I Have Moved!!

You can now find me blogging away at

     shabbycottagestudio.net

Thank you to all my followers and for all these years at Blogger!
I hope you come follow me over at the new place!

It's a Done Deal!

Yes I did it!  I am ready to direct you all to my new home.  And I am admittedly very nervous!  It's a new venture, a step outside ye old comfort zone, after all I've been with Blogger for five years, and so, self-doubt crows loudly in my ear for the moment. But I tell myself that I'm old enough to realize I must ignore these taunts and just keep moving on.  And so I shall.

I even have my own domain now for the new blog.  You can find me at shabbycottagestudio.net

And I'm having a giveaway to welcome you to my new home!  

So I hope you will stop by and link to me and I can be back in business again.

As some of you suggested in an earlier post,  I checked out Google reader, and my goodness I was surprised at how easy it is to use to follow blogs! No wonder you use it!  And by using Google Reader Subscription I found I can follow any blog I want, not just a blogger blog!  I have some friends on Typepad and Wordpress and have already added them!  I added the subscriber to my favorites so it's easy now, when I visit a blog I want to follow I click on the subscriber link I bookmarked, simply hit the subscribe button and BOOM it is added to my list.  Why did I not know of this earlier! LOL  I may be mad at Google for screwing up my blog, but this seems like a good thing they offer. 

So, fare thee well Blogger old friend. The time has come to move on.

See you my lovely friends at my new home!
http://www.shabbycottagestudio.net/

xoxox

Change

Yep that is me, right here, right now.

You know I don't usually revert to my blog to complain but I need a moment. 

I think I am feeling my age.  It seems there is something in the air, and while it has been there for quite some time, here lately it seems even worse. Like a bad smell gone overly bad. Since I did recently have a birthday  I keep telling myself it's not worse, it's just me.  Getting old. 

What ARE you talking about Gail you might ask.  I'm talking about technology and change.  Everywhere I go these days I am confronted by change I don't want and don't even like. 

Now I don't mind change when it truly helps me and makes my life easier, or better or more enriched.  But not all change is necessarily good is it?

I used to like Google.  I still depend on Google to be my search engine...you can't beat it.  But I really don't want Google taking over the internet as they seem wont to do lately.  I can no longer get into any of my blogs easily and have to go about it in a convoluted manner because Google wants to connect all of me and my accounts to Google.  Whether I want to be connected or not. 

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I was thinking about this and I have made up my mind.  I am moving my blog.  I will keep you updated.  I am still working on the new one.  And I will gladly tell Google to keep their nose out of it.

I used to like Etsy.  But every time they make a change over there it simply makes more work for me.  Now I don't mind work.  I am an extremely hard worker and put in many, many hours working my businesses.  But I believe in working smarter not harder.  Because eventually I run out of hours in the day to get everything done.

If you present me with a change that allows me to do less clicking, less scrolling, less writing, less figuring things out, less key tapping, less anything...hey, I'm all for it! But when I have to do more of all this I cry foul! 

So I'm thinking about closing my Etsy store. Because when is to much, to much? It's  hard enough without these online companies constantly changing things.  And every time a company says...Hey Guess What! we've made a change to make things better, they are not usually changes for the better for me...simply changes that make what I do take longer. 

I don't hate technology, technology does help me run my businesses.  But hey, technology we don't need changes every few nanoseconds. Give me less steps not more! 

Okay lovlies thank you for the moment and your ear.  I feel better. 

Now I have to get back to work

because I hear someone else making a change I probably won't like either. ;-)

Bits and Pieces

A cuh-raaazy week.

Lots of pictures to share. :-)

First I want to thank my friend Suzy Quaife from http://www.suziqusthreadworks.blogspot.com/.  I entered a giveaway she was having and actually won!  That rarely happens to me so I was thrilled!  And I am so honored to have one of Suzi's gorgeous bags. 

It came wrapped so prettily all the way from NSW Australia!

   My photography skills do not do you justice Suzi dear!

Can you see all the detail?

And even sweet little goodies tucked inside.

Suzi's gift will be treasured forever.  If you have not met Suzi and her FABulous threadworks you are missing some real beauty.  When you visit Suzi's blog look for the pictures of her garden.  I told Suzi I would like to live in her garden.  It looks to be created of magic and fairy tales.

 Last week we were rainy and cold enough to turn the heat back on and kept us from getting the garden finished planted.  But now I do believe we are finally settling into late spring/summer weather.  The tomatoes are in and tonight Mr Shabby and my dad put in the corn.  Yum!

The Queen came to visit this week!

I inherited my bed of Queen Anne's Lace when we bought the house. 

Lucky me!

The Roses and Peonies are running riot!

This year they have a new guardian

Mr Shabby dubbed her Birdmommy.

She sits in front of a tall bird feeder and there is a birdhouse above her to the right that is filled with baby Starlings right now.  We have enjoyed watching mom and dad both diligently taking turns feeding their brood.

Of course I had to bring some flowers into the house!

To lovely not to enjoy them inside and out.

A close up of the Queen Anne's Lace.

I loved this image so much I had to play with it in Photoshop. Above and below are two samples of what the ladies are learning to do over in my new class Down and Dirty the Digital Way.

Aren't they fun?!  Texture can be soft and subtle just as much as it can be grungy and distressed.

I can teach you how to do this to your own images.

There is a new class starting over at Creative Workshops June 13.

It's called Whimsical Landscape Painting with Mechelle Harrison.

This painting actually starts with texture.  Come check it out!

Artful Gathering is picking up speed like a bullet train and we are being consumed with keeping track of a thousand little details, learning so much along the way.  Video segments are rolling in from our teachers and let me tell you they ROCK!!!!!!!  There is so much you can learn at this event.  So save your pennies and make some time  this summer for some fun!

Elizabeth Johnson is one of our Artful Gathering teachers and in her workshop she will teach you how to draw the most adorable little Bluebird and then add color.  Here is a little video of Elizabeth drawing a Hummingbird.

Mom, Dad and Molly taking a little break, enjoying the gorgeous weather and sweet breeze. Mousey is creeping behind the swing.  Mousey follows my Dad everywhere and she and Molly are good friends.

Happy Sunday lovlies!  If I'm not posting as often you know I'm simply buried in work but that it will soon be better. :-)  

Journal Winner

Just in case you thought I forgot about the Journal Giveaway from our Birthday sale...I didn't. :-)  Just had a little craziness going on.

Our winner is Linda of Charmed Victorian!  Congratulations to Linda and thank you everyone who left a comment and came by the store to take advantage of the great savings!