Spring Cleaning: Two Years Later

So a few of you may have noticed that I suddenly stopped posting mid-spring cleaning. Believe it or not, we actually followed each day, and I took photos and all that jazz to share with my readers, but...

Life decided to hand us some big news and it didn't slow down! Many of you are already "in the know", but I needed to get back here to give some explanation for my disappearance from the blog.

One, my husband accepted a position at new company and we moved to Pennsylvania. We live in Kennett Township, home of the sweet little historical town of Kennett Square. Our home sits nestled in a more rural area near the Delaware border. It has been quite a change from our life in Dearborn, Michigan. As you can imagine, life here, settling in two teenagers, trying to shift gears for business, and many other changes have been all-consuming.

Two, after years of being quite ill, I finally found a doctor who would treat my illness properly. As I started to get better and found a doctor here in PA who would continue treatment on the same path, something I had come to accept as my reality, infertility, suddenly reversed itself.

So, at 41, I found myself pregnant.

As I sit here with a darling sleeping 5 month old in my lap, I am overwhelmed with appreciation for all the changes that can happen very suddenly in life that can bring more joy than ever imagined.

But I am still a little sleep deprived, so please accept my apologies if my blog suffers for it.

Much Love!

Faith

Spring Cleaning with Apartment Therapy: Day Two

Day Two: The Fridge

Okay. I am exposing my embarrassing fridge for the day two challenge. Lucky you.

Before

A little over a year ago, we purchased a Samsung counter depth food showcase refrigerator. We love it. It is perfect for teens, and we literally have seen a difference in our electricity bill because we put the most commonly used foods and condiments in the front showcase. After a while, though, laziness sets in, and things start being put "wherever it can be shoved". We also made a rule that all leftovers or carry-out must be placed in our storage containers. It doesn't always happen, but really, this has been a HUGE help in keeping things less cluttered and chaotic. It also helps limit food waste and we are more prone to recycle the other containers right away. I find Styrofoam vile and a health/environmental hazard, so we try to get our food out of those types of containers as quickly as possible anyway.

I can't get enough of the InterDesign and mDesign acrylic fridge/food organizers. They make life a lot easier. We also use the special green-lidded Rubbermaid containers for fruit and veggies which lends to even more naturally easy organization with quick identification of the type of stored and slower food spoilage. It may not be designer beautiful, but it is extremely functional. Still, we are not perfect, so day two was a good kick in the pants for us as a family. 

Everyone pitched in a little for this one. Hopefully we will maintain our clean and organized fridge...well, at least for a couple weeks longer than last time...Baby steps.

After- Inside

After- Showcase Door


Happy Spring Cleaning!

Faith

Spring Cleaning with Apartment Therapy

SPRING CLEANING IN 20 MINUTES A DAY

'Tis the season for Spring cleaning, but for me, it's a bit more of necessity since we are preparing for a big move. While we are packing and planning, sometimes the mundane chores get lost in the larger projects. When I came across the Apartment Therapy challenge, I decided to sign up to help me stay motivated and on task. Even when tired and sore, a little extra 20 minutes is worth the peace of mind and the comfort of a community ritual.

First day: Cleaning the rubbish bins in the kitchen

I made my son do it.

Yes. I know. I'm horrible.

;)

Maybe tomorrow will be something less vile from having two teenagers in the house and I will take a picture of my progress.

Happy Spring Cleaning!

Faith 

Adventures in Gardening: Stevia (not Truvia)

On my forever quest to find healthy alternatives to refined sugar for the family and for my guests, I have definitely found one that I have fallen in love with over the past couple years after I grew it in my herb garden for the first time in 2011.  The name of the plant is Stevia, and it is very likely you have heard of it before since it is mentioned in commercials for a product called Truvia.  I am not recommending Truvia in any way. I have not used it. I have since purchased stevia packaged by Trader Joe's, and am pleased with the product, however, there is nothing like growing it in your own yard.

I have started to grow it in my butterfly garden section of my yard instead of the herb garden with even better results.

One very cool way to sweeten coffee calorie free is to add the dried leaves to the coffee beans in the grinder, or the crushed leaves to your coffee grounds.  Same goes for tea.  While I know it can be purchased in highly processed form from the grocery store under the name Truvia, I am always hesitant when something is processed to the point of unrecognizable.   I still have dried leaves, and have ordered the plants from Michigan Bulb and purchased from our favorite local nursery, Schwartz's Greenhouse.

Happy Gardening!

Faith

Branching Out

My favorite custom request this year...for so many reasons.

We're coming to the close of another year, and I wanted to once again thank my wonderful customers for their continued business. I also want to thank my family and friends for the love and support as we navigated the twists and turns that came with Jonathan's recovery from the accident. We are hopefully celebrating his last surgery which took place on the 23rd. It truly is a year I gladly leave behind, but not without the hard lessons learned. I can find appreciation for the growth this year. 

I think most of us will relate with one another when I say "Hasta la vista!" to 2016, though. 

So much has changed since the days of my small office/craft room.

Many changes are coming to Inspirations by Faith and Novel Adornment as we also begin our new journey as a family in 2017. This year, I finally took the plunge and will be incorporating and expanding- laying the groundwork for a much larger scale production than I ever thought possible over these past years. It was about time I realized it was time to fish or cut bait, as my business has all but taken over the basement and some portions of the main floor of our home. Looking for a home with a dedicated large studio and office space has been a bit surreal.

And I started an Instagram account...finally. 
(My account is not terribly interesting or appealing quite yet, but I have to start somewhere and work my way into it.) 

I also had the wonderful pleasure of meeting fellow sellers on Etsy and the absolutely delightful Vanessa Bertozzi from Etsy corporate (Brooklyn, NY) as we discussed Etsy benefits and challenges for the coming new year. Vanessa's insight was invaluable, and I genuinely wish many others had the same opportunity. I have always loved Etsy, but have been met with concerns over the past couple years about where I fit in the Etsy community as the business expands. After the discussions we had in that get together, I know I still have a place there to call home. I plan on doing a lot more blogging on some of the new venues and features we will be utilizing. 

One very happy moment that came along is reconnecting with a colleague and fellow artist from my designer/teacher days. That has been a great joy to me this year. I hope to soon be able to share more about our collaboration this January.

So cheers to the coming year, and to all the big changes it will bring!

Faith

Re-think Pressed Pennies

Okay, so if you have kidlets, you probably have a bunch of these little flattened pennies from travel, amusement parks, and field trips.  They are inexpensive, and even us stodgy adults love to watch the process of a penny being smashed and pressed into a pretty little souvenir. But then you get them home...well, then what?

Over the years I have looked at the stashes of these shiny little mementos, and wondered what the heck I was going to do with them.  Put them in a jar? Nope. Then the jar became the change dumping ground, and they became mixed together.  After that, they end up all over the house in various areas. My favorite irritation was finding them clunking away in the washing machine.

Many of you know that we usually take an annual road trip around the US.  We started collecting ornaments for each special location.  A few years back, I decided to use our smaller artificial tree (purchased for displaying my ornaments at local shows- remember when I did those???) to also display all of our travel ornaments and special handmade or colorful keepsake ornaments that don't match the silver, cream, and white decor of our living room tree. We set it up in the sunroom and surround it with all our fun Christmas creations.

That's when I had a flicker of inspiration....

So I shouted to the kids to find all the pressed pennies they could from our trips. I grabbed my thin hemp twine, and my crop-a-dile, and voila!

Just one more crop-a-dile miracle ;)

Merry Christmas!

Faith

Black Friday Weekend Sale

Inspirations by Faith & Novel Adornment will have store-wide sales. Coupon codes will be announced on Facebook on Thanksgiving day.

Happy Shopping!