VACATION Sale!

I am on vacation! My family and I are renting a beach house and we are so excited to have some time off for relaxing!
What's in it for you? I am glad that you asked! I am having a Vacation Sale- Buy One Get One Half Off!

While I am on vacation from July 30-August 12th, for every decal you purchase, you can choose another to receive at HALF PRICE! Just place and pay for your order as usual and I will send you a Paypal refund for half of the price of the least expensive item. All order placed while I am gone will ship by Friday August 14th.

My 8 year old

I can' t even believe that my Middle Boy is now eight years old! He had such a blast at Myrtle Beach for his birthday. This past year has been BIG for him. He started gymnastics. He really got into reading (for hours at a time). He had his first sleepover. He became more willing to try new things.
He's such a darling boy and I will bet that he gets even sweeter this year :)

Myrtle Beach weekend

Well, not actually the entire weekend. We are leaving here tomorrow late morning to go to Myrtle Beach for the night. Sunday is Middle Boy's 8th birthday and all he wanted to do was go to Myrtle Beach and stay in a hotel (he wants to live in a hotel SO badly!). So I found the COOLEST hotel in town! They have their own water park! We are excited!

We'll be home Sunday afternoon (after stopping and playing mini golf, of course) for cake and ice cream. Then back to work on Monday :)

Hope you have a great weekend too!

Gator!

Once at our local beach I swear I saw a shark. By the time I got my husband and kids attention, by hysterically screaming "GET OUT OF THE WATER!!!" and freaking out just about every living thing in a two mile radius, it was gone and I looked slightly silly and was unrelentlessly (did you know that unrelentlessly is not a real word?, go figure) teased about being a freak show and seeing imaginary sharks. Well, a few days later a kid was bit by a shark about ten miles north of where we had been. Ha! Told ya so!!

Is there a point to my story, you ask. Kinda. There has been a large alligator spotted on the beach recently.


Just kidding that's not really him (although you have to admit that is a LARGE gator!

Here's the real gator. Sorry I can't provide pics just a link, it's worth it though.

Just what I needed, one more thing to keep me up at night.

New design

I have told you before that one of my favorite parts of my job is designing. I love to lose track of time while coming up with a new design. This one isn't exactly new, it's refurbished! Here's what my Birds on a Cherry Tree Branch decal used to look like.



And here is the new and improved version.



Can you spot the differences? Well, I made the birds smaller and added two flying birds. I also changed the flowers and added more of them (you can't have too many flowers can you?)

Of course, both of these decals come in colors of your choice from my color chart.

I'd love to hear what you think of this revision!

Another giveaway!

While you are heading over to Carols Blog for the fabulous decal giveaway,

stop by and visit Jen for her 100th post giveaway!

Giveaway= Free Decal!

When I was contacted by Carol of Long Ramblings about being the sponsor for her very first giveaway, I couldn't say no! Carol is a customer of mine, she is such a pleasure to do business with and her blog is so great I just couldn't resist.



Check out her blog here for more details on how to get lots of entries.

What's the prize you ask???

Anything in my etsy store, no spending limit!!



Can you even take it??

More Customer Pics

More Customer pics! Yay!

Beaching!

A couple evenings ago the middle boy, little boy, Mr. Man and I decided to head to the island for dinner at our favorite pizza place and a quick splash before winding down for the night. Unfortunately, Long Island Pizza was packed (you'll get that this time of year, we'll have the place to ourselves from October to April). So we just played at the beach a few and then went home for dinner. Still a great time :) Thought I would share some pics of our evening.

What could possibly be sweeter than little kid footprints in the sand?

Wonder what he is contemplating.

Does this pier look familar to you?

Need a hint??

Yup, that's right. Parts of Nights in Rodanthe were filmed here on Topsail.

Oh, how I love living near the beach :)

New Customer Pics

Have I told you how much I love to receive customer pics? I do! It's so neat to see my work in other people's homes.

Here are a few recent pics.

This one was sent from professional stager, Debbie Primera. More about Debbie in a future post (you'll love her, she's so cool!)

I love this dresser, what a great idea!

This monogram is so popular, especially for children's rooms.

How sweet is this??

Thanks to my wonderful customers who sent in pics!

A S P

My big boy left yesterday morning with his church youth group, heading for Tennessee. They will be working with ASP, the Appalachian Service Project. They will be repairing a home of a less fortunate family. This will consist of roofing, carpentry, plumbing, you name it! It will be hard work but I know that he will come home with a new sense of empathy toward others & an even stronger appreciation of the blessings in his life.

I am so proud of him for volunteering to give up an entire week of his summer vacation to help someone that he has never even met before. What a great kid :)

Outdoor Living

I may have forgotten to mention that our air conditioning unit was down. More specifically, our well that provides water to our geothermal heating and air conditioning unit was down. At any rate we were using a window unit that kept the main living areas cool'ish but that is about it. Of course, it was over 85 degrees 18 of the 30 days in June. And HUMID!

While we were in NY, the "well guys" came and drilled a new well. One long week later the electrician made it over to power it up. Yay, we have a/c!!! For the first couple of days I spent an unusual amount of time indoors. And for some reason I felt the need to see my breath!! It was about the time that I reached for a throw to put on my legs that I realized that once again I have gone to extremes and turned the thermostat up :)

Now that the fascination with the cool air indoors is over, we are back to spending the majority of our free time outdoors. Which of course has diverted my compulsion to remodel the entire inside of the house to landscaping the entire yard. Don't worry, when it gets chilly I will be back in there planning a major renovation again!

So yesterday Mr. Man says "Babe, I think we need a pergola"! To this I say "Woo-Hoo!!" I have been wanting a pergola for soooo long. He was ready to head to Lowe's and start building, which is odd because usually it is me purchasing before planning. I suggested that perhaps we needed to finish a couple other projects before taking another one on. It killed me because I really want that pergola. But the mud room that I also really wanted still isn't finished. And I have swatches of light blue paint on several walls though the house. I could go on and on about our started yet unfinished projects. So for now the pergola is on hold. In the mean time, I think this is the pergola of our dreams. What do you think??

pic from http://www.backyardamerica.com/pergola-wood-westport.htm

Home again!

Did you miss me? I was gone for a whole week! The boys and I drove 13 1/2 hours last Tuesday from Coastal NC to my home town in Central NY to watch my beautiful niece (in pic with her moms) graduate. It was a long drive but worth it! We visited with lots of family and a few friends. It's harder to live 800 miles away than I had thought it would be. Even though we have lived here for four years I still get homesick. Especially when I am there.

But, we're home now and starting to adjust to summer vacation. The boys have been up late every night and sleeping in every morning. I love summer vacation. I like having my kids around. I truly feel blessed to be working from home and spending time with them. *sigh*, it's a good life!