SEPTEMBER GIVEAWAY!

Hello Friends!

I was cleaning up this weekend and going through magazines and realized I have 2 copies of the Summer 2009 Somerset Life magazine. This is a treat! I LOVE this magazine, ok, I love ALL their magazines, but Artful Blogging and Somerset Life are at the top of the list! My first introduction to Stampington was last summer when I stumbled across a copy of Somerset Life...OH! I am in love. :) So if you would like to be the lucky recipient of this brand-new copy, please leave a comment! I will draw a name and post the winner on Monday, Sept 14th! Good luck!!

SHERI

PICTURES FROM THIS ISSUE:

Artful Blogging

I bought the latest issue of Artful Blogging last night and WOW! My blog banner is featured in the back! I'm so thrilled! I never thought my banner would be listed in there! I know it's just a small thing for most people, but I am so new to blogging that it just made my day! This magazine is like eye-candy for me.

And have you seen their lastest issue of Where Women Create? Oh my gosh, my little corner in a spare room looks like a hurricane hit most of the time and I can't believe how organized and inspiring these women are! I am put to shame! :-) I am going to have to get busy on my "craft room". No wonder I haven't felt very inspired lately. I just can't imagine not having huge piles of fabric laying around, paint bottles spilling out of containers, and scrapbook paper piled sky-high threatening to overturn at any minute. I obviously need some shelves and lots of drawers for starters! :-) Somehow I believe that most women are like me, and having to use a spare room for their crafts and hobbies. I could be wrong, but unless you are professional or just have alot of money to spare, I don't see how you can have rooms like these. I hope to get my little craft room looking better by the first of the year after classes are finished in December and I have some breathing room to do things. I am definitely inspired now to get it together!

Keep on crafting!

A Sunday Drive

VIEW OF GATLINBURG, TN

As usual, I spent Saturday working. I have been working alot of Saturday's lately. Partly because I like the overtime, partly because we hired 6 new people this summer and no one seems to have a good work ethnic anymore, partly because it's the beginning of a new school year at the university where I work. Yes, the students are back in town and classes started Monday. I am already longing for the Christmas holiday, ha. And I haven't even signed up for my classes yet.

Sunday after church, my husband Jeff said, what do you want to do? I said, well...let's just go for a drive. Those are dangerous words for us! We ended up driving to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN, for dinner. Yes, we're nutty like that. But it's only a 3 1/2 hour drive from Virginia where we live. Do other people take driving trips like this I wonder?

SHOPPES IN GATLINBURG

We were married in Pigeon Forge, TN, at a cabin we rented for the week, almost 2 years ago (October 7th), so it has a special place in our hearts. We often joke that if we were to ever win the Mega Million, we should just move there. We drive to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg several times a year, often just to eat dinner or stay a night or two. For someone like me, a craft person, it's a paradise! I love going through the shops and I love the 8-mile-loop in the Arts & Crafts Community in Gatlinburg. I have this fantasy of owning a shop there one day & spending all my time working on different projects. :-) Well, if you're going to dream, dream big, right?

GATLINBURG, VIEW FROM THE AQUARIUM

We often have lunch at a quaint little place called The Wild Plum Tea Room in the Gatlinburg Arts & Craft Community and have become known as "regulars" there. Not an actual Tea Room, but a charming little bistro-type place. Their speciality drink is the "Wild Plum Tea" (hot or
cold) which is a citrus & tea beverage. OH YUM. My husband loves the tea so much that I bought their little cookbook so I could have the recipe. Naturally, he says I don't make it often enough. :-) We have become friends with the owner, Casey, and last year we were invited to their Christmas dinner. It was wonderful! We were so warmly welcomed by Casey and the staff, we even said it felt more like home than when his parents come in for Christmas. That made me sad, but how true it was for the both of us.

THE WILD PLUM TEA ROOM, GATLINBURG

I love just driving through Pigeon Forge on the "Parkway" though I can't really explain it. It is nothing more than miles of restaurants, motels & hotels, outlets and shops. Gatlinburg is the same, only a two-lane road through "downtown" instead of a 4-lane highway. And it's all surrounded by the Great Smoky Mountains. I'm really not a mountain-type-of-girl, having grown up in the Tidewater section of Virginia, but I find these mountains beautiful. Well, perhaps, I am biased since we were married here. :-)

THE PARKWAY (US-441) IN PIGEON FORGE

I'm sure we'll find our way back down there again in October even if just for a night or two. :-) And of course, we'll have to drop in, have lunch and tea, and say hi to Casey and the girls!

VIEW OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS, TN

Also, another happy note, I did find the newest issue of Artful Blogging! Oh, yes, how I do love this magazine. And maybe my banner will be in the next issue! :-) Now I must go and sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy & dream!

My banner in Artful Blogging??

OH MY GOSH!! I AM SO EXCITED!!

I got a comment on my blog from one of my fav magazines "Artful Blogging" that they are interested in publishing my blog banner! I know for some this might not be so exciting, but for me, I AM THRILLED!

I am still on the lookout for their fall issue which hasn't shown up at my local bookstore yet. Ah...it's awful to be this impatient! :-)

Now I guess I had better get busy on my blog because who knows how many people might just drop by!

Artful Blogging

oh! My blogs are so blahhhh...

I found this magazine over the weekend and I was so amazed! And by the same publisher as Somerset Life, one of my newest and favorite magazines.

Where do they find the inspiration? I suppose after I've been blogging for at least a year, I will have some nice photos too, but WOW. The creativity this causes to rush through by veins is awesome and I want to stop everything and start crafting!

Definitely a magazine worth exploring, but be careful! I think the passion for crafting is contagious! :-)

Somerset Life

Where have you been all my life? How long have you been around since I discovered you last week? What a charming and dreamy book! I want to jump right into the pages and live there with all the inpiration! I have been dreaming and planning Prim Rose Hill Studio for a while now and this just makes me want to stop everything else in my life and go for it! Ok, realistically I still have to keep the "day job"...after all, who can give up a pie-job with state benefits, but oh the wonderful things I could enjoy doing in any spare time I can find! Now...if I could just win the Mega Million, I would have all kinds of time to be creative and crafty! :-)