Bee's Buzzings

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

Making progress

Aren't these little guys just SO cute??  A glass mirror on one side, and sweet Holiday motifs on the other!  They make great stocking stuffers or hostess gifts. Or keep a supply on hand for those unexpected gift-swapping situations :)

In addition to finally getting some holiday images set up for pocket mirrors, I'm also thrilled to say that I'm making progress in another area of my life as well - and am down another 1.5 pounds this week (for a total of 4.5 so far).  One thing is certain - it's a LOT easier to jog with 4.5 fewer pounds!  Which gives me additional motivation to keep going. 

Will let you know how it continues, but I do know the timing is finally right for me to focus on this now.

In addition to the extra fitness and studio time, we've also been busy with the girls' fall sporting events, yard chores and Vikings football. I love autumn and all the activities we're involved with this time of year!

Hope you have a great night!

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 :)

Lots of updates . . . and the start of an early winter

I'm always amazed at how quickly time goes by.  It seems every time I turn around another 3 weeks has passed since my last blog post!!  Will try and do better about keeping up. I mean, it's certainly not for a lack of things to share. Since the last post we've had two more birthdays (Katie's 20th and Kristi's 16th) and we also made a big decision about our house.   

Jim and I were both pretty excited about the idea of downsizing and fast-forwarding our plans for an eventual lake place.  So we priced our home somewhat realistically to start (about 10% off 2007 values) . . . or so we thought.  Well, the price brought in a handful of showings - so it must have been 'fair' at the very least.  But things weren't moving as quickly as we'd have liked so we did the updates mentioned earlier (hardwood and appliances), and as further incentive we dropped the price $30,000 in hopes of enticing a quick sale . . . and were unpleasantly surprised to have the showings drop off along with our price.

So after a few weeks of practically no showings we finally decided to drop the price another $23,000 - which put us within about $10,000 of our bottom that we were willing to take.  Of course this would bring some buyers in, right?  Wrong. Nada.  Seriously not one phone call.  So rather than continue to kick ourselves, we finally looked deeper into the market and realized that the statistics spoke for themselves.  Of the 22 homes in our school district in a $200,000 range around our home's value that had come off the market in the previous month, only 2 had sold.  Two additional homes were 'pending' and the other 18 had expired or canceled the listings.  And of those sold and/or pending, I'm willing to bet most if not all were bank owned, and selling at a 30% discount.  Bottom line, having the house on the market proved to be an exercise in futility.

The good news?  There's really nothing about this house I don't like - it's just a little too big for our lives at this point.  But it's now also clean, repair-free, updated and de-cluttered.  Which makes it much easier to keep clean.  So, there IS a silver lining in every cloud!  And now that everything here is in order, I can once again turn my attention back to my studio and some new art - after all the holidays are approaching quickly, too!

Quite frankly, if the recent weather here is an indicator of what this winter is going to be like, I'm feeling VERY thankful we're not moving . . . check out this porch scene out from a week or so ago . . . brrrrrrrrr!

So be on the look out for new art, and (finally!) some contest winners in the weeks ahead.  Maybe even some spontaneous winners . . . peek back often and you may be one of them :)

Classic, Handmade Art . . . Antique Art :)

I spied these wonderful birds at my Aunt's house last February, and have been enamored with them ever since.  Don't you just love them??  And though I've forgotten all the details of their origin (I believe she said they were made by a relative of my uncle's close to a century ago) needless to say their charm will bring smiles to faces for many, many years to come.  It's one of the reasons I love being a 'handmade' artist so much.  And I'm hoping to some day soon bring more 3-D art to life in my own studio.

As you know, It's been another busy year.  But being an eternal optimist, I continue to believe that things will 'settle down' soon so that I might finally achieve a balance with work, home, kids and life that yields less stress, but more accomplishments.  These birds will continue to be my inspiration as I work towards that goal. 

Sometimes keeping it simple and getting back to the basics ensures the longevity of an object, or in this case - a way of life.

Thanks for the wonderful comments of late, and hope things are peaceful and looking brighter where you are, too.  :)

Before and After House Photos

our Family Room - after hardwood was added to the room and the existing hardwood was refinished (kitchen, under barstools, foyer and hallway)

our Kitchen - after floors were re-finished, some existing furniture was enameled and new stainless steel appliances were installed

Love the updated look - we really are pleased with the results!  Now we just hope someone else falls in love with the house and makes us an offer  :)

but if not, I'm very happy with my early Christmas and Birthday gifts!  LOL

hugs,  Bee

Little Gifts or Stocking Stuffers for your Special Girl - Tween, Teen, or just Young at Heart

These personalized pocket mirrors are available in over 25 designs and are personalized with ANY name!  $7.50 each when purchased individually, or as little as $4-$5 each when ordered in larger quantities.  In my Etsy Shop

Think how cute these would look tied onto a small hostess gifts or Secret Santa offering.  And a great idea for a Tween's birthday party - what a unique and personal Party Favor idea!  So don't limit your thoughts to just Stocking Stuffers . . .

and how cute is this packaging?

Plan ahead, and order yours now before the chaos of the holidays is upon us!   :)

House pictures . . . as promised

Well, not long after putting our home on the market, Jim and I made a decision to perfect the imperfections.  A backwards move, I know, but four kids and four pets had wrought enough wear and tear on the Family Room carpet to warrant it being replaced, and the existing hardwood floors were in need of a refinishing.  In our little pipe dream world, we'd hoped that potential buyers could see past these flaws, but soon discovered with buyers SO few and far between nothing less than immaculate would pass muster.

So instead of replacing the carpet with more carpet, we ripped it up and had hardwood installed all the way into the Family Room instead of just partway.  We also had the existing hardwood floors stripped and refinished.  I must say, they're looking quite spectacular now!  And since we had the house 'unavailable for showing' anyway, we also decided to spring for new stainless steel appliances in the kitchen - they're being delivered on Friday.

It's still a work in progress, but as promised, here are some more photos of the house . . .  The Dining Room, with built in cherry cabinets, buffet and lighted china display.  The Kitchen with 'before' appliances.  Can't wait for the new stainless steel ones to arrive it two days!  And the Foyer, with the now gleaming hardwood floors (final top coat is being applied as I type this!)

Busy as a Bee . . . we put our house on the market!

Wow, time flies!  Especially when you decide to put your house on the market and set a deadline to have it 'show ready'

As everyone these days knows, it's not the best time to be selling a house.  But after Jim and I spent a fabulous weekend up in Lake Vermilion in June, we started talking about what was really important to us. 

Top things?  Family (of course) and having more fun time with each other and the kids.  It seems most of the past 10 years I've spent my vacation time and resources traveling out to the East Coast for family milestones or just extended visits to see everyone since they're scattered among 5 states.  And since I'd married Jim and we became a blended family, we'd never really been able to do much as a family of six for one reason or another.  But as our older two kids start building lives of their own (they're both turning 20 soon, and the younger two aren't too far behind) we know it's time to focus on new traditions and a new lifestyle here closer to home. 

Ideally, we'd really like to get a lot and build a place of our own up in Northern Minnesota.  It would be a get away for us as a couple, an eventual retirement spot, and also to create some new family traditions with our children.  And as fast as time seems to be going by, I must mention the inevitable spouses and grandkids we will likely be seeing in the next 10 years.

So downsizing was our logical conclusion.  We love our house, but would really like a slightly smaller, more relaxation-friendly spot here in the school district (read: Pool).  And then we'll start looking for land . . . somewhere "Up North"  :)

We're also realists, and recognize that unless we're ready to compete with bank owned homes, the chances of selling at a reasonable price aren't all that great.  And we're not willing to go too low.  In that case we'll just stay and plan on selling after the younger two graduate from high school.

So please wish us luck!  I'll share some more photos soon.

Bee

p.s. hope your summer included some travel and R&R - would love to hear about it!

Sometimes I think . . .

that I just never grew up.  Seriously.  I'd paint and doodle and cut and paste and make things all day long, and never tire of it.

Things keeping me busy (besides the house & family):

• New Website - yayy!
• New Art - keep an eye out in the shops, it'll be there soon :)
• Cleaning up the Studio

Hope you're all having a wonderful week!