Join us at the French Market...

Join us tomorrow at the
French Market
for a lovely morning of shopping in the open air. Kathy and I will be there with all sorts of artistic offerings from our shops. We will also have
Laura Zollar prints!

French Market is an outdoor gathering of local neighborhood vendors that have come together to bring their goods to you! It is a family fun event that offers music, fresh produce, handmade arts and crafts,and games too!

French Market is definitely a great place to spend time browsing and having fun with your family and community! Come on out and see for yourself how fun this event is!

When: Saturday, May 16, 2009 from 9am – 1pm

Where: Village of Centennial Springs Park - 7565 Norman Rockwell Lane - Las Vegas, NV 89143

Directions:

95 North to exit 93, N. Durango

Turn Right onto N. Durango from freeway

Make a Right at Farm (first light you come to)

Make a Right on to Norman Rockwell Lane (First shopping center on your right)

and voila!

We're in a lovely Etsy treasury today!

Look what you can win.....

This month Kathy and I are thrilled to be featuring

an artistic offering from our newest shop
Yoga Fairies!

Add a little Zen to your life with our fabulous Yoga Fairies, featured in all the chakra colors.

The Lotus Pose or Padmasana in Sanskrit, requires one to cross the legs
while maintaining a straight back which makes this pose
ideal for Meditation.

Here's all you have to do to enter:

1. Click here to visit our shop YogaFairies.

2. Once there, pick out your favorite item in the shop.....When your finished, exit the shop and you'll return to this blog.

3. Come back to this post and post a comment telling everyone what you liked about the item you picked. (See "Comment" button below.)

4. PLEASE be sure to leave your contact information, either your email address or Etsy shop if you have one, so we can reach you if you win! The winner will be contacted on or after May 31, 2009. If after a week we haven't heard from that winner, we'll pick another winner.

5. We will draw the winner's name on the last day of the month, 5/31/09 after 5pm/pst.

We ship world wide! All are welcome to participate in this fabulous drawing! Good luck everyone!

We have a Winner!!

Congratulations to Shelley from Pennsylvania!

She is April's Free Monthly Drawing winner!

She won this stunning one a kind necklace
by Suzanne Colucci of Belandaria Designs
valued at $30.00

A huge thank you to everyone who participated! Be sure to enter the drawing for May!
Wait till you see what we're giving away this month!

We're extending the contest ...

I've decided to extend the contest through the weekend to give some of you late comers (those of you who are as stymied by the concept of time as much as I am) a chance to win this month's GOT TO HAVE prize. Click here
Good lucky my little gods and goddesses of tardy
and

The coolest blog application ever...ScribeFire

Look what Kathy found on Stormy Designs blog...

About ScribeFire

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

Thanks Stormy!

A Twilight Treasury

Our latest Etsy treasury, "At Twilight"
We had allot of fun putting this one together!
Hope you like it!

March's Big Winner is...

..."TornWonderland"! Congratulations....we hope you will treasure your original Steampunk ACEO by ZoeOwyn of Etsy.

This month we are featuring a very dear friend of ours, Suzanne Colucci of Belandaria Designs. She makes the most amazing jewelry! Each piece is just as unique as you are. I just purchased a custom necklace from her and I just can't wait till it gets here! I'll be sure to post pics for you!

So don't miss out on this special sterling silver affirmation series she's working on. All you have to do is click here and follow the instructions and enter for your chance to win.

How to throw a kids Polymer Clay Party!

We were recently hired to be the entertainment for an adorable little girl's birthday party. What a great time we had teaching the kids how to play and create with polymer clay. There were approximately 20 children there ages ranging from 3 - 12 years old.

It is important to chose an age appropriate project. We chose to work with plastic cookie cutters in various shapes and sizes. This eliminated the need for the use of a clay blade. Each child was instructed to pick any three color balls they wanted to swirl together, flatten out and cut into shapes. After baking we attached magnets to the backs to create kid-made magnets.

All the kids had a great time and everyone did such a wonderful job. Each child's creation was a unique work of art! Here's how we prepared for our party!

Step 1 - Learn about your location. Two most critical questions are
A. is there an oven?
B. is there a smooth surface to work on? (We had to bring large floor tiles as the tables at our location were textured.)

Step 2 - Opened a bottle of wine (or drink of choice) and drink.

Step 3 - Precondition all of the clay... so now you know why we recommend wine! It is important to precondition the clay before the party as it can be a lengthy process. We quartered 2oz. bricks of clay and rolled them into balls. Then we kept the colors separate by placing them, in all things recycled plastic apple cartons. Waste not, Want not! These are very handy items to have.

Step 4 - Repeat step 2...wait til you see Step 5!

Step 5 - We needed enough rollers for at least 20 children, but acrylic rollers are expensive. We had to get creative and came up with the idea to cut 1.25" pvc pipe in to 8" individual rollers. This was easy to do and very inexpensive and you can purchase the pvc pipe at any hardware store. Since we cut these ourselves with a tile saw, we did need to go back and sand the ends for a smooth finish. After that we threw the lot in the dishwasher and when they were done and dry we packed them up and ready to go!

Step 6 - Repeat step 2 again...

Step 7 - Now its time to pack for the party. Wooo Hooo! We used 2 large canvas totes for the rollers, cutters, rubbing alchol (to clean up during and afterwards), magnets, scissors and party bags to carry their project home. For the clay containers we used a jewelry tray tote for they stack very nicely on top of one another.

Step 8 - Now sleep off all the wine you drank (ya lush!) knowing you're all prepared for the party tomorrow!

Step 9 - Have a great time!

A Cause Close to Our Hearts

Some of you may know that Carrie has a son with Autism. We are always on the look out for ideas to raise funds and awareness on behalf of Autism. This is a cause that is near and dear to our hearts.

We were contacted by "Autism Delaware", an organization of people with autism, families, friend, and professionals connected to the autism community. Their mission is to improve the lives of people with autism and that is something we wanted to be a part of.

We donated a one of a kind handmade Autism Awareness necklace. All proceeds from our "Clay for a Cause" section are donated to Autism Speaks. For more information on Autism and what you can do to help, please go to http://www.autismspeaks.org

This OOAK Autism Awareness necklace includes a stunning hand blown glass pendant in primary colors, flanked by faceted Cherry Quartz, primary colored glass, beautiful Mother of Pearl, finished with a lovely Sterling Silver toggle clasp and dangling Autism Awareness ribbon bead.