And the winner is {insert drumroll here}....

...but Stacy, since you already have a pair of these earrings, I'll send you a surprise :) Thanks for all the comments, everybody!!!

This is a brand new necklace that I just made today and listed in the shop. I named it "Circle of Life" ~ I love it!! And this is a necklace I listed yesterday {that I love more}......it's called "Love, Life" ~ I'm in love with that pewter tree pendant from "Green Girl Studios" ~ they are just awesome!

So I'm busy getting ready for the Tailgate Market tomorrow!!! If you live in Transylvania County, come out and see me. I'll be there from 8 til 1 ~ lots of fun, good eats, plants & treats ~:) Speaking of treats, I'm loving my dahlias that are popping up right now ~ this one is my favorite so far:Now I know I've mentioned "Picnik" before, but now it's even better! Look what I did with a picture of some of our friends:{you'll have to click on it to enlarge it, so you can see the difference}. Anyway, I removed blemishes, removed wrinkles, gave them "fake tans", whitened their teeth, gave Kim a little blush and gave the whole photo an "air brush" ~ it's amazing!!! I love Picnik!!! You should try it for yourself, if you haven't already. It's totally worth the $25/year, I promise.

Gotta run for now ~ I need to go whip up some dinner ~ Happy Friday!!!

♥ & peace always ~ Kathy

"Success isn't something you chase. It's something you have to put forth the effort for constantly. Then maybe it'll come when you least expect it. Most people don't understand that." ~ Michael Jordan

Happy Fall!!!

Ahhhh ~ the crispness in the air just makes you want to take the deepest breath ever! This will be our last "unseen" month up here and we are looking forward to it so much! It's hard to believe that we've been up here for almost a whole year already. Time flies ~

This awesome little necklace was inspired by Autumn ~ it's named "Harvest Moon" and is for sale in the shop. I also made some cute, cute, cute little Halloween pendants:
this one's my favorite ~ it's called "dancing with the devils" and was inspired by "Shannon Whitworth's" new song "No Expectations" ~ listen to it when you get a chance ~ it's pretty awesome.

We have more house guests arriving tomorrow, so I need to get cleaning & cooking. Hope your Fall has started off great & have a Happy Friday!!!

xxoo & peace always ~ Kathy

Just Peachy!

We discovered two peach trees in our yard and they are full of little fuzzy baby peaches. I can't wait to sample them. A few other things that made me smile this week were these:

Garden fresh veggies, baked in the oven, grilled chicken breast, rice pilaf and this:

Fresh baked Sourdough bread & organic butter from the Farmer's Market and this for dessert:

Chocolate cake with coconut cream cheese icing, another Farmer's Market find and it was absolutely yummy! So all in all, it made a great looking dinner table:

And this morning I got up and made this:

Of course, it's right here in the shop, if you want to take a closer look – it's quite lovely…

….as are my "Peonies" – Happy Tuesday!!!

Xxxoo & peace always ~ Kathy

So I found a box of books {yes, I still have several unpacked boxes in the basement} and one of them is called "Women's Lip" and is full of funny & punny quotes from women, so I'll share them with you now and then and hope they make you giggle. The one today is on "exercise"

"I don't think jogging is healthy, especially morning jogging. If morning joggers knew how tempting they looked to morning motorists, they would stay home and do sit-ups" – Rita Rudner

Thanks for the *Great* Advice, O.J.!

Can you even believe this! Of course, this book was published years before O.J. Simpson decided his ex-wife & her boyfriend deserved to die @ his hands. And yes, we all know how he "would have done it", if he actually did. And, we all also know that he "actually did". So in case you can't read the quote clearly, it says "The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top" and, is under the "Responsibility" section of this little book. And what's really eerie about it is that on the very next page of this same little book, also in the same position on the page and still in the "Responsibility" section there is a quote from Francis Bacon that says "The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands." – Freaky!!! Indeed!!!

On a happier note, Wayne surprised me by loading up my little turtle vase with these gorgeous flowers from our yard! Of course, you can always get one of these awesome little fellows for yourself from "The Duck Pond Potter" ~ he really does an amazing job @ holding flowers.

Well, I was feeling a little "spiritual" this morning, so I made this awesome little necklace for
the shop. It features a gorgeous brass "Buddha hand" and I named it "Namaste'" – I hope you love it as much as I do…

Off to the store to get sugar for my hummingbird feeders & zucchini for my zucchini bread that I'm making tomorrow for "Music Monday".

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!!!

Xxoo & peace always ~ Kathy

"As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us" – Arnold J. Toynbee

White Squirrels, Blue Fairies & Fish!

Day after day, the news is filled with sadness, death, hunger & war. Sometimes it can almost be overwhelming to even think about. Those are the times when I try to look at the "good" things about life and it seems like when I think about it, they always outweigh the bad. I sometimes dream of winning the lottery, just so I can give it away and help as many people as I can. Of course, the chances of me winning the lottery would be 100% greater if I actually bought a ticket! But if I did buy a ticket and I did win, I would give it all to charity, well except the 25% I would keep to spend on beads {that's all, I swear}

So one of the "good things" I was thinking about this morning are these gorgeous White Squirrels we have here. Now they are only found in about 4 or 5 other places, so we feel pretty special that we have them here. The story as to how they got here is, well, I think just a story, but hey, who knows how they really got here, so here's the story and I'm sticking to it:

According to Brevard resident Mrs. W. E. Mull, the lore of the origin of the snowy critters goes something like this:

In 1949, a carnival truck overturned near the home of Mr. Black of Madison, FL, apparently freeing several white squirrels. When Mr. Black observed the unique creatures playing in his pecan grove, he caught a pair, giving them to Mr. H. H. Mull, Mrs. Mull's brother-in-law.

Mr. Mull passed the pair of squirrels to his niece, Barbara, who attempted breeding them unsuccessfully until she married in 1951. Following the escape of one of the squirrels, Mr. Mull released the other, and they began to multiply in the wild.

The rest of the story is more or less obvious. The squirrels became more than a novelty, becoming so prized by the residents of Transylvania County that in 1986 the Brevard City Council unanimously approved an ordinance protecting all squirrels in the area. The ordinance states, "The entire area embraced within the corporate limits of the city is hereby designated as a sanctuary for all species of squirrel (family Sciuriadae), and in particular the Brevard White Squirrel. It shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, kill, trap, or otherwise take any protected squirrels within the city by this section."

Today, the squirrels thrive in the area. It is not difficult to observe several playing in the trees or a friendly back yard during an afternoon drive around town. And next weekend is the annual "White Squirrel Festival", which is always a great time!

Not only are we lucky enough to have "White Squirrels", we also have these awesome little "Blue Ghost Fairies". They were all over our driveway last night. It's really quite amazing to see them. It's like being in an enchanted forest. I tried to take a video, but it didn't come out. I'll try again when the moon gets fuller.

But the "Catch Of The Day" is this awesome little fish necklace that I listed in the shop. And since we are talking about "Good Things", I'm offering a 15% discount from right now until midnight Sunday night {May 18^th} All you have to do is type "Good Things" in the comments to seller section @ your time of purchase and then wait for me to send you an invoice for the discounted amount. Easy as pie!

Off to the Farmer's Market to see what kind of "good things" I can find! Have a happy weekend!

Xxoo & peace always ~ Kathy

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead" – Louisa May Alcott

Blueridge Parkway & Thanksgiving....

I can't wait for Thanksgiving!!!! Our friends Dave & Sharon will be driving up from the beach to join us. I'm going to get out my holiday decorations next week, which I always look forward to. With that being said, I hope you like Ozzy & Lita's Thanksgiving picture. It's my current Etsy avatar and then I have another one ready for Christmas. I think Lita makes a precious little squaw ~ don't you!

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day! We took an afternoon drive up the Blueridge parkway to see all of the leaf colors and such. The sky was so blue ~ it was amazing. I have lots more pictures on "Flickr" if you want to check them out.
This is a new necklace I made yesterday, inspired by the forest ~ it's just so fallish. I named it "Forest Floor" ~ very appropriate, I think.

Hope you are having a wonderful week! I'm off to do some more unpacking & throwing away. I feel like that's all I've done for the last 2 years. I'll be sooooo happy when it's all finished!

xxoo & peace always ~ Kathy

I'm still here ~ but I'm freaked out!!!!

Ok, so all of you who know me well, know that dolls freak me out, right! So anyway, I'm just poking along on Etsy looking at new listings, etc. when all of a sudden I see this {picture to right} and I just about freak out. I mean, this is horrible {nothing against the person selling the stuff, I totally understand people that make dolls would love to have it} ~ So I immediately start thinking about Jeffrey Dahmer and others that cut people up and then I had a hard time going to sleep and had terrible nightmares. Eeekkkkk....

Anyway, just thought I would share this little tidbit with all of you. I did go to the dentist yesterday, so I have fresh x-rays of my teeth
in case any of these dolls come to life and kill me I can be identified, unless all they find are my legs, like that poor little doll in the photo. And she still has her shoes on ~ so sad... But, the good news is ~ 47 years with "Zero" cavities!!! I don't think the dentist likes me that much. He always fusses about my tartar and the fact that I don't floss enough, but he says I have great teeth and at this point I probably will never have any cavities. I told him that it was probably all that tartar keeping them safe. He just rolled his eyes.

So I've been busy today making new things for the shop. Here's one of the necklaces I made with some awesome little pendants that I got from "MadisonCraftStudio" ~ they are really neat. I named this little gem "Keep on Rockin In The Free World" ~ so I'll leave you with that and hope you are having a wonderful week. I'll be back Friday with some great new stuff to talk about that I bought on Etsy.....100% awesomeness, guaranteed!

xxoo & peace ~ Kathy

"Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come, Nor cares beyond today."
~ Thomas Gray {1716-1771}

Turquoise, Tigereye & Two for One Sale!!

Hello, Hello!! Just stopping by to share this awesome necklace I made today ~ I just love how it turned out. It's made with some gorgeous Tigereye stones, which are handknotted on silk cord. The pendant is a huge chunk of "reconstituted" Turquoise. Just click on the picture for more details.

Secondly, I'm having a weekend long "Two for One Sale" on all of my little pendants. I'm doing this as a test to see how many people will respond from my blog readers, or my MySpace friends. Here's how it works: First of all, you can click on the little "Squid Pendant" shown and that will take you to my "Etsy shop" and the area where all of my pendants are for sale. After you decide which ones you want, you just need to actually "purchase" one of them. During the payment process, you will see a section that says "Comments to Seller". In that section, please state "Blog Reader" and then let me know which pendant you want for "free". If you link from MySpace, enter "MySpace Friend" instead of "Blog Reader". If you are both, please do let me know that, too {that would be really awesome}. Please do post a comment if you have any questions, or send me a message through Etsy or MySpace.

Well my little peeps, I need to run for now and get working on some new necklaces with the pendants I got today from my dear friend Susan over @ TVTrayArt. And speaking of "peeps", I have another little batch of baby birds in the "crib" outside my kitchen door. I'm pretty sure there are at least 3 in there, but only 2 managed to get their heads stuck out for the picture:

They are just so cute! I can't wait until they start learning to fly ~

Wishing you a Happy Friday!!! xxoo & peace ~ Kathy

"May You Live all the days of your life ~
Celebrate the simple pleasures,
Rejoice in small miracles, Smile at a Stranger,
Hug the one you love, Be good to yourself.
P.S. don't forget to fly!"
~ Jonathan Swift {1667-1745}