We're Moving!

My family is moving from our little home on the sunny central coast of California for a place just a bit farther north, in the Bay Area. I'm really excited because it marks a new start and a new oportunity for us but... it also means changes to my beloved Living Water Boutique.

Looking into the future now it seems that Living Water Boutique will be closing up the shop and changing to just a blog. For anyone still interested in tunisian woolies, I still love trades but I will not be selling finished woolies or custom spots from here on out.

Maybe in the future, when things are more settled, and I have more time for crafting for others, I will open up shop again. But for now, I'll keep on blogging in my little corner of internet heaven :)

Simple Pleasure #1

Making my children laugh.

There's nothing that can brighten my day faster than hearing a full bellied laugh come out of my little ones. I love goofing around with the kids and being silly just so they will laugh just a little more. It's contagious... and good for my soul.

Simple Pleasures

One of my all time favorite songs is Simple Gifts. It's an old Shaker song that sings about simple gifts in life. I'm sure at some point you have heard the song and may even know the lyrics:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come out right.

I find myself getting lost in the doldrums of everyday life. I'm the kind of person who doesn't generally find joy in cleaning my house or folding laundry. But, this morning, while doing the dishes I started humming this song to myself and to my son who was helping me. Then I started realizing that every day is filled with simple gifts, or simple pleasures, that make the days enjoyable and make life worth living.

So in the spirit of recognizing and truly appreciating the simple pleasures in my life, I'd like to start sharing with you some of the little joys that break up the monotony of my "every day" living. And in return I would love to hear about some of the simple pleasures in yours.

Contraction Counter

The internet was an amazing resource for my third pregnancy. I was able to refresh my memory on coping mechanisms for labor and learn all sorts of new things like the benefits of red raspberry leaf tea in making contractions more efficient and more manageable.

One of the most amazing things I found online was this wonderfully simple contraction counter. The instructions are in the link, but basically when your contraction starts you click on start and when it's over you click on stop and with that information, the counter will calculate how long each contraction is and how much time was in between each contraction. Then, if or when you're ready to go to the hospital/birthing center, you can print out the chart and take it with you.

But my absolute favorite part about this counter: there's nothing to download and it's free!

Here's the link:
http://www.patatamonkey.com/entries/2005/10/need_to_time_co.html

Let me know if you use it and what you think!

Yoda: my journey into needle felting

So I picked up a needle felting kit from an estate sale a couple days back and decided that, since I had a good amount of random bits of fiber, it would be fun to pull out the kit and give it a go. I've always loved the felted figurines I've seen, like this one from Beneath The Rowan Tree, and I'm the kind of person who has to try it herself... just to say I did... so I decided I was going to make a felted figurine. This is what I came up with. He's a bit on the fuzzy side because he's not fully felted, but I like how he turned out!

Upcoming Events and Stockings

Over the next month I'm working on getting the store up and going again. There have been some slight changes that I think only I will notice but the biggest change is that the price of YYMH spots has gone down. As I've been getting faster at tunisian, it takes me less time to finish a pair (though I'm keeping the 3 week buffer so I can spend more time with the family) of woolies and so I pass that savings on to you.

Soft opening is July 1st with two YYMH spots opening up for August. I'm changing things around a little so I can focus specifically on offering more YYMH spots and more in-stock woolies. We'll be having a grand opening in August with some instock sets, a lotto, and a HC$ auction. More to come on that.

It's nice to be getting the hook out and creating again :)

WAHM Stimulus Package: banding together to help

The current economy has made it tough on everyone to not only purchase the luxury items we want but even the basic items we need. People who want to support work at home moms and dads by purchasing beautifully crafted toys, pottery, diapers, lotions, cleaners, accessories... the list goes on and on... are being forced to make the decision between spending the extra money on these items or purchasing lesser cost items from big brand stores to save money.

The WAHP (work at home parent) community is dedicated to providing these quality hand made items for you and right now, as part of that commitment, we are banding together to offer our wares with discounts to help you, the customer, be able to continue providing unique and lovingly made goodies for your family in these stressful times.

Living Water Boutique will be offering our own WAHM Stimulus Package. Everything listed below will be applied to your order from Living Water Boutique:

~ use the code "blog" to receive 15% off your entire order (including custom orders)
~ free first class shipping to anywhere
~ YYMH slots will be reduced by an additional 20%

We all hope and pray that the economy picks back up and the struggles that so many are facing right now will soon be just a memory but until then, these discounts will be in place.