My How She's Grown!

Can you believe that Ava has gone from this...

{Awwww!}

to this in just 5 1/2 weeks?

{Jess and Ava}

And she is such a baby! She loves to be carried. She goes to the window and barks for someone to come pick her up so she can look out.

It will still be a few more weeks before she is big enough to move in with Luna and Buddy. They love to play with her but they play too rough for Ava's liking.

Now that we have the cuteness taken care of, I'd like to mention that I have several items listed on eBay right now. I am in the process of clearing out accumulated inventory, including some pieces I brought home from local and semi-local shops that sell my work. Some items may have slight imperfections, such as a chip in the paint or a tear in the paper backing on artwork. I will mention any of these that I see.
 

During the remainder of July, I will be listing lots of items, starting the bids at well below retail prices! Everything must go so I can start fresh in my studio. Please feel free to let your friends know about these auctions.

Thanks for stopping by!

Take care and God bless,
Lana
~*~

Website Woes & Anniversary Sale

Website Woes: Well, I knew it would eventually happen --- my dinosaur of a website program (FrontPage) would finally bite the dust and fade away into the land of extinction. I won't bore you with all the technical details (because I don't understand them myself), but a month or so ago while trying to update my website, Honeysuckle Lane, the program kept freezing up and I'd get error messages. After many attempts to fix it, I uninstalled the program with the intentions of re-installing it. But I couldn't find my FrontPage disk! I have looked everywhere to no avail. So, unless I can buy one (an old one since Microsoft no longer makes FrontPage), I am going to have to find another way to build and update my website. And if I buy another one, I don't know if that will fix the problem I was having or not. Maybe it was a glitch on my computer?

Do any of you have any experience with other website builders? FrontPage is a WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) format... I never had to deal with html unless I wanted to go that route... and I didn't... so I really need something easy.

I know some of you have commerce websites through your blog platforms. Any preferences... Wordpress, Blogger, etc.? Feel free to leave a link to your shop in the comments so I can see the kind of set up you have and please tell me how you like it. Did you do it yourself or did you have someone set it up for you?

I really, really need some help on this so thank you in advance for any recommendations and advice!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  
Anniversary Sale: On July 29th Roger and I will celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary ! Yay! :) In honor of our 28 years of wedded bliss (insert cheering crowd here) I am offering 28% off every item in both of my Etsy shops. I need to clear out as much inventory as possible and start the next couple of months with a clean slate.

All you have to do is enter 28YEARS in the coupon code box during checkout at Etsy and your items will be discounted 28%.

My shops are Honeysuckle Lane and Simple Joys Paperie. This sale goes through July 31st.

I have also recently made 3 dozen more Felted Flower Pins. I am taking them to a couple of shops next week, but wanted to offer these to my online customers first. To thank you for making them so popular, I am selling them for $10 each through July 16th. You may see them here: HLSHOP.blogspot.com.

And on to another subject.... please don't write me off just yet. I've had a lot going on the last few weeks and have not been blogging about my weight-loss journey. There's just not been much going on with that, but I realize those of you that were with me at the start might benefit from reading about my slow times as well as the good times. I WILL be back next Wednesday to post about it.

Thanks for sticking with me! :)

(((HUGS!)))
& God bless,
Lana
~*~

Otherwise Occupied

I apologize for the lack of blog posts, missing Saturday Sundries posts and Weigh-In Wednesdays posts.

{Luna, our Siberian Husky pup}

I have been otherwise occupied with a festival, vet appointments, doctor appointments, and every day life.

We have gotten two new pups in the last few weeks.

{Luna with Ava, our feisty German Shepherd puppy}

I'm sure things will slow down soon... eventually.

Ava cries to go outside to play with Luna and Buddy. Luna is very patient and lets Ava growl and bite and tug at her ears, then she just holds her down with her paw, lol!

Buddy's still around, but I have no recent pics. He got fixed yesterday and will be a bit under the weather for a few days.

In the meantime, Ava will pose for the camera...

along with her little brother, Thor, who lives with my son and his wife...

{Ava & Thor}

{Thor}

So that's what's going on here. It's just like having little ones around again and I am getting pretty much nothing accomplished.... other than adding more cute puppy photos to my album! ;)

{Ava}

I'll check back in tomorrow for Weigh-In Wednesday.

Take care and God bless,
Lana
~*~

Remains of the Day

Once again, the festival is over. The weather cooperated with partly sunny and partly overcast skies on and off... just enough to keep things from being too hot. There was a wonderful crowd all day long, lots of business, and I have come home with the remains of the day.

The website program I use is not working and I can't update my www.honeysucklelane.com website so I have listed everything on my Honeysuckle Lane Sale Shop blog.

Come on over and see if there's something you'd like or perhaps something you'd like to purchase for a gift.

Take care and God bless,
Lana
~*~

Another Peek or Two...

The Lavender Festival is this Saturday and I'm getting a bit antsy. I don't have time to make soldered jewelry as I planned, but I will have at least five or six dozen silk ribbon pillows and a few dozen flower pins made from recycled cashmere and lambswool sweaters.

I hope that's enough to make my booth look full. Nothing will be over 8"x10" in size, so if needed, I can fill in with fresh bouquets and antique and vintage props.

I read in the festival vendor information that the rose is the herb of the year, and I ended up making several spider-web roses using vintage seam binding ribbon instead of silk ribbon as seen in the photos above.

It seems I had a lot of narrow ribbon in my stash, so I made several spider mum looking flowers. Thankfully they don't have to be technically correct, just pretty!

I have just a little bit of handwork left to do and then I've got to get busy sewing on the backs and stuffing the pillows.


Before I go, I want to thank all of you for your comments on my last blog post and for your email messages. I've been so busy working on festival stuff and then I had to go to the doctor today and haven't had time to answer everyone individually.... but I will soon. (((HUGS to all of you!)))

Take care and God bless,
Lana
~*~