Sarah Jean

And the winner is.....

I put all of the numbers in a little tea cup this morning and pulled one out. I'm happy to announce that the winner is Lisa! Congrats Lisa! I will put these goodies in the mail for you this week. Thanks everyone for all of your sweet comments. You made the give-away a lot of fun!

Today was a big cleaning day in our house. Jon and I have both been pretty sick for the past several days. So this morning when I woke up, I thought, "We have to get this house back in order." You know, when you're sick, you don't do the housekeeping that you normally would. Clothes ended up being thrown on the floor, all kinds of blankets were all over the living room. It was just a mess. So this morning we cleaned everything up. Dusted, vacuumed,the whole nine yards.

The bed got fresh sheets and pillowcases. I even ironed the pillowcases :-) I love it when I have time to do that. Now they're fresh and crisp, and smell SO good. I keep these little cinnamon capsules in my linen closet, so when I take new sheets or pillowcases out of the closet, they smell so good. Having a clean place makes me feel so much better.

Give-Away Update

Hi everyone. I wanted to give you an update on the give-away. I was supposed to draw a number last night, but I have been SO sick for the past several days. I'm starting to feel a bit better today, so I will draw a number today and post the winner by tomorrow. Thanks for all of the nice comments and your patience.

Talk to you guys soon!

xoxo

Give-Away Time!

Ok, I promised a give-away, so here it is. I've been working on some new tags this week, so I thought I'd throw some of those in, as well as my signature bookmark in "Chocolate". Of course, I'll customize the bookmark with the letter of your choice if you win. So here's what's included: A set of 3 pink Paris tags, a signature bookmark, and 5 other various tags. I think they're pretty darn cute and they would make great additions to an Easter basket. So if you want a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post and on Friday I will randomly choose one. Pretty simple huh?

Please excuse the blurry picture..I'm not sure what happened there.

On a completely different topic, my favorite author, Sophie Kinsella has just come out with a new book. It's called "Remember Me?". I've been waiting for so long! If you haven't read any of her stuff, you don't know what you're missing. She wrote all of the infamous Shopaholic books. They're such good reads. Actually, "Confessions of a Shopaholic", the first book in the series, is being made into a movie. They've already started filming. Isla Fisher is playing Becky, the lead character. I know it is going to be so good! It'll probably be a year and a half before it hits the theatres. Patience, patience. Anyway, you should check her out. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

Well, I'm off to do some studying. I've been procrastinating since I got back from Boston. Time to suck it up.

xoxo

Memories, Family & Snow

Well, I've been here in Boston since Wednesday. I'm here visiting my sister who just had a baby. I grew up in this town, but I guess I kind of forgot what it was like. It's not actually in Boston. It's about an hour outside. It's such a small town.....absolutely nothing to do! So different from Seattle. I actually find myself missing Seattle...just a little bit. For those of you who don't know me, Seattle is not my favorite place. It is taking a long time for me to get used to it. I suppose I will one of these days. I think it is just difficult for me to feel like a place is "home" when I don't have my family close by. Anyway, I arrived here in Boston just in time for a winter storm. How lucky! Seriously, I love the snow. We barely get any in Seattle, so it was a treat. We must have gotten at least eight inches. I forgot how cold it gets here. It chills you to the bone!

The baby is SO adorable. I'm going to miss her so much when I leave. I've had a really good time here visiting. It's so nice to just sit around and catch up. I feel like I'm missing so much being so far away. I miss seeing my family all of the time. Hopefully I will see my sister and the baby in Chicago in a few weeks. My sister is supposed to meet me there for the Country Living Women Entrepreneur Event. I'm super excited about going. I've actually never spent any time in Chicago, aside from the airport. I don't think that counts :-) Maybe I'll see some of you there! My Mom, Joyce Lucas of Make Mine Pink, is an honoree at the event. She's featured in the latest Country Living Magazine. If you haven't picked up the March issue, you should run out and get it. As always, it's full of inspiring people and ideas.

I leave to go back home tomorrow. Later this week or early next week, I am going to be having a give-a-way! More info to come on that later. Keep your eye out for it.

Ooohh. I wanted to mention one more thing. I had some questions about whether or not I was going to be selling my bookmarks wholesale. The answer is yes; If you would like to inquire, just shoot me an email.

xoxo

Baby on the way

My sister is having a baby! I say that like I haven't known this for the past 9 months. But she's having a baby like any second now. I'm so excited! She has two kids now, but they're practically all grown up. I spoke to her on the phone about an hour ago. She's in Boston, I'm in Seattle. This is how the conversation went: Me: "Katie, where are you?" Katie: "I'm on my way to the store" Me: "Are you by yourself?" Katie: "No, Hannah is with me." Mind you, her baby is coming any second and Hannah is her younger child. Me: "Oh my god! You should not be going out to the store when you're about to have your baby....especially not without another adult with you!" Katie: "Well, Valentine's Day is coming up and I have to get Marc, (her husband) a present because it might be my last chance before the baby comes." Wow, now that is love. :-) She also had to tell me that it was snowing like crazy. Great, that eases my mind. It's snowing like crazy and, she's about to have a baby and she's out wandering the streets by herself. Crazy girl. All kidding aside, I'm very excited to become an Auntie again. I'll be headed to Boston next week to see the newest addition.

Valentine's Day. Not my favorite commercialized holiday of the year. I'd have to say Halloween is my favorite, after Christmas of course. I can't believe it's this week. Jon just told me he is making me something. I have no idea what it could be, but I'm kind of excited to find out. I like it when he makes stuff. So now I instantly feel a ton of pressure to think of something good for him. But honestly, I'm not very good at picking out guy gifts. Girls, I have no problem. But what in the world are you supposed to get a guy? I struggle with this all of the time. I mean, after a while, you run out of stuff. He's the kind of guy who buys things that he wants all of the time, so that means I never have any ideas. Anyone wanna share some ideas? Help!

xoxo

Whatever happened to fun fridays?

Do you remember the days when you couldn't wait for the weekend because the weekend meant having fun, staying out all night with your friends, and then sleeping until noon the next day? Whatever happened to those times? They are SO long gone...I can barely remember them. Isn't it funny how life changes. How I spent my evening last night made me long for those days. I'm taking a Decision Analysis class and it is very challenging; to say the least. Lots of complicated math. It's an online class which = no instructor there to explain things to you. So Jon has become my instructor :-) He's so patient with me. I wouldn't be able to do any of this school stuff without him. So last night was a designated homework night. I got home around 5:00 PM from work and immediately sat down at the table to start the homework fun. I'll spare you all of the ugly details. but we didn't stop working until 1:00 AM. 8 hours. That's an entire work day. We were supposed to get some Chinese food somewhere in the middle of all of the work, but that didn't happen. We were on a roll, so we kept going. By the time we finished, we were starving! So what are you supposed to do at 1:00 AM when you're dying for food? Go to Dick's Drive-In of course. They're open late and they have incredible burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Between the two of us we ate 4 burgers, three orders of fries, and shared a milkshake. It was the perfect ending to a horrible night :-)

So that was my Friday night. I actually slept until 12:30 this afternoon. Now that reminds me of my teenage years. It was kind of nice.

I have high hopes for the rest of the weekend, now that all of that ugly homework is out of the way. I have been dying to see 27 Dresses. I love Katherine Heigl. It's my mission to see that movie this weekend! That reminds me...I really miss Grey's Anatomy. I haven't seen a new episode in so long. I really hope the writer's strike gets worked out soon. I don't care how busy I am..I need my shows. Cashmere Mafia is one of my new favorites. If you haven't seen, you should definitely check it out. It comes on Wednesdays at 10:00 PM. Well worth staying up a little later than normal.

Off to eat some Pho. It's Jon's favorite weekend treat!

xoxo

Surprise, it's raining!

It rained poured all day long today. Pretty depressing. Pouring rain is pretty unusual for Seattle. It rains all of the time here, but it's usually just a sprinkle. It was soooo cold too. Just thinking about it makes me shiver. But the day got a lot better when I arrived home today to find two boxes waiting for me. I love surprises! The first was the custom stamp that I'm going to use on the bag topper for the bookmarks. Let me tell you, it has been quite an ordeal getting it. But now it's finally here and it's perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Thanks again to my mom for designing it for me.

It's the first completely finished bookmark, packaging and all! It's exactly how I pictured it would be.

As if that wasn't good enough! There was still one more box to open. Wait until you see what's in the next one.

OMG! I love it! A Cath Kidston Recipe Organizer and kitchen note pad set! Someone knows me very well. Of course it's my mom :-) It is so so so so so adorable. Cath Kidston is a genius. I absolutely love everything she designs. Her stuff has all of the charm of country...but with a fun twist. It's unlike anything else. One of these days I'm going to visit one of her shops in London. Can you imagine? I'll have to save up for a long time....because there will be some serious shopping going on. Pardon all of the pictures. I just had to share.

Looks like I've got my work cut out for me. This sure is a lot cuter than the bottom drawer in my kitchen that we throw all of the full page recipes in. Maybe looking through all of these recipes will inspire me to do some baking. I haven't baked in so long. Kind of funny...because I used to bake all of the time. It was my passion. I even went to Pastry School because it was my dream to open a bakery. It is funny how your dreams can change so quickly. But I would love to do some baking this weekend....mmmmm....chocolate chip scones sound so good right now. Jon loves it when I bake. He loves to eat sweets for breakfast. I can't say I mind it either.

I'm just gonna run in...

Happy Tuesday!

Do you know what I did today? Well, aside from working? I went to Paper Zone! Gulp. I was just going to run in and look for some kraft paper for my bag toppers. Well, they didn't have the kraft paper in the thickness that I wanted, but since I was already in the store...I had to look around. OMG, so dangerous! I cannot go into any kind of craft store without buying something. It doesn't even matter what it is or what I am going to do with it. I just have to buy something. Today was no exception, even in my 3 1/2 inch heels (that's a different story, for a different day) I walked around and around that store. My feet were killing by the time I left, but boy did I find some cute things.

The pretty pink folders are going to look so cute on my desk. I love putting pretty things on my desk..it makes mundane work seem so much better. Gosh, they look so cute just sitting on my dresser. Maybe I'll keep them there for a while. It'll probably take me a good two weeks before I get my act together and actually put stuff in them anyway.

I've been coveting these Cavallini stamps for some time now. I still have my eye on the Paris set. Hopefully those will be my next purchase. I see lots of tag making in my future :-) Maybe I can work on some tonight. If only there were 10 more hours in the day. Jon and I are vowing to go to bed early tonight. For the past week, we've only been getting about 6 hours of sleep a night. If we're lucky. Who needs sleep right?

xoxo

p.s. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

Random thoughts

I'm so sad that the weekend is over. It was an especially relaxing few days for me. I lounged around on the couch a whole lot and watched Gilmore Girls repeats. For those of you who don't know me, Gilmore Girls is my absolute favorite show. I'm totally obsessed with it. My mom actually got me hooked on it. When my husband and I went to L.A. for Thanksgiving, we took a little trip to Burbank and stopped by Warner Brothers Studio to take the studio tour. Gilmore Girls is filmed on the Warner Brothers' lot and I had always dreamed about going. Although the show had stopped filiming, the quaint little town that the show takes place in (Star's Hollow, Connecticut), is actually a permanent part of the studio lot and was still there. It was amazing to see it all. Now everytime we watch the show ( I say we, because my husband watches it with me all of the time, even though he will never admit that he actually likes it.), we point buildings out and say things like "Hey, we've been there!". It never gets old.

In between episodes of Gilmore Girls, I worked on shooting some bookmarks and getting them posted on Make Mine Pink. Check em out! Right now, I'm offering only a few designs. Keep checking back though, I will be adding new designs very soon!

Oooh! Before I forget, one of my favorite blogs has re-opened its web store. One Hundred Wishes. What a charming web site. I absolutely love it and can't wait to buy some goodies.

This has nothing to do with anything but I can't resist sharing a cute pic of my baby with you guys. He's been lying right here next to me this whole time. Oh my gosh...he's snoring now! He's like a little person.

Don't let his cuteness fool you either. He's only loveable and cute while he's sleepy. At night, while the grown-ups are fast asleep, cute little Cupid likes to knock every little trinket off of every flat surface in the apartment. He's awake and doesn't see any reason why everyone else shouldn't be awake as well. It's torture! But I do love him...

It's been a while...

I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. Things have been so busy around here. School started back up three weeks ago and that has been taking up evey second of my spare time. No exaggeration, seriously. Sometimes I think I am crazy for doing this to myself. Working full time and going to school full time. Who does that? But I need to get it over with. A little background. I'm in business school, going for a B.S in Business Adminstration with an emphasis on Marketing. If I continue at this pace, I will be done in a year and a half. Doesn't sound too bad right? I try to tell myself that everyday.

My in-laws came to visit for a week as well. We had a really nice time. We went to Leavenworth for the weekend. It's a small little Bavarian village in the Cascade mountains. There's snow everywhere and it's so beautiful. When went during the annual Ice Festival. So they had all kinds of activities like snow sculpture contests. It was pretty cool. There were a ton of little cute shops to pop into as well. That was the highlight of the trip for me. I do love shopping! Can you believe I forgot to bring my camera? So I have no winter wonderland pictures to share with you. Maybe next time.

Today I am vowing to work on some bookmarks. My mom is Joyce, the founder of Make Mine Pink and I'm going to start a little boutique on her site, selling some of my bookmarks, tags and things. I'm very excited about it, but need to get moving on some things.

There's a little sneak peek for you. Those are some that I made as little thank you gifts for some pals. The ones that will be offered for sale will not have the "Thank You" on the top. They'll have my logo, which my talented Mom so graciously designed for me. I absolutely love it! I'll let you know when the little boutique is up and running. For now, I'm back to work!

xoxo