Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

I hope everyone had a joyous holiday surrounded by the ones they love!!!!

PLEASE, PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

This is the true story of a 5-yr old Lititz girl, Hannah Garman, who was diagnosed with glioblastom a multiform, a rare and incurable brain tumor. She has been given 12 weeks to live and is currently in her 7th week. She was going to be the flower girl at a wedding in May, but was diagnosed a week after we asked her to be the flower girl. This is especially sad because her mother died 2 yrs ago from breast cancer. Right now she has lost most of her motor skills. She is confined to bed and cannot really do anything or play with the gifts she is getting from people, but she LOVES getting cards - she has gotten so many from people she does not know and just loves to have grandma read about the people who send them and see their pictures and is so proud of all her cards. Her room is just filled with cards. When asked what she wants for Christmas she said she wants to see how many Chri st mas cards she can get. Many people have passed this wish along to their churches, prayer groups, friends and family. There are school groups where children are making her cards. People are including pictures so she can see who it is that is sending her the card. If you would like to help with her wish, you can send a card to her at:

Hannah Garman
704 Orchard Rd
Lititz, PA 17543

THANKS! Feel free to pass this along to your own prayer group, church, school, etc. Let's see if we can have the cards coming in big postal bags for her this Christmas, since it will be her last holiday.

Updates

Well we are all kinda-sorta feeling better. Thank goodness! I feel like its been forever since i posted anything. We went to North Carolina for Thanksgiving and had a great time. It was so nice seeing family that I hadn't seen in years.


This is a pic of my granddaddy and grandma and all his grandchildren. He is such an amazing man. Talk about the true southern gentleman! He owned his own furniture company which made the most beautiful handcrafted pieces. He is a collector of musical instruments and actually has quite a few in museums. Some of the pieces he has are 100s of years old. My best memories are of going to his house and hearing him talk about and play all of the instruments. Sadly he is not doing well this year and we are all praying that we get to keep him til after the holidays.

Little Ean loved my mothers farm. Especially chasing the cats!

I finally got around to decorating for Christmas. I am WAY behind this year. I usually do it the day after Thanksgiving. I made the stockings 2 years ago and added little Eans last year. If you click on the pic you will see that I embroidered our initials on them. When we had our 2nd son, our first pointed out that our names were the alphabet.....Austin, Brogan, Christina and Daryl. So of course with the 3rd we had to continue that, thus Ean got his name. And yes if we have more we will keep going...lol!
this Christmas has me feeling more nostalgic. Maybe its the impending loss of my grandaddy or just how fast time flies. I find that the older I get the more appreciative I get of traits that I can claim I got from my ancestors.

Like sewing. My mother and grandmother both were sewers. I remember my mother making me some beautiful little jumpers when I was little and being so proud to wear them. I think this is why my favorite song is "Coat of many colors" by Dolly Parton. I love sewing. Not just bags....ANYTHING!!!! I made the star wall hanging that's in the pic above, and I made quite a few of these quilted wall hangings below.


I also love painting. I think I get that from my dad. I remember when I was younger he would always have these elaborate pencils pictures that he had colored. I still have one that I would love to get framed some day. This is a snowman painting that I did a few years ago. I absolutely love how it turned out. The stars were aligned that night!

I would love to hear from you.....what are you most grateful for from your family?

Missing in action

So I've been MIA for awhile....it seems sick season has hit our house.....2 with strep throat, one with pink eye and for the others the stomach flu! I have tons of pics to post and things to say and gifts to send and I hope to get it all done this weekend! Wish me luck!

Grand Opening!!!!!

Well ladies, its here! The grand opening of my store. What a work of joy? it has been. I hope it all goes well, or at least sells well...lol! The winner of part 2 is SUE!!!! Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement. Sue go ahead and pick out what you want from the small or medium size bags. Let me know your address too and it will be yours! :)

Twilight

I went to the midnight showing of Twilight last night with a bunch of friends and it was AMAZING! I thought the movie was exactly like the book and Edward was hot, hot, hot! I'm ready for #2, #3 and #4 to come out now!

The Winner and Give-away Part 2

By means of a very sophisticated selection process........


Ashley is the winner! Check out the store on Sunday and pick your set out! Dont forget to send me your address!

Now I think I'm going to combine the 2nd and 3rd give-away, see'ing as how the site will be opened on Sunday. So I'm going to give away a complete set......bag, key chain and coin purse! And........you will get to pick the set you want from my site! So just leave me a comment and if you havent yet.....add my graphic to your site!

:)

Give-a-way part 1

Well ladies the website will be up on Sunday! So I will be doing 3 give-a-ways this week. The first one is for a coin purse and key fob set. You get to pick the print! To win just copy this graphic and post it on your blog with a link to my website and leave me a comment telling me you did it. For an extra entry tell me what your favorite color is! Good Luck!

what the *&&*#$%@@

Okay, deep breath in and slowly exhale. I have been on this computer for, oh, about 5 hours trying to get my website set up. Did I ever mention that I am a complete computer idiot? Did I mention that I always over-estimate my abilities? Well I am and I have. I am soooooo frustrated, I sent off a really nasty email to tech support ( it was really nasty, 5 hours of nothing...last one with a screaming 1 yr old in my lap...yeah, not pretty) and now I'm worried their going to say see ya and not help me. I need a teenager.....quick.....they always know what to do! BUT, I will persevere, if for no other reason than I'm to damn stubborn to quit.



by the way.....you can kinda check out a little of what my site will look like, go to www.bumblebeebagz.com

let me know what you think


Oh, I will be starting the give-aways next week so be on the lookout!

History

Can I say how amazing it is to be a part of history? I may not have voted for him but I am proud of Obama as the first black president. How many people out there thought that a day like this would never come...a black man as president. Now ALL of our children can know that ANYTHING is possible if you have a dream!

Go Vote!

Today is an important day! Today you get to pick who will lead this country. Please go out and vote. It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is, it only matters that you exercise the right that millions have died to give you. It wasn't that very long ago when us women were denied the right to vote, my ancestors and yours worked endless hours to change all that, and for us to sit at home and not vote is a slap in their face! So come on everyone.......GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!!!



ps: if your vote is Democratic you can stay home....lol!


pss: I'm only joking!

what beautiful pictures

A friend of mine sent me these pictures that she took of my kids. I absolutely love them. This one of Brogan just captures his curiosity so well. Anything that has to do with bugs and he's there.

and how can you resist this guy. How could he ever be bad?

web shop fever

Well I finally got back the graphics for my website from the wonderful man who is doing all the design work for me and let me tell you........IT IS GORGEOUS!!!!!! I cannot wait to get this baby up and running. I don't think it will be on the 4th , but I'm hoping it will be in the next 2 weeks. There's alot of loose ends to tie up and I have to get a better camera to take pics of my bags. Until then...STAY TUNED, because I will be having a give-away a day the three days leading up to the grand opening. I'll be posting next week and giving you all the details. xoxo

The Wedding

The wedding is over and it was beautiful. Here are some pics of everything. They got married on the steps facing us. My husband carved the pumpkins to make a personal touch for them. I think it turned out nice. I was soooo stressing that everything would not look good, but it all came together.




I glittered a ton of little white pumpkins and lined the fireplace mantle with them and white lights.

These are (obviously ) the table centerpieces. I used double stick tape on the votive's and wrapped corn husks around them. I also used more little glitter pumpkins.

and this was their party favors. I made 90 caramel apples. Yep...me....alone...all day!!!! My pic is crappy but the card says " Amy & Joe The apple of each others eye! " I'm glad the day is done now I can sleep!

Fall Fun

We took the boys to this great little place called "Fox Swamp Farms" last weekend. I needed to pick up all the pumpkins and mums for the wedding. I just love that place!

Austin picked out his pumpkin

So did the little man

Okay, I know I'm biased because I'm his mom, but seriously ain't he a beauty!!!

We got to go on a wagon ride to and from the pumpkin fields.

It was a hit with Ean.
We were one boy short (he was with his friends) but it was a wonderful family day!

wedding fever!

I have a wedding that I am doing ALL the decorating for on Friday. I have been so busy making the decorations that I have not sewed a thing all week (not to good). But.....I cannot wait to show you the pics of the wedding. I think its going to be gorgeous. Wish me luck!

Cleanin' Up!

My sewing area is a mess. Well it used to be anyway. On Saturday I took big boy to his football game ( end score 21-7 WAY TO GO BULLDOGS! ) and on the way I spied this little beauty. It was instant love...and for 15$ it was mine!

I brought her home and gave her some TLC. I ripped out the old shelving and replaced the UGLY white handles with prettier ones.

this was the shelving......UGH!

Then since I was feeling so adventurous I tackled this.....I mean really.....how can I yell at my boys about their room when my sewing area looks like this?
but...........TA!DA!

look at her now. Ain't she lovely!

I organized all my tools and put all my odds and ends in jars. I even hung up my embroidery hoops on the other side.

so neat......so organized
I hope I can keep it looking this way!

I'm sure my husband hopes so too :)

Coming Soon!

A little bit of this.... A little bit of that

A little bit of ric.....A little bit of rac......

I just wanted to let everyone know that I may be MIA for awhile. I have about 5 bags done for the November 1st and 22nd crafts shows. Sooooo......I need to be sewing and NOT typing..lol! But......I have great news, I will be opening my shop on November 4th, but it will not be with Etsy. I have been creating my own little website that I am so stinking proud of! Okay that sounded a little fanatic, but seriously I have poured my heart and soul into this.

Stay tuned!!!!

Happy Birthday!

I cannot believe my little man is 1. Where does the time go? He loved the gifts but I think the cake was the biggest hit! It was decorated by his big brothers. I think they did a great job.
Ean sure loved eating it.......mommy sure loved cleaning him up!
Happy Birthday my beautiful little boy!

black and white love!!!

I don't know how many of you watch Project Runway but I am totally hooked. Last week they had on Diane von Fustenberg (I think that's how you spell it) and one of the designers made a dress out of black and white material with canary yellow trim. It was hot! Well of course my little brain immediately started thinking of a bag. Not with yellow....but hot pink! I saw this material and was hooked. I think the colors just pop against each other.

I am totally in love with this bag. From the colors to all the pockets (there are 7) it screams my name. I felt like the seagulls from Nemo when I was sewing this......mine,mine,mine,mine,mine.......lol!

ps. excuse the massy photos, I had to show off the bag at my sons first football game today, in pouring down rain, and the bag was wet!

Give-a-way!!!

The marvelous Dena at Sugar Shop is having a fabric give-away! Go check it out!