Bee's Buzzings

And the contest winner, drawn at random, is . . .

Heather! 

Congrats on winnin g the Boxed sets of A Dozen Art Cards, in my Etsy Sh op!

And a big thanks to everyone who left comments, and visited Bee's Buzzings.

Things have been quite busy in the shop, and also at home.  So plans are to take a break from Etsy from December 13 through the end of the year to enjoy the festivites with family and friends.  I'm hoping to get some painting time in around New Year's and plan to have some new Art Prints, Pendants and some other new items listed when the shop re-opens in January.  Will be posting previews here, as time allows, so check back towards the end of the year.

In the meantime, I'll be sharing some more house photos from the demolition, construction and final results of our house and also some Holiday decorating (including more Shiny Brite ornaments!) between now and the end of the month.

Again, congrats to Heather and hope you all are having a great week.

 

It's beginning to look a lot like . . . Winter in Minnesota

In about 6 weeks (maybe sooner) this sight will no longer thrill me.  But for now, this Winter Wonderland looks inviting, yet pristine. * Enjoy *

p.s. will be selecting the winner for the Free Box of Note Cards tomorrow evening (i.e. still time to leave comments on any and all blog posts, each for an automatic entry).

Pantry Cabinet Makeover - The Before And After

There's one really big upside about living in five different brand new homes over the past eighteen
years.  They'd all had great kitchens.  Usually with some solid surface counters, hardwood flooring . . . and pantries.  NICE pantries.  But there was something I'd learned from living in so many places, and cooking in so many kitchens. Surprisingly, I do not prefer walk-in pantries. 

In our last house, we specifically designed the kitchen with a wall of very shallow 12" cabinets, and several narrow, roll out drawers where the cabinets required a depth of 24".  You don't lose food this way, and there's very little 'pull these items out to get at that' going on.

So here we are, in my first house bought as a resale.  A house I love.  A yard I love.  A neighborhood I love.  But a kitchen, that while awesome in layout, will be seeing a lot of updates in the next few years.  First stop:  The Pantry.  As you can see from the above photo, the stationary shelves made this 24" deep pantry almost a waste of space.  I kid you not when I say we lived out of a lot of grocery sacks scattered around the perimeter of the dining area, at least until the new roll-out shelves were installed.

(click photo to enlarge)

And I knew exactly who to call - I'd worked with many master craftsmen in my previous life as a Selections Coordinator at a custom home builder.  Marty Erlien (reachable at (612) 644-9007 if you're in the Minneapolis area) came out, measured, talked about spacing requirements, and his assistant returned a few weeks later to retrofit the cabinet and install some custom made shelving.  As you can see - it's a perfect solution.  Amazing what these guys (and some full extension glides) can do to make a space SO much more functional.  It's now finally fully utilized and a pleasure to use every time we open the pantry doors.  I'm loving it!

If you like this, just wait until you see what they did for the new tub in our remodeled bathroom!

p.s. don't forget about the free Box of 12 Note Cards giveaway, just leave a comment to automatically be entered.  Just a few more days until a winner is drawn at random.

Boxed Set of Assorted Art Notes at Etsy - and also a giveaway contest

Boxed sets of A Dozen Art Cards, in my Etsy shop.  This is a pre-selected mix, but if there are some designs in the shop you would prefer, simply select your own set of 12 notes for the same price. A great gift idea for a teacher, relative or friend.  These boxed sets also make excellent hostess gifts.  Before designing my own note cards, I always had a stash of assorted notes on hand for last minute emergencies. 

Have a favorite design?  I'd love to hear it.  And this week we will have a giveaway contest - one person selected randomly from comments left on ANY blog post this week will receive a FREE boxed set.  Announcement next weekend. Love knowing what designs people like - so please share. 

And a special holiday gift to all readers - here is a Coupon Code to use during Etsy checkout for 20% off your BeeDazzles shop order (CODE is "Holiday20") and is good through December 5.  

Hope your holidays are bright!

Bee

 

And the Magnet contest winner is . . . .

Congrats to Janice!  And thanks to all of you for entering the latest BeeDazzles contest!  I love giving stuff away - especially these magnets.  They're so fun and functional (and did I mention STRONG?) you'll be wanting to get rid of all your existing magnets and visit the shop for more!  Each small magnet holds up over 8 sheets of paper, but won't cover up artwork or important information.  Who couldn't use a set of these? They make great gifts, too.

So while the packaging was a long time in coming, it was worth the wait.   Now that it's settled I can get back to new artwork SOON.  So be on the lookout in the days ahead :)

On a personal note, working with all these flower and insect images has me really looking forward to Spring.  And Jim and I are in the process of planning several trips - always exciting.

Hope you have a great day, and thanks again for all your comments and checking in here to see what's up at "Bee's   Buzzings".  Things have been fairly wonky at times trying to juggle too many issues (yeah, having four kids will do that!) but I promise there will be even more giveaways in the days ahead.

New Mini Art Magnets - super strong and super cute! Comment to WIN

Which is your favorite?  Leave a comment below for a chance to WIN a 4 pack of these little lovelies!  One winner will be chosen from comments left here (a second from comments left at BeeDazzles Facebook page!)  Winners to be announced tomorrow morning, 9 a.m.  Good Luck!

Have been almost too busy lately - getting new inventory into the local shops, working on new art and *tada*!  Finally have all the packaging and formatting done for the Mini Art Magnets I've had on the back burner (for way too long).

Hope you like the new designs.  Most are in the shop, the rest will follow shortly.

Each magnet holds over 8 (yes, 8!) sheets of paper.  Super small, super sweet and super strong!  Get yours now :)

Sweet Little Christmas Trees . . . all covered in Mittens

I'm really loving this new design . . . finally got the listing into the shop after a very exciting day of lunching and craft show shopping with my good friend, Marguerite.

Also, here's another fun giveaway on this sleepy Friday evening.  Just go through the listings in my shop (click) and find the listing with this Bee showing as the last photo.  Be the first to find it, place your order through Etsy (mark 'other during checkout'), and then come back here and leave a comment saying you found it.  Voila!  The item will be marked PAID and will be shipped to you, as a thanks for reading this blog.  UPDATE:  FOUND!

And don't despair if someone beat you to the prize.  I'll be tallying comments once again for a separate giveaway very soon - the more comments you leave (on this or any other blog post), the more entries you have to win :)

Have a great weekend, I'll be working on more new art and will be checking back in again soon!

Bee

p.s. another great week with my Fitness Goals . . . am amazed at how everything just fell into place this time.  I'm eating and exercising well, and the scale is supplying awesome results :)

New Holiday Designs . . . and a quick contest :)

Just a sneak peek of some new Christmas Tree Holiday Cards, in my Etsy Shop.  Working on more fun holiday artwork which will be posted soon. 

Also a quick contest.  First one to find this sweet little snowman pocket mirror (in my shop), wins it for free.  Just be the first one to order it, and mark "other" for a payment type when checking out and I'll mark it paid and pop it in the mail to you!  UPDATE:  FOUND!!  :)

These make great little stocking stuffers or teacher gifts.  Please leave a comment here if you were the winner, and for those of you who didn't win - your comment will count in yet another contest, to be held soon :)

and even more progress :)

Shop progress - am getting to the holiday artwork this week - yayyy!  Have also added more mini note combinations to my Etsy shop (and more to come soon!) but SO love these little mini bird notes - aren't they too cute??

House progress - we've been busy moving items back into the house - had to get everything out of the storage unit we rented while our house was on the market.  Will be listing some things on Craig's List, and have even more items heading to Goodwill.  The great news is that with all the re-arranging we'd done for prepping the house for showings, it looks fresher and even more inviting than before.  Life is good and I am now very excited about decorating for the holidays.

Personal progress - have been getting on the treadmill and continuing to eat well and lose more weight.  Am up to 2 miles jogging and have achieved a 6 pound loss after three weeks.  This is pretty eventful for me as I usually lose momentum after the first week or two  :)

Family progress - both Krist and Danielle have new 'driver' updates.  Kristi passed her driving test yesterday and was happily tooling around the neighborhood solo (we're taking it slow!) And Danielle, who passed her permit test recently, had her first opportunity to drive after Kristi and I got home.  It was a nice bonding moment for the girls - and probably a day neither is likely to forget.  They both did great, but my stomach was still in knots. 

You'd think after going through this with the first two, I'd just take it in stride . .  . but oh well, that's just not happening LOL :)

CONTEST progress - and lastly, here is the first of 3 opportunities to win a FREE BeeDazzles item:

The first person to comment (below) can go select ANY art pendant for FREE.  Just click here to view my Pendant Shop, and then transact the pendant of your choice and I will mark it PAID and ship it to you (you'll need to have an Etsy account to do this).  And if you're not first - well, just be on the lookout in the next few days - there will be two more winners!

Thanks again for stopping by, and hope you have a great day!

Bee

I love new beginnings!

Although it feels more like Winter here with the recent snow, I know it's really still Fall.  And boy-oh-boy do I love Fall!  For me, it's always been the time of year for new beginnings.  Guess I'm still hard-wired to the academic calendar year.  You know - the new shoes, clothes, folders and a fresh set of pencils.  Anything was possible!

I've heard many people agree with me about this.  I mean, seriously, if you're going to start something new, trying to get momentum going in the dead of winter when there are barely 6 hours of daylight (here in Minnesota at least) seems like a recipe for disaster!

And also like many other people, I dislike limbo.  Two things that kept me unsettled for the past 5 or so months were 1) getting the house ready and having it on the market and 2) knowing I still had to get all my bookkeeping done for our extended tax deadline.  And the more stressed I was, the harder it was to eat right.  So now that both those issues are resolved, and *voila* it's the right time of year . . . I'm finally getting back on track to getting this extra weight off and am also back to jogging again.

Will share a bit more later about my preparation and follow through - but for now am just very pleased to say that I lost 3 pounds last week!  woo hoo!

In addition to my own little self-congrats, I'd also like to congratulate Janae and Dianne for being the first two to visit here and comment.  Despite my very bad blogging habits they continue to check in - and I appreciate that!  They're the winners of the first two $15 merchandise awards - some of the spontaneous give aways I mentioned previously.  

My thanks to all of you who have stopped by recently - hope you have a great weekend.  I'll catch up with you soon about the weight loss progress - and with another winner or two :)