I know this girl. She's got hundreds of loveable quirks, energy that seems to be powered by the sun, the hugest heart, hair for miles & eyes like the sky in July. If I were able to review my life the past 10 years or so, filmstrip style, I'm pretty sure I'd see little flecks of light & stars on every single day we spoke or wrote. This girl has just been so good to & for me, inspired me even in her most broken state, given me strength in some of my saddest hours, trusted me with the neatest secrets, taken genuine interest in my own Missyisms, has been everything from my giggle guru to a surrogate little sister to crystal clear evidence that Alice Liddell still lives.

This girl got married last Saturday, & while I was wading through an ocean of balloons & birthday cake watching my son turn 6, images of blonde hair bled into his smile in a blur of daisyvision. And no one really knew why there was one pink balloon in the giant sea of others & why looking at it bobbing in the sunlight made me weep.

Happy one week wedding anniversary to a couple so cute & so crazy in love. I'm so thankful my friend has found such a rockin' someone who makes her so happy. Congratulations Ashley Rose & Geoffrey. I wish you could have seen me in the audience of faces watching you in awe as you said your vows & started off your new life together. Thank you for setting an example of true love & for being so beautiful & right for each other. I bet the world's biggest cynic might just melt in your presence. You are such a perfect pair. I love you so!

In full-on busy bee mode this week literally up to my eyeballs in dolly parts using as much Missy-might as I can muster to have a new batch of Boopers ready for next week. I'm also going to be attending the annual Cake Walk here in Kelowna next Friday & promised to haul a bunch of dollies there as well. Mum is tagging along for moral support & ha ha, as much as she feels completely passionate about what we're doing, when she tells her friends at work & stuff that she is making dolls with fruit loops & shit on their heads she is getting some pretty strange looks & reactions. I think she's going to be sitting at our table next Friday hiding behind something & pointing at me when people pick up our dolls to take a look.

I'm also using almost every spare minute I can squeeze in to plan Zoo's upcoming 6th birthday party. He has never in his life been thrown a bash where kids were in attendance (he is such a little misfit / oddball that he simply hasn't ever made any friends) so with the absense of a yard full of children & the magic that they tend to create on their own, we're going all out to give Zoo a birthday to remember this year. He's been talking about robot cake & pizza forever so that's what's on the menu & I'll take the robo cake challenge on myself. We're also making him his own web site & have ordered an Arthur video from Kideo.com, in which he will be the star of the show! (I can't WAIT to see his face & watch him beam!)

Speaking of *birthdays*, today is the birthday of one of ***THE*** most memorable, influential, intoxicating & heart-wrenchingly beautiful humans to have ever walked Earth. Her name is Adrian & even if you took the most gripping lyrics ever & tossed in the writings of the likes of Gibran, you STILL wouldn't come close to finding words worthy of her sweet & decent soul. This picture is for her. I hope it makes her laugh & I hope her day's been good. (Adi, thank you for the years upon years of what you've done for this world & for my life!)

Alright, I'm not sure how I've contained my elation about this as long as I have. A while back, my heart-hurtingly beautiful, soon to be married friend Christine approached me with a mission: to create for her a couple kitschy, vintagey images she could use for her upcoming wedding invitation!

* * * * * * Holycrapwhatanhonor!!! * * * * * *

I got straight to work on this project with great gusto, determined to give her what she needed if was the last thing on Earth I ever did. I dug out a wide array of pretty, pointless crap I keep around for God only knows what (old wedding toppers, pearls, 50's toys & figures, etc.) clicked away on the endless ideas kickin' around in my head, sent them off for her perusal & much to my delighted surprise, they did the trick!

My giddy heart EXPLODED, but not as much as when the actual hard copy arrived in my mailbox not long after!!! Total trip to see a couple of images I captured incorporated into such a precious keepsake. :) I hope Christine doesn't mind me sharing the pdf version of her rough draft. I just want to thank Christine again for this experience. She came to me fully confidant in my capabilities and I know it was that faith she had in me that made this work. May all your wedding dreams come true, Christine. I love you BIG!

I'd like to take a few minutes to brag about my sister right now. Her name is Kelly, & she could sew circles around even the fastest knitting little old lady in the West! I remember when we were little, she was about 5 years old & creating clothes for our dollies & family dog using safety pins & fabric scraps. In Home Ec., she practically taught the class, & when I got married back in 2001, there was no one else I trusted as much to make the gown of my dreams!

You're looking at a crocheted apple tree cuff, tree ring, owl cuff, deer girl necklace, another tree ring, embroidered deer & girl scarf, crocheted tree necklace & a cupcake cuff all made by my sister as though it was no harder than blinking!

She sold pants, skirts, scarves, purses & tops on ebay for ten long years, but like so many others, is now totally fed up with ebay's irrational new policies. It's beyond ridiculous though for someone to possess this talent & not make use of it, so currently my sister is now trying to make a name for herself in the etsyverse. I know etsy is already overflowing with people who can sew... but there has to be room for a person like my sister who was practically sewing in the womb!

Her shop is open now & the items you see up top there will all be available today. I've already had her custom-make me too many pieces to mention but have promised her I won't pounce on those owl & cupcake cuffs I want soooooo bad. Please take a mosey on over to her shop when you get a moment. I know your hearts would mean the world to her!

I know, I know, I'm in HUGE need of a smack upside the head for waiting so long to indulge in one of stOOpidgErl's resin jewelry pieces, but I finally did it. When the dough started rolling in for the dolls, I handed most of it over to Mum for her part in materials & labor, (after all, I'd have had no face painting or wacky foodsie hairdressing to do if she hadn't sewn me up a bunch of bald, blank faced dolls) & treated myself to a treat you can wear on your hand, one of stOOpidgErl's 'Triple Sweet Big Sprinkles' resin rings!

By this point I think there's probably only one person left in the world who doesn't know of stOOpidgErl's jewelry. Some little old man living in a shack in Guatemala or something, & then again, probably even HE has heard of Kim! :) Therefore, I'm not exactly bringing you BREAKING NEWS when I tell you Kim's jewelry is everything it's cracked up to be or that she herself is every bit as sweet as her creations. I'm just one more smiling face & highly satisfied customer face in the crowd of fans who gather round Kim's etsy shop daily to chant & beg for more!

Not only did Kimmy doll the package up & include a darling note, she also threw in an extra surprise worthy of the most amount of eyeball poppage possible! I thought I was seeing things when I peeled the tissue paper away from a SECOND item to find/see my flickr & etsy handle 'boopsie' imbedded in a bed of stars & hearts! SO generous! God, I could just kiss the crap out of her! Picturing her all hunched over in her craft room working hard away on it, (& all out of the goodness of her heart!) is just too much! You don't have to wonder why Kim has met with the fandom & success she has. She & her jewelry are WORTH it! Don't even get me started on her skill for ATC's, drawing & photography!

Don't you hate it when someone just does something SO nice for you & you're stuck feeling absolutely wordless in your state of joy & shock? Kim deserves to have sprinkle confetti thrown on her every time she leaves her house, her own fan club, and a freaking shrine erected in her honor! If you haven't snagged one of her killer works of art yet, sheesh, what in the world are you waiting for?!?

Once again, THANK YOU Kim! I've already given your etsy shop name & link to two local people needing to know "where on Earth" I got that ring! :) Yes world, Boopsie loves stOOPidgErl, but I know I'm not the only one! Join me now in a toast to the planet's resin master! Er... mistress? Whatever... SHE ROCKS!

Now to work on my customer appreciation picture... let the fun begin!

What a whirlwind of a week! I honestly never expected the Boopsies to be so well received! I have only 3 girls left to list & one that's unspoken for. And holy unprepared me! I had truly forgotten the horrors of shipping day! What you think you can accomplish in one day usually stretches out into several, esp. when you are a perfectionist & absolutely everything has to be just so. I had really special & extensive plans for how I wanted to present my girls to their new owners & realizing them was almost more time consuming than creating the dollies themselves! Nonetheless, you can find fun in almost anything you do. :) I also spent a lot of time just taking long hard looks at each girl in hopes that I might somehow burn the very image of her right into my eyeballs, never to forget! I am sooo attached to these pretty little poly-filled things, it's almost not right! I think I would be overwhelmed by dread & sadness at this point if they weren't on their way to such wonderful, warm loving homes.

We've placed a world map in our brand spankin' new studio & are pinning pics of each dolly wherever she wound up. Lets see... Bessie is off to live with Lisa in Maryland, Faye is heading to Nebraska to be with Jana, Alessia in Italy adopted Cornelia, (aaahhh, my DREAM destination, lucky thing!) Donna is destined for Michigan to strut her stuff in 'stOOpid' land with darling Kimmy, Molly & Dee get to go reside with Natalie in the beautiful New Zealand of all places (my other dream destination, I wanted to stow away in their package if just to attack sweet Nat when I jumped out of the box!), Janie is making her way to Australia to become part of Jodi's cuddly clan, Renee's Elle is in utter disbelief to be traveling to New York - she couldn't have dreamt of a better place to live! When the leaves start to fall, she'll come undone! Hmmm, though not literally I hope ;), Flo & April were ecstatic to be bought up by the one and only Olivia, Kandi is South Africa bound to be with Willow & Lousie is wheezy with delight to be on reserve for Gretchen! (Of Shop 66 fame!) Sheesh, just imagine the 'incomprehendibly' cool company (hello made-up word, nice to meet ya) she'll soon be in! :) Sincerely though, I believe each & every girl made a magical match with the most neato selection of dolly adorers around!

I keep being advised not to let my shock be known that they went so fast, but that's just not me. The truth is I feel greatly honored to have had such a precious group of girlies buy the dolls. They are truly a gorgeous-hearted gaggle of doll collectors & people in general & my heart feels at peace now that each girl is going where she is.

So I'm estimating that once I get a chance to list the remaining three dolls (now I'm wishing we hadn't sold the ones we did at the craft fair last month, I never even got so much as a picture of their dear little selves before they were stuck in a bag and toted off with a bunch of nameless strangers, [at least finding them homes through etsy means I will most likely catch a glimpse of them here & there on flickr & get to stay in touch via piccies of the girls in their new digs], the next batch of Boopsies shan't be ready 'til at least early May. All due to major fine tuning, an overabundance of ideas & the itty bitty break we need to shower / eat / sleep, (hee hee). But eek! To say I am psyched about the finishing touches we gave them before they were boxed up & shipped would be a grand canyon-sized understatement! I don't want to spill here what they were, or surely I would nullify any & all element of surprise, but darn it if I didn't wanna box one of them up & then send her to myself! I guess now I can only wait & see what the response is. Though after all that enslaving shipping, I thinks I definitely deserve me a little thrifting adventure. Am thinking maybe Kamloops. A good two hour drive, but their shops are a thriftoholic's DREAM! And I guess now that I've bulked up my blog a bit, it's finally time to start spreading the link around, stop being so secretive & hermitty. Whoever's reading by chance though, please enjoy the rest of your week. Life is good! :)

*Sidenote: Good God! Is the quality/resolution of pictures on this site ever reduced to nothing but blurry, poopy pixelated mudge! It's such a shame!

Over the past few months I've received some truly faint-worthy things by way of mail. Giant boxes stuffed to the max with sweet surprises! Before I dissect the piles, assigning places to each item, I take a pic immortalizing everything together... something I can look at as often as I want - so the memory of receiving it comes flooding back in waves & I can keep alive that feeling of overwhelming gratitude. Eventually I want to post pics of almost everything bestowed upon me in the past few years from treasured friends. Since I could certifiably be qualified as the female Forgetful Jones, I can't imagine a cooler way to keep track of snaily love.

I'm going to start with my most recently received package, a giant box of birthday goodies filled to the bloody brim from my friend Des! I'm talkin' crammed to the max with the most exciting stash of all the things I love and covet! Things from in my etsy faves or stuff she dearly thrifted! My Raggedy Ann & Andy & Betty Boop collections got a massive dose of fresh new merchie (old & new) and oh my gosh, I thought I'd BURST from my delight! I literally shed TEARS and had to re-learn how to breathe! Gems purchased from etsy shops I always have my eye on, butter cream birthday cake lip balm in the cutest faux vintage packaging, buttons, pins, prints, dollies, VINTAGE VALENTINES! By the time I found the bottom of the box I thought my chest was gonna split from my elation! I love this girl so much. She is one who lives for others & whom loves with no holds barred. It seems a cruel twist of fate that I can't throw my arms around her and squish her lovely lights out! Above is just a sprinkling from the WONDER LOAD she sent me! I will NEVER in my life dare forget such a gesture - nor take her love for granted. Working on a GREAT BIG MONSTER thank you box, myself, in fact! I loooove my Desiree. She's pure damn gold!