Yellow and Grey Kids Baby Boy Nursery Hanging Wall Letters

I can’t stop myself from designing letters in the colors of yellow and grey for kids nursery letters! I love this bedding from Land of Nod called Not a Peep. So modern and classy for a boy!!!  These letters in this style and many others can be purchased at www.candicenkatiesart.etsy.com

Review From a Blogger on My Nursery Boy Wall Letters

I was fortunate enough to design these wonderful “William letters” to match Caden Lane bedding for a fellow blogger. She actually did a review on these letters and I am quite pleased with the results.

Please read her thoughts by clicking on the link below:

http://www.ramblingsofasuburbanmom.com/2012/03/nursery-wall-letters/

Pottery Barn Kids Savannah Bedding and Matching Wall Letters

I love Pottery Barn Kid’s Savannah bedding. There are so many design options to add to your little girls room to match this line. I attached a picture of a new wall letters design I created that would match perfectly.

You can find them at www.candicenkatiesart.etsy.com

Tons of other designs to choose from too!!

waiting on the arrival of my new baby granddaughter

The time is finally here for my daughter to give birth to my first grandchild! We are all so excited and hope every minute that she goes into labor! She is not actually due until Monday but about a week ago, she was having timetable contractions which were getting closer together and we thought it was finally TIME!! The problem is I live in South Carolina and she lives right outside of Boston, MA. Well needless to say, I got on the first plane out the following morning only to have the contractions stop later that night.  I was so nervous about missing this amazing experience that my daughter was about to go through that it was worth being here for an extra week or so. I had 3 C-sections so I am so excited to live vicariously through my daughter delivering this baby all on her own!!

And now I have been here for over a week and contractions come and go but nothing consistent. We walk everyday and try all kinds of different foods but so far nothing has worked. We can barely wait another minute!! But that little girl is in no rush to leave her comfy home and is determined to come on her own time.

So we fill our idle time with nursery projects. Everyday we come up with another cute thing to do in her already adorable room.  This baby better hurry up and come before we paint everything in the house pink! The one good thing about my early arrival is that we’ve never have had this much time together to craft. And we are so enjoying it!! I will be posting nursery pictures very soon so stay tuned.

We now have everything a baby would ever want or need…..now all we need is a baby!

My Memory of September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001….. A day I will never forget!

As you may already know, my son was in a diving accident on May 10, 2001. A tragic accident that changed my whole family forever. He was away at college in Maryland at the time, and was airlifted to a hospital in Baltimore. This time in my life is a blur….a completely shattered existence from what my life was just the day before. Lots of ups and downs and denial of what our future may possibly hold. My son fought really hard to survive through it all and I do not know where he found the strength. He does have a spinal cord injury and to this day is in a wheelchair.

After a month-long stay in Baltimore, my son was airlifted to Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC for rehab. We spent the summer there while my son learned how to cope with his new body. He fought so hard during this time and every day was a challenge.

Finally he was to be discharged on 09/12/01 under one condition, I had to come in to NYC early the day before to spend 24 hours caring for my son under a nurses supervision to be sure we could handle everything once we returned home.

So off I went with my suitcase, and boarded the Jitney bus on that beautiful morning of 09/11/01.  Before I arrived in Queens, my husband called and asked if I could see smoke ahead because a plane had just hit the twin towers. I thought I could see something and told  the passenger sitting next to me what was going on. Before I knew it, my husband called again and said a second plane hit the other tower…that is when I started to panic. My son was lying in a hospital bed in NY without the ability to get up and run… this can’t be happening!

I told the passenger next to me what was happening and he told me that he knew the person who designed the twin towers and that there was no way they could fall.

At this point my husband told me I had to get off the bus in Queens which was the last stop before the Midtown Tunnel. He did not want me to go under the Hudson River in a tunnel at this time. The passenger sitting near me said his driver was going to be picking him up at the Queens stop and he could give me a ride to the nearest subway station which would get me into Manhattan. I had to find a way in. I wouldn’t even let myself think that my son would be left alone. I needed to get to him asap!!

His driver picked us up and we listened to the live radio reports while looking at the twin towers burning from across the Hudson River. There was sheer panic everywhere. Just as we took a corner and lost sight of the towers, the report came over that a tower fell… we were silent in the car and when the towers came back into our view, there was only one….

We arrived at the subway station and my bus passenger friend jumped out of the car, retrieved my suitcase from the back, threw it on the sidewalk, looked me in the face and said “you are never getting into the city now!”  and off he went.

So there I am stranded in the middle of blaring sirens and absolute mayhem and I begin to realize that my only option is to take my first subway ride ever. I managed to gather myself knowing that now was not the time to lose it.

I went down to the subway, got on a train that was waiting on the tracks and found a seat. Then we waited and waited…. finally an announcement came over saying there will be no more trains running into Manhattan. Oh no! This could not be happening!

I had no choice but to make my way back up to the street again. As I came up the stairs I could see a perfectly blue sky and the further I went up the more sirens I heard. I thought, this can’t be real. It felt like I was either daydreaming or I had just managed to stumble on to a movie set. I wanted to scream to everyone “don’t you understand that my son is in a hospital right now without the ability to walk or run? Can’t anyone help me?”

But as I looked at the other faces moving around me, I realized that I was not the only one in a dire situation. Those people had family and friends in and around those towers. Everyone had a blank confused look on their face wondering, just like me, what to do next.

I remember at this point just sitting down on a grassy area and looking up and trying to ignore what was going on around me in order to try to get a clear plan of action. My family could not reach me. Not a single phone circuit was available. Someone near me mentioned that there was a bus running on the street I was on that would take us to a train station. I realized that I was not getting into Manhattan and I could only pray that someone at the hospital would look after my son.( I found out later that my son’s doctor spent almost the entire day with him watching everything unfold on the TV.)

I did manage to get on that bus to the train station and again was lucky enough to  find a seat. Then the train once again just sat and sat. A police officer with a bomb sniffing dog kept going up and down the aisle. I started wondering where I was and why it suddenly felt so much like a war zone.

Eventually passengers started literally stumbling in covered with white dust. I will never forget the look on their faces. I found out that these were the people who walked over the Brooklyn bridge to escape ground zero. Most of them had not been able to reach their families either to let them know they were alright. We all were shocked and confused but had only one thing on our minds….we needed to get home.

And I did manage to find my way back to Southampton. It normally takes just less than 2 hours to get from my house to NYC and it took me 7 hours to get back.

My son did eventually get home, but not on that day. My sister’s husband, a NYC police detective, scooped my son up and brought him home to us. The hospital staff was very helpful with gathering all his belongings and getting him into my sisters car.

I don’t know who was more relieved when my son arrived home, him or me!

The images in my mind will never go away from that horrible day. My story is one of many that occurred during that tragic event. And my outcome was very lucky. It took a long while for me to want to return to Manhattan after 9/11. I swore that I never wanted to go back there again. But now that I have moved to South Carolina, I miss my city terribly.

Designing An Eye Catching Product Presentation

I recently finished developing a new product that I have been working on for some time now. SO Excited… I launched them on ETSY yesterday!!

WELL….. once they posted, I looked at them among other products in the same category and mine just FAILED!!!! I knew they were adorable, but they just didn’t shine like they needed to in order to stand out.

I went back to the drawing board and worked on product presentation. I LOVE the COLORS and the way they work with one another. I have been studying this I think  my whole life. I always find myself stopping and staring at random things grouped together and really notice the way they complement one another.

SO…… this is how I changed the product and images…….I just love the different combinations of colors and textures!!

The hair clips now become something else too… adorable gift tags!!

CLick on this link  below to see more of my before and after photos of my hair clips.

BEFORE AFTER

This may not be perfect yet, but I feel I am on the right track

 As you can see, taking the time to really evaluate your product and presenting it the very best  you can will be sure to give you better sales!!

Visit my shop at www.candicenkatiesart.etsy.com

Felt Hair Clips For Girls

NEW ITEM!!!!

I have been asked for some time now to make hair clips for girls since I sell hair bow holders. I finally found the time to put some together. They are a perfect 2″ size with a really good alligator clip on the back.

You can go to my shop at www.candicenkatiesart.etsy.com to check them out. this is a perfect time to purchase since I am offering free shipping all weekend. Just use the coupon code LABORDAY!