Cupcakes & Giveaway Winners

I'm sure you're all familiar with the story "Alice in Wonderland". This past week I was living out the parallel story "Bejeweled in Etsyland". I followed the white rabbit and fell down the hole into Etsyland, where I have been happily lost for days discovering wonderful shops and new friends. I crawled back out into the real world today and realized an entire week had gone by in the blink of an eye! A whole week! Eek!! And I thought blogland was vast :) Thank you to everyone who helped me launch my new store by stopping by to visit, hearting me, or wishing me good luck! Here it has been storming madly with even a stormstorm warning. The weather center, the news crews, indeed....everyone in the know seemed to think we were going to get a lot of snow, but in the end it all turned to rain. We don't see snow too often here on the valley floor, so it would have been exciting for the kids, but maybe next time. Now we're being pummeled by huge winds (hurricane force on the coast) so it's time to be really careful on the road looking for downed tree branches and flooded parts. My husband said he saw a car submerged almost to it's roof last night on his commute home. Update: I wrote this last night - this morning it has become clear that the storm was even stronger than expected and has left a wake of devastation in Oregon and Washington - please take a moment to pray for all those lives have been affected by this event.(storm pics from the Statesman Journal online storm coverage article)

Holiday time means holiday treats! Let's all share a piece of this tasty European style apple & cranberry tartlet I found at Costco this weekend and draw some winners! It also came with chocolate macadamia nut tartlets but those lasted about 10 seconds after we opened the box :)

Winner of prize A: Kari & Kijsa
Winner of prize B: Michelle at Hold Dear
And ... I was having so much fun let's draw another winner for mystery prize C: Alison Gibbs

Congrats to you all!!! I will be contacting you shortly for your addresses.

Who doesn't love a happy cupcake? With the grey, rainy, wintery weather now firmly in place for the next 4 months, I made some cheery cupcake paintings for my kitchen. I had visions of coming downstairs, seeing these happy prints and smiling as I made my Earl Grey tea. I got so inspired I made a whole bunch! When the artistic muse strikes ... you gotta paint! With sprinkles, without sprinkles, with cherries, without cherries, with cake flower decorations, and on and on and on...... I think I painted about a dozen? I've been making hand-illustrated cupcake and cake mini-birthday gift tags for years now so it was really rewarding to paint some larger, bolder ones. I hate to part with any of them, but these are a few that will be going up for sale soon.


Next week ... the answers to the "10 weird/interesting things about you" tag. This tag is hard to write, but I'm working on it! And .... I've been making so many new friends so fast, my bookmarks have become out of control. I can't even find the link to my own shop sometimes. Yikes! Updated blogroll coming soon so I can visit you all!