Long Awaited

April. Finally. This may be the most anticipated April in my personal history. I feel like my entire life just breathed a deep sigh of relief.

 I kicked it off by mailing off the rest of the pincushions. Hopefully they will all be where they are supposed to be by Friday. I thank you all for supporting my little dip into the world of making and selling! Please take a minute to leave feedback for me on Etsy if you are so inclined.

I celebrated the mailing of the packages with a little pampering because, lets be honest, happy toes just make life a little better, right?

In the afternoon we went on a little fieldtrip to our local creamery for ice cream.

While we were there I made a new friend whose name happens to be Number 26. We bonded. My only regret is that I couldn't get close enough to rub my face on those fuzzy ears, although it's possible that if I had I might be suffering from a different regret today...

Emma also made a new friend whose name was Come-one-step-closer-and-I-will-attack-you. I'm not sure if you could call what they did bonding though.

This creamery is only 10 minutes from our house and I'm so embarrassed to admit that we've never been there before. I've realized lately that we three introverted homebodies need to force ourselves out of the house more often and have more adventures. We are busting on out of this rut this Spring.

I showed this shot of my mini bowl obsession on Instagram the other day. I don't know what I'm going to do if Anthro continues to come out with irresistible new colors.

What I didn't show on IG was the rest of the story. I have a well documented bowl problem. It's an ongoing joke in my family. This is not even the rest of it. Plus I have given so many bowls to Maddie for her apartment (so that I could justify new ones I had brought home) that she is now in danger of having too many bowls. I'd stop buying them but the withdrawal gets to me every time.

Speaking of Anthro, I got this towel there recently and love seeing the happy colors brighten up my Spring kitchen. In case you worried about the fate of this cute towel, everybody in the house knows that the towel hanging on the stove is hands off. Now, if you come over, you will know too and we can avoid any embarrassing situations.

While gathering up my unread magazines for an upcoming road trip, I got to wondering what magazines you buy or subscribe to. I now only subscribe to Country Living, Southern Living and Cottages and Bungalows but I miss having an endless pile of magazines. I still pine for Cottage Living, Home Companion and Country Home. Luckily I have many saved issues of Country Home which I still pull out every season. That magazine is the one that got away and I will likely never get over the ending of our relationship.

So that's April around here so far. I'm going to finish this day off with a well earned viewing of You've Got Mail while I catch up on Pinterest and flip through some garden inspiration. That may just be the most perfect way I can imagine spending an afternoon.

Popping In

Just popping in for a minute to say I got my first batch of pincushions mailed out today! I love how unique each one is and I'm excited to send them out into the world to their new homes. Also, I realize how completely unprepared and disorganized I was for this endeavor but I'm still glad I jumped in feet first! I'm figuring it out as I go along. That's how we roll here in the Kershner house. Perhaps you remember that is how we ended up in our Village in the first place? Or perhaps you remember that's how our mini kitchen renovation started? We are embarking on a front porch project in much the same manner. More on that soon. Heck, it's even how we ended up married in the first place almost 14 years ago. Clearly this is working for us.

Speaking of jumping in feet first, my uber encouraging friend Angie went ahead and jumped in too. She opened her shop which you can find here and she is filling it with the sweetest Spring treasures. I need some Spring in my life. This might be as close as I get for awhile.

It's back to the studio for me! Thank you all for your support! I've been amazed at the response this week. Just blessed. That's me.

It's Official

Well that just happened. GAAA!!!! My Etsy shop is open. After years of thinking about it and talking about it and doing nothing about it...I finally did it! Here's what I've learned about myself in the process. I am the kind of person that just needs to jump right in and figure it out as I go along. I was getting so bogged down with things like policies, shipping, packaging, branding, pricing and inventory. There is honestly so much more to think about than I realized. I've just decided to keep it simple and figure it out as I go along and not make myself crazy looking at the big picture.

The first thing I'm going to be stocking my shop with is pincushions. Before I go listing already made pincushions, I really wanted to do something for you dear, loyal friends. I want to give you a chance to preorder a hand embroidered personalized monogrammed pincushion. While in the future pincushions that I list might have some embroidery on them, they won't be personalized. I think these would also make great Mother's Day gifts.

If you are interested, I have listed 20 custom pre-order pincushions in my Etsy shop. I thought I'd start with that number and get them out and then I might do this again. We will see how the first big batch goes! When checking out you will have the opportunity to let me know if there are a couple of specific color choices that you'd like and what letter to monogram. There will obviously be some additional time required to ship these since these will be custom made. The cost is $20 plus $4 shipping prepaid and I will make them in the order of the requests I receive.

I'm so excited to be stepping off this cliff with you and I have to send out a big thank you to my cheerleader, counselor, butt-kicker-into-gear, super supportive friend Angie for her encouragement and gentle nudging to just do it already. Your turn Angie!!