GIVE AWAY ANNOUNCEMENT AND SIGN UP...

"For it is in giving that we receive."

-St. Francis of Assisi-
It seems like a lot of things slip by me these days as I am trying to juggle too much and my 400th post has come and gone, I am now posting my 414th. So, since February has made a shockingly quick appearance and it is my 414th post and Valentine's Day is on February 14th I thought I'd just roll it all together into one big celebration and have a give away.

I had one pretty pink altered slipper art kit left and thought it would make a perfect prize!

Carmen's Cameo Slipper

This one~of~a~kind hot pink, black, and white altered shoe belongs to Carmen, a Can Can dancer, and has high kickin' contrast.This kit is filled with this tri~colored pallet of items to create three art tags.This hot pink satin dyed shoe had been refurbished from the inside out from its black and white papered inside and flocked sole, to its smart gimp trim to its paper ruffled toe and vintage cameo, to its stylish lace heel bow.ART KIT CONTAINS:

A VINTAGE PHOTO of Carmen, wrapped in THREE YARDS OF TRIM, 1 yard of tone on tone floral printed satin ribbon, 1 yard of vintage black hem lace, and 1 yard of mini black gimp. RHINESTONE HAIR PIN and PAPER ROSE.THREE HAND DYED STAMPED TAGS, ready for embellishing.

A FLOCK OF PAPER PUNCH BIRDS (9) and PAPER PUNCH CIRCLES (12).

THREE BLACK AND WHITE FLOCKED PAPER ROSETTES with mirrored centers, FAUX PEARL BEADS (6), RASPBERRY TEAR DROP BEADS (6).THREE YARDS OF VINTAGE PATTERNED CREPE PAPER, 1 yard of each pattern shown below.Carmen is a tad eccentric and she keeps company with a PET CROW, Cameo, who revels in all her shiny stuff and will accompany the kit.

To sign up for the give away simply leave a comment on this post. A winner will be drawn and announced on Wednesday, February 10, 2010. Comments will be closed on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10 PM. Anyone is welcome to enter, you do not need to have a blog or be a follower, international friends are welcome to sign up too.

Thank you all who give of your time to visit here and for all I receive for our lives having touched. Each and every one of you bless me and brighten my days, for that I deeply thank you.

Now that I have officially emptied my shoppe of its very last item I'd better get busy!

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,

Miss Sandy

Flea Market Finds and Fun...

I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I am busy being a little elf in the Quill Cottage Curiosity Shoppe today as well as getting some decorating done. I hope to have some new listings by the end of the day or at the latest in the morning. The elves are jumping with joy over the prospect of decorating!OK, I have a confession to make, I seriously wanted to use the same decorating idea I had for autumn, one big hand carved bowl of potpourri. Yesterday, my friend Pam and I went flea marketing. I saw a huge bag of Christmas potpourri and joked with her that I should just switch out the bowl contents and be done with the holiday decor thing. We laughed but she did not know that I was kind of serious, in fact, I took a closer look at all that chunky monkey scented stuff and was tempted to buy it.

I am not sure what has happened to me, the person who always had her handmade Christmas cards (horror of horrors, I bought mine at the Target this year, but they are still in the box) in the mail the day after Thanksgiving, put the tree up the same weekend, and decorated the whole entire house, inside and out, yes, even the bathroom, decorated, (see decor here and here) and most of the shopping done by the first week in December. I can't seem to muster up the energy to do any of it. I think I have lost my holiday spirit. Giving makes me cheerful so, it is time for a give away! Tomorrow I will be posting all the details on a HOLIDAY GIVE AWAY right here at the Quill so I hope you will come and join me in the fun.

Would you like to see what I got at the flea market? It was not my day to score good finds, the flea market fairy was resting on my friend's shoulder and magically blessing her with great bargains. I can't complain, I just did not find much to peak my interest. I treated myself to this tin...I just adore the little bunnies and birds on it and look inside...It still has it's little key. The tin was made in England by the George W. Horner & Co. LTD, Chester-Le-Street, County of Durham. Does anyone know what this tin might have been used for? Perhaps tea, biscuits, or candy? No matter, I just loved its sweet cheerfulness.

I found a green fabric covered box, to satisfy my box obsession, for a $1.00...Some junk jewels that I want to cut apart for the beads, $3.00 for all...And a small old shorthand dictionary, to satisfy my all things printed obsession, for fifty cents...My grand total was less than $10.00 and a priceless day with a friend!

I hope your day is merry, your heart is cheerful, and your countenance is bright, have a great weekend!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

A Turkey Tail, Another Miss Sandy Misadventure and a Give Away.....

"For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

For flowers that bloom at our feet,
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear and see,
Father in Heaven, we thank thee!

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

I trust you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of turkey and all the trimmings, feasting on family gathered together, and filled with gratitude of the many blessings in life. I want to add to your day a bit of laughter (even if it is at my own expense). I have been saving this story for ever so long and thought it would be the perfect thing to share on Thanksgiving since it does involve turkey and being thankful.This actually happened just before last spring arrived here at the Quill. The weather was still quite chilly, the trees were still bare, and a carpet of crunchy leaves blanketed the forest floor. I had not been feeling well on this particular day with a headache. I didn't bother with any sort of a beauty routine and dressed in mix matched baggy sweat pants and a comfy long sleeved t-shirt. By late afternoon the headache got the best of me and I lay down on the couch and promptly fell asleep.I was startled awake by someone banging on the back door. Groggy from my sleeping stupor I stumbled around the corner to see Handy Hubby telling me to grab the camera. He was standing there yelling something about turkeys, pointing to the woods, and motioning me to hurry. Bleary eyed I had the presence of mind to seek out shoes and slid my feet into a pair of darling daughters, which happened to be handy. They were backless clogish things that were out of style and only worn for quick trips outside. I got the camera and stumbled out the door.

The cool air and the sight of five wild turkeys woke me up. They were putting on quite the show fanning their feathers, strutting around, and eating acorns from the forest floor. We got within five feet of them and I started clicking away with the camera. We started back to the house and I was going to preview the pictures when I realized that the chip for the camera was in the printer. I had snapped away all for nothing.I had an idea, I would trail the turkeys along the ridge line while Handy Hubby jogged to the house, got the chip, and then we would meet up at the old road crossing. I could get pictures as they crossed to the neighbors pond where they seemed to be headed. Plan set in motion, I am slip sliding along in those stupid clogs across a rocky ridge trailing after a bunch of turkeys. My hair, which happens to have its very own party when I sleep, is flat on one side and bunched out on the other is being further teased by wind and tree limbs which are leaving bits of debris deposited in my do!

We meet up as planned and I quickly place in the chip, look up and the turkeys are trotting away really fast. So I trot right along behind them trying to get a picture. Why I am so doggedly determined at this point I don't know. All rational has left my sleep fogged brain as I trailed those turkeys. Handy Hubby abandoned me and went back to the house at this point. Around the pond, down the hill, past the creek, across the property line we trot. All the while making a great deal of noise thrashing through the dried leaves. I lose a shoe a time or two and that slows me down.I heard a distant neighbor talking to his daughter and know I have gone further than I thought. Not wanting to step right into their backyard in my present unrepresentable condition, which is fine for chasing turkeys but not so much for greeting neighbors, I abandon my turkey trailing and veer uphill back towards our property hoping to avoid an encounter. I hear him shush his daughter and they listen to my steady footsteps crunching through the leaves. Then next thing I hear is a command to his very large, very hairy, very scary dog, "Sic 'em boy!"

The hair on the back of neck stood up as I realized that he thought I was a deer and the dog was sent to track me! I turned around and there behind me was a huge black beast of a dog and he was looking none too friendly. He stopped and I stopped and we both stared waiting to see what the other one would do. Turkeys forgotten I hissed at him to "Git!" and started to scram out of there. I heard a door slam and a thunderous crash through the brush and bramble which made me whirl around. I came face to face with, (did I mention this was a new neighbor that I had yet to meet?), a big burly guy with a big gun!He stopped and I stopped and we both stared, just taking the whole thing in. I think he took in WAY more than I did. He beheld what appeared to be a wild woman with bed head embedded with sticks and leaves in mismatched baggy clothing, sans makeup, bleary eyed from sleep, with pinkles (pillow wrinkles) on her cheek, shod in outlandish footwear totally inappropriate for hiking the hills, with a horrified look on her face, a camera slung around her neck, and pointing it at him as if to shoot first and ask questions later! I just saw a guy with a gun.

You could have heard a pin drop, not one word was exchanged between us, but he did grab his beast by the collar and back slowly away until he put enough distance between us and then he turned and retreated. Glowing fire engine red and muttering to myself, I tottered up the hill in those crazy clogs thinking I'd rather have been shot than caught!

So, what did I get for all this trouble, besides embarrassed? A turkey tail....Oh, and I was thankful that I didn't get shot. And so ends another Miss Sandy saga.

Today I am kicking off the Christmas season by holding a give away! I don't know about you but to get in the swing of all the decorating, baking, and gift making I like a little inspiration. So to help a couple of you to do just that I have put together two give away packages!The first package contains the latest issue of Victoria Bliss magazine. This Christmas issue is filled to the brim with entertaining, decorating, and baking for the holidays AND it comes with a Christmas CD! How blissful will that be to sit and browse through page after page of ideas while "The Magic of Christmas" a piano instrumental with orchestra plays softly in the background? Well, you can't have Christmas without the scent of evergreens, so I put in a couple of soft scented evergreen votive candles. While setting a relaxing mood with soft scented candlelight, mood music, and a great read you might want to sip a bit of gourmet chocolate goodness so I tossed in three cocoa classics, French Vanilla, Raspberry Chocolate, and Mint Chocolate! The stage is set for your decorating dreams to come true.The second package contains the current issue of Christmas Made Easy. This is an entertainers dream! It is packed full of 177 recipes and plenty of ideas for simple entertaining and memory making. You are going to want to hang out in the kitchen after drooling over this issue. Since that is where you are going to want to hang out, why not bake some Christmas cookies? For this I purpose I added a set of Wilton's holiday cookie cutter and a jar of cookie sprinkles for your baking pleasure. Cookies always go better with cocoa so I added three cocoa classics to the mix, same flavors as mentioned above! This package will really get you cookin'!

You know I cannot resist a little homemade something so there will be a little surprise in there too! To sign up, just leave a comment on this post. It would be helpful if you specify which gift package would be your preference, thanks. Winners will be announced tomorrow.

Not to worry if you don't win this one because I will also be holding a Spirit of Giving celebration here at the Quill for the next three weeks. Each week I plan to have a theme, a tutorial related to that theme, a few holiday hints, recipes, and a give away each week. The give away dates are Dec. 4, 11, and 18 with winners being announced on the following day. I hope you will join me for a little holiday fun.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

A Winner and an Announcement.....

(photo source)

Thank you to all who entered in my recent give away. I appreciate each and every one who visits here at Quill Cottage and you are all winners in my book. Thank you so much for the friendship and kindness. Blogging is such a blessing to me as I am able to connect with so many wonderful people and to share their lives. Below the winner announcement you will find some fashionable vintage graphics from my personal collection that are a gift from me to you to use in any way you wish. These images are from a 1800's ladies magazine. Enjoy!

And the winner is....Nancy of Fete et Fleur! CONGRATULATIONS NANCY! Nancy, email me your address and I will get your gift basket in the mail!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

For the next four weeks I will holding a weekly give away to spread a little holiday cheer as Christmas comes near! On Thursday Nov. 27, Dec. 4, Dec. 11, and Dec. 18th I will post the give away package and a winner will be posted on the Friday after each post. Each winner will receive a handmade gift that reflects the Christmas season. I invite you to share the Christmas spirit with me.

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

My 200th Post and Give Away Announcement.....

Today I am writing my 200th post. As it has approached I wondered what I would post on, would it be interesting, profound, or something special to mark the occasion? So, you might be wondering what I came up with, not much. I think I have put posting pressure on myself and am drawing a blank. I've been staring at that blinking cursor for a good ten minutes and nothing comes to mind. Well, maybe one thing.....shopping.Yesterday I had to do the thing I dread the most of anything you could ever ask me to do...go clothes shopping! Now I know that many of you will be mystified as to why I would dread this. I think it is because somehow my DNA does not carry the shopping gene that seems to be present in most females. Mine is a rogue gene that causes severe shopapohbic tendencies. Seriously, drop me into the middle of a clothing store and I begin to get dizzy from the sea of patterns, colors, and textures, but not in a good way. My heart thumps with dread as I stand there like a little lost kid hoping someone will come along and rescue me.

You can only put this activity off for so long and then it becomes necessity. I qualify for the necessity category right now. The night before the ordeal I thought I would bolster my courage so I watched an episode of What Not to Wear and one of that new show, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, which I had taped for just such an occasion. I listened very carefully to the rules Stacy and Clinton had and then panicked when I realized that Tim Gunn has a list of ten essential items for a bare bones basic wardrobe and I only have three of the ten! Have mercy, I was getting a headache and sweaty palms just thinking about what lay ahead.

I decided I needed at least one more shot of courage so I headed over to Shari Braendal's blog, A Beautiful Place Where Fashion Meets Faith, where she always has great fashion advice. I scrolled through her posts looking for any help I could get when I saw a link for finding the perfect jeans for your body type. So off I went to zafu to find a perfect match for me, they even tell you what store carries them! I was oh so hopeful. I have never in my entire life found the perfect fitting anything and here was my chance.

After entering all the information, I waited in anticipation as the little scanner did its thing while searching for results. I felt a little like a contestant on a reality show waiting to see if I was getting voted off or not. Que dramatic music, wait, wait, wait for it, and the result shows....NO MATCHES! Now why am I surprised? This is not only distressing but depressing, how, from all the choices on the world wide web can there be NO MATCHES? None, nada, zero, zip, zilch! And you wonder why I intensely dislike shopping!

Shopping day arrived and I did everything I could think of to postpone leaving the house. With dread and trembling I decided to face my fear and would tackle one and only one store. Arriving at my destination I swooned at the sight of rack upon rack upon rack of clothing, but not in a good way. How can a person who has worked with color, texture, and pattern and translated those into art and home accessories, who was paid to do it, not be able to dress themselves? With a deep breath I plunged in wondering if they make Granimals for adults.

I need a strategy. I remembered something I had read in an article about a forensic artist. When putting together a composite sketch, she would focus on one feature at a time, covering up every other part except what she was working on, then reveal the sketch as a whole when each part was complete. I would focus on one piece of clothing at a time and maybe it would not be so overwhelming. I found I could do one item verses an entire outfit, although, I think I drove the fitting room lady mad by the thousandth trip with one item each time.

The first thing I found was a black quarter length sleeve cardigan, which I am told is an "it" item this season. Here is the weird part, it was the first thing I found, the style and fit were, dare I say perfect, and it was on sale! Miracles do happen, even in the realm of fashion! This bolstered my courage so I thought I could tackle finding a top to go under the cardigan. There is a lot of shiny stuff out there people! Is shiny in? I don't do shiny.I went around and around and around the racks until I was dizzy. I made myself try on things I never would have even imaged. I am a total weirdo about the feel of a fabric, if it doesn't pass the feel test then I don't try it on. Oh, and I have a visual test too, if the patterns looks too busy, I won't try it on. And then there is the color test too, I only like certain colors and they are not always the "in" of the season. Hmmm, maybe I just figured out why my wardrobe is so meager, I am picky!

I did manage to find a top and a pair of khaki's (that as usual, need severe alteration!). Chanting to myself, more like muttering through gritted teeth, "I can do this. I can do this.", I waded through the entire store and dressed myself head to toe. I was queasy by the time I got to shoes, handbags, and accessories. I told myself to trust my instincts pretend this was an art project and hope I did not come out looking like a fashion criminal in a forensic artist sketch that would be broadcast on national television as fashion faux pau of the century, reward included!I refused to faint at the register or give in to the grinding in my gut at how much I could have been spending at Hobby Lobby or the flea market were it not for the necessity of having to wear clothes, not wanting to embarrass my family, or be arrested. I left those bags in the cold car all night and schlepped them in this morning to model for darling daughter. I need her approval, she has great taste.

She surveyed me critically and carefully, surprised by a bit of shiny, a tiny thread in the top and a bronze ballet flat. Is there texture in that bag, a faux look alligator in a slimy green color? Does she detect an actual pattern in the top, one that has actual designs in it, not solid? Her only criticism is that I might want to try color next time. Cheeky thing that she is, she dons her best voice she uses to praise her two year old nephew and says, "WOW MOM, you did it all by yourself!" Then she grins, claps, and says, "YEAH!" Stamp of approval, I am good, at least I think I am, in the back of my mind I wonder from her praise if I look like a two year old dressed me.Now that I actually have something to wear shopping, I have to repeat this dreadful process to fill in the gaps of my meager wardrobe for an upcoming trip. While I am out shopping I will be putting together a little give away package to celebrate my small fashion victory and my 200th post. Check back in on Friday for the details and to sign up.

Unfashionably Yours,
Miss Sandy

OOOPS, I Did It Again.....

After a long hard day of toil my husband and I turned in for the night. A grateful sigh escaped my lips as my head hit my soft down filled pillow. Good nights and I love yous were exchanged and then it was off to slumber.

From the edge of a dream I was startled awake by my husband bolting out of bed, thumping open the bedroom door, flipping on the living room light. I raised up on my elbows frowning at the strange noises emanating from the next room. I heard drawers being opened, rustling of papers, then the slide and slam of each drawer only to hear the process began again. Finally after the fourth drawer I heard a soft, "Aha!"

I flopped back down thankful that whatever it was he was searching for was found and that it was not an intruder. Suddenly I am blinded by the overhead light being flicked on. I was about ready to snap and complain when I caught a glimpse of his face. He stood in the doorway grinning like a Cheshire cat waving a piece of paper pinched between his thumb and finger. I managed a civil, "What?" To which he replied, "Happy Anniversary!" The paper was a beautiful copy of our marriage certificate that I had done in calligraphy and intended to frame. I had put it in one of the sofa table drawers so it would not get marred until I had it framed.

He leaped across the room and pounced on the bed almost bouncing me off as we both laughed at his sing song, "I remembered, you did not!" How could we have totally forgotten our 15Th Wedding Anniversary? Well, how could I have forgotten, he did remember somewhere around the stroke of midnight. We still laugh about the time we forgot our Anniversary.Well, I did it again, only this time it was my one year blog-aversary! That's right, it slipped on by unnoticed by me until yesterday. My very first post was on August 16, 2007. It passed by quietly while I was on my blogging break, actually I have a confession to make, I thought I was at the end of August. So with that in mind I think a celebration of some sort is called for. How about a give away?

Let me stew on this a day or two and then I will announce the prize. The above wedding image is from my personal collection, feel free to copy it and use it in any way you wish. In the meantime, I hope you will celebrate this day for the gift that it is, for no special reason, just because! I wish you a blessed and happy day. May it be filled with joy that is uncontainable, smiles and laughter, health and happiness, and a little something unexpected!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy