Fabulous, Creative Day

What a fantastic team!



They offered over 1,000 seriously beautiful items for sale.























Hundreds of customers were happy to take home hundreds of those items.





Musicians took the experience to another level of greatness.





Ladies called the event "magical".



Gentlemen called it "legit".



Altogether, it was a day of creativity, independent craft appreciation, good people, good food, good music, good shopping, and good times - a grand success!



Thanks to Noah K. for capturing the event through photos!

This video of our daughter dancing sums up my feelings about the experience.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

It's Handmade Holiday Shop day!

We're getting everything set up, and I can guarantee that rain or shine, you're going to love this shop! Why? Because the entire shop is indoors! What better way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon than cozied up in our home sipping tea or coffee, perusing hundreds of handmade wonders, painting collaboratively, and listening to live acoustic music with a bunch of cool people? There is no better way!


Forecast from our doorstep: cloudy with a chance of MAGIC!

And now, to announce the winners of our giveaway!

The random number generator chose a very deserving winner of the earrings, and she is........ Tessa K!

Next, the random number generator picked a girl whose dreams would come true when she won the tiny dinosaur, and that girl is.......... Audrey W!

Congratulations ladies, and thank you to everyone who entered and spread the word about today's event! Remember, everybody's a winner when they convince their friends and family to buy them gifts at the Handmade Holiday Shop!

The Handmade Holiday Shop

Check out these pictures previewing a few of the over 800 items that will be for sale at the Handmade Holiday Shop! Then, at the bottom of this post, find out how you can win a pair of hand-crafted earrings or a tiny stuffed dino!


Becky


Dan


Wendi


Tessa


Dan


me


Chris


Marlee


Dan and me


The Other Bethany

Pretty amazing stuff, right?

How would you like to win some cool stuff of your own? Either...

...this dinosaur (click the image to see a close-up... eek tiny plates down his back!)


...or these earrings!


There are three ways to enter!

• Post a Facebook status about the Handmade Holiday Shop, linking to this blog post (comment here to tell me you did that).
• Tweet about the Handmade Holiday Shop, linking to this blog post and using hashtag #handmadeholidayshop (leave another comment here to tell me you did that).
• Blog about the Handmade Holiday Shop, linking to this blog post (leave another comment here to tell me you did that, and include the link to your own blog post).

Get it? Three ways to enter; do all three things and you get three entries! Make sure you leave a separate comment on this blog for each entry.

This giveaway ends Friday, November 11 at 10 p.m. and we'll announce the winners the next morning!*

If you come to the Handmade Holiday Shop, we'll give you your prize that day! If you can't make it, we'll send it to you!

Part of the proceeds of the Handmade Holiday Shop go to My Safe Harbor. Support a great cause while getting your holiday shopping done! We can't wait to see you there!

*My family members are ineligible to win, but if they help spread the word I might upgrade their Christmas presents.

The HHS

Check back this evening for preview photos and information on how you can win these earrings!

Here's a Box, Let's Put Our Children In It

Being a kid makes you either great or terrible at drawing.



It seems like you definitely start out great.


York Blog

This striped potato wearing an eyeball hat says, "You're creative!"


Dave Gray's Flickr

And for a while, it just gets better as you learn how to express on paper the most important features of people and objects around you, according to your perception.


Source unknown, because the original site died

Until, at some point in your life, you get stressed about "doing it right", because a house is a triangle on top of a square, the ground is a green stripe at the bottom of the page, and flying birds are shaped like McDonald's arches.


A Mother World

Which is perfectly cute and delightful to your mom, but not creative the way it used to be, and leads to this stock image of an adult attempting to draw "like a child":


Shutterstock

which makes the earth do this:


DivorceandKids.com

because it's sad for the injury to your creativity.



Now you're an adult who is most likely crippled by your need to impress teachers and peers by "doing it right". I know I am.

How do we bust out da box?

Manly Maturity

I discovered a fantastic article about consuming/creating on The Art of Manliness blog. Feel free to make this about yourself whether or not you're a man!

Favorite quotes:

• Consumerism offers so many choices that we fail to see that they all reside within a predetermined box.


• When you create instead of consume, your capacity for pleasure increases, as opposed to your need for it. Being a creator gives you a far more lasting and deeply satisfying happiness than consuming ever will.


• The problem with consumerism is that it heavily emphasizes choice, to the complete exclusion of the idea of living with that choice.


• [Another] problem with consumerism is that it satiates our discomfort with passing and superficial pleasures, distracting us from what that hunger is really calling out for.


• The act of creation shapes you as a man, refines your sensibilities, improves your strengths, hones your concentration, and builds your character. Passive consumption leaves you untouched and unchanged.

I'm so inspired right now!

Read the whole article here: Modern Maturity: Create More, Consume Less

If these bookends are wrong, I don't want to be right

I did a little collaborative bookend creating with my father-in-law this week.



We're opening a shop together.



I already ask him to make me the kind of wood stuff I'd want to buy, so our target demographic would probably be people whose style makes the Pottery Barn crowd shake their heads in pity.



Are you in that demographic, too?

Street Art

The Geffen Street Art installment has lit me up!




Os Gemeos


Banksy


André

My phone camera skills are less than wonderful, but this was another of my favorite views:


Margaret Kilgallen

If you live in the area and are looking for an inspiration/motivation hit, I recommend checking this out!