*The following entry was copied and pasted from my AOL blog. Since AOL blogs will be shutting down at the end of the month, this will be my new home! Thanks so so much for following me over here! I am just getting the hang of this, and hope to "pretty up" this page very soon!! For now...this generic template। (Actually not too bad...reminds me of those fancy brown and gold patisserie baking cups)
This will be one of my last posts on this blog...well, my blog will continue but this blog address and this AOL format will cease to exist. Just a few days ago I received notice that AOL Journals will be shutting down for good by the end of this month. That's it! After two years of posting and doing my best to spread the word about this blog, I get a mere 30 day notice that this blog and all other AOL blogs will be gone forever!
I didn't take this news well. I definitely shed some tears, lost some sleep, and I've just been a ball of anxiety. Granted, I know that I can just get a new account over at Blogger...( In fact, I already have one and I'm posting this same post over there)...but right here and now is just not a good time for me to have to start something from scratch. Me and Aar are way too busy this time of year and I'm not looking forward to having to take the time to figure out how to work within a new blog format. I really cannot get over the fact that AOL only gave us a 30 day warning! As soon as I found out that AOL Journals was disappearing I went and took a look at a ton of other AOL journals. I feel so terrible for all these people that are going to lose their blogs. Some people have their entire lives up here! Some blogs are of women who battled breast cancer and even though they've passed away, their blogs live on. It's just NOT fair that we were given this format to wholeheartedly pour our lives into, just for it to be snatched away in an instant with barely a warning and absolutely no explanation!!
But don't get me wrong. I don't for one second think that this is the end of something. I know that this is just the beginning of an all new blog and I know that there is a silver lining. Blogger is a much more user friendly format. AND I'll have a much more esthetically pleasing blog. A customized banner, NO ADVERTISEMENTS!!YES!... Right now I've just got the basic Blogger template and it certainly won't stay like this. I hope to get it looking more like the way our website looks...(the website which is still not finished...me and Aar have been nightmare clients for Hope I'm sure...she's putting our website together and we've backburnered that task for an eternity...Hope has the patience of a saint! ) But anyway...now that I'm moving to Blogger it will be so so so so much easier for you guys to leave a comment! Thank goodness!! My girl Heidi, a fellow AOL blogger got the same news as me but she is totally a glass half full type. She ran right over to Blogger, set up a new home, prettied it up, posted, and it looks great! She is such an inspiration. I hope that a little of her get up and go rubs off on me to help me through this transition.
Well, that's the upside. Here's the major downside: My Archives! I cannot and will not lose my archives! A blog is not a blog without archives. Besides that...it's a huge chunk of my life that exists in a way that should've been everlasting. Birthdays, anniversaries, My little brother Walt's cross country days, his prom, graduation...My Brother Jay in the hospital...roadtrips, memories...too much stuff. It would be downright criminal to let it all just disappear into a cyber blackhole. And without some hard work on my part, that's precisely what will happen come October 31st. See, AOL told us that our blogs were disappearing. But they reassuringly told us that we can just transfer our accounts over to Blogger. Unfortunately, there is nothing reassuring about this news. You cannot simply float your entire blog over to Blogger...all I'll be able to do is start a new blog over there. Getting my archives over to the new address is totally up to me. I'll have to find a way to save all of my archives...photos, links, text etc... And then once I've got them safely stored somewhere...I'll have to manually re-post all of those past archives to a new blog over at Blogger. It will take months!!! Insane right? But completely and totally NECESSARY! I need those archives...and I need them available for the world to see! So that's why I'm stressing over here. I've got a lot of work ahead of me and it's all a bit unnerving because there's the fear that all those archives could be lost through some technical glitch. My current plan is to have a new blog over at Blogger and a separate address for my archives....That way, I can blog on a regular schedule and take my time with manually posting the archives. Whew! now I feel like I just dumped all my anxiety onto you guys...I'm so sorry for that. I'll move on to better and brighter subjects. But for now, if you're reading me on Blogger, be sure to bookmark the new address and please leave me a comment to welcome me to the new neighborhood! : )
Ok, what else...I just sent our Sweet & Sinister Swap tutorial over to Kari Artsymama. And yes, I said our. Meaning me and Aaron both did it. He was side by side with me, cutting, sketching, gluing. The project is something really cool that we designed specifically to be a tutorial for the Sweet & Sinister Swap. And even though it was hard work, doing the project kinda served as a recreational activity for us. Every once in a while you get to do some work that's a total pleasure to do. Well, I guess that's the whole point of crafting, scrap booking, etc...we better be having some fun while we're at it right?! : )Anyway, I can't divulge what the project is or show any pictures because I'm sure Kari would like to keep it exclusive for the members of the Sweet & Sinister Blog, but if you go to her personal blog you can see a little shot of it...it's a mobile of crows. I just wanted to mention it here to remind you to check it out if you're signed up for the S & S blog. Our tutorial isn't posted yet but it'll be up there soon. I hope a lot of people do our project because I'd love to see how people improve upon it. That's what me and Aar love most about teaching classes or making kits...seeing everyone's individual take on the project. I'll certainly show our finished project here on this blog but I gotta wait 'til Kari is through with it.
And speaking of the finished project...it's actually hanging in our living room right now and I think it'll stay year 'round. We've been chipping away at our Fall/Halloween decor but a lot of our Good Stuff is up in my sister Missy's attic. She lives directly behind us...it may as well be the same building it's so close. I hope to get up there soon so I can fully decorate. I have a bunch of new Halloween goodies that came in the mail that I badly want to show off but I gotta hold off 'til I can display them in style along with everything else.
Kimberlee Edgar, a super sweet friend and big inspiration of mine, sent me this awesome box of Halloween surprises. So much fun!!! You HAVE to pop over to her blog to see pics from her latest show (Halloween and Vine) ! Her offerings are so utterly fantastic! And her home!...well I've said so much about her before. Just trust me and follow the link to her world...you'll be so glad you did!
Ok, I've been wanting to share these cupcakes with you for a while!! I'm not sure exactly what kept me from doing so...but anyway, here they are now!! Yes, they are CERAMIC! They were made custom for me by the outrageously talented Heather L. Cunningham. She is yet another reason why I am in love with Flickr, because Flickr is where I found her. I came across her in the middle of my billionth "cupcakes" search. I saw some custom cupcakes she did for Baby Cakes, a bakery in NYC...the ceramic cupcakes were for their window display. I nearly died when I saw them!! I emailed Heather instantly and asked her if she'd consider "baking" more. Well, as you can see from my fab collection...the answer was YES!! She is a master ceramicist, fine artist, potter, crafter...and sooooo darn nice!! I love these so so much. They are simply perfection. You can see her stuff on Flickr and she's got an Etsy shop. These cupcakes are only the tip of her artistic iceberg so go check her out. These are totally heirloom quality and they're fool proof gifts...because of their size (lifesize)...the fact that they're ceramic...and who does not love cupcakes?! And they're perfect for anywhere...kitchen, office, baby's nursery, nightstand...listen to my sales pitch...and I'm not a compensated sponsor...that's proof that I really do love these!!
Hey, I've been meaning to ask you blog readers....Anyone on Facebook??? If so, come find me! Or drop me a comment here with your Facebook name so I can go find you! : )
And lastly, I've got some more flea market finds over on Etsy as well as some crafty goodies and organizational stuff for the studio...so go check it out. And I'll leave you with an enticing image of some Macaroons...in coconut and almond. They come from a place called...you guessed it: The Macaroon Shop. It's right down the road from where I live. Aar picked 'em up on his way back from K Mart I believe! Didn't you know that he always adds "bakery-pit-stop-time" into his errand schedule?!
