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Well, it’s time for the final post of the Adventure-a-Week Challenge! It’s been such a fun project over the last several weeks. You can see a list of all the Adventure-a-Week posts here. (If you’re reading this in an email or reader and can’t see the video above, just click here .. the video is where the substance of this week’s challenge is! Plus there’s some new stop motion video, as well as the announcement for what the next challenge will be, now that the adventure challenge is over!) Below, is the set of Bingo printables – I’ve created 6 … Read more

Well, tonight I needed to write the next blog post for the every-other-Wednesday series … buuuut I just realized I left my laptop charger at someone’s house. And our other charger is packed somewhere. And my battery is about to die. Oops. Plus we are still getting settled and it’s been almost a week since we’ve had a good night’s sleep. One night we got a full 45 minutes of sleep. Yeaaaah, that doesn’t quite cut it. 😉 So I’m bowing out for today, but I leave you a couple fun quotes our 4 year old said today while we … Read more

Wow, a lot has changed over the past year for my little handmade business! One year ago yesterday, I opened FlourishCafe. At the time it was one of my three shops … With a Flourish, Flourish and Debonair, and Flourish Cafe. Now, one year later, I have finally found my niche, and have narrowed down to just Flourish Cafe! And to celebrate this first anniversary/birthday of my shop… it’s giveaway time! 😀 As well as more fun planned throughout the week here on my blog… If you used to keep up with this blog, you’ll notice it looks very different. … Read more

Well, we’re preparing for the big move! And I don’t mean our move to Boston, although we are leaving for that TOMORROW! (WOOHOO!) But actually, in the context of blogging, I’m talking about how to move from Blogger to WordPress. This series is now in week 8 and we’ve been making great progress working on Lori’s blog redesign (and hopefully you’ve been making progress on your blog too!) as we’ve been going through this series. The goal was to use Lori’s blog, In My Kitchen, In My Life as a demonstration on how to create a new fully branded look, … Read more

Greetings from the land of Dunkin Donuts, crazy traffic, lobsters and rocky beaches – we’re in New England! I simply love road trips. And this one is especially exciting for a couple reasons – first of all, we are getting to see both my family in Pennsylvania, and my husband’s family in Rhode Island, as well as many other friends along the way! But the other exciting thing is that this trip is hopefully the prelude to a more permanent type of road trip: moving! We are hoping and praying to be able to move to Boston soon. This week … Read more

I’ve been getting creative business questions from various people, so I decided to make a vlog to answer questions, and hopefully help more people at the same time! Spoiler .. there’s a fun little “fast forwarded” packaging video toward the end. 🙂 Disclaimer: These are my opinions! I’m not in a position to give any kind of actual legal advice, so please understand that these are opinions. Thanks! 🙂 Thanks to Sierra McClain for this week’s questions! Some useful links: Etsy teams: helpful to join a team of experienced sellers in the same field Import/Export Information: the section labelled “Individual … Read more

Since yesterday was Mother’s Day, I wanted to share with you a little stop motion video that my 4 year old daughter and I made together for my mom – we also made another version for my husband’s mother. My little girl did the drawings and I told her the basic idea of what to draw, and then took the photos. You’ll notice a little segment, though, where she stops and “thinks about obeying God” … that part was my 4 year old’s idea that she wanted to include, which I thought was pretty sweet – and it shows the … Read more

People often ask how I got started/what my inspirations are with my Etsy shops, so here you go! The story behind FlourishandDebonair: I used to sell antiques with my Dad, and we would go hunting to auctions, old barns and abandoned buildings (always with permission of course) discovering old treasures to be given new life. vintage records in flourish and debonair vintage earrings in flourish and debonair One day I bought a box of vintage jewelry and found in it a unique necklace I liked so much, I kept it for myself and wore it often. The beads were unusual … Read more

Here we go! Thanks to all of you who voted for what would be the next challenge – and this week it begins: The “Hack” Challenge, where each week we come up with a new DIY project, upcycling an item from it’s original purpose into something new, usually some kind of home decor or furniture type project. And so onto week 1… Solar Powered DIY Paper Lamps! Generally when I come up with an idea for something I would like to turn into a lamp or use in lighting, I run into the same problem: it is not an object … Read more

Here we go! Thanks to all of you who voted for what would be the next challenge – and this week it begins: The “Hack” Challenge, where each week we come up with a new DIY project, upcycling an item from it’s original purpose into something new, usually some kind of home decor or furniture type project. And so onto week 1… Solar Powered DIY Paper Lamps! Generally when I come up with an idea for something I would like to turn into a lamp or use in lighting, I run into the same problem: it is not an object … Read more