Win a Giveaway, Give a Giveaway!

What would be your very favorite thing to win from a giveaway?

Maybe new art supplies to play around with?

Perhaps a gorgeous selection of papers for your art-making?

Or some artistic doo-dads to enjoy?

Tiles from a shop in Mexico

Stitched card from Egypt

How about an original work of art from an online friend?

Well, I'm here to tell you that Laurie, at Lone Black Bird, sent me ALL OF THE ABOVE for her giveaway celebrating her 300th blog post!

I feel so lucky to have won her giveaway, and I feel prompted to host a giveaway of my own!  It won't be quite as spectacular as Laurie's, but if you are interested, I will give you the details in a day or two.

Big News from Studio 791!

I am so excited to share a great new development with you:  My Studio 791 creations are now available for sale at a beautiful boutique called Gabby's Jar in Wayne, PA!

The owner of Gabby's Jar is Benna Lit, a former colleague of mine from our teaching days at Haverford High School, here in Pennsylvania.  She has been such a source of encouragement and advice, and has really been giving me a great sense of confidence as I move forward with my art and craft-making. 

Her boutique is a bright and airy space, filled to the brim with all kinds of gift items, including several from Kelly Rae Roberts' licensed collections.  In fact, my merchandise shares table space with Kelly's, which I have to confess is a little exciting in itself!

Just today, a couple of my Layered 'n Stitched Greeting Cards (formerly known as Journal Cards) have sold!  These are one of my favorite creations, and I am excited to see that they have found an interested audience through Benna's gift boutique.

I consider this development an amazing opportunity and learning experience.  I hope that you will stop by the Gabby's Jar Facebook page to "Like" it, so that you can see updates regarding the gift shop's merchandise, including items from my own Studio 791!

Treasures and Findings

My husband turned to me on Saturday evening and said, "Let us never speak of this weekend again."

You see, while we do not deny ourselves the things in life that we want and need, we consider ourselves to be pretty good stewards of our money.  Through a combination of stores, online shopping, auctions, flea markets, and yard sales, however, we weren't such great stewards over the past few days.

As I took photos of some of my loot to share with you in this post, I felt better about most of my purchases, though...nothing TOO over the top, and lots of fun new fodder for art-making and studio organizing.  Take a look:

For starters, I found a new selection of vintage bottles to alter, a few for 50 cents at a yard sale, and four for $1.50 at a flea market.  I thought the prices were right!

The shadowbox in back was $5 ("firm" according to the seller at the yard sale), and while that was a little more than I wanted to spend, I just couldn't pass it up.

And the fun tool carrier in front was $2, and looks MUCH better now that I have it washed up and ready to store supplies in my studio.  I originally thought it might be good for holding my decorative tape collection, but it also fits four small paint bottles across; I haven't decided its best use yet!

Look at these cute vintage cupcake toppers!  They were in a bag marked 25 cents, but they ended up being free through our yard sale haggling.

I bought this little selection of pewter shakers at the Briggs Auction.

Also at the auction, I bought a selection of envelopes covered in all kinds of postage stamps, including a lot of First Day of Issue envelopes (below):

I really only wanted the envelopes, but the lot came with a pile of old scrapbooks, containing greeting cards from the 1940s and the 1960s.  They ended being more interesting to look through than I expected!

The greeting cards included all kinds of inspiring vintage imagery:

And for those lovers of all things postal out there, check out these stamps:

Finally, also from the auction, I got a box of old block cutting and printing tools and materials.  They aren't in the best of shape, and I'm not sure if they will still be helpful when I start my own stamp carving, but the box is interesting nonetheless!

That about covers my share of the "damage."  With this big influx of STUFF, I'm going to have to continue to work on some more organizational strategies for my studio!