Thursday, June 30, 2011

ShenanAgains Super Sale!!!


Hey, y'all!

My birthday is coming up on the 13th...I will be 29...forever and ever and ever after that day.

HAHA.

I am also oh-so-close to 50 sales!!!

So in honor of my birthday, I'm having a sale in my shop!

Take 29% off your purchases with the code:

HAPPY29


And all orders totaling $15 or more (after discount, before shipping) receive a free bobby pin!


If you would like to leave a color in the 'notes to seller' I will do my best to accommodate each request!


**Sale is open now through July 5th***

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

another great loss

On June 14th, my dear sweet grandmother, MaMa, passed away.

Two weeks later--to the day--my husband's dear grandfather passed away.

He was affectionately known as 'Papa George'.

Papa George's service is tomorrow.

He leaves behind his wife, 'MeMa', four children, eight grandchildren, and five great-grands; plus spouses of his kids and many grandkids.

My awesome hubby is particularly sad, as Papa George wasn't able to meet our son, Colston, who will be the first boy since my hubby to carry on the Mullinnix name.

Your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes are welcomed.

I feel we are still reeling from one loss while trying to cope with another.

Hug your loved ones every day!!!


{my hubby with his MeMa and Papa George at our wedding in 2007}

a "lucky" giveaway


Hey, y'all!

Have you met MJ of Lucky 7 Design? If so, you know how incredibly sweet and supportive she is. MJ is truly a huge, genuine supporter of the creative and handmade community. MJ is celebrating her 1 year blogiversary with a huge line up of great giveaways!

Congrats my friend!

Check out MJ's blog daily for awesome new giveaways. Today you have a chance to win my upcycled spoon keyring, Annika.


Sunday, June 26, 2011

highs & lows



Hey, y'all!

So I decided to whip up a little highs & lows post for my girl Jen's linky par-tay. Do you know her? She's pretty and funny and creative. I stalk love her. Plus, what girl should resist the opportunity to rave about the goodness and rant about the bad? Yeah. That's what I thought. Moving on.


HIGHS

--In 3.5 weeks I will be IOP bound!!! That's Isle of Palms for you non-Southern folk and it is fan-tas-tic! I can't wait to have my pasty pale fair-skinned self in the sand.

--I mailed off 2 dozen of my creations to Cody at Daft Crafts...that's her store and it's opening in just a few more days! I'm so pumped to have my creations in a bricks-and-mortar store. If you're near Independence, MO, go check it out!

--I finally got around to some new projects this week, and got a fab (if I do say so myself) new upcycled wreath listed in my shop!



--I won not 1 but 2 giveaways!!! One from our fabulous hostess-with-tha-mostest Jen and one from her bloggy bud Lesley. Yesss!

--I joined Twitter. Yep. I caved. I have no clue how to use the freakin' junk either so I pity my followers. All 12 of them.

LOWS

--It's starting to really sink in my MaMa (grandmother) is gone. Tuesday will be 2 weeks. I had somewhat made my peace a while back that she probably wouldn't be with us much longer...but I had so hoped she would get to meet Colston. It just wasn't part of the plan I guess, and that kinda stinks.

--My little man Colston gets his first shots tomorrow. I keep hearing all these dreadful tales about baby's first shots so I'm bracing myself for the worst but hoping for the best...isn't that how it goes?

--In just over 2 weeks I will be 29. That is way too close to 30.

--Even though C (9 weeks old this coming Weds.) is sleeping through the night, his idea of "through the night" and my pre-baby-brain's idea of it=not the same! I have tried 3 different concealers I had in my arsenal to cover the Uncle Fester-like circles I have but to no avail. I'm open to suggestions. OH and it doesn't help the lovely teenager-like breakouts I've had on my jawline since we left the hospital either. It's great.

my little piece of history!

Hey, y'all!

I wanted to share with y'all a little piece of history. Some of you may have read about my grandmother, MaMa, passing away on 6/14...I did a little post in her memory...A couple of months ago my mom began the difficult task of cleaning out MaMa's house. MaMa was in a nursing home, and we knew she would never again get to go back home. Mom brought me a few boxes to go through and told me to keep anything I'd like.

I was delighted to find several of her recipes, written herself so many years ago. Those are priceless to me. Maybe one day soon I will share one with y'all!

What I'm sharing today, however, is a newspaper I found...and not just any newspaper. A high school newspaper, from my MaMa's junior year in high school!

Take a peek:


It says "The Traveling Talisman" and "published by the students of Travelers Rest High School." Both my MaMa and my mom graduated from Travelers Rest High School. Take a peek at the publication date and price:

April 17, 1936, and sold for a mere 2 cents.

One of the front page headlines reads "seniors make $45 on play"...Wow! I don't remember how much entry to a school play was when I was in high school...but I remember a football game was $5...just to put that in perspective! When I opened it up, the next little paragraph to catch my eye said "School to start at 8:25 beginning Monday"...I know it's difficult to read.

It says that school will begin at 8:25 each day to make it possible for the students to get out at 1:50. It goes on to say that "now that the fields are in shape to be worked, many of the students are needed at home as early as possible to help their parents." The fields! I just think of how different an afternoon was for me, just 2 generations later, after a day in high school. I had band practice, a part time job, friends to ride around aimlessly with...I thought I had days that were bad, but working in fields harvesting crops I was not! Talk about hard work!

On the back were a few advertisements from local businesses. This one for Williams Hardware caught my eye, as it is still in business--in the same location. In fact, there was also an ad for Williams Cafe. Why is that interesting? Travelers Rest has experienced a serious boom the last few years, and Williams Cafe was recently re-opened adjacent to Williams Hardware.

OH, and did you notice the phone number in the ad above? It's 4 digits. 7-9-0-5. That's it. Not 7 numbers like we have now for local calls!

Below that I saw prices listed for Renfrew Barber Shop. Renfrew is the mill community--aka, 'mill village'--where my grandmother lived, and where my mom was born. In fact, my parents were married at Renfrew Baptist Church, and one of the old mill offices has been renovated into an event space--where my wedding reception was held! Anyway, peek at the price of a haircut!

Twenty-five cents! Granted, that was for a man, as it was a barber shop...but still! And a shave was fifteen cents!

The other little odds and ends that I discovered revealed to me that my MaMa was quite involved in school. I already knew she was a fantastic basketball player. But I saw she also participated in the chorus! (I'm pointing to her name there, Dot Belcher)

I also ran across superlatives. I guess then they did superlatives for both the junior and senior class--my MaMa got 3 her junior year!

I hope you enjoyed peeking into history with me...I am so enthralled with these crackly, worn pages...they mean so much to me. To be able to hold this and peek into my MaMa's life, and know I can one day share it with her great-grandson...I don't even have the words! Priceless!

Friday, June 24, 2011

chirp chirp

Well, y'all...

I did it...

I finally ventured into the world of Twitter!

I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing...but if you'd like to follow me while I figure it out, I'll be glad to follow you back!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Hey y'all!

I'm not here today...come see me at


and get those feet flip-flop ready!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

happy anniversary...

Happy Anniversary to my awesome parents!!!

Congrats on 43 years of marriage!!!

Love you both!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

in memory of my 'MaMa'


Some of you that may have heard that this has been a particularly hard week for me.

My 'MaMa', my grandmother, passed away on Tuesday. While she has been slowly slipping away after a fall about 1.5 years ago, it still is a shock each time I remember she's no longer physically here with us.

She was an amazing woman, strong, feisty, Godly, humble.

She was born December 1, 1920. She lived through the Great Depression, WWII, and countless other hardships, some personal, some not.

MaMa gave birth to a baby girl, my momma, on July 7, 1949. By the time my momma was about 7 years old, MaMa found herself in need of a house. Her husband and father had both passed, and if you were not a mill worker, you were not allowed to live in the mill village housing. At that time, most banks would not lend to women. But MaMa found one who would, Greer State Bank, obtained a loan, and purchased a home for herself, mom, and my Granny. She at one time was working 3 jobs to provide for her family. She paid off the house all on her own, helped my mother go to a local college, and paid cash in full for her first brand new car when I was about 15. MaMa worked hard and saved everything she could.


MaMa retired from her full time job after 49 & 1/2 years, and promptly went to work part time as the receptionist at the Senior Action Center here in downtown. Her job at Senior Action always made me giggle a little, as it was for senior citizens and she was quite a bit older than most of the retirees who participated in their activities and services.

MaMa continued to work (and drive herself!) up until she was 87 years old. She never considered herself "old". In fact, one of everyone's favorite stories about my MaMa involves "old people" as she called them. She and I were in her car, I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, and she was waiting--impatiently, as was her nature--on a car behind her to back out so that she could back out from her space as well. Upon turning around and seeing a teensy elderly lady trying to maneuver her gigantic Cadillac out of her space, MaMa proclaimed with a huff "I hate old people!" And of course, she did not truly...she just didn't see herself as old, and she certainly never slowed down.

MaMa drove her little Honda Civic like a bat out of you-know-where. She once ran up on a girlfriend of mine (who drove a Mustang GT), who glanced up in time to see MaMa coming out and around to pass her...MaMa blew her doors off before my friend got the chance to wave. That always makes me giggle.

When I was much younger...four or five...I loved to "do" her make-up. By which I mean, she ended up with eyes done up in lipstick (different shades too, naturally) and cheeks of blue eyeshadow...at MaMa's funeral, our pastor recounted this story to the congregation and called my handiwork a mixture of "Tammy Faye Bakker and Bozo the Clown"...pretty accurate. After one such make-up session, MaMa dropped me at home before heading out...to her church...with food...for a family who had just had a death in the family...without removing said handiwork. She called my mother in a frenzy. MaMa had gone home wondering why in the world people were looking at her so oddly...once she got home and looked in the mirror she knew exactly why. Oops.

When I was about ten, MaMa decided to teach me how to drive. So she drove me about 2 minutes down the street from her house to a cemetery, let me get behind the wheel, her in the passenger seat, and said "go for it". My mother nearly fainted when I told her the awesome afternoon MaMa and I had had! That solicited a phone call from my mom to MaMa who told her, "it's not like she can HURT anyone." True.

MaMa was always willing to help people out...anyone, really. One day on her way home, she saw a woman nearly running down the side of the road, one shoe on, one off. MaMa pulled over to ask her if she was okay...the woman said she needed a ride, she just HAD to get back to her family. So off they went, and MaMa dropped her off. Later that evening she was watching the news, and there was a story about some women who had escaped from an institution of some sort (jail, mental, can't remember). MaMa called my mom--"I gave one of those women a ride home today!" (I still laugh hysterically at this memory)

It is from MaMa that I inherited my love of shoes, purses, and independence. I also acquired her feisty nature, complete lack of patience, and lead foot.

I did not, however, inherit her height (5'9"-ish, maybe taller), athleticism (fantastic basketball player), or popularity (3 superlatives in high school! wowza!).

MaMa was antsy. If she couldn't sleep, she would get up and make one of my favorites: coconut cake, lemon meringue pie, homemade chicken salad...just because she was bored.

She kept her house immaculate, and was always always sweeping. I cannot even tell you how many dustpans she threw away. She got in such a hurry sweeping and dumping and sweeping and dumping...that the dustpan usually went as well. Only after trash pick-up would it occur to her it was missing.

MaMa was perhaps the single greatest influence in my life.

I mentioned that she finally stopped working at 87. She had gotten sick and with her age, just couldn't bounce back as before. I crossed my fingers and prayed she would be well enough to come to my wedding. She did.


Shortly after it occurred to me how much I took for granted that she had always been there. So I had the foresight to write her a letter, detailing every great influence or memory or anything I had ever wanted her to know...I sent her that letter and felt peace. I knew that no matter when she left this world, my MaMa would not leave it without knowing all these awesome things she had done and been for me in my life.

MaMa passed away Tuesday, June 14, 2011...on her mother's birthday. My Granny. She was the first family member I have ever lost. She meant the world to me, and to so very many people.

I am so glad I wrote that letter. Even though my heart hurts, I'm at peace...and I know she is as well.

Happy Father's Day


Happy Father's Day to my daddy...

..and happy FIRST father's day to my awesome husband...

Love you both!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

oh happy day


Hey y'all!

If you hang around here much, you may have noticed my shameless love for Kimberly over at Bugaboo Mini Mr & Me...I don't exactly hide my obsession love for her blog very much...Oops.

Kimberly is super nice and talented and has some really stinkin' cute kiddos. And to top alllllll that--she went and hit the milestone of 500 followers!!! Yes indeed! So to celebrate she's having a few giveaways...apparently my stalking love for her blog paid off, because she asked if I'd like to offer up an item!

Um, YES.

*does a happy dance*

So if you'd like to get in on the giveaways, including one from yours truly, just hop over to Kimberly's awesome blog and take a peek...Maybe you'd like to win my upcycled t-shirt necklace & rosette? Did I mention the rosette can be worn in your hair as well?

Yep. 'Cause I'm all about the multi-tasking.

What are you waiting for?! Go!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

bittersweet sale!


Hey y'all!

Gosh it's been for-ev-er since I've blogged! Shame on me. Having a 6 week old is hard work! There is no kinda concealer that can hide these dark circles, eesh!

So today I woke up to a sale! Wonderful, right? It was just a teensy bit bittersweet. You see, I sold the very first item I made to start my shop, ShenanAgains, with...yes! The first one. It's this awesome upcycled picture frame:


It's one of my favorite things I've ever made, I think. I scoured my (shamefully) massive magazine stash for black and white pictures that were punk-y and tough and fun.

But on Monday, said frame will be on it's way to it's new home in AUSTRALIA. Such is the beauty of Etsy...that one of my little ol' creations will have a home half way around the world from me! *sniff* :)

In other news...apparently a few of my Facebook fans would love to have one of my upcycled wreaths...ask, and ye shall receive! I'll be creating an upcycled wreath in the next few days for a giveaway...so if you're interested in winning, check back here for details and be sure you're a fan on Facebook so you too can enter!