry. And when blessed with the incredible joy of children, diaper-changing, feeding, bathing, and all the many tasks that come with raising another little human. It's hard! There's a lot of work to be done! We won't be ladies of leisure if we marry "real" guys.

Real guys are not always "Cuuuuute!" or "Dreamy" or whatever word you wish to describe male perfection. Some of them are, yeah. The models and actors in all the movies and magazines are. But they have a team of makeup artists. And photo-editors that airbrush out all the blemishes and pump up the muscles.

Real guys are just that... real. They have faults. They have flaws. But guess what? So do we! Do any of us girls look like Elizabeth Bennett 24-7, all the time? Maybe some of us look 'as good' as her, when we're all dressed up with our makeup on. But we're not perfect. We have flaws and problems.

Real guys might have a crooked nose. Or a mole on their face. Or they might not be what one could call "handsome" at all. But you know what? If you marry a godly, sweet guy who treats you well and happens to have crooked teeth instead of the stuck-up, unchristian jerk with bulging muscles, you'll end up happier in the long run.

So ladies, don't measure the guys in your life against Mr. Darcy. Don't get  caught up in fantasizing and daydreaming about characters in your romance novels, and don't expect the real men to act like fictional products of imagination.

Okay! Sermonette over. Now let's go watch a period drama... :D

A Man that Chose God

What do you do when there's a huge fork in the road? You can't keep going straight, it's impossible. You have to turn to the right or to the left. You have to make a choice.

I just wrote a blog post over at Meditations of His Love that I think you should go read. Please come back and tell me what you thought of it! :) I am always eager to hear your comments.

And DO NOT WORRY, my dear, sweet readers, just because I happened to get a facebook page does NOT mean I will stop blogging here. On the contrary! I will be blogging just as much as I ever have. So never fear, I'll still be here! :)

What are you all planning to do this weekend? I'd love to hear about it. We are hoping to have an Ultimate Frisbee game near our house, for a change, instead of driving an hour away this week. :)

Finally NOT Wordless... on Wednesday

Yes, my poor, beloved, neglected blog readers! THIS is the dread reason I have not posted for a week and two days! I got a Facebook.

Wow, what an experience! I found so many long-lost acquaintances (including the girl I grew up living across the street from) that it fairly made my head spin! And there's always so much happening. People are way more current with their FB pages than their blogs.

I promise I will not desert you all for so long again. I still plan to blog as often as I can ... there's something so much classier and personal about a blog post than a one-liner Facebook status update.

Oh, and please don't bother looking for me on Facebook unless you know me in person. I'm not friending anybody I don't know in real life. Sorry. :(

 

A wonderful thing is that all the other MOHL authors were already on Facebook! So now we're all on Facebook together! We even have an inside joke.

^That's the inside joke. But I can't tell you any more about it... because then it would be an "outside" joke! Lol!

As for what else I've been up to besides Facebook... I've been cleaning the house! But that's boring. So I won't go into detail about how my fab housecleaning skills are improving.

I've gone to Ultimate Frisbee Friday and then played the game again the next day at Bible Study... wow. I have not been so stiff and sore for a really long time. Not doing that again any time soon. :D

I've also been.... designing! Blog headers! For friends and family. :) Take a look-see!

My mom's yummy new header. Ah! I love this one!!!!!

My sweet friend Allison's new header... so cute/vintage/country! It fits her lovely personality. :D

Our good friend "Frisbeeman"-s header! I was really happy with how this came out.

So. Life has been fun and full and rich for me the past week! And we've even had some rain fall on our parched ground... thanks be to God! I'm secretly hoping for gorgeous Autumn colors this fall, and the changing leaves are their prettiest when there's been plenty of previous rain.

Have a lovely week!

It Was a Great Success!

A heartfelt "Thank You!" to all of you who actually and sincerely said a prayer for our Yard Sale! It was an immense success and we sold lots and lots of our junk (A-HEM,) I mean, extra and unwanted items. :D We had almost nothing left at the end of the sale... and lots of cash rustling and clinking in our pockets. :D Hurray! God is SoooooOOOOOO good.
Just so you have some small clue as to how much we actually got rid of, here are some pictures!

 Yup. Too much stuff. :) We had mostly clothes but lots of other things as well. And I added two stands of my handmade earrings to the array of available things to buy. We had a huge rack of clothes hanging along one whole wall of the carport and by the end of the garage sale it was almost EMPTY! Whew!

We cut some pretty great bargains for people and met some very interesting folks. ;)
I think I've heard enough twangy southern accents to last me for a while! :D Lol!

Our poor gravel driveway got all torn up with people trying to drive the wrong way up the hill in light little trucks or back out the wrong way with huge suburbans... *cringe* But everybody was ok and nothing too terrible happened that can't be fixed with a little raking smooth again. :D

 I was surprised that my Meow-Chi toys sold! :D Nobody knew what they were... I had to explain several times to clueless shoppers what the little robotic cats actually 'did'. They sing and dance and meow in cute robotic tones, people. How hard is that to understand? Haha!

In this picture you can see how tightly packed the clothes were on this rack (Later they looked a lot better because I color-coordinated them) ;) At the end of the sale we only had about 20 things hanging on it instead of the however many we started with! Yay! :)

We only had about 30 books or so but they all sold, even some old, dusty, piano music books!

All my Bath & Body Works perfume sold, thanks in part to the help of my sweet Mennonite friends. And most of the nail polish was bought. I was astonished! :)

Well, I hope you have a wonderful week! If you have nothing to do... you could go on over and see the newest batch of backgrounds at "I Love it!" Blog Designs. :D I love hearing which are your favorites!
Blessings,

Gettin' Ready

Hey Ya'll!

This is a notice that all my blogging will be put on hold indefinitely (HAH, just kidding... not indefinitely) ;) ... until our YARD SALE is done on Saturday afternoon.

Hey, if you know our family in real life and are going to be in the area tomorrow (Friday the 16th) or Saturday (the 17th) come on over! We'd love to see you, and we'd love it even more if you leave with some of our stuff in hand. Lol!

Really though, we have TONS of AWESOME stuff. I'll post pictures of it all later so that you people who can't come won't miss out on the beauteous sight! :D I'm selling high-quality handmade earrings for only $1.00 a pair (a rare occurence!) And I'm also parting with many lovely treasures (including a really big wooden dollhouse...) that someone surely will be delighted to discover! :D

I'm afraid some of us who will *cough* remain unnamed *cough*-parents-*cough* have caught "Get-ridda-it" fever and have frenetically turned the house upside down, searching for any loose objects they can find to sell with a manaical gleam in their eye. I've tried to rescue a few things from this frenzied pilfering but with little success. Do you think we all have a little pack-rat inside us somewhere? I think I must. ;)

The reason I have not posted at all on here this week is because we've been running around like ... well, never mind what like... we've been extremely busy this week sorting out lots of things that we no longer want, that OTHER people will hopefully want and pay for with cold hard cash! (Every little bit helps, and the electric bill isn't getting any prettier any time soon!) :D lol! That's why I've been so scarce in bloggy-land.

Ok, I must run for now. The shower is now open and we have a BIG day tomorrow!

Please Pray for a successful sale for us! Your prayers are very much appreciated. :)

Blessings,



P.S. What do you think of my absolutely gorgeous new blog makeover? I did it all myself and I'm thrilled top to bottom with how it came out!! :) Want a new background yourself? Click Here.

Being Green

"It's not easy being green......" or so Kermit the frog says. But according to this little guy....

Being green is pretty easy and laid-back. :)

Daddy found him out in the garden sunning himself on a green bell pepper that coordinated ever so nicely with his reptillian skin. He told me about the little lizard and suggested I get out my camera and take his picture. So I followed Daddy out to the garden on the cool September morning and snapped a few shots of the charming little fellow, who looked oh-so-relaxed lying in the sun on a nice warm vegetable.

"Who is that crazy girl taking pictures of me as I sunbathe?"

"Ah, well, I suppose she's harmless, after all."

"...might as well get back to my *yawn* - nap."

Isn't he cute?

WINNERS of my jewelry giveaway!

Congratulations are in order, for we have five lovely ladies who have each won a pair of earrings! Hurray! :)

I used Random.org to generate the winners fair and square and completely at random. :)

So, without further ado-

Pair #1, Brown Tigereye, has been won by..... Kristen, with comment #6!
Pair #2, Amethyst, crystals, and silver, has been won by..... Miss Lizzy, with comment #60!
Pair #3, Clear Lampwork and crystal, has been won by..... Stephanie, with comment #20!

Pair #4, Aqua 3-dangles, has been won by..... Madison, with comment #43!
Pair #5, Red glass beads and crystal, has been won by..... Katelyn S, with comment # 27!

*applause* Congratulations, girls!

You have until next month (October 1st, 2011) to comment on this post with your mailing address so I can ship you your pretty earrings! Comment moderation is enabled and I will not publish the comments with your addresses.
If you don't get back to me with your address by then I'll have to draw another winner, and we don't want that to happen, do we?? :D

I'm very thankful for all the interest stirred up by the giveaway for my new FREE blog backgrounds website! :) Thanks to all the people who entered! :)

Last Day to Enter my Earring Giveaway!

I'll be randomly drawing FIVE winners tomorrow morning, September 8th, for these five lovely pairs of earrings. You could be one of them (a winner, not a pair of earrings... lol) if you enter today! :D

(need your memory refreshed? They look like this:)

Also of note is the little fact that...

I'm giving away a freebie this week!

Yup! It's free! A sweet little ebook on how to create a GORGEOUS pearl and ribbon necklace with two styles shown. It's actually a little piece of the full book "How To Create Noticeably Noteworthy Necklaces" that I wrote.

CLICK HERE to find it! It's on the front page of my website, JewelsbyJuliashop.com. Be sure to save it to your computer because it will only be there through Saturday the 10th.

Annnnnd.....
"SALE! Julia is offering 20% off all her ebooks until 9/10/11. Use the coupon code HSFREE11 to get the discount!"

So... if you've been hankering to purchase one of my books, now is definitely the time to do it! :)

Just thought I'd give ya'll a little heads-up! Oh... and I just posted a fresh batch of FREE blog backgrounds on my design blog. Chocolatey ones. ;) 

So, I think that's enough free goodies for now to keep you busy! :D Come back tomorrow to find out who won the five pairs of earrings!

A segment from my (interesting?) life

I mentioned a short while ago that I could hardly wait for the first 'crisp' feel in the air... a sign that Autumn has arrived. Well, it was here today, but I think it felt more 'sharp' than crisp! It was 50 degrees when I woke up this morning. And for someone used to the stifling upper 80's and 90's it was definitely a surprise! ;)

Apparently tropical storm (hurricane?) Lee was to blame for the nice wet front of rain that washed across the southeast yesterday and today. The only trouble with it was that yesterday we attended a Labor-day get-together at a friends' farm and we were outside or under carports or gazebos for most of the day. :D I felt damp all day long! :) Of course, that was partly due from perspiration... as we played Ultimate Frisbee and also threw the frisbee around in a circle for a good part of the day. I *love* frisbee. :D We had a great time even though we did get a little wet. ;)

Today I had the chance to get back to my laptop and do a little graphic design! :) I made some new blog backgrounds that I plan to release shortly (hint.... raspberry. And teal. Yeahhh.) and I whipped up a couple headers to go with backgrounds I'd already made.

Here's one of them - it matches two backgrounds, the ones called Brownie Points and Pink Brownie Points. :) (they're in this post)

Click Here to see more! :)

(I have 3 made so far, and WAY more are coming soon)

I also finally got to making a custom blog header for one of my sweet friends, Sarah, and it looks great with the background she picked from the Jane Austen series! :)

Also, I don't think I've told you about the FALL backgrounds I made! :D But I won't wax lyrical about them. You'll have to actually click here and go see them yourself. Now which one do I want to use??
O_O! Decisions, decisions.....

A sad note in my otherwise joyfully harmonic life... I learned this morning that one of my favorite DJ's on my favorite Christian radio station has passed away after a long battle with cancer. :( I cried. (I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it, actually...) She was such a sweet lady and her voice has cheered me up many a morning. I almost got to meet her once at a craft fair where I was running a booth for my jewelry and she was going to be there at a booth for the radio station, but when I was there I had to stay with my booth and wait on customers and never got to go over to the radio station's booth. Now I guess I'll have to wait until we meet again in heaven.

Just another reminder that this is not our home, and that we should never take any of our days here for granted. Or any of the people in our lives, for that matter, because none of us know the day or the hour when we might be called home.

Well, I hope you all have a beautiful week! I'm off for a family movie night.