2007 Merry-Making Christmas Gift Guide!

Welcome to the Just Bee 'n Me
2007 Merry-Making Christmas Gift Guide!

UPDATE (1/2/2008): This guide will remain open in the archives of my blog even though the Christmas season 2007 has passed. If you have found your way here after the holidays, we welcome you to browse through the shops represented here as they will continue to add new products to their shops throughout the year and we would all be tickled pink for you to stop by!! Thanks and blessings to you in 2008!!

I am so pleased that you made your way here! We have assembled a wonderful list of some of the finest artists and craftsmen around who also happen to be some of the nicest people around. We are all unique - some of us create with mouse, paper, glitter,watercolor, wire, yarn, or needle & thread, but we all have one thing in common - a passion for handmade goodness - works of love from our hearts and hands. It is that passion that we want to celebrate here! You are cordially invited to celebrate with us! Enjoy, be inspired, shop in your jammies, and have a yourselves a very Merry-Making Christmas!

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Bailiwick Designs (Jill)

Bailiwick Designs offers bags & purses, sachets, flower pins, pincushions, and many other little handcrafted things.

Etsy Shop: Bailiwick Designs
Blog and Christmas Shoppe: Bailiwick Designs

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Beth's Bagz (Beth)

Beth's Bagz offers you one-of-a-kind totes, purses, pin cushions, and other delights made from vintage and new materials!

Etsy Shop: Beth's Bagz
eBay Shop: Beth's Bagz
Blog: Elizabeth Holcombe - Words and Whimsies

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GeorgiaPeachez Yummy! Designs (Suzy)

At GeorgiaPeachez, you will find items (like the Laptop case above) that Suzy has handcrafted herself using vintage textiles, trims and laces.
NOTE: International Buyers are Welcome!!

eBay Shop: GeorgiaPeachez Yummy! Designs
Etsy Shop: GeorgiaPeachez Yummy! Designs
Blog: GeorgiaPeachez

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Humble Beads (Heather)

At Humble Beads you'll find one-of-kind and limited edition beads and art jewelry. Heather's designs have appeared in magazines, books, on HGTV and PBS' Beads, Baubles and Jewels.

Etsy Shop: Humble Beads
Blog: Humblearts
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Inspire Company (Amy)

Thank you so much for visiting Inspire Company. May you find many inspiring gifts, whether for yourself or your loved ones. Please don't hesitate to contact Amy if you need more information about a product or if you need any assistance.

Shop: Inspire Company
Blog: inspireco.

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Lallee's Cottage (Lallee)

All of Lallee's treasures are handcrafted by Lallee herself. She makes accessories for women, children, and for your home as well. She welcomes custom orders and can even re-create a past treasure for you if she has the supplies!

Etsy Shop: Lallee's Cottage
Blog: Lallee's Cottage
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Sweet Cottage Dreams (Becky)

Becky has sewn up some adorable and finely crafted pillows and tote bags using vintage and vintage-inspired fabrics, trims and buttons. Such a pleasing, sweet variety of colors and textures, PLUS a sale on the blog shop - don't miss it! She's also offering some great vintage decor in her eBay shop, so make sure and stop by there too!

Blog/Shop: Sweet Cottage Dreams
eBay Shop: cottage*dreams

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Holly Doodle Designs (Holly)

Holly paints, glues, glitters, crafts, assembles, and creates beautiful and sweet art for her clients (who quickly become her friends).

Shop: Holly Doodle Designs
Home Page/Blog: Holly Doodle Designs

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The Pink Barn (Shelly)

Welcome to ~The Pink Barn~....where cowgirls are chic, old things become new, and pink is beautiful!!

Etsy Shop: The Pink Barn
Blog: The Pink Barn
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Cherry Heart Boutique (Dolly)

a bit of old... a bit of new, sparkley glitter here, vintage laces there, jars of old buttons, baskets of ribbons, pink roses adorn every table, snippets of paper and pippets of fou fou, whimsical delights surround you!

Etsy Shop: Cherry Heart Boutique
Blog: From My Cherry Heart

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Hydrangea Home (Dawn)

Welcome to Hydrangea Home, a site for all of you (like Dawn) who are obsessed with all things beautiful! Enjoy your stay!

Boutique: Hydrangea Home
Blog: Hydrangea Home

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Katie's Rose Cottage (Lori )

Lori has a passion for finding things from flea markets and antique stores and recreating them into treasures for your home ~ She love pinks, aquas and roses and the romantic and cottage comfort that they bring, all of the items at Katie's Rose Cottage will reflect this feel in some way ~

Shop: Katie's Rose Cottage
Affiliated Shops: Make Mine Pink
Blog: Katie's Rose Cottage

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La Rea Rose (Celestina)

Hand Painted home and garden decor ~ by Celeste, Decorative Design Artist. Offering old and new surfaces in a variety of styles. Rose painted vintage accents, including Romantic Shabby, Tuscan Designs, Folk Art Primitive, Garden Style, and Holiday decor with new items arriving each week.

eBay Shop: La Rea Rose
Blog: La Rea Rose
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Sadie Olive (Sara)

Add a little "ooh la la" to your holidays. Vintage inspired French treasures to adorn your chateau.

Boutique: Sadie Olive
Blog: Sadie Olive - Le Journal

Sadie Olive Design
Beautiful web and blog design as well as custom graphic design services and a lot more!

Design Shop: Sadie Olive Design Home

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Sweet n Shabby Roses (Rhea)

Rhea is a freelance artist, painting with different mediums for the past 17 years. She started tole painting in the late 1980's - which led to statuary plaster, marblizing and fauxing, which led to a home interior and residential Faux finishing business. Happily, Rhea finds herself back tole painting on smaller vintage, loved-on pieces. She sincerely hopes you'll find a treasure to love.

Etsy Shop: Sweet n Shabby Roses
Blog: Sweet n Shabby Roses

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The Old Painted Cottage (Jennifer)

At the Old Painted Cottage, Jennifer is pleased to offer romantic cottage decor that embodies the comfort, charm and casual elegance of a beautiful and relaxing home. Specializing in Shabby Chic and Beach Cottage decor, you're sure to find that special item here.

e-Boutique: The Old Painted Cottage
Blog: The Old Painted Cottage

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Whimsy Pink (Laura)

Let's go shopping together for those flea market finds and vintage treasures we all love. ~ New items are added daily ~cottage chic accessories, beach treasures and the most Romantic fabrics and home decor ~ that will enhance your favorite places ~ You'll always find something new at whimsypink!

Shop: Whimsy Pink
Blog: Whimsy Pink: Romantic Home Accessories
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Geninne's Art (Geninne)

Geninne's online shop is brimming with colorful original watercolors and limited edition prints! It is with great pleasure that Geninne welcomes you to have a look around to see if there's anything you fancy...

Etsy Shop: Geninne's Art
Blog: Geninne's Art Blog

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It's A Whimsical Life (Susan)

Susan is a children's illustrator dipping her toes into the Etsy pool. When she is not working on books, she likes to create teeny tiny pieces of art on luggage tags and little stuffed creatures.
**Special notice** This shop will be open until the 12th December then Susan will be closed up for the holidays until the beginning of January.

Etsy Shop: It's a Whimsical Life
Blog: It's a Whimsical Life

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Just Bee 'n Me (Becky)

You are warmly invited to browse through Becky's online shop featuring a growing selection of original, inspirational designs on a variety of fun, functional products! Be sure to check back often throughout the holidays for new designs.

CafePress Shop: Just Bee 'n Me
Blog: Just Bee 'n Me

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My Sweet Imaginations (Susan)

Sweet art that celebrates the whimsical spirit and imaginations of childhood. Each piece is an original painting which you are receiving directly from the Susan. She uses acrylic paint on high quality stretched canvas. Susan is always happy to make customizations to each painting to personalize it for your child....change hair color, add bangs, glasses, crowns, flowers...even add or change simple details or colors to better suit your child's decor.

Etsy Shop: My Sweet Imaginations
eBay Shop: My Sweet Imaginations
Glitter and Grunge Shop: My Sweet Imaginations
Blog: My Sweet Imaginations

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trudette

Trudette is a fulltime artist from the Netherlands, living and working in Belgium. She paint with oils in a loose, painterly method, with energetic brushwork and lush color application.

Image Gallery: trudette
Card Shop: trudette
Blog: trudette

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Watercolor Friends (Alicia)

Here you'll find cute and expressive illustrations all done in watercolor. Animal and kids are always the main characters in these colorful Illustrations.

Image Gallery: Watercolor Friends
Blog: My Place Over the Hill

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White Shoes (Erin)

The designs of illustrator Erin Sherman. Buy and wear her style here, for kids and kids at heart.

CafePress Shop: White Shoes
Card Shop: Christmas Cards from Erin Sherman
Blog: White Shoes

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Wynle Designs (Anette)

Anette is a children's illustrator and writer living in Norway. She has Christmas Cards and a 2008 Calendar featuring her sweet colorful children's designs.

Shop: Art by Anette Heiberg
Blog: Wynle Designs
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Well, I hope you enjoyed our Merry-Making Christmas Gift Guide! Please bookmark the site and check back often throughout the holiday season because our artisans will be adding exciting and beautiful new items all the time and we will be adding new artisans as well! If you'd like to add a Merry-Making banner to your site, click here for the Merry-Making information page where you can snag the HTML code.

Thanks again for stopping by - and may your Chrstmas be Merry and Bright and Blessed!

Merry-Making Christmas Gift Guide Info Page

Welcome to the first annual Just Bee 'n Me Merry-Making Christmas Gift Guide Info Page!

During my 2+ years of blogging, I have met some of the finest artists and craftsmen around who also happen to be some of the nicest people around. Some of them, like me, work full time and part-time jobs and create and sell on the side, whenever they can. Others create and sell their wares full-time as their main source of income. And of course, there are endless scenarios and realities everywhere in between. But we all have one thing in common - a passion for handmade goodness - works of love from our hearts and hands. It is that passion that I want to celebrate here!

So here's how it works. I have gathered the names, website links, and blog links (if available) of numerous illustrators, decorative painters, seamstresses, needleworkers, collage artists, trash-to-treasure craftsmen, jewelry makers, and more who have handmade/or original illustration-based wares for sale through the internet. I have compiled them in the Guide, along with a representative photo of their wares if available, to create a handy one-stop-shop for unique, one-of-a-kind gifts for this Holiday Season. I have not charged the artists for this - I just wanted this to be a blessing to them. If you do not see your wares represented on my list, you can leave a comment to this post with a link to your site, and at my sole discretion, I will determine whether to include your site in the guide. Family-friendly only PLEASE! I make no promises about the quality or reliability of anything posted on the guide - buyers need to just use common sense and caution as you normally would when using the internet for shopping.

So everyone can participate in the fun, I have made 2 banner ads available along with the HTML code to enable you to easily add them to your site if you'd like. The banners point directly to the Gift Guide, links and photos. I'm trying my best to keep this simple and practical for all involved. I hope it is a great success for everyone!

Here is the HTML code for the banners you can use on your website or blog:

Large Banner (400 x 300 pixels)

HTML Code to Copy and Paste:

<a href="http://justbeenme.blogspot.com/2007/11/2007-merry-making-christmas-gift-guide.html"><img src="http://beckyyoung.com/merrymaking07_logo.jpg"></a>

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Small Banner ( 200 x 150 pixels)

HTML Code to Copy and Paste:

<a href="http://justbeenme.blogspot.com/2007/11/2007-merry-making-christmas-gift-guide.html"><img src="http://beckyyoung.com/merrymaking07_logo_sm.jpg"></a>

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Thanks so much for stopping by! Please leave a comment if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions. I am always happy to hear from you!

I sincerely hope you enjoy using the Guide, and if so, I hope you'll help spread the news about it and support our wonderful, talented artisans!!

Trash to Treasure - the Joy of Restoration

The Joy of Restoration

Of all the creative endeavors I pursue, I don't think any of them is quite as satisfying as taking something that is broken, old, rusty, forgotten...and transforming it into something new and fresh and vibrant and useful again. It is wonderful when you have the vision to look at something that is in a sad state of affairs and to be able to see beyond the brokenness to what it CAN be. And isn't that exactly what Jesus did for us? With LOVE, He looked passed our brokenness, saw what we could be, rescued us, and restored us to something brand new!! I am so very grateful to Him that He did!!

My sweet Hubby and I have been garage sale, flea market and junk store shopping every weekend for the last couple of months and we have found some glorious treasures-in-waiting. Well, we spent this weekend organizing (to the extent we can) all our goodies and we began in earnest to the restoration process on several items - and I have some photos to share, finally! These are all "befores" - and I hope to have lots and lots of "afters" to share soon!! Grab your fanny pack, bottled water and hand sanitizer and enjoy this virtual junk store tour!

I have such plans for those CUTE posts ($4 for all 5)

Free from the side of the road!

Part of the big haul from last weekend ($3.50 each for the end tables!!)

$25 for the complete set of British china - pretty much the most we've paid for anything with a few exceptions

My parents were cleaning out their garage too - got these for free!

We got two of these corner cabinets (only $10 each!)

Here are the doors to the above cabinets

Love shabby old windows ($1 each)

More of the goodies from the "big haul" - most things you see were from $.50 - $2 - the shabby rose painting was $14 though - can't wait to paint the frame!

Detailed view...

This was a great score - there are 11 of these cabinet doors in various sizes and they are like perfect little shabby frames with blank canvases just waiting to be painted with something adorable! ($30 for all)

Cleaning and getting everything up on shelves occupied most of the day Saturday

Can't wait to do something wonderful with this $2 find

All the cool knobs total - $2.75

Various goodies in the midst of being transformed

Loads of frames waiting to be painted so they can hold new "masterpieces"

SO, what is a full time corporate trainer/part time illustrator and an electrician doing with all of these paint, craft, restoration projects? Well, we are planning to spend our spare time working through these projects, making them into beautiful utilitarian items and ultimately either using them in our home, giving them as gifts, and hopefully selling them online and in home shows that we are planning for 2008. This is something that we both love to do and we can do it together - that's the best part of all!

I'll share our progress each week on Makeover Mondays, so please stay tuned!!

Imagine my shock, amazement, and delight..

...when I found out that I, me, Becky, not someone else, actually WON SOMETHING!!!! Not once, but TWICE....

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

First off, I want thank my OH SO SWEET artist pal "Princess Tomato" - aka Teri, for the OH SO LOVELY book that I won from a drawing she recently had from among commenters over at her blog. The TALENTED Teri's artwork (this you gotta see) was voted in by her Illustration Friday peers to be on display at an exclusive IF gallery showing in Long Beach, CA starting this month. I was fortunate enough to be a WINNER in Teri's blog drawing - and here is my wonderful prize:

Ain't it the sweetest THANG! Thank you dear Teri for your very kind words and for this awesome, adorable book. It is so very ME - you really nailed it!! (just so you know, I was the middle child, only girl, with and older and younger brother - just like the baby bears - cool, huh??) Teri, you're my favorite!!! ;o)

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Secondly, a HUGE HUG and THANK YOU go out to my new BFF Melissa (The Inspired Room) who just had one Incredible, Inspired Party over the weekend to celebrate her 100th post - and wha'da ya know, I was the GRAND PRIZE WINNER in her drawing!!! SWOON!!

Scroll down on her party post to see the TRES CHIC Eiffel Tower earrings I won!! They are from The Blissful, the wonderful, magical store that Melissa co-conspired with to pull off this exciting soiree!! In addition, I get a complimentary magazine subscription of my choice from the following: Southern Living, Cottage Living, Coastal Living, Southern Accents, Cooking Light, Sunset, Health, All You, or Real Simple! Decisions, decisions....

So thank you Teri and Melissa for your generosity - I am so very grateful...I am so very blessed!!

2008 Calendar Sneak Peek (March)

(click image to enlarge)

Well, the 2008 Calendar designs are moving right along, I am pleased to say! Here is the design for March. Whew - they are a lot of work, but I am happy with the results so far - but mostly, I'm happy that it looks like I really will *finally* complete something I have planned for and dreamed of for forever it seems. I guess it just takes some Faith, huh? It's as if all the sketches, notes, scraps of paper, magazine cutouts, etc are seeds that I have planted - "Calendar Seeds" if you will, and with time, care, and feeding, a Calendar will surely emerge. The process is sometimes quite messy and time-consuming, and results are often hidden deep under layers of stuff - but by Faith, I can see the end product and work and wait in hopeful expectation of my dream coming true!

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Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

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Thank you SO MUCH for your lovely, encouraging words about this work-in-progress as well as for your inquiries about purchasing it. I am aiming to make this calendar available, Lord willing, around mid December - it will be available for purchase through my CafePress store. (In case you missed it, click here to preview January and here to preview February)

Lots more to post about lots of exciting things - thanks for your patience as I work, work, work to get it all done then share it with you!

It's one Inspired, Blissful Party, and You're Invited!

You are hereby cordially invited to a gala celebration over at the beautiful and talented Melissa's place - The Inspired Room! She is celebrating her 100th post today and all weekend in high style and everyone is invited! She has teamed up with the wonderfully stylish Abby at "The Blissful" - a French-inspired-WOW-of-a-store to attempt a satellite "party across the miles". Seriously, you don't want to miss out on this shin-dig!! There are prizes and everything!! If you leave a comment at the Inspired Room's party spot, along with an idea for a party hostess gift and/or a favorite party appetizer, you will automatically be entered in the drawing for some tres-chic prizes!

Oooohhh La La - party on!!