Auntie Pea's Blog

{ New Blogs & A Sale }

This will be the final post here on the typepad blog. I am thrilled to be moving to a wordpress blog officially as of today so from now on you can find me HERE. Between client blogs I'm sure I'll be making some fun changes over there as I learn more and more about the little gidgets and gadgets of wordpress. The toughest part about the decision to move though was the possiblity of losing some readers who might not follow so PLEASE if you've got me in your bloglines list or rss feeds add the new address so I don't lose ya. ;)

In case you missed in the last post I also set up a new blog specifically to talk about blog designs that I'm working on and just blogging in general. I'd love for it eventually to be a great resource for people just starting blogging or looking to add a little pizzazz in their posts so stay tuned for tutorials, links to blogging goodies or helpful tools and previews of the blogs I'm working on.

And out of my frustration over a little glitch at etsy I'm going to run a free shipping sale on my etsy stuff for today and tomorrow only (thru 10/23). For some bizarre reason etsy is adding shipping to their invoice but not charging it at checkout through paypal so for the next two days instead of hasseling with a separate paypal invoice for shipping I'm just going to waive it. Hopefully by tomorrow night I can find out once and for all what's causing this little glitch. Any etsy seller's out there with tips I'd surely appreciate it.

I've also added some new tunes to the blogpod recently and keep forgetting to mention it. Some good stuff on there so check it out and let me know what you think. :)

{ Mood Alert }

Found these little cards here and filled one out digitally Friday night.

 

Feeling a little better now but it's been a rough week. Seeing a grandmother who was always so strong and independent become so frail is tough. Seeing her casket carried to the gravesite next to my grandfathers by my brother and cousins was even more difficult. But to be honest I think it's entirely different circumstances that made the loss of my grandma this week particularly difficult. Circumstances that I chose for myself that I don't regret but that seem to emphasize otherwise bearable feelings of being alone. The email from my mom letting us know that Grandma had peacefully passed on came late Tuesday night after any friends that I could call had already gone to bed. Going to bed alone each night is a lonely feeling anyway but it's emphasized when you could really just use a hug. Going home to an empty house after the visitation Thursday night was equally emotional for me, emphasized by a severe storm (which I normally love) and tornado warnings nearby (which is a bit scary when you're in a 2nd floor apartment). I live alone by choice so I'm not looking for pity. I just want to remember what this time in life was like for me and this is my only journal so those of you who read unfortunately get the bad with the good.

Fortunately there is good to share too. I'm feeling better today. Wishing there were 2 more days to the weekend. But I got to spend alot of the day yesterday surrounded by the most adorable nieces and nephews on the planet. Sharing tiny cookie bites with Ainsley, watching Isa wink, cuddling with Selah in the nursery and getting one of the world's best hugs from Paige just a few of the good bits.

And I haven't even blogged about me new sweet baby niece that I got to hold for quite awhile Thursday night. She was such a honey. This is Gracyn Kay. You can see lots more pictures of her here.

Off to work today and then working on blog designs tonight. I decided it was time to start a separate blog to post about the design stuff. I felt like it was sortof taking over this blog. So if you are interested in what's going on in the blog design part of life you'll find all that here from now on. I have a lot of ideas for this new blog including links to fun blogging tools, advice on posting, tutorials and of course posts about the current blogs I'm working on. So, the following is the last (well, last regular) peek at a blog that I'll be finishing up hopefully tonight...

And finally a fun little quiz that I stumbled across and had to check it out for myself. I think it was right on for me. Funny cuz I really never think of myself as having an accent. Apparently mine is an Inland North accent. What's yours?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
North Central
The South
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Have a great Monday.

random and with no sense of direction

So, blog updates... the fun banner I posted over a month ago IS indeed for my dear friend Jayne. Shabby Juls got it right. :) Jayne's got some fun things to add to the sidebar area and then we'll make some minor adjustments but for the most part it's done and it's absolutely one of my favorites so far. If she hadn't liked it I'd have used it for my own. :)

And then one that I did awhile back that I can't believe I haven't blogged about before was for a little shop in Oklahoma City called Basiques Boutique. It's owned by the sweetest mother/daughter team and I'm thrilled that they're going to actually start selling some of their gorgeous items online so stay tuned. Here's what we came up with for the banner using one of their gorgeous wall paintings. How fun is that?! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another blog that's not quite finished but close enough to show is Jo-Anne Coletti's. She paints gorgeous rose paintings and has recently released a CD of digital scrapbooking papers and elements. It was fun to use some of her own elements in the design. One thing you might notice about her blog is that I'm now offering the complete custom design package for blogger customers. Pretty exciting since I've had a number of requests for that. :)

I've got 3 blogs that are in their final design stages of pulling everything together and coordinating with the client on sidebar items and I've got a few that I'm waiting for feedback on their initial banner design. (A couple that were sent out over 2 weeks ago so I'm hoping they're just on vacation or something and not trying to figure out how to tell me the banner is not at all what they were looking for. LOL)

I also have been wanting to switch my blog over to wordpress for a LONG time and finally decided to take a weekend (and it took the better part of an entire weekend) to learn wordpress once and for all. I had just gone through a very discouraging situation with a client where I almost decide to hang up my blog designing hat. An idea that I had that I thought would be a fun option to offer to future blog clients, one that I'd put a lot of creative energy and work into was given to another designer and it just sucked the fun right out of this designing stuff. I don't get a lot of original, completely-not-done-before, creative ideas and this was one that I was pretty excited about. What made me even more happy was that the client was super excited about my idea too. Well, now the credit for that fun idea will go to another designer. If someone is interested in having a fantabulous about page done for them I am more than happy to haul out the fun ideas with all the bells and whistles that I have now stashed away in my little creative cabinet but I don't think I'll be advertising it as an ala carte option for now because I don't want it to appear that I'm copying someone else's creative idea. Sooooo, instead of continuing to feel abused and taken advantage of I chose to let the situation motivate me to learn more aspects of this blog design world and find something different to offer.

So this is my new home on the web and I'm SO excited to start offering full wordpress custom design and setup option to clients. What's AWESOME about wordpress is that there is no monthly fee for it and it's incredibly customizable. Like crazy customizable. I can't wait to play around more with my own design but for now I'm just tickled with little things like how fun the comments icons are and how nicely they show up right after my signature. It's the little things like that that can totally make my day. :)

So here's the current pricing for the various blog design options. I'll be finishing up the blogs I'm currently working on by this weekend so if you're interested in a custom design e-mail me or you can fill out the questionnaire here. Not to sound like an infomercial here but these are introductory prices and will likely change after I've had a chance to realize (as I often do) that I'm only making about 50 cents an hour on these projects. LOL I will also be likely increasing the prices of the design options in blogger and typepad but until I have time to make those changes on my website pricing page you can jump in on the current rates. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kay, infomercial over. :)

I saw this little photo project posted by Rachel awhile back and since a word immediately came to mind AND I have a fancy little remote for my camera I decided to join in. You can see lots more here.  But yeah, I'm beat. So if you decide to jump in on the photo project send me a link so I can check out how you're feeling. :) 

I also feel inspired, motivated and blessed so it's not all bad. :)

So here's my current balanced to-do list:

I decided that my to do list template needed a little updating. Still balanced, just different. I uploaded the new template so you can grab it here if anyone's interested.

And then I joined in a little challenge at one of my favorite blogs and they posted this little list of girl-power questions yesterday.  Here's mine. :)

1. Name - Shawn
2. Pink - Love it or Hate it? love it
3. Signature shade of lipstick, lipgloss, etc. - pink gloss (little bit sparkly)
4. Do you have a best girl friend? I have many - the VERY best
5. Do you have a woman mentor? not that I can think of
6. Are you a woman mentor to someone else? I highly doubt it
7. Tomboy or Princess? Princess
8. Favorite Girl Band can't think of a girl band but favorite girl artist - hands down Sara Bareilles
9. Are you a mom? Do you want to be one? just to pixel and actually no
10. Do you and your mom have any rituals? not that I know of
11. Fashion magazines - yea or nay. nay
12. Do you have a feel good outfit? do feel good shoes count?
13. Have you called your grandma or special aunt, or special older lady lately? saw my grandma for the last time Friday night
14. Signature Scent? angel although I rarely wear perfume
15. Favorite female tv character I can't pick a favorite
16. Favorite place to hang out with gal pals? a good chick flick with popcorn
17. Did you ever ditch your girl friends to be with a guy? Do you still? I'm sure I have
18. Friend you call when you need a laugh? Jayne
19. Friend you call when you need a shoulder to cry on? Jill and/or Nikki, depends how late it is. :)
20. Have you reminded your friends of how much they mean to you lately? not nearly enough

Can you tell I'm trying to make up for a month of not blogging? Kay, back to work and then dinner with Jill tonight and funeral visitation for my grandma. Tomorrow is the funeral and then I'm looking forward to a rather quiet weekend and catching up with out-of-town cousins. Back soon with some photos of recent sewing projects and hopefully an etsy store update.

Have a great day!

{ Remembering Grandma }

I remember...

Summers at the Conference Grounds and her firm belief that the black sand on the beach was caused by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Saint Helens. I'm still not buyin' that. Or how the water in lake Michigan could basically cure any illness or rash, especially poison ivy.

Sunday dinners where she mostly sat quietly and observed the craziness of a table set for 14.

Having a stash of pop and munchies in our bedroom when Grandma would watch us for the weekend because "pop turns your insides all black".

Cod Liver Oil ---> *shivers*

A ride with her and Grandpa to visit my cousins in Canada. The trip should take us straight east across the state of Michigan and then on into Canada. Instead somehow we ended up so far off track that we were passing Amish buggies on the road. Now the only amish area I knew of in the area is due South down in Indiana. That's a pretty major wrong turn. Not a particularly fun trip but one I'll never forget.

She was beautiful with great skin and a metabolism like none other. Two traits that I hope she passed down.

A hairdresser she was not. (poor mom - that had to be rough) LOL

She was a horrible driver and when they finally took her car away she called the cops to report it stolen. That's my grandma.

But she did have a green thumb and was a pretty good seamstress.

She volunteered endless hours, refused to turn down any charitable cause and even took people into her own home who seemed less fortunate.

And, although it seemed their entire lives that they never got along, when my grandpa was diagnosed with cancer she never left his side. He was a gem and he loved her. You could tell. I'm thinkin' there must've been something pretty special about her.

Right about now she's probably up in heaven getting one of Grandpa's scruffy cheek kisses. Man I miss those. And she gets to see my uncle Bob. He was a gem too. And hold Jacob. How sweet that would be. Hope she's giving 'em all kisses for me.

I know I haven't blogged in forever and I have so much to blog about but tonight I just wanted to get some thoughts down about my Grandma. She passed away earlier tonight after a rather short fight with cancer and a much longer struggle with alzheimers. It hadn't really occurred to me until the other night in her room that she was my last living grandparent. I regret that I didn't spend more time going through photos with her or learning some old fashioned sewing tips. I'm proud of my mom for taking such good care of her. I hope she's resting peacefully tonight knowing Grandma's finally home.

I promise to be back soon with more of an update. Right now I'm off to bed but I do have a post full of fun blog news including:

• a big blog move announcement and fun new design options
• updates on 2 projects that I mentioned WAY back in my last post a month ago. (One that's done and turned out super fun, the other unfortunately took a rather different turn)
• A store update
• TV show thoughts...the Bachelor, Brothers & Sisters... 
• and LONG overdue photos and announcements.

In the meantime, go hug your grandmas.