Sea Willow Herbs: December 2009

December 29, 2009

BIG SNOW LITTLE SNOW

My parents came to visit us this weekend and they brought with them pictures of the big snow storm that they had last week. They live just outside of Asheville, NC on three and a half acres of land. The picture above is of my parent's backyard!! They got about eight inches of snow. The last time Asheville got that much snow was in 1992!! A tree just missed hitting my mother's car and they lost power for four days. They spent most of the time shoving out the driveway, chopping up trees that had fallen and watching movies on my dad's laptop. We had only a dusting of snow here on the Outer Banks. I could not believe I missed it and I can't believe no one went sledding!! Check out the great pictures below.

My parent's front yard

My parent's backyard

My parent's front yard

My brother's cabin

My brother cutting down the tree that almost hit my mom's car

My mom's car and tree

My dad

Backyard

December 26, 2009

IF YOU LOVE MARIO....

Art by: Glen Brogan

Blog: albinoraven7.blogspot.com

Check out this great art HERE and if you love it be sure to VOTE on it so it can be a T-shirt!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Oscar say's "Happy Holidays!!"

December 20, 2009

CRAFT BLOCK #1: CRANKBUNNY

1. Secret Decoder Card with Custom Message (outside)

2. Pushing Up Daisies Boston Terrier Pop Up Card (outside)
3. Red Blooming Popup Card (inside)
4. Secret Decoder Card with Custom Message (inside)
5. CrankBunny Etsy Shop
6. Fish Head Popup Card (inside)
7. Pushing Up Daisies Boston Terrier Pop Up Card (inside)
8. Red Blooming Popup Card (outside)

Craft Block: Pictures of objects that inspire me and my craft. Pictures can be all from one crafter,from several crafters, or just pictures I find interesting.

December 19, 2009

New York Times: That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work

This is an interesting article in New York Times Fashion and Style. You can read it HERE.

The article talks about when your hobby becomes your work and how to find a balance and other issues about making money selling your crafts.

December 18, 2009

HAPPY LAST NIGHT OF HANUKKAH

Better late than never!! So happy last night of Hanukkah to everyone!!

It would seem that my camera takes it's best pictures when it's subjects are on fire as shown in the photos above. So all I have to do now is light my products on fire..right? No need now to buy or borrow a new camera! I am on my way to photo greatness. Give me my matches please! Only one small problem wax melts under heat and well...most of my products are made with wax. So I guess I am back to square one. However I do still like these photos I took tonight.

And if you where wondering which candle went out 1st it was the center blue one followed by the left white one, left yellow one, left pink one and after that I stopped counting. My boyfriend and I each picked a candle to go out 1st and mine won! We did not count the middle blue one. Mine was the yellow one and his was the pink one.

December 17, 2009

OF THE THIRD MAN AND ZITHER

Tonight I watched the movie "The Third Man". If you have seen this film you know all about it and if you have not watched it yet and you like film noir than you should really check out this movie. It is one of the classics

One of the elements that make this movie great is the large amount of Zither music used in this film. What is a Zither? Well I really did not know all that much about it so my boyfriend and I hopped on Youtube to find out more. A Zither is an instrument that is a cross between a guitar and a harp that you play while sitting down or standing up. Cool huh? I know, right. We found this awesome lady giving Zither lessons!!

She has a web site HERE where she sells her CDs and you can check out her biography HERE, her story is really interesting.

She has CDs of Zither music for almost any occasion. So if you are looking for that holiday gift for that hard to find a present for someone perhaps you should think about getting them:

MORE INFO:

www.wikipedia.org/zither

www.wikipedia.org/the third man
www.imdb.com

December 13, 2009

PLANTS VS. ZOMBIE GAME REVIEW

If you were wondering what I have been up to, besides madly working on my Etsy Shop and finding holiday gifts, I have been obsessively playing a game called: Plants vs. Zombies.

From Pop Cap, the makers of Bejeweled, comes Plants vs. Zombies. This suburban tower defense game will really make you think differently about home security.

This game is great! If you are looking to play a zombie game and you hate all that blood and gore but you are still looking to kick some un-dead ass this is the game for you.

You are defending your front yard, back yard, and roof from wave after wave of a variety of different slow moving but very hungry zombies. You will encounter the conehead zombie, screen door zombie, the zomboni, ducky tube zombie and many more. You will be defending your yard with a variety of colorful, cute and dangerous plants. By harnessing the power of the sun, made with the help of sunflower plants, and adorable sun shrooms, you will create the power you need in order to grow plants like: peashooters, tangle kelps, doom shrooms, wall-nuts, and others.

Plants vs. Zombies has several modes. The first part of the game is the adventure mode. In this mode you learn the basics, meet your crazy neighbor and visit his shop (located out of the back of his station wagon), plant lots of plants, kill lots of zombies, and yes defeat a final boss.

As you play though the adventure mode you will unlock puzzles and mini-games. Upon completion of the adventure mode you will unlock your Zen garden and the survival mode. Survival mode makes the adventure mode look like the games tutorial. This mode is almost endless!! You plant like mad as wave after wave of zombies try to get to your tasty brains. It is faster paced and crazier than the adventure mode and really does earn the term “survival”. For a look at what survival mode looks like after about 98 rounds see the video below.

Your goal to stop the zombies from getting into you house and eating your brains sounds simple enough, however, don’t underestimate the zombies, just because they are slow moving, silly, and not very bright. Watch out because THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING!

You can really tell a lot went into the making of this game: it is tons of fun and super satisfying to play, the plants and zombies where created with a lot of personality and love, there are hours of game play to be had and lots of un-lockables to unlock. I would highly recommend checking it out.

P.s. Be sure to watch the credits at the end of the adventure mode for a surprise.

P.p.s. This game is a PC/Mac game. You can buy it most stores for $19.99 or you can download it from Steam for $9.99

MORE INFO
Check out The Girl Gamer's review of this game as well
http://4thegirlgamers.blogspot.com
Check out the Plants vs. Zombies website
http://www.popcap.com

December 10, 2009

ETSY SHOP UPDATE #3

I finally was able to get a new card reader!! Great, I thought, I am now one step closer to being able to list some of my products in my shop. However I have discovered that my 10-year-old digital camera does not have a mode that allows it to take close up pictures of tiny objects without being very fuzzy!! So now I need a new camera or I need to find a friend who has one that I can use. Luckily I think I know just the person

It has been so long since I last had a new card reader that they have totally changed the look of the readers. It is now half the size (it is now about three inches square and and my old one was about five inches and rectangle) and a lot less square in design. My boyfriend and I had to ask two people in Best Buy just in order to find it and then when we did find it we realized that we had walked right passed it several times! Wow! How fast things change.

December 7, 2009

CRAFT FAIR APPLICATION LIST-DECEMBER 2009

I am new to this whole thing of selling products at craft fairs and I have found the application process confusing. Applications come out months ahead of time and every craft show puts out their new application at different times and each has a different application due date deadline. Some craft fairs will sent you a post card when the new application is out, which is very helpful, however not every fair does that. So in an attempt to organize the madness that is I have made a special list for the craft show/farmers market vendor. I will be posting this up every month and hopefully not only will I be less confused you will find some very helpful information.

(Craft Fairs and Farmers Markets are mostly in the state of North Carolina and South Eastern Virginia because I live in North Carolina and next to Virginia. If you know of a great fair and or market I would be happy to post it. It does not have to be limited to NC or VA.) (This is not a list of shows that Sea Willow Herbs will be attending. I will be posting a list later)

SPRING DAZE