Business 2 Blogger

I don't know if any of you have checked this out yet, but I found it through Jay at Halftime Lessons. He and a couple of gorgeous gals named Shauna and Holly have started this website - Business 2 Blogger - to help blogs (and business!) make some money and/or swag and generate some business.
Oh yah - it's free, too! Seriously! No, really... FREE!

What they do is send you an email with several blogging opportunities. You are provided a link to submit your interest in whatever campaign you choose. If you are selected, you get an email telling you the details of the campaign and what is required for you to participate. There are free books to people who will read and review, or clothing to try, etc. Others just want you to write about something using certain words to see what happens on web searches. They differ. Go check out the site, it explains it better than I can.

Anyway, what I discovered is that most of the business want you to have a certain page rating or a certain amount of people reading it everyday. Being a relatively new blog I'm not too high up on the ranks yet. But a couple days ago I submitted my site for a campaign for Glasses USA. Usually by the time I get around to it, the chances are gone (typically they only want 5-20 bloggers for whatever) but this time I was actually able to submit my name. And even though they wanted someone with a page rating of 4+ (mine's only 3) there was an area to type some info if you wanted. So I said I had been a glasses wearer for 20 years and was always looking for stuff to blog about. And they picked me!

So now I have to send them my prescription and pick out a pair of glasses, then review them when they send them to me. Great! I just wish I'd seen this before I went out and bought a new pair of glasses 2 weeks ago! Dang those things are gettin' 'spensive!

Anyway, go check it out. It's interesting at least to see who's wanting what and maybe it'll give you some ideas. Best case scenario is you'll get some cash-ola or some nice "prizes"!

Now I just need to figure out how to get Ford to give me one of these if I agree to blog about it...!

Bits and Pieces

It's been a hectic last week or so, for some unknown reason. Trying to get tax stuff done. We've taken our respective turns with some kind of flu bug. Getting the website up. Beer and pizza night (and who wants to do anything after that?) Plus trying to get a Facebook page up for jewelry and art (I'm still ambivalent on that... last time I tried Facebook I had a stalker ex-boyfriend trying to find me...what's up with that, anyway?!) Plus always trying to finish new pieces.

So here's some parts of what I'm working on:






Can you tell I'm working on Alice's tea party?
Well, I guess technically, it's the Mad Hatter's tea party.
Why won't the Cheshire Cat just leave the poor Dormouse alone?

Hope to be done in a couple days.

Spring Fever Necklace

A while back (has it been that long??) I said I was working on a necklace using some of the pretty, pretty beads from Artbeads.com. Well, I finally got it done! It turned out to be fairly labor intensive, plus I haven't had much time to work on it, but I think it was worth it.

I used these Czech glass flowers and these Venetian glass beads and these Olive green ("Army" green) glass beads and a whole bunch of these Rose Swarovski crystals and these Olivene Swarovski crystals. Along with some old peachy-pink glass beads I had laying around.

It kind of represents my desire to be done with winter and get on with spring!








Necessary Legal Stuff: I have received the above mentioned products from Artbeads.com and am honestly reviewing them. I have not been paid for my endorsement.

AWOL

Yes, I have been absent from posting and commenting and so on for a few days. I am actually on "vacation" - which means I am not at work, but me and Secret Agent Man are taking a few days to get my actual web site set up. So I'm not around much, but I'm trying to take some time outs and make a little presence here and there.
Once we get this sucker up and running I will be back and link to the new site. In the meantime, here are a couple neat-o pictures my dad took when he and my mom drove by Multnomah Falls on their way here last week.

Random Tuesdayness

Or is it "Tuesday Randomness"?
Either way...

I forgot that when I was in college I used to write poetry. I found this one in a folder the other day:



Moth-like wings of flame
dance shadows upon walls of
delicate paper.

Abbreviated
memories flash and are gone -
sensory haiku.

No One Likes a Perky Goth pt 2

So I have decided to re-do some of my old artwork in my new style... some of the ones I was not particularly happy with the first time around.

This is from a couple years ago:



...which is okay...but not quite what I pictured.

This one I finished today. I think I like it better.



...but then, I'm kinda partial to my new girls.
Whadda you think?

(update: I've had a couple people say they missed the flowers, so I added some in.)

The Land of Counterpane

When I was a kid my folks had lots of books for us to read. The Saggy Baggy Elephant. Davy Deer's New Red Scarf. Numerous nursery rhymes and poems. There was one great big book (I don't remember what it was called, and it's packed away in a box somewhere) that had every fable, nursery rhyme and fairy tale you could think of in it. I loved that book and I still love it. It's illustrated and just wonderful (if I come across it I will update this post...it's an awesome book that all kids should have, I don't care how old it is!) Some of my favorite poems are the Robert Louis Stevenson poems. I came across this one the other day and decided to illustrate a few of them. This is also my first little boy in this style of illo. Hope you like him!