Hi! Thanks so much for visiting! This blog began as a companion site for my professional career as a freelance musician and instructor of harp and piano and then it morphed into a place where I could blog about my favorite recipes, DIY home projects, and our home construction in 2013. But in May of 2014 I blogged my very first handmade cards and I was hooked! I am thoroughly enjoying my crafting journey and I look forward to sharing it with you! My fondest hope is that you leave my blog inspired to create and craft something with a little bit of sparkle!
So, about me…I am a full-time private music instructor teaching harp and piano to 35 students, ages 7 to 75! I also freelance throughout the Northern Virginia metro area for weddings, business parties, church services, and other performance opportunities. I am primarily interested in cardmaking but I also dabble in quilling, needle-felting, hand-lettering, and scrapbooking! When I’m not crafting I can be found bird-watching, gardening, baking, or attempting complicated recipes!
And a little bit about my family…in 2002 I entered Shenandoah University as a freshman harp performance major. In early 2003 I met the man of my dreams and the love of my life, Steve. We got engaged at the Luray Caverns on our 5 year dating anniversary…
…and got married in January of 2009!
Along the way our family grew…we started with an impulsive pet shop purchase. We brought home Nestle, our mini-lop rabbit, in June of 2004. Sadly, Nestle went to the Rainbow Bridge on January 28th, 2014.
A few months later (after a lot of additional research in proper rabbit care) we brought a girlfriend home for Nestle. Cookie is a Dutch rabbit adopted from the Washington DC Chapter of the House Rabbit Society.
Then the following fall, on the day after Thanksgiving, I picked up my first Northern Virginia Sheltie Rescue foster sheltie, a bi-blue merle. And from the moment I picked him up to put him in the car I knew he was never going to live anywhere but with me. So Merlin was adopted as an early Hanukkah gift and joined our family! On April 3rd, 2017, Merlin joined Nestle and our childhood pets at the Rainbow Bridge.
Shortly after we got married, we brought home another foster sheltie hoping that he might be a companion for Merlin. And we couldn’t have asked for a better match. These two are the epitome of ‘made for each other’! We formally welcomed Archimedes into our lives in March of 2009 and cannot remember what Merlin was like without him!
My husband always wanted to add a cat to our family but the timing never worked out. We knew that a kitten would be our next addition but we didn’t want to have more than four pets at any given time. Nestle passed away in late January of 2014 and after a few months we started to discuss the possibility of adopting a kitten from the local shelter. We wanted to wait until Steve was out of school for the summer so he’d have more time to bond with a new pet. So, on Steve’s last day of school, we stopped by the county shelter and this pretty tortoiseshell kitten just about begged us to take her home. So in June of 2014 Rogue became the newest member of our family and has cheerfully added cat hair to all of my crafting projects ever since.
And that’s my wonderful family! 🙂
