Bad Morning

I had a bad morning. The badness started when I was walking to my car and slipped on the ice and fell. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground making it impossible to tell where there was ice and where there wasn't. Sadly I walked on the icey part and thus ended up on my bottom. My pants of course were soaked and very cold after that, but I didn't have enough time to go back up to the apartment to change them so I ended up wearing wet/cold pants to work. It was still snowing as I drove to work making it a little hard to see and pretty slippery. Unfortunately for me it was really hard to see when I started choking on my own saliva to the point that I had tears running down my face. Thankfully I was able to catch my breath before I ran the car off the road or crashed into something. Needless to say I was VERY careful walking through the parking lot into work this morning. My arms have been a little sore all day today because when I fell I put my hands backwards to prevent my head from smashing into the ground. While I feel that was a wise choice, you know preventing my head from smashing into the ground, my arms still hurt.

Wii

My mother got a Wii for Christmas and neither of us had ever played one before. So last night we broke it out and tried it for the first time. We played bowling, tennis, and baseball. They were all a lot of fun; tennis was the hardest to play for both of us. We both enjoyed bowling the best though, we played that game twice and my mom won the first game and I won the second. It was a little hard to get used to at first, but it was still a lot of fun. We also got some other games with the extra remote, we got ping pong, billiards, duck hunt, and a few others. We haven't even opened the other game yet though, perhaps we will open that one up tonight.

Treasury

I got the chance to make a treasury on Etsy today! It's called Asian Inspired Artists, and it features all items from my Etsy team called Asian Inspired Artists (surprised?). I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=29424

BMI

BMI means Body Mass Index and apparently it can tell you weither you are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. All you have to do is type in your height and your weight and it will give you a number which is your body mass index. Then there's a chart that looks like this:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

The number that you get after you type in your height and weight will fall into one of those categories and it will thus tell you weither you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. Sadly my BMI is 27.3 and I am overweight. I've never thought of myself as being overweight, but apparently I am. Please someone tell me that this isn't necessarily accurate information...lol

Here's the website where you can find out your BMI: http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Happy Holidays!

Well I had a very Merry Christmas. I had to work from 6 am until a little after 3 pm on Christmas Eve, but after that my boyfriend, my son, and my mother went over to my grandparent's house for a Christmas Eve dinner. After dinner we exchanged gifts which was a lot of fun; I got a nice journal from my grandparents. Then Christmas morning my grandparents came over to watch my son open up his presents from Santa. I ended up getting a lot of nice things: I got a nice shirt with matching tank top, a pair of boots, some long underwear, some pj pants, and stocking stuffers from my mom, and I got a super cute set of silky pj's, a Harry Potter book, and a Moomin book from my boyfriend too! I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of things but I got so many nice things that it's hard to remember it all! Later during Christmas day my mom's boyfriend came over and we all went back over to my grandparent's house to celebrate with the rest of my family (i.e. my aunts, uncles, and cousins). All in all I had a good Christmas celebration. Lets hear from my readers, what was your holiday season like? What did you receive as gifts?

Drawing

Well my boyfriend and I have decided to try our hands at drawing. I always thought it would be a lot of fun to start drawing and that it would be a good creative outlet and I happened to voice my opinion on the subject as we were listening to my new Celtic Christmas cd in the car coming home from dinner this past weekend. I said that the music created pictures in my head that made me want to draw and my boyfriend said that he had always wanted to draw as well. So the very next day we set out for Michael's: The Arts and Crafts Store and went ahead and bought 2 drawing pads! We didn't have enough time to start using them last weekend so we have decided to set aside some time to draw this coming weekend. I'm pretty excited about it, actually we are both pretty excited about it. We were wondering if there are any artists out there that have experience with drawing that might have some tips, tricks, or advice? Or perhaps any sort of recommendations? Stay tuned for some pictures of our creations!

Japanese Water Fountain

My boyfriend always finds the coolest things on the internet and he showed me this video of a water fountain in a Japanese mall and I just thought it was so awesome that I new I had to share it with all of my blog readers! I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tP5Ays_eUk

Featured Etsy Seller: LazyTcrochet

Tricia, of LazyTcrochet, has been knitting and crocheting in her spare time as a stay-at-home Mom for many years. Running her shop on Etsy for almost two years has given her the opportunity to create unique and one-of-a-kind designs as well as classic styles and custom orders. She most enjoys making shawls and hats of all kinds. Stop by and visit LazyTcrochet.Etsy.com or contact her for a style to call your own.

Who Will Comfort Toffle?

My amazingly sweet boyfriend made me the happiest woman in the world by being such a sweetheart and buying me the book "Who Will Comfort Toffle?" It's a Moomin book by Tove Jansson. We were just strolling through a sort of indoor flea market type mall called Global Market here in Minneapolis and we were looking at the Scandinavian store because I'm Scandinavian and I wanted to see what they had there and right on the shelf was a Moomin book! I about died right there! So my boyfriend told me that he would buy it for me because he knew it would totally make my day and bring me happiness This book is just amazing! The story it tells and the illistrations are just magnificent. I happen to have some postcards that are from the book, which I think is totally cool, and I am so glad that I can share not only this book with you but also some of the illistrations from it so everyone can enjoy it! :-)

Decorations

Well today my mother and I have taken down our Thanksgiving decorations and have started to unload all of our Christmas decorations. The Christmas tree is now up although it's not decorated yet. Sadly we have to have a fake Christmas tree; our apartment complex doesn't allow us to have a real tree. When I was growing up we always had a real tree and I just loved coming home and being able to smell it throughout the house. I'm looking into getting a candle that will smell like a real Christmas tree, but I highly doubt it will be the same. Tomorrow we plan on finishing the tree and perhaps getting out more of the knick knack type of decorations. I need to clear off our dining room table because my mother has the Dicken's Village houses and she wants to set them up on there. I think it's important to decorate because it helps bring the Christmas spirit into our home and that's important to me because of my son. This is an important season/holiday for children and I want my son to have good memories of the holidays. There's lots more work ahead of us but hopefully it will all look very nice when we're through.

Moomin Postcard #4

I love this Moomin postcard because it has a recipe on it. Granted the recipe is in Finnish so I cannot read it but still I think it's a pretty neat idea to put a recipe on a postcard. Perhaps one of my readers will be able to translate the recipe so we can all try it! :-)

Black Friday Adventures

Yesterday was Black Friday, the day that my mother and I go out for some super shopping. We left on Thanksgiving day at about 8 pm to go stand in line for Best Buy. We were in line for my new computer (yes I'm writing this blog entry on my own new computer...yay!) until they started handing out tickets for items at 3:30 am. As a reminder I live in Minnesota so it was quite the experience to go wait outside for so long! After we got our ticket for my computer we left to go to Kohl's (Best Buy didn't open until 5 am while Kohl's opened at 4 am). After we were done at Kohl's we went back up to Best Buy to use our ticket to get my computer. When we were done at Kohl's we headed up to Target and then went on to Fleet Farm. After that we had to head home to bring my son up to daycare and my boyfriend up to work. Once we were done with that we headed up to Rosedale mall so we could go to Herberger's sale. After that we went to K-Mart and then LeAnn Chin's for a late lunch. It was a super long day and we were both very tired but we ended up getting a lot of good deals so we were happy.

Cool Cams

My boyfriend found these really cool cams and I want to share them with all of my readers. The first one is of a eagle's nest; neither of us have ever gotten to see the eagles yet but hopefully we will soon. The second link is to the panda exhibit at a zoo; we both have seen the pandas and they are so cute! I could seriously watch them for hours. I hope you check them out and enjoy them as much as we have :-)

http://www.briloon.org./watching-wildlife/eagle-cam-live.php

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/default.cfm

Plymouth, MN

As promised here I am to write another entry to my wonderful blog. As most of you probably don't know Plymouth, MN was voted by Money Magazine as the best place to live in the USA. This makes me very happy because I happen to live in Plymouth, MN. I never would have thought that a place like Plymouth would even be considered; of course one never thinks that the place that they live would be voted as the best place to live in the USA. I moved to Plymouth back in 2002 and have lived there ever since (with the exception of going to college during the school year). I have enjoyed living here and I'm proud to say that I'm from the best place to live in the USA!
For further information please visit: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/snapshots/PL2751730.html

Hello!

While I still don't have a computer and I'm still not at 100% health wise, I am feeling a lot better. After 3 trips to Urgent Care I finally am starting to feel better. I will be starting to write about every weekend (my loving boyfriend lets me use his computer on the weekends since mine is out of commission) until I am able to find the energy and time to get out and buy my own computer. For now that's the update, so stay tuned for a normal entry as of next weekend. Yay!

Sorry

I just wanted to appologize to all of my readers. I have been sick and my good old computer has finally bit the dust. I am still not feeling very well and I am in the process of getting a new computer. I will post as often as I can until I am back at 100% (health and computer wise) which is when I will start posting more regularly. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Pet Peeve #3

One thing that drives me nuts is when people are talking on their cell phones while they are alone with someone else. For example when you are out to eat with a friend and they receive a phone call on their cell and they sit and talk to whoever it is for over 5 minutes. Do they notice that while they are chatting away on their phone that you are left sitting there with nothing to do but look at them? Another example would be when you are in the car with your significant other and they receive a phone call on their cell and thus leave you sitting there with nobody to talk to while they chat the car ride away with whoever called them. People need to realize that the person who is right there in front of them is more important than whoever is on the phone; people need to be respectful of the person who is actually spending their time with them instead of whoever is on the phone. I totally understand if you take a phone call from someone like your parent's or a business call and such, but when you are just talking to someone who is insignificant rather than paying attention to the person who you are actually with, you are simply in the wrong and are being extremely rude.

My McDonald's Adventure

Well my son and I went and got McDonalds for dinner tonight. While we were in line to order a hornet landed on my windshield and I was like oh crap! I didn't want to roll down my window when there was a hornet out there on my windshield, so I decided I would just turn on the windshield wipers and it would scooch him off and he would fly away. Well it scooched him off and I didn't see him anymore so I rolled down my window and started to order, and while I was in the middle of ordering he started crawling into my car right by my side review mirror. So I quickly rolled up the window, but he got stuck! His feet were stuck in my window so I didn't want to unroll my window because if I did he would be free, and he was MAD. I could see him stinging my window over and over and over again. So when I got up to the window to pay the lady for our McDonald's I put my car in park, unbuckled, and opened the door to pay her. Then I had to explain to her that a hornet was stuck in my window so she wouldn't think I was crazy or anything. Then I had to get back into my car and drive to the next window to get my food where I had to put the car back in park and get out again to get my food from the guy and once again I told him the story about how the hornet was stuck in my window so I wouldn't look stupid. Well he handed me an extra straw and told me to poke the hornet with it to free him, I was like no way because then he will be free and he will sting me! I told the guy that I was too scared, so he told me to hurry and back up my car and then pull forward closer to the window (I was pretty far away from the window because I knew I was going to have to get out and get the food), so I did what he told me to do and he took a napkin and killed the hornet and got him unstuck from my window. I am so grateful to that McDonald's worker because I'm not sure what I would have done. I probably would have waited until the hornet died before I would open the window! I'm such a chicken sometimes!

September 16th, 1983

Yes it's my birthday today. I'm now officially 25 years old. I'm a quarter of a century old. I'm half way to being over the hill. Not sure how I feel about turning 25 yet. So far it doesn't seem much different than being 24. Worked a lot today, brought cupcakes for my kids and they all really liked them. Got some nice presents from my son, my mom, my mom's boyfriend, and my grandparents. Got bath/shower gel from my son (and a card), got a set of cute pj's and a loofa from my mom (and a card), got a gift certificate to Border Books from my mom's boyfriend, and I got a nice card with some money from my grandparents. I also got a nice card with some money in it from my son's great grandparents on his father's side. Today my mom took me out to my favorite restaurant called Chili's for dinner, I had chicken fajitas and they were super good. All in all turning 25 wasn't so bad, in fact it was kinda fun.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I just wanted to wish everyone the best Mid-Autumn Festival ever! This is a traditional Chinese holiday that's celebrated in the middle of Autumn (duh) which is on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. It is also known as the Moon Festival and people tend to enjoy mooncake during this holiday. This is the second biggest holiday in China (the first is the Chinese Lunar New Year). There are many stories that go along with this Chinese holiday as well. If you would like more information please check out this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

Moomin Postcard #3

I really love this Moomin postcard. The colors are so bright and vibrant yet the image is so peaceful. This is a postcard of Moominmama who is Moomin's mother. You can tell that it's her because of the purse sitting next to her. She isn't always depicted with a rose tucked behind her ear, but that's one of the reasons I love this postcard so much, it makes her look really cute! The hat that she's using is Moominpapa's hat (her husband's and also Moomin's father).

Minnesota Renaissance Festival

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival only comes once a year and it runs on weekends from August 16th to September 28th this year. It also runs on Labor Day and on Festival Friday which is September 26th. It's one of my favorite things to do in Autumn, I haven't gotten the chance to go for the last couple of years. I'm hoping to go again this year though (time is running out). I love the atmosphere there, the food is so good, the entertainment is fantastic, and the shops are filled with unique and diverse items. A must have for me is the beer cheese soup in a bread bowl, it is my all time favorite! I love to go shopping, they have so many different stops featuring so many different kinds of items. I love to get jewelery there, and I also always get some incense. The last time I went there I bought the cutest little hand puppets for my son, one is a knight, one is a horse, and one is a wizard. He just loves them and he plays with them all the time; if I get the chance to go this year I'm hoping to buy him some more. I also think it's really neat how they have themes, they have a different theme for each weekend. The themes this year are: A Silk Road: Discover the Riches (August 16th & 17th), Highland Fling (August 23rd & 24th), Royal Ale Fest (August 30th, 31st & September 1st), Irish Heritage (September 6th & 7th), Wine Gala (September 13th & 14th), Italian Carnival (September 20th & 21st), "Sweet Endings": Chocolate & Romance (September 26th, 27th & 28th). I'm hoping to go during the last weekend, since most of the fair has already passed. I also love how people dress up to go to the fair, someday I hope I will be able to get a beautiful renaissance gown to wear there. It's just so much fun there, hopefully soon you will be reading about how great of a time I had at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival! For more information about the Minnesota Renaissance Festival please visit their site here: http://www.renaissancefest.com/MRF/

Contest

I have entered this photo into The Etsy Challenge. It has been selected to be in the challenge for the week of 9/15. Please come and vote for my photo here: http://etsychallenge.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much to all of you who vote for my cute panda! :-)

I'm Back!

This last weekend I had gone up to the family cabin in Bemidji with my son, grandparent's, my mom and her boyfriend. We all had a really good time. We left on Friday and when we got up there my grandpa took my son on a 4-wheeler ride and the rest of us took a walk down one of our trails. I took my camera in hopes of getting some great photos that I could possibly sell in my Etsy store. On Saturday we went fishing in the morning. It was my son's first time ever being on a boat and he had such a good time. I caught a couple of sunfish from the lake and it was fun watching my son touching the fish and making funny faces because they are so slippery. When we got back to the cabin from fishing we decided to take a trip into town to do some shopping. I really wanted to go to a Native American store that they have up there. I always enjoyed going there as a child. I ended up buying myself and my son some moccasins. We both love them so they were good purchases. After we were done shopping we went back to the cabin, and my mom, my son, and I went on another hike on a different trail before dinner. Sunday morning we decided to go back out onto the lake for some more fishing. I ended up having to use Salami lunchmeat as bait and boy did the fish go crazy for that! I ended up catching about 5 or 6 fish (I lost track!). It was a lot of fun and we would have stayed longer but it was pretty windy out on the lake. I took my son out on another hike when we got back from fishing; it was nice being out in the wilderness alone with him. He's so curious about everything at this age and he's so much fun; I love watching him learn and grow. When we got back to the cabin we started packing up our things before lunch. It's a long trip there and back, it takes about 4 hours each way. Thankfully my son slept for most of the car ride back home (I did too...hehehe). We all had a really good time up there and I'm hoping we will be going back soon.

Stationery

I have decided to share some more of my stationery with matching envelopes collection with you. I hope you like some of the selections that I've made. I have so many to choose from that's it's hard! As my collections grows I will continue to post more pictures! :-)

Sold

I made my very first sale from my Etsy store! I sold a copy of my "Brilliant Buddha" photograph. I'm so excited and so happy! Now that I have a sale I'm hoping that I will get some more. I have heard from talking to other Etsy sellers in the Etsy forums that shops that already have a sale are more likely to get more than shops that have no sales. I'll have to keep you all posted! :-)

Glue Books

I recently did a swap on Swap-bot for a glue book. Glue books are blank journals that you glue pictures in. I used stickers, pictures out of magazines and newspapers, and some pictures off of the internet to make mine. I also printed off some black and white pictures and altered them by coloring them in myself. I also used a background on each page of mine so you wouldn't be able to see any of the original page. So for some of the backgrounds I used things like wrapping paper, fabric, felt, and decorated tissue papers. I have posted some pictures of the one that I made for the swap. My partner loved it which made me super happy, but it was sad letting it go since I put so much work into it. Anyway I hope you enjoy taking a look at the pics and let me know what you think! I'm thinking about hosting my own glue book swap on Swap-bot in a couple of months when things aren't as hectic as they are now, perhaps some of my readers will join! :-)

Featured Etsy Seller: vsilcoxdesigns

This is my second feature of one of my favorite Etsy sellers. All of the artists that I personally select have wonderful shops filled with awesome handmade pieces that I'm very excited to share with you all.

vsilcoxdesigns

Here's my take on it......
Glass painting explores a unique and profound paradox in art. By painting glass, I want the viewer to look at the shadow of the art as well as the art itself. Glass art is unique in that the shadow contains and expresses the composition and color of the art, a reflection, if you will, as well as a shadow. Trying to find where the shadow begins and where the reflection ends leads to the wonderfully infinite paradox that is glass art.

About Me....
Back in 2001, and right after September 11th, I made a life changing decision. On that day, I was sitting in a high rise building in downtown Los Angeles when the news came. Of course we evacuated, and on the long drive home I had plenty of time to think, specifically about how valuable my family was to me, how sad I was for those who were lost, and what choices I had made for my life.

I gave up my 20 plus year career in construction, to persue my passion for art. All my life I had toyed with pen and ink...and I suppose charcoal as well, but I had always envisioned painting glass, wine glasses specifically, so I figured....why not go with the fantasy. And here I am.

I usually average about 35 to 40 art and high craft shows per year, so I'm on the road constantly...from here in Southern California...to the San Francisco Bay Area...to Arizona.

What inspires me?
Light refraction....sounds weird...but it's the absolute truth.

Pet Peeve #2

I have now decided to divulge my second pet peeve. It drives me nuts when people mismatch their accessories. For example why do people wear black socks with brown shoes? Or how about when people wear brown pants with a black belt? I've been known to wear a black coat while carrying a brown purse, but changing purses is a little harder than changing your socks, and yes I did feel a little self pity for having to go out with mismatching accessories due to lack of time. Come on though people, it's not hard to think about things before you put them on. If you are wearing black wear black accessories, if you are going to be wearing brown break out your brown accessories!

Even More ATC's

Ask and you shall receive, so here's some more ATC's that I have made! :-) Hope you enjoy them!

My Little Artist

I have a 3 year old little boy who is the coolest kid in the world. Awhile ago I signed him up for a class called "Art Around the World" where they would learn about a part of the world and then make a form of art that somehow relates to it. I thought I would share some of my son's art work from that class so everyone else will now know how awesome he is!




I hope you enjoyed looking at some of his art, I know I do! :-)

Bento

I have decided to start yet another collection. I have started collecting bento boxes. Bento Boxes are Japanese lunch boxes. I think that they are really cool. So far I only have 2; one has My Melody on it (a Sanrio kawaii character) and the other has Mamegoma (a San-x kawaii character). I have not used either of mine as a lunch box yet though. I'm using the My Melody one to hold some of my ephemera for making ATC's. I just received the Mamegoma one in the mail today from a Swap-bot swap and I love it! It's so cute and it's got two tiers. I'm not sure what I'll be using it for yet, maybe just as decoration. So here's a question for my readers, do you know of any good bento recipes?

Fairwell 2008 Beijing Olympics

It was wonderful and it brings me sadness to see it all ending. This is by far the best Olympics that I've ever seen. The amazing part is that the closing ceremony was just as great as the opening ceremony. It took over 1 million volunteers to run the Beijing Olympics and it was just magnificent. The USA took home the most medals but China took home the most gold medals, both of which makes me very happy. Michael Phelps is now a 14 times Olympic Medalist, and it was a lot of fun watching him swim in all of those competitions.
I also really enjoyed watching the Jamaican runner by the name of Bolt. He is such an entertainer and it's fun to watch him have such a good time winning all of those gold medals. All in all it was a wonderful experience watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics, even though I was only watching it on t.v.

Spain

In the summer of 2001 I went to Spain through the Spanish program at my high school. I was there for 12 days and we went all over Spain. Some of the cities we visited were: Madrid, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Salamanca, Toledo, Burgos, and Caceres. Madrid was a lot of fun because they have so many tourist places and because it's a big city, but my all time favorite city I visited while in Spain was Toledo. It's such a beautiful place with narrow cobblestone streets and flowers hanging everywhere. I also enjoyed Salamanca and the university there. Bilbao is a great place to go because they have the Guggenheim Museum there. One of my favorite exhibits in the museum was called the "White Room" because it was just a room that was totally white. You would have to wear booties in there so you would not get the white floor dirty. When you go in there you have no depth perception because there are no points of reference because everything is white. It was very neat and so much fun. I also enjoyed seeing the Flamenco dancers. You can tell that they are very passionate people and they bring that passion to the stage when they dance. When we went to San Sebastian we got to see the Spanish night life when we all went out to a nightclub there. It was a lot of fun getting to dance along with all of the natives. I also enjoyed getting the chance to see all of the many Cathedrals there, they are so old, so intricate, and just magnificent. One place that I did not get to visit is Barcelona, and I would like to visit there during the Running of the Bulls some day. I also didn't get the chance to see a Bull Fight, and I would like to see one of those some day as well. All in all it was a wonderful trip and I would recommend visiting Spain to anybody who wants to go on a fun vacation/trip.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

The Minnesota State Fair is officially in full swing. I go pretty much every year and I always have a good time. I don't think I'll be going this year though which makes me kind of sad. I have been working an average of 10 hours a day Monday through Friday so I wouldn't be able to go during the week. I'm so tired when the weekend comes and that's really the only time I have to be able to work on my Etsy shop, Etsy Team, and Swap-bot Swaps. The weekends are really the only time I get to hang out with my son too. I have been missing him a lot lately since I have started working so much.

Last year I had a bunch of fun at the fair though. They have so many great things to do and so much yummy food! I bought the Blue Ribbon book (it's available at Cub Foods) that has a bunch of coupons in it and it was such a good deal. One of my favorite things was taking the Sky Glider after it got dark outside, all of the lights looked so beautiful from way up there. Another one of my favorite things was the Butterfly House, I even had some butterflies land on me! I always enjoy the International Bazzar though, that's where they sell wares from all around the world.

Hopefully I'll be able to go next year though, and then Devin will be old enough to be able to stay there for awhile and walk on his own for the most part. Whenever I go it's always a day long adventure because I like to see everything, which can be hard on a 3 year old. So for now I'll be jealous of all the lucky people who get to go, but I can still dream about next year's fair! :-)

Pet Peeve #1

I have some pet peeves and I have decided to share them with as many people as possible in hopes that people will stop getting on my nerves...lol. So my very first pet peeve that I will be discussing in this series is men who check out woman while they are with their significant other. I'm well aware of the fact that woman also do this to men, but I tend to see more men doing this to woman (this could be because I notice it the most when I'm the woman being checked out). Today while I was driving home from work I was stopped at a light and this guy was totally checking me out while his wife (or girlfriend) was sitting right next to him in the car. To me this is just wrong. First off it's wrong because I believe that a man shouldn't be looking at other women when he is in a relationship with someone else. Second if he is the kind of person who believe's "it's ok to look but not to touch" then atleast have enough respect for your significant other to not look at other people right in front of them. To my male readers out there who are thinking, "me looking at another woman isn't hurting anybody," it does. Atleast I would be hurt if I saw my husband (or boyfriend) looking at another woman right in front of me. I guess it all boils down to how much you respect the person you are committted too, and frankly I find the people who do such things as checking people out right in front of their significant others to be atroscious.

Another Moomin Postcard

This is a postcard of Snuftkin. She is Moomin's girlfriend. The only way you can tell her apart from Moomin is her blonde hair and she wears a little anklet. She is my favorite character from Moomin's, and I think Moomin and Snuftkin make a great couple!

Kawaii

Since joining Postcrossing and Swap-bot I have been introduced to the wonderful world of Kawaii. For those of you that are going "Kawaii?" and have no idea what I'm talking about I'm going to explain what it is and what characters I like. Kawaii means cute in Japanese. It's a huge fad over there and it's been spreading to places all over the world. Two of the most famous brands of kawaii are Sanrio, and San-x. Some people are very picky about brands; some people only like Japanese brands and only count those as being kawaii. I on the other hand am not very picky at all when it comes to the brands. I have posted pictures of some of my favorite characters throughout this post so you will have an idea of what I'm talking about. If you want to learn more please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaii

Collections

I am a pack rat, I'll admit it. My room is full of things that I call my treasures (other's call it clutter but I digress). I have a bunch of collections. Some you already know about from previous posts, like my postcard collection and my ATC (Artist Trading Cards) collection. I also collect tea, pencils, stickers, anything to do with Ireland, the Irish, shamrocks, or clovers, pandas, purple unicorns, and stationery with matching envelopes. I have decided to share some of my stationery sets with you today. Here are some of my favorites:





I have many more sets as well, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with my "clutter" and scare you off! :-)

More ATC's (Artist Trading Cards)

Thanks to all of those who took the time to vote in my poll of what you would like to see on my blog. I'm glad to see that people enjoyed looking at my ATC's and I hope you enjoy these ones as well! :-)