To Craft Show or Not to Craft Show?

I know I think I'm late for any craft shows this year anyway.  I have done 3 craft shows in the past but I only sold crafty things. Crafty things such as; guitar pick earrings, heating pads, kid's ice packs....that sort of thing.  Well I have come to the relization that I don't really enjoy making those things, they just sell a lot faster than original artwork.  Now that I'm full on doing my artwork and getting into making prints, I'm wondering if I want to throw down the money to make prints to do an arts & crafts show.  Am I going to dig myself a money pit?  When you see artwork, it's always displayed in a wonderful professional way.  Well, I would want to jazz it up a little bit.  make it more funky and exciting for people. 

Has anyone done an arts and craft show with their artwork and prints? How well did you do?  How was your setup? 

Invasion Of The Girls!!!!

My sister and sister-in-law has given birth within 5 days of eachother! Both girls!  This gives Anya (my daughter) two more cousins added with her other cousins born within months of herself. Both girls also!  That totals of a whopping 4 girl cousins all within 1yr 1/2 of her age!  I don't know about you, but I would have loved to have had cousins close in my age!  I have one who lives in California and we were fast friends.  We loved hanging out with eachother.  The bad thing is she lives so far away I havent seen her in probably 10 or so years.  Anya will have so much fun growing up to know them!! Although, with fun comes trouble!!  I can only imagine.  This is so exciting for our family, but the question reamins....when will we get a boy in our family????!!!!  All the pressure is on me now. Both my sisters are done having kids from what I understand, so we will see.  I plan on getting off birth conrtol in January. Hopefully I can break up the girl invasion!!

PaPa's Getaway

Every now and again I get some great ideas during my sleep.  I love getting those kinds of ideas because they always turn out to be the best!  So as of right now I have 3 paintings lined up in my head. I have one drawn out on canvas ready to go. Of course it's art nouveau inspired! Come on people I'm obsessed. The second one is either the one I dreamed up (which is also art nouveau inspired), or a landscape painting of my lake house in GA.

Ok, here's the story of my lake house. My great grandfather. PaPa Judy, built it while my grandmother was pregnant with my dad. So it's an old building. We went there every summer and it's always been the best place to go with family to hang out, swim, fish, boat and have some great food!  We would have so many people here at one time at this little cabin, it was great! I can't help but think of my great grandparents every time I go. The sad thing is, my grandmother cannot keep up the payments anymore and is going to put it up for sale after this year.  The whole family is upset over this and I have cried over this myself.  So my husband, myself and Anya are making the truck down there for the 4th of July. The fireworks are amazing! Our neighbors on each side of us have a huge show every year in a competition. So we sit on our dock and get front row seats every year!  While we're down there I'm going to take some pictures so I can paint it.  It will probably be the most heart felt, emotional painting I will ever do. 



Mucha in Winter - My Little Back Room Studio

Are you a procrastinator?  I'm usually not, but when it comes to this piece, I most definitely am. I started this painting in 2007 in college.  It was the end of the semester and I was done looking at it. It looked mostly finished so I still got an "A" but nothing up to my standards.  You artists out there know what I'm talking about. You have a piece you have been staring at for weeks and just get so sick of it you need a break before even looking at it again.  Well during this break I have managed to get a new boyfriend apart from my previous 6 year relationship, get engaged, married, move to North Carolina, back to Georgia, have a baby, then move back to North Carolina.  Now I'm here and finished it in our little spare bedroom in our apartment.  I'm hoping to have my own studio when we get a house. If you're an artist, I'm curious as to where you do your art? 



Harris Teeter Trip

Wow this was a great trip for me! I spent $128.00 and saved $101.00! This month is a true month of couponing for me. My husband and I are trying to stay on a gerocery budget of $200.00 every 2 weeks starting next month. I have been keeping log since the beginning of last month to see exactly how much I'm saving now from when I wasn't couponing. Last month we spent $800.00 on groceries while we have only spent $366.00 this month! That's pretty good considering this trip I just made should carry us through the end of the month. What did I buy on this trip? Here goes!

* 2 bags of Chex Mix
* 2 20lb bags of Pedigree Dog Food
* 2 boxes of Pop Secret Popcorn
* 2 boxes of angel hair pasta
* 1 container of taco seasoning
* 3 pack of tuna
* 2 boxes of mac n' cheese
* 1 box of HT Grahams Crackers
* 2 cans of HT Cream of Celery
* 2 cans of HT Cream of Mushroom
* 2 bags of HT Kettle Corn Chips
* 4 jars of Spaghetti Sauce
* 6 lbs of ground beef
* 1 Value package of Leg Quarters
* 3 packages of Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
* 1 Pack of Pork Chops
* 2 White Garlic
* 1/4 seedless watermelon
* 3 lemons
* 2 packages of strawberries
* 1 5lb Russet Potatoes
* 1 box Kahiki Eggrolls
* 1 bag of Rhodes warm n' serve rolls
* 1 Bag Tyson grilled chicken
* 1 box Lasagna
* 3 box of Kids cuisine meals
* 1 box Digorno Pizza w/ Wings
* 2 bags of HT shredded cheese
* 1 pack Dan-o-nion yogurt
* 1 HT Large Eggs
* 2 packs Sara Lee Lunch Meat
* 1 pack of Pepito tortillas
* 1 box band-aids
* 1 Tic Tacs

Greek Potatoes (Oven Roasted) Recipe

If you live in the metro area of Atlanta, you may have heard of a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called "Grecian Gyro". If not, you are sadly missing out!  It's located at 855 Virginia Avenue in Hapeville, GA.  It's located by the airport with limited parking and is packed full around lunchtime.  They have a special secret sauce that my mother and I always have to buy in a jar on our way out as well. I highly recommend you visiting if you're ever in the area.  Anyway, they have these awesome Greek potatoes they serve with their meals.  I found a recipe on food.com that closely resembles theirs and want to share it with you!  It makes a great side dish for almost any meal. The "meat and potatoes" man in your life will surely love it! Have them for dinner tonight and comment!

Ingredients:

• 8 large potatoes, peeled, cut into large wedges (about 6-7 wedges per potato)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced (more garlic is a good thing, less garlic is a no-no for this recipe)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbs dried oregano (get the Mediterranean, it's the best!)
•  sea salt
• 1 lemon, juice of, to 1 1/2
• fresh coarse black pepper  

Directions:

Prep Time: 10 minsTotal Time: 1 1/2 hrs

1. Preheat oven to 420°F A reviewer has suggested spraying the baking pan with Pam - that sounds like a great idea!
2. Put all the ingredients into a baking pan large enough to hold them.
3. Season generously with sea salt and black pepper.
4. Make sure your hands are very clean and put them in the pan and give everything a toss to distribute.
5. The garlic will drop into the water/oil solution but its flavour will permeate the potatoes, and this way, it won't burn.
6.  Bake for 40 minutes.
7.  When a nice golden-brown crust has formed on the potatoes, give them a stir to bring the white underside up, season lightly with a bit more sea salt and pepper and just a light sprinkling of oregano.
8.  Add 1/2 cup more water if pan appears to be getting dry, and pop back into oven to brown other side of potatoes.
9.  This will take about another 40 minutes.
10.  Do not be afraid of overcooking the potatoes- they will be delicious.
11  Note: I often melt a bouillon cube in the water; if you do, make sure to cut back some on the salt.

Monday, Monday

Good morning everyone!  I'm excited to start this blog and am hoping for some followers!  I plan on doing a giveaway here soon and want to start promoting other shops from Etsy.  I think it will be more effective though if I get some followers, don't you??  haha.  So that's what I'm doing at this moment along with finishing up a painting I started about 5 years ago in college.  It was one fo those paintings that you start and get so sick of because it's just not turning out the way you want it and the semester was almost over, so you scrap it for the time being.  Well i decided to pick it back up and am more excited about it now than I was when I started it years ago.  It's turning out fantastic!  I can't wait to share it with you guys!

So another week means another shopping week.  I clipped my coupons out and am ready for Harris Teeter's souper double coupon week!  My husband and I just moved up here from Georgia about 2 months ago and we never had a Harris Teeter.  Although I have to say grocery prices are higher up here than back at home.  This Sunday I went on a diaper run at CVS.  I got a big box of Pamper's diapers, jumbo Huggies pack of diapers, Big refill bag of Huggies diapers and two boxes for Cheez-Its for 27.00!  I saved 46%! 

Do you coupon??  What deals have you found??

Oh, Blog

Blog...AKA: My open diary for the whole world to see.  So in other words I wont put up anything on here I wouldn't want my mom or dad to see!  Not that my life is that exciting.  ALTHOUGH, I will share things with you all that I find out. 

I just started the couponing thing thanks to my good friend Gretchen!  It's not an easy thing to do and not for the faint hearted.  If you invest time into it, you will see big savings and will never have to buy toothpaste or toothbrushes ever again! Visit http://www.southernsavers.com/,  she explains it all wonderfully....and does a lot of the work for you!!

I love to cook, so if I find a rockin' recipe I will share it with you. (Try Sandra Lee's coffe cake!! It's AMAZING. You can find it on foodnetwork.com).

I also have a shop on Etsy. http://www.thesketchyeasel.etsy.com/ . I used to sell heating pads and earrings and such, but I knew I had to go to where my real talent was...art!  I sell prints of my originals and do custom portraits. Go check it out!