Shop Promo!

♥ Yay! ♥

In honor of Fall finally finding us here in East Texas I'm having a 1/2 price shipping sale (within the U.S.) for all items in my Etsy shop now through October 16th for Facebook fans ( Bits & Barley Fan Page ) and blog followers (yous guys)! 

Just mention your blog user name if you're a follower or Facebook user name if you're a fan of the Bits & Barley page (you must reference your name in order to be eligible) in notes to seller upon checkout. **Please wait for an adjusted invoice to be sent to you via PayPal after you Commit To Buy. Don't worry I'm pretty fast on the draw and it'll be sent right directly :)

Nag Nag Nag

Yesterday morning I got an email from the fabulous girls @ MayDae letting me know I'd been featured in their blog (yay!),  which I love, they've got such a cool modern vintage anthropologie like feel going on over there! After perusing their beautiful blog and going about my normal daily routine I started to develop a small niggle of a nagging feeling in the back of my mind like I'd forgotten something....

Oh crap.

This feeling is never a good one...Did I forget to turn off my flat iron this morning? No. Did I leave the soy milk out on the counter again? Not that either. After 30 minutes of trying hard to figure out what form of impending doom must be happening somewhere that's caused me this particular feeling I gave up.

And as fate always has it I almost immediately remembered, my birthday is on Wednesday.

This might not seem like a problem per se and its not particularly in and of itself except a few weeks ago I made an appointment with our dogs Vet to have my dear Bitty's yearly shots and check up. This again is not that big of a deal except our Vets office is one of my least favorite places on the face of the earth. Don't get me wrong, I love our dogs Vet he is the best animal doctor I've ever met, but they work on an extremely loose terminology of appointment. Basically they write your name, along with a long list of other names, on a schedule for a particular day and then wait and see what happens. In other words something like first come first serve but on a certain day. I'm not particularly fond of sitting in a tiny room with 50 billion other people crammed in with me waiting till the end of time with some of the worst behaved animals I've ever seen sooo I'd lodged that information in the part of my brain that holds all the horrid things that I'd rather poke my eyeball out than actually do. Hence the nagging feeling and impending Vets office doom.

I knew I would have to fulfill my duty as a good pet owner and visit out Vets office but I could do something to make myself feel better! So I ordered these:

Cashew Clusters

Walnut Clusters

I feel better already just knowing I've got something tasty coming my way! As for the Vets office I'll probably be camped out in front tomorrow at 5:30am waiting for them to open so I can make it to work on time afterward. But oh well, I've got chocolate, caramel and nutty goodness on its way to me to sooth the crazy Vet's office blues.

Giveaway Yay!

After all of my Feature Friday posts I always contact the folks I feature and let them know (and make sure its okay with them) that I've featured their awesomeness. This last Friday {just yesterday in fact :) } I featured these cute cute cute pair of earrings from Hi Tree...

Neatly enough yesterday turned out to be her birthday (yay!) and also the beginning of a Hi Tree giveaway (double yay!). So when I contacted her to let her know about my post she was kind enough to invite me to check out her blog post as well and I'm so excited to share it with you guys!

Here is a link to her blog post (http://hitree.blogspot.com/2010/09/fall-is-here-giveaway-alert.html) detailing the super easy entry specifics and also a very exciting preview to what you can expect from this most excellent giveaway! And also for those in a shopping mood this Saturday morning a link to her Etsy shop Hi Tree where you can find a magical mix of cute trees, leaves, unicorns and more! So check it out, show some birthday love, do some shopping, enter the giveaway and share with your friends!

Have a great Saturday and fantastic weekend!

Feature Friday

This week I started to notice my list of items for this feature definitely had a theme going on! I can't say I was trying to but I kept being drawn stuff with a decidedly warm and cozy type feel. Since its still firmly in the 90s here I can't explain looking for warmth except maybe I'm subconsciously hoping for cool weather and cozy fall evenings :)

 

1. Hand Embroidery Autumn Leaves - merriweathercouncil
2. Dusky Autumn Throw Lap Quilt - PiecesOfPine
3.  Cashew Clusters - nikid
4. Welcome Sign - SuzsCountryPrims
5. Yellow Autumn Maple Leaf Felt Earrings - hitree
6. Beer and Cedarwood Natural Vegan Soap - krugsecologic

Hope you've enjoyed the finds this week and have a great weekend!

P.s. If you're new and are wondering what Feature Friday is all about take a look here at the very 1st

I've got a confession...

I love Martha Stewart....okay not really but I do kinda love the Martha Stewart show. About this time every year I start getting antsy for the Martha Stewart show holiday episodes. Just about any other time of the year I couldn't care less what she's teaching people to do or interviewing people about but I love to watch the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials. I've tried to figure out why it is that I'm so excited about watching them because frankly I find most of her shows kinda boring and honestly I just can't figure it out. Maybe they're just such a harbinger of the fun of the holidays I anticipate, maybe I'm just kinda kookie that way. Who knows. But I'm ready! I want to see what goodies the Stewart team has for me this season!

What really gets you all excited about the coming festive seasons? The first cool mornings of fall, the sight of pumpkins piled high on a wagon at your local nursery, or perhaps the promise of festive crafts brought to you by Martha and the Fine Living Network :)

Feature Friday

First humor me with a short(ish) ramble...Before I ever considered opening shop on Etsy I had very little to do with the net. I did e-mail, some online shopping (but mostly during the holiday season), a quick check with Wikipedia about one thing or another every once in a while and that was about the extent of my online meanderings. I had absolutely no intention of joining Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site...in fact I really couldn't come up with a rational reason for those sites to even exist. Especially when most of the media surrounding them was somewhat negative. But when doing a little homework on "helpful things to do when opening your new shop" I read numerous posts about none other than Facebook and Twitter. I cant tell you how big of an eye-roll episode I went through while debating whether or not to dip my toes into the murky water of social networking sites. Months later I can honestly say I'm so glad I did. Not so much from a business stand point but from a family/friend one. I've had the great opportunity to connect with family and friends that I would otherwise probably never get to talk with. Not to mention that my narrow internet world has been vastly expanded! I don't go one day without collecting loads of things that I love and would love to have!!

Now lets get on with what this post is really about: the totally cool, beautiful, wonderful things I've been blessed to stumble upon. I've been throwing around an idea for a way to show my appreciation for some of the coolest people and things I've found in my daily online ventures. "Feature Friday" is what I've come up with, a post every Friday featuring a collection board chocked full of my favorite things for the week. Thus I give you the very 1st in a line of Friday awesomeness :)

1. Mix Tape Tee - CausticThreads
2. Photo Booth Dogs - Cameron Woo
3. Let There Be Flight Hanging Lamp - ModCloth
4. Eleanore, Vintage Secretary Raccoon Plush - OneLittleRedFox
5. Flower Garden Mint Green Yellow Vintage Cameo Necklace - laurenblythedesigns
6. Tea Love Mug Cozy - KnitStorm

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Or by the beautiful photos it has displaying all the tasty recipes inside because that's all they do...look pretty. A few weeks back I was so excited to get two books I had very high hopes for. But lets just say the aforementioned one really fell flat. I do, however, really want to stress how awesome the other one is! Patty Pinner's Sweets is such a fantastic book full not only of interesting and endearing stories about her and her family (the source of her recipes) but the recipes themselves come through like crazy!
Feeling a little burned by the other book, I was a little reluctant to try anything from Sweets but dear Lord am I glad I did. Although at one point after making her Walnut Wonder Cake I thought my husband might be plotting to pull the old "I must have been sleep walking when I ate the whole thing" bit.

I thought we talked about that blouse...

Maybe no one will pick up on the Karen Walker reference there but I seem to hear her critical voice when I step into my closet lately. It's been months, no wait, lets go ahead and be fully honest and say years since I've gone serious clothes shopping....I sorta hate it. Don't get me wrong I looooove having awesome clothes in my closet that make me feel like a million when I wear them but I cannot stand (read totally loath - would rather poke my eye out) actually shopping for them. I know my particular problems with clothes are not unique but seriously could it kill somebody to make jeans for those of us that have short legs. God blessed me with a whopping height of just over 5 feet which means not only is it impossible for me to reach anything on the top shelf of anywhere but it also means that I'm also blessed to be lumped into the masses that are labeled petite. All shopping issues aside, I'm always drawn to shop when fall rolls around and our unusual sudden drop in temperature has got me itching for new duds. I am in East Texas and we won't actually see consistent fall-ish weather until at least mid October but I've been collecting a few things that I really would love to have if I can ever make myself commit to shopping...

1.Ruffle Front Fleece Jacket by cotylee
2.Women's Plaid Double-Weave Western Tunic from OldNavy
3.Prized Rose Peep-Toes from Anthropologie
4.Miss Me Glam Boot Stretch Jean from Buckle
5.Bella Rustica Antique Bronze Tiny Twig Hair Pins by WoodlandBelle
6.Faux Boot Legwarmers by LeshasWorkshop
7.Sterling Silver Necklace by gypsystudio

Being Included Makes My WednesDAY

If I could only make a few extra of myself I would have enough time to do everything I want....Sadly if there were extra of me one of us would probably inadvertently kill the other in some running with a pointy object related disaster. So really I guess I don't want more of me...
Anyway, I'm still working on a tutorial that will hopefully be fun and interesting but until then I'll send out my thanks today to Jewelry by Jessica S for including my new fall mini wreath ornament in her treasury yesterday!