Your Vote Counts!

See below to learn how to get 20% off at www.OooohShiny.etsy.com and/or one million good karma points!


Devin and Julie are (a little more than) slightly obsessed with painting pottery at Color Me Mine. Their respective apartments are full with one-of-a-kind pieces (some better than others), but all created during afternoons of laughter and fun.

Every Color Me Mine is currently hosting a "Give a Dog a Bone" contest in which people vote on the best dog bowl by "liking" it on Facebook. Devin has an entry at the Norfolk, VA location (click on the picture below) and really really *really* wants to win (the winner receives a VIP pass to CMM, which includes all sorts of awesome stuff). And she's super competitive.


In order to vote, you need to "like" the actual Color Me Mine page first, then you can check out Devin's bowl and "like" it. Here's the incentive.......

........if you vote for Devin's bowl, you can receive 20% off your entire purchase at her Etsy shop! Just let her know you voted when checking out (leave your real name so she can verify it!) and she will refund the 20% through PayPal.

OR, you could just be a completely fantastic person and help a girl out and get one million good karma points.


ps. The bowl belongs to this dog ---->


....................................................................how can you resist such a face??


pps. You can "unlike" the Color Me Mine page after you've voted if you hate having tons of random pages on your profile. No worries.

I'm a muse......

I was chatting with the fabulous & talented Sara of Twillypop on Twitter this morning and she showed me something that absolutely made my day....

http://www.etsy.com/listing/52317724/the-devin-ribbon-bracelet

A bracelet! Named after MEEEEE!

And then I saw something else that added to the excitement....

http://www.etsy.com/listing/52318950/devin-ribbon-necklace

A necklace! Also named after MEEEEE!

Seriously.


I've thought Sara to be the bee's knees for awhile now (both in talent & personality), but this just cemented her place in my heart. And don't you just LOVE her description?

Devin is a romantic, classic, & feminine color combination......yet "she" remains hip and relevant..

♥  Je l'adore  ♥

And they're so perfectly ME. Gray and pink...dark and sparkly...
Sigh. What a great morning :)

Etsy... !? (yay?)

I closed my Etsy shop a few months ago because it had started to consume me and I was leaving very little time for anything else. Almost immediately after making my decision, I felt better - calmer, more relaxed. Since I've closed, I've been able to focus more on reading, cleaning, exercising...I feel as though I'm in a better place now and now that I've been through this once, I've been thinking more and more about reopening my Etsy store.

However - I'm going to need to constantly remind myself that Etsy is *not* (unfortunately) my job or as important as a lot of other things in my life, especially my health.

I also need to remind myself that HEY! Jules and I HAVE A BLOG and we need to update it more than once a month. The more we write, the more an actual theme of wtf this whole thing is about will appear and then we can work our way to being blog princesses. 

(Yeah, right.)

So - back to this whole Etsy thing. 

Even while I've been EtsyMIA, I've still been trying to create....but I feel as though I'm losing my jewelry-making-mojo and it drives me nuts. I'll sit on the floor for two hours and the end result will be half of a necklace. I have all sorts of ideas in my head but actually getting them out into the open is proving to be quite difficult.

So! I have some ideas of new things that I'll be adding to my shop. I think I want a more cohesive "c0llection," if you will - hopefully other people will like certain designs as much as I do. And then actually buy them. Because that's the end goal, right? Right.

Uninspired, lazy wannabe-fashionista

Summer is here. Humid, humid Southern summer.

The fun thing is that this is my first summer that I will be taking entirely off from educating. No tutoring! No lessons! No summer classes! More importantly, NO WORRYING IF MY SHIRT IS SHOWING OFF A BIT OF MY BODACIOUS TA-TAS.

I have many adorable options for summer outfits. However, almost every weekend this summer thus far has found me putting together the following combination:


Yeah. I know. Ya-a-a-wn. Last night I actually tried to deviate and wore **gasp** a skirt with the black tank, flat sandals and black glasses. Shocker.

It's funny because I know I'm a creative person. I know that there's style somewhere within my (relatively organized) closet. I'm not sure if the black tank/jeans uniform is leftover from working crew on college theater productions, or maybe it's just that I'm too lazy to put together an actual **outfit** in the morning as opposed to just throwing on clothes.

L-A-Z-Y. There we go.

I often look at girls I walk by and think "they're trying too hard." But the funny thing is, right now, I sort of want to be trying that hard. I'd like to walk out of the house in the morning and have fully dried my hair, or taken two minutes to put accessories on, or picked something other than black to wear.

So. Putting that out there, I am now going to resolve to try just a little bit harder. I'm not going to go the way of the diva, but I also think it's time for me to look better than a kid just out of college.

me, me, me

Earlier this week, Marlorie of the lovely and talented itsastitch created a treasury that expressed herself through Etsy. A few others followed suit and I decided to join the cool kids, as evidenced here:

Creating this treasury was a lot more difficult that I originally anticipated. Actually, so is writing this blog post. I wanted to discuss what I think my collection says, and how I'm not sure if I'm happy with it - but since that's fairly consistent with how I feel about myself, I suppose it's fitting.

Since the words aren't actually flowing easily as I had hoped and I'm getting more and more frustrated as I sit here searching for them, I'm going to leave you with one more link. Ashli has collected the other treasuries in her blog post: A Treasured Year: Someone Life You. Check them out - they're lovely and inspiring.

Closet reorganization: A dramedy in five acts.

Act I.
At rise, an incredibly disorganized closet. The exact perfectly placed mess is ultimately the decision of the set designer, naturellement, but clutter suggestions include

1. three laundry baskets of varying shapes and sizes, originally intended to separate clothes for easy laundering but now contain a hodgepodge of clothing, belts, and a hairbrush that went missing for a week
2. several purses that have exploded out of their hiding place, some containing "surprises" (see Act IV)
3. a pile of shoes that were once lined up neatly but now are in a jumble (also known as the "haven't worn since Virginia became an armpit of humidity" pile)
4. A pile of cardboard boxes and packing materials that are perfect for sending packages three months after birthdays are over
   
5. A bunch of empty hangers, save for those that have adorable dresses that are never worn by Our Heroine

Enter Our Heroine, a spunky young woman who tries valiantly to keep all of her crap together but sometimes abandons the pursuit of The Flawless Life in favor of garlic-parmesan popcorn and episodes of Pawn Stars (hey, she knows how much Confederate money is worth these days. Actually pretty useful). OH has been enjoying a lo-o-o-ong weekend and now knows that her Monday would be best used in one of two ways: 1. organizing her closet, so she can actually she has a variety of outfit choices instead of just washing and rewashing the same clothes each week or 2. napping, as she missed several choice opportunities in favor of making the perfect vanilla buttercream icing. Given that there is already a pile of crap on her bed, she decides to begin the week acting like an adult by tackling the closet.

OH: Tra-la-la-la-la! Oh what a lovely day to finally attack this closet! I'm sure this will be a wonderful experience that will ultimately reward me in many ways! ( OH begins to sort her laundry) I shall begin by separating all of the lovely pants I wear to...work... (OH is noticing that she is missing a pair of pants) Wait, what the... (OH frantically pulls through the pile that has already been sorted, then through another, then through another. The actress playing OH shall feel free to use any obscenities or creatively colorful phrases that come to mind. Try combining the word "douche" with another word, such as "nugget," "muzzle," or "spout.")

It is at this point that OH remembers visiting her parents the previous week after work, proclaiming that the humidity made her feel like she was living in a fat roll, and changing into a pair of shorts to walk their dog.

Act II

OH enters the room with a Swiffer to mop the closet floor. (This, remember, is a closet floor in a basement apartment, and somehow finds new ways to gross OH out at least once a season) OH mops quickly, and takes the Swiffer out of the room. OH returns, notices the sweater box on the floor, and decides to put it back in the closet. OH walks on the wet floor, curses, leaves the room to get the Swiffer, re-Swiffers, shuts the door, and places three post-it notes that say "YOU MOPPED DUMBASS" on the door.
She leaves. Offstage, the audience can hear a crash, for she spun around quickly and knocked one of her favorite wine glasses on the floor.

ACT III

OH sits on her ass and watches an episode of "Dead Like Me" amid three piles of laundry. Hey, at least she's able to prop her lower back up of the pile of dark knits.

ACT IV

OH goes through her purses and finds:

1. $2.78 in change
2. two pots of lip balm
3. 8 post it notes with either lists of stuff she needed to do at work or groceries
4. the earbuds she thought she lost
5. the missing earring she's been looking for for WEEKS (once you can't find an earring, it seems like that's the only pair you ever want to wear)

ACT V

Well. The laundry has been sorted, the majority of it has been done, and our heroine lies back in her bed. What has she learned? That IKEA glass is not as indestructible as it looks, that squirreling coins away in her bags will be good for her at lunch this week, and that she longs to be rich so she can hire someone else to do this organizing crap for her.

itty bitty kitties!

Last night I took Bowser outside to do her business and as we were playing, I saw two tiny kitty faces looking at me from underneath my car. I brought Bowser upstairs and came back with a small bowl full of wet cat food and a water dish, which I placed near my tire. One of the cats immediately started to eat - the other, a little shyer, hung back for a bit but finally her hunger took over and she joined her sibling at dinner. A few neighbors came and went as I sat on the sidewalk and watched them eat; I asked them all if they knew who these babies belonged to, but no luck. One of the neighbors pegged their age at approximately six weeks old. There was no mother in sight and these kittens were obviously not being taken care of. I then called my mother & text messaged everyone I could think of to ask if they knew anyone who wanted two kittens.


A few hours later, I had convinced my mother to come over to take the kittens with her until we found them homes; there was no way I would be allowed to bring them inside with a brand new puppy and a cat who currently hated everyone. As I was watching the cats, they would suddenly disappear from under the car - I realized that they were crawling up into my engine block. When my mother arrived, we popped my hood and there they were, two gray balls of fluff stuffed into itty bitty spaces in my engine block. I managed to grab the shy one, but before I could snatch the second, she escaped from the car and led me on a two-hour run through the bushes and under cars. I finally had to give up - she was totally spooked and there was no way that I was going to be able to catch her that night. My mother and I decided that she would take the other one home with her and I would try again the next day to get the other. I fell asleep crying because I had separated them.

I woke up this morning and took Bowser out - almost immediately I heard a tiny mewing sound coming from my car. I rushed the puppy back upstairs and grabbed my car keys and the cat carrier. I open the hood and saw the wily kitten crying inside - I grabbed her and pulled - there was no way I was letting her escape this time. She put up a fight, but I ended up winning.

About an hour later, the kittens were reunited - this time in a climate-controlled house with fresh water, food, and a litter box. I'm currently looking for homes for them, but if I can't find anyone to take them, we'll have to bring them to the SPCA.

For the next week, I'm going to be donating 20% of the proceeds from my Zibbet store to the Virginia Beach SPCA. I'm also happy to accept custom orders. I volunteered at the SPCA when I was younger and know first-hand how desperate they are for money, donations, and supplies; my days as a volunteer also resulted in my darling Peter cat, who was on the verge of being sent to the back room (from where cats don't return) and is now in his 14th year of being fat, happy, and spoiled.

In the United States, there are an estimated six to eight MILLION homeless animals entering animal shelters every year - that's not even counting those who remain in the wild. About half of these animals are adopted; therefore, the other half are euthanized. Animal overpopulation is a huge problem and one that I am committed to help stop.

In the words of Bob Barker -
Have your pets spayed or neutered.

and in the beginning...

The origin of Sparkles & Snarkles.
(as told through the wonders of gchat)

February 22, 2010
Devin: i just want to do nothing for the rest of my life
life
Julie: that's kind of where i am
Devin: how do we make money by doing nothing
?
Julie: well, you're making jewelry
OH. I know.
we collaborate on a snarky blog
and make jewelry to go with it
we'll call the blog "sparkles for snarkles"
Devin: yeah, my jewelry making isn't covering the cost of the materials
SPARKLES FOR SNARKLES
that's the best ever.
sparklesforsnarkles.com is available
Julie: holy crap
we would be so phenomenally popular.
Devin: YES.
so, how does one go about creating a wildly entertaining & popular blog?
Julie: shrugs
nudity?
with entertaining pasties?
Devin: pastry pr0n
Julie: lol
oh my.
Devin: you said pasties
I read pastries
Julie: that's even better for us
Devin: they would be pastry pasties