Amy Peters' Studio Buzz

finding a home....

Years ago we found a piece of land and decided to list our house, buy the land and build a house. Our plan was easy, simple. The land was in our dream neighborhood. We listed the house and it sold just two days later.  But, the owner of the land sold to another couple that they already knew. At the time I thought why didn't we list the house with a contingency? Why did we even try this?  Woulda Coulda Shouldas...filled my days.

It threw us for a tailspin.  Life upside down.  What were we going to do?  For months I was upset and stressed out trying to make something work.  We moved to a house where the owner of the land wanted to split it.  We pushed for it.  It didn't go well and it was a struggle. Month later we realized, it wasn't going to work...we moved again. 

Time went by and we weren't able to find anything where we were looking.  It was all I could talk about and think about. One day I was with my sister and brother in law.  He took me aside and said.  "You need to find a house".  I said..I know.   He said "No, a house of God. Find a church."

The next day I called a friend who said she liked her church.  And we went...we were home.  After years of looking for the right fit in a church.  We'd found it.  We were home. It took another year for us the find our house in the country. 

Our struggles brought us closer as a family. Often I forget that as the day to day stresses take over.  Life has it's ups and downs, I've come to realize one thing.  Everything does happen for a reason. 

 

Today take 20% off any retail order.

Use Promo Code: HOUSE

 

 

 

 

building a home...

Our new feathered neighbor

 

How do you make a home?  What makes it special to you? The decorations?  The style? Or is it the people in it?

Last week I decided I was sick of hating my bathroom.  I've never liked the oak cabinets and color of the oak flooring.  There wasn't anything wrong with them.  But they are just not my style.  So on Thursday I went to Home Depot and bought a bigger sander, 3 cans of paint and a few other supplies to change it.  The last 4 days I spent covered in dust, paint and stain.

As a bad blogger I didn't take before pictures. I'm gonna look and see if I can find some.  It's not quite ready for after pictures.  But it's better.  Two coats of sealer on the floor, a new shower door, new rugs and a bit of cleaning then it's finished. 

But now....I'm thinking about doing the same thing to the kitchen. 

What do you do to make your house a home? 

 

 

The best unlaid plans...

Today as part of family week I've invited my cousin over to guest blog. This is a post she wrote after our summer impromptu family reunion. Growing up our families spent Thanksgivings together, this is a story about fun and family and the mayhem of it all. The older cousin's in her story might just be me and my siblings....but I'm not admitting anything! 

You can see her writing over at Partly Sunny Blog. 

When I was a kid, my mom's side of the family -- all the crazy Polacks -- would get together for Thanksgiving every year.  We'd switch off venues.  Sometimes our place in Nevada, sometimes southern California or the Bay Area.  Any way you cut it, it was pure chaos.  Forty-plus people stuffed into a house and maybe a motor home parked out front (some of the more sane individuals might have gotten a hotel, but back then, that was a big deal).  Kids running everywhere.  Dogs and cats living together.

Every year it was the same.  My brother and I would watch our older cousins fight with each other (exciting teenager drama).  My elderly aunt would cheat at cards.  My grandmother and her sisters would argue about the exact date on which their mother died.  My Uncle Art, the designated patriarch, would say grace.  And in a couple of days, we'd always have egg noodle casserole with leftover turkey and ham.

I'm not sure when or why these annual meetings stopped.  I was a kid, and kids aren't privy to or interested in the details.  What I do know is that my mother grew up with family all around her, and she loved having these yearly get-togethers.  For me -- a kid with no first cousins close to her own age -- it was the closest thing to experiencing my mom's childhood:  days filled with running down the street to one of her aunt's houses and grabbing one of many playmates who also happened to be a relative; huge, crazy dinners filled with men who talked in booming voices, women who laughed so hard it sounded like they were almost screaming, and kids who were barely noticed because there was so much activity; people who went along their day without giving a second thought to the fact that four generations were in the same room most of the time.

For the first time since those huge Thanksgivings, we had close to forty people converge at my dad's place a couple of weeks ago.  And it all just kind of happened.  No mass email where you throw out dates and see what might work for the most people.  No block of rooms arranged in advance.  No stressing about who may or may not show up and why. 

It was all a little surreal, partly due to the fact that the last time this many people were around was during my mom's several-week-long demise and memorial (all at this same time, one year ago).  Whether or not everyone was psychically drawn together by existential forces or naturally driven together by their lizard brains is a mystery.  Perhaps they all just looked on the calendar and felt they had to come.

The thing is, my mom was the family "planner."  Every clan has one.  So the idea that this ever would've gotten off the ground without her is frankly amazing.  It was, to use my best hippie terminology, organic.  And almost a little magical.

At the end of the day, the only one missing, of course, was my mom.  She would've loved watching the kids running in, around, and through her house like it was an amusement park.  She would've loved pretending to be annoyed when her cousins gave her the business like they did when they were little.  And she would've loved seeing her uncle and aunts who always had a soft spot in their hearts for her because she was the first born out of all their children.

And I think she would've been proud -- and frankly shocked -- that the big group of Polacks actually managed to get together.  That we didn't find any excuses to put it off another year.  That for one long weekend, we did what she drove us crazy trying to do all the time -- make ordinary life a little more special.  Find something to celebrate.  Recognize the day. 

And even though she's not around, I'm guessing she wouldn't have minded us using her as a good excuse to have a party.

 

Thanks so much for taking over my blog today cuz!

Take a look around at both of her blogs.

If you want a chuckle and to remind yourself no mom is perfect visit....

 

As a special treat today to celebrate my 45th Birthday....

Buy any one item and take 45% off any one item of equal or lesser value! Use Code AMY45 we will update your total before shipping. 

how it all began...

My parents  still live in Palo Alto in the house I came home from Stanford hospital to live and grow up in. 

My childhood home with the kids in front being silly

Going to my family home always gets me a bit nostalgic.  The last time I started thinking about my jewelry career and how I got started. For me, my inspirational jewelry career started in my childhood.  I took a jewelry enameling class when I was 8 and fell in love with adorning myself and family with my creations.

What really started my love of hand stamped words and inspirational sayings on jewelry can all be traced back to a good luck token machine called the Harvard Metal Typer.  It was at the Woolworth's lunch counter in the Mayfield Mall in Palo Alto during the 1970's. For 25 cents you could type anything you wanted to on a aluminum disc. 

I spent over 10 years looking at every antique shop I could find to hunt a machine down.  When Ebay started it was one of the first things I bought from a collector in Oakland...I found the machine within 3 weeks of looking for it. 

I've recreated one of the Good Luck Tokens in sterling silver and offer it hand stamped with a personal message. I've been using mine for 3 years as my key ring. It is a strong heavy charm that works great as a key ring or a necklace. We sell it as a charm alone so you can decide!

It can be hand stamped with 28 letters or numbers.  You can have us stamp half on the front and half of the back if you choose. Just let us know.

Check it out now...

 

 

rings and promises {winner}

And the lucky winner is #8

Jamie. We will send you a message separately!  Can't wait to see what you have us hand stamp on it!

rings and promises {contest}

Our word, message, stacking and statement rings.

I still remember the day I received my engagement ring.  It wasn't really a surprise that I was getting it or how is was going to look. I had picked out the diamond, chosen the jeweler to make it and sketched out what I wanted.   My husband has always said it is hard to buy jewelry for a jeweler, so I "helped".  It was right before Christmas, so I was sure we wouldn't get it until after.  The jeweler was too busy to finish it and we were in no hurry.  The day I got it, it was a surprise. I remember thinking what it meant when Jim pretended to trip, dropped to a knee and asked me to be his wife, 3 days before Christmas.  It was the beginning of our family.  The promise of so much. 

Later that year I carved out and created his first wedding ring.  It was never really a perfect fit, the ring was too thick.  It was difficult for him to play violin while wearing it.  So one day after taking it off to play, it fell out of his violin case...he lost it.  I was upset, hurt and then I pulled off one of my rings and handed it to him. Of course with a few choice words thrown in. It fit perfectly.  He hasn't taken it off since.  I had the ring made for me again in rose gold. It's a special reminder of our commitment and the challenges we often face as a family. 

May your wildest dreams come true

I love everything that rings symbolize. No ending or beginning, eternity. A commitment to yourself or to someone else.   The promise of something incredible.  Whether or not it's given to you by a loved one, a dear friend or chosen by you as a present to yourself, it holds tremendous meaning.

For years now, we've been getting requests to have custom wording on our rings.  So HERE they are finally..ta da.  Custom hand stamped rings. We have three different font styles from which to choose. They are the same size and style of our word, message and statement rings and of course look fabulous stacked.  Think of lovely mommy rings filled with kids names just in time for mother's day! 

Go shopping now.

 

We are giving away one hand stamped custom ring!

First Entry: Tell us what you'd have us hand stamp on the ring and why.

Extra Entries: Tweet about it, Facebook about it, blog about it. 

We will let Random.org choose the winner tonight at 10 pm PST.

family {ties}

 This week I'll be sharing stories, new designs and fun stuff related to family. 

A few months ago I was able to visit my Great Uncle Murray while I was at the trade show in Orlando. He is the last living sibling of my maternal grandfather. 

Growing up we would travel to my mother's hometown of Kissimmee, Florida for a family reunion every 4th of July. My memories are filled with dirt roads, capturing frogs, fishing, sulphur water, sweet tea and trips to Disneyworld.

My uncle Murray had been my Grandfather's partner in their construction business.  After retirement my uncle tried his hand at Bee Keeping for a short time.  When he quit that pursuit, he laughingly told me when he took up the hobby he didn't realize he'd be old in his retirement.  Instead he started to research our family history. He and my great Aunt traveled all around the southern states collecting tidbits of our history. 

In my early 20's, years after we stopped traveling to Florida as a family.  I continued to travel there on my own to visit with my cousins, granparents and aunts and uncles.  Each trip I would look forward to spending time with Uncle Murray hearing about the latest family treasure he had uncovered.  A distant cousin found, a family portrait of a great uncle twice removed and images of gravestones from relatives that had fought in the civil war.

On one of the trips he had a present for me, that I treasure to this day. It is a detailed family tree and binder filled with images of great grandparents, census reports, documents of house sales and wills.  My children have used it in each and every history report and lesson in grammar school. Thanks to my Uncle Murray our history is detailed back to the American revolutionary war.

Nikolas just shared a letter from a great, great, great, great uncle during his "visit" to the 1850's.  It was written to his great great great grandfather and detailed his travels and intrigues all written in beautiful penmanship I could only imagine writing it with a quill pen. 

The stories are what I treasure the most. While I visited with Uncle Murray and Aunt Agnes in January we laughed and retold a few of our favorite stories for the hundredth time.

As the special today.  I give you the gift and reminder of time. Time to be with family.  Time to be present for your family. Time to be patient with family. Time to give someone a call or a visit.  Make it a priority and reach out to someone you are missing.  Someone you've lost touch with. 

 

 

 

 

pebbles {winners}

The winner for the abundance pebble necklace is lucky #3.

Courtney The winner of the find your wings pebble necklace is lucky #31

Jenipher I will email you both separately for your addresses. Yay...congrats!

ripples from a pebble

When I was younger my mother was a stay at home mom.  As we grew and became less dependent on her she decided a part time job would be fun.  She found a job as a secretary at Stanford University for several research professors. 

The students she also worked with would often travel and they would return with small gifts for my mom.  Not wanting them to spend money on her, my mom suggested they bring her a pebble from where they had traveled.

She has always collected rocks, shells and pebbles whenever she is out and about. This way she could be connected to the places she might never have a chance to visit. 

Over the years she collected hundreds of pebbles, each inscribed with where it was from and who had given it to her.  The pebbles and memories of those students mean so much. 

 

 

When a pebble is dropped into a pond it creates ripple effects that can be felt far away. What has created ripples in your life?  Who or what has touched you?  Where do you want your ripples to reach?

Pebbles. Small sterling silver tags can be hand stamped with special words, a date or a meaninful saying. Next to it hangs a beach pebble chosen to adorn the necklace as a sweet reminder of the ripples that have touched and changed you. Strung on our adorable long and short link chain.  I love that the pebble can be worn in back of the tag or in front to keep the message hidden and just for you. 

Go Shopping.

We have been listening to our customers and we have heard you loud and clear.  You want more additions to our personalized line.  The next two weeks we have a lot of new hand stamped designs to share. 

For this Contest:  We will choose two winners.  We are giving away both of our example necklaces to two lucky readers. 

First Entry:  Tell us about the ripples in your life, that have affected you. 

Extra Entries: Tweet, Facebook or blog about this giveaway. 

We will let Random.org Choose the winner on Sunday Night at 10 pm

 

 

 

 

 

blog sugar ticket {winner}

Congrats to lucky #10!

 

The winner is...

Alissa Circle

I will email you separately!  Congratulations.  I can't wait to meet you at Blog Sugar!