New Feature for the New Year!

Okay, so yesterday, I woke up to restored internet service (even though it went down again around 2:30 p.m., argh) and an email that my featured artist interview was posted on the blog of Doyle Jewelry Design! I was so excited that I decided I had to pay this forward, and immediately recruited a whole bunch of my fellow Etsians to feature on my blog throughout the coming year!

I've already got a whole slew of interviews back from people, so starting this week, I will posting at least one interview per week. I want someone else to get the thrill I felt seeing my interview posted on someone else's blog, and I also want to do something else to promote the importance of buying handmade items, particularly in tough economic times,

Speaking of buying handmade, I am nearly finished with my Christmas presents! With the exception of Colden (for whom I bought "crappy plastic toys", as Tom refers to them), I either made gifts for people or purchased handmade items from Etsy. I won't post the items and their pictures on here right now in case someone is reading this and will spoil the surprise, but boy, was I impressed with the range of handmade goods I could get on Etsy!!! I can't wait to post after Christmas with the photos of everything.

I have also decided to upgrade my Flickr account to a "Pro" account. This means that for $24.95 per year, I can post as many photos as I want, or as time will allow.

I have a new set of photos up on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/vanbeads) that is from the show I did in Essex two weeks ago. (I won't go into the details of the show, because it was another disappointing weekend, but this time it was incredibly frustrating because I don't think I actually did anything wrong!) At any rate, I arrived for the last day of show early, and it was cold and snowing that morning, and since the gallery didn't open for half an hour, I decided to walk around with my Nikon and take pictures of Essex. It's a beautiful little community on the shore of Lake Champlain, and some of the photos came out really well, I think. I also would like to think of that set of photos as a tribute to my mom, who was a wonderful photographer who truly loved her subjects.

As I get ready for Christmas this year, I can honestly say that I have never approached the holiday with such mixed emotions. This is the first Christmas without my mom, and that is going to be very, very difficult for me. On the other hand, this is Colden's first Christmas, and being the kid-at-heart that I am, I am pulling out all the stops for my little man! (He is lying next to me here, fast asleep, completely unaware of my plans for his first Christmas bash!)

Now that I am (nearly) done with Christmas presents, I am going to take some time this week to bake. That's right, you read right - to bake! Baking is a talent that I believed that I did not possess until I was about five months pregnant, and all of a sudden, I found myself baking jelly-filled whole wheat muffins, cheddar cheese scones, peanut butter cookies, and my favorite, my grandmother's recipe for Merry Christmas cookies! I also found that I could bake cakes (Mississippi Mud Cake being a favorite) and boiled spice cakes from a recipe in Vegetarian Times. Yummmmm... So, this week, I am going to devote some time to making some of those aforementioned Merry Christmas cookies, a boiled spice cake, and some peanut butter cookies, preferrably with the little Hershey Kisses smooshed into the top! (I gotta figure out how my grandmother used to do that.)

So, stay tuned for the first interview and for some new photos of my new work coming in the next few days!