Working on

A new Christianity series of artwork. I've been contemplating multiple ideas but wanted something original. This is the beginning of the series. I'll have my praying boy's ready soon in addition to something else I can't wait to share.

Her hair color is available in 4 different colors and she can be personalized with a name and a prayer, just a name, just a prayer or nothing at all. I'll have the paper print listed on Etsy first, then at TiddliwinkDesigns.com.

So easy a caveman can do it

My kiddos are nomads. Well my girls sort of are. They are back and forth between their dad's and my house. They also are invited to quite a bit of sleep overs these days. Generally, what I do with their sleep over stuff is just put it in their back packs, but this is inconvenient when you have to dump all of the school supplies out first, and I use old back packs to store the 10,000 pounds of papers they bring home at the end of the year. I've been looking out for cheap over night bags, but lets face it, when you have 4 kids nothing is cheap. So I picked up some canvas bags earlier this week, at $2.99 each, and started to decorate.

This takes absolutely no talent. Honest. All I did was trace a bunch of circles in pencil and paint them in with craft acrylics in different shades of blue. To make it a little more fancy I added the trim around the top. I sewed this on, but it could have just as easily been glued into place.

I also added these iron on rhinestones, which say "Sleep over bag". I seriously debated if I should have put anything on here, but Tatum is my more laid back child and wouldn't be totally devastated and embarrassed by those 3 words. Bailey, on the other hand, well she's 8 going on 15.

The little picture pockets on the front can be used for many more things other than pictures. A house key, a cell phone, money, and all of the other little stuff they won't want to go digging for later on. The total cost for this bag was under $10.00.

1 down, 3 to go!

"I get to keep your change"

Recently, my son and I went to retrieve his fishing pole from his Papaw's house. While out that way we met my dad for lunch at my favorite fast food Italian restaurant. Since my dad had given me $25 in gift certificates for my most recent birthday it was an added incentive. I even offered to pick up the tab for my father's meal. The total was $12.78. I handed over 3 gift certificates in the amount of $15.00 ($5 a piece.) The girl behind the counter, with all 4 of her facial piercings, innocently declared, "I can't give you your change back, I have to keep it."

I laughed at the girl, informing her that she couldn't do that, that it was illegal. She shrugged her shoulders and declared ignorance. My non-confrontation father quickly whipped out $3.00 in cash and handed it over, squashing my hopes for a debate of legalities.

Mind you, this was not a gift card, nope. However, there sat on the top of the counter a solicitation for gift cards. I asked my dad, as we stood at the register, why he didn't just get a gift card so as not to have caused this situation to begin with. He said he tried, but that they didn't know how to work the machine. Of course! How else do you swindle people out of a couple of dollars at a time??

Food just doesn't taste so good when irritated.

When I got home I informed my attorney husband of what occurred. He quickly looked up the KRS statue regarding gift certificate laws ignored me. So I took it upon myself to look them up. Of course, after reading more than 4 pages of the gift certificate act, I found out that I'm right. But I was also intrigued that gift certificates can not expire before 365 days, and only if the expiration date is clearly declared on the front or the back of the gift card. This is KY statute, your state's may vary. Check out this link for a basic summary of your own state's law. This knowledge is good to know, since I've gotten gift certificates in the past that say they expire in as little as 45 days!

And just so you know, my son got his fishing pole and even caught his first fish at the Annual Fishing Derby in Lawrenceburg Kentucky!

Working on

Listing this new series on eBay, Etsy and TiddliwinkDesigns.com

This would be super cute in a bath room or toy room. Of course, it would also work in an "Under the Sea" bedroom or nursery. I should have it listed on my website soon!

How it starts

Every product that was ever created had to begin somewhere. My grandfather had several patents. Selling just one of those patents provided enough money for my grandparent's to be the proud owners of a large house boat with enough sleeping room for their kids and grand-kids. My husband, an attorney/politician, has been working many hours for the last 6 months on his invention. The patent pending number has already been declared. Here is a video showing what it does. It's a tennis teaching device, still unnamed but an amazing tool in helping our children with their ball striking abilities. The idea is that the ball is dropped closer to their level making it easier for them to practice hitting, much like a "t" for t-ball players. Maybe we can one day have a house boat to call our own!

Diaper Cakes

Here are a couple of more diaper cakes I have made over the last few months. The yellow was for a boy/girl twin shower. Very simple, with just diapers, receiving blankets, ribbon and toile. I've found that fanning the diapers around is much easier for both myself and the recipient.

The blue cake was created with receiving blankets, diapers, ribbon, toile, some goodies in the middle and some gently used sleepers and outfits.

So just a couple of added suggestions when it comes to diaper cakes. Keep it simple and neat. Diaper cakes don't look very nice with tons of stuff clipped onto the outside. I know the idea is to show all that is included with the cake, but try making an "ingredient list" instead. Something that explains what the diaper cake is made of. Keep an open space inside of the top tier that you can toss all of the little things inside, such as pacifiers, bottles, ointments, etc. Just DON'T mess up your cake by plastering junk all over the outside.

Once upon a blog...

What you may not know about me is that I have been blogging since before the word blog was cool. I began my exhibitionist adventure back in 1999, when we simply said we had an online journal or diary. My motivation at the time was to allow my family and friends to follow me as I went through my twin pregnancy (my first 2 children.) I had several hundred followers at my original domain of KeshiasKeepsakes.com. Over the span of the next 6 calendar years I was pregnant, therefore the journaling (or blogging) continued. Eventually I slowed down, until I stopped altogether. Perhaps it was the lack of a baby to be, but more likely the lack of time. Here is a picture I had posted of my pregnant belly when I was 22 weeks pregnant with my twins. Notice the graininess of the image. That digital camera was a gift from my ex-husband. All 1 megapixel of it, which cost upward of $500 at the time. Amazing to think of how far technology has come.

I'm now the proud owner of nearly 200 journal pages, printed out and placed into a binder. I can't imaging placing a label on the outside with the word "blog" as the description.