D.D. Jewlery and Designs

This young aspiring artist lives in my home. She is my Darling Daughter. (D.D. Jewelry and Designs). DD loves to create. She is an artist at heart. Weather it be decorating rocks painting murals or designing jewelry this little artist is always creating. D.D. wants to start her own ETSY shop to show off her creative designs. So I am going to host her on Camillescloset.



I have asked D.D. Some questions

1. What is your Favorite Supply to use in your creations?

Buttons.

2. Do you like Fancy or Plain buttons the best? I must say Fancy

3. What is your Favorite jewelry item to make?

Earrings







3. What do you plan to do in the future?

Become a vet.

4. Will you make more than just earrings and if so what?

Button Bracelets.

5. Tell us something funny about your self? I don't wanna.

So I will tell you. I asked DD if she was gonna get married and have baby's she said Nope! My Bff is gonna get married and her husband is gonna do everything for us and take care of us and my dog.


Words from an aspiring Etsy Artisit.

Come check out her items at Camille's Closet.

Aid For Abby

I ran accost this shop Aid for Abby while I was scanning some treasury's this last week. After visiting the shop and reading the profile my heart really went out to Abby and her Mom and I wanted to do more for them than buy a couple Abby's piece's. I am so fortunate for what I have and for my children I wanted to help. I don't really know but I empathize with Abby's mom. I have family members and dear friends that are raising Autistic children and I can see the pain and the hope and want in their eyes for their children. Here is Abby and her Moms story.

Abby suffers from Autism, Expressive/Receptive Language Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I made the ultimate sacrifice, I gave up all material possessions so that my child could continue receiving medical treatment and therapies. I was just informed by one of her specialists that they suspect scoliosis and Abby will need a scan performed. Abby’s care for her autism, speech and OCD are not covered under her insurance policy. Medicaid has denied her as well stating I should obtain services for her conditions through the public school system. I complete applications for assistance on a weekly basis to various organizations but to no avail. Since her diagnosis at the age of 2 1/2 years until now at the age of 11, her cost of care has been my sole responsibility. I do not have any credit cards so I cannot charge her care. Lately, we have been selling Abby’s original artwork on Etsy (AidforAbby). I cannot work outside of the home due to a disability for which I receive a small amount of money each month. It's not easy, I will tell you that. I have the same hopes, dreams and plans for her as I do my other children. Along with the financial burden of medical bills, we want to get back on our feet and replace what we have lost. I’m hoping to raise funds first and foremost for Abby’s continued medical treatments, house down payment and vehicle to purchase.

We (myself, Abby and her brother Nathan) are what they call a “displaced family”. We do not have a home of our own in which to live, I do not own a vehicle, and I have no other possessions of my own with the exception of the clothing, family photographs and artwork of my children. A neighbor knew of our plight and I firmly believe that God intervened on our behalf. He provides us with a place to stay and I can use his vehicle for transportation. We also have Abby’s therapy dog Buster, who is a beagle. He needs more help than Abby does on certain days! It is not easy to live with a child that has autism as any parent who has a child like mine will attest to.

I have learned so much from my daughter that it would be hard to sum it up in one word. Each day I experience the joy of learning something new from her. I have had the honor of watching her make such tremendous progress in school even with Autism. I take her to all of her other therapy appointments outside of school. My daughter, like other children who have Autism have an inner sense of self. They know who they are and what makes them happy. They don’t seem to be affected by the same time constraints, worries, and anxieties about the future. I have come to appreciate more just living in the moment. After all, the now is really all we have! The past is in our minds and the future is not guaranteed with an outcome that may or may not ever occur.

became concerned around the time that Abby turned 18 months old that she did not have the vocabulary of other children her age. A visit to her pediatrician confirmed that she needed to be referred to a developmental specialist as she only had 5 words at a time where she should have had hundreds. Upon the pediatrician’s recommendation of two physicians, one a neurologist and the other a developmental pediatrician, we made the appointments. When tested, Abby had an IQ of 70, a score that, coupled with the fact that she showed significant deficits in communication skills, social skills and everyday adaptive behavior, Abby was ultimately give a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder.

he has mastered the basic techniques of doing things for her age group, like putting on her shoes, clothes (have trouble sometimes with her pants buttons) although she still does not pick out her own clothes to wear, using the potty, (had fully mastered the potty at age 5), and trying to brush her hair.

Abby does obsess about certain topics such as trains, horses and wheel or circles to the point where nothing or no one else seems to exist. She has a tendency to fixate on specific routine or ritual, have stereotyped or repetitive actions or movements or fixate on parts of objects (e.g. wheels of a train). Abby also has a heightened sensitivity to certain sounds, sights, smells, tastes or textures. Thus, a lot of her artwork is done in circles or wheels.

Abby also has self-stimulating behaviors called stims. These are self-stimulatory behaviors. Repetitive behaviors, like spinning in circles or twirling hair, they are common in autistic people. They are not unique to those with autism, but the difference between the autistic stims is that they have a way of shutting off the brain to other stimuli. This can be a good thing when the brain is over stimulated and just needs a break. Don’t we wish we all had a way to shut out the world sometimes? But, if a person is in an autistic stim, it is near impossible to get their attention.
o to my daughter who suffers from autism, I love you exactly as you are, today, in this moment. I accept you for who you are. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You are all a mother could ask for. I will love you no matter where this journey in life takes us. All you have to do is keep being yourself. That is what I truly love about you. You are just yourself!

Thank you for being you. Thank you for accepting me with all my faults. You bring so many wonderful things to my life each and every day. Thank you for inspiring me to become a better person and mom to you and others. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for trusting that everything is working out exactly as it’s supposed to. I'm trying the best that I can and someday, yes, we will have a home again to call our own.

I feel really fortunate to have met Abby's mom by way of ETSY. Please check out Abby's ETSY shop. Favorite, add them to your Circle and lets help them out.



Camille.

Promotional Frenzy Team invitied to participate in Handmade Top 10 Conest

There is a new site that is a spin off of Heartsy. It is called Handmadeology. Handmadeology is having their first contest for ETSY sellers. The winning team will recieve lots of exposure as well as $450 dollars in FREE advertising. How do you help you ask? Go to Handmadology and vote for the Promotional Frenzy Teams items, (the more times you vote the better) and like us on Face book. Check out some of the items listed below. Click below on the rust colored box to begin voting.




We are very dedicated and are in it to win it. Any help would be appreciated.


Camille.

A twist on somthing old.

Thanks everyone who participated in picking my new color. Purple out weighed the votes by far. Yippee for purple. It is my favorite color as well as many of my readers.
The winner of the contest picked by Random number generator is Calliope Creations. I will contact her buy email or she can contact me for all the details.

I will be listing the new purple color in my shop real soon and be on the look out for a copper color and a few more that were suggested.


I have been trying to rejuvenate my wax seal pendants. They are unique; each piece is made with lots of love and care, not one single piece is the same. I wanted to do something different with them. I brainstormed several different ideas, looked at my business plan and contemplated where the ideas could take me or if it would be profitable. I decide to introduce to my line Wax Seal Rings.

These are adjustable. In the picture you can see that they are a high quality adjustable ring base. I have sauntered the wax seal on the ring base. This makes it extremely sturdy and will last a life time

Pick the next color and win one for yourself.

It is time to add another color to my wax seal pendant collection. What a better way to do this then to host a contest. In order to be eligible for the contest you must be a follower of my blog, and you need to leave a comment voting on your fav color choice. Metallic taupe, glossy limey green, or glossy deep purple. To receive additional entry's in the contest you can.

- Heart me on etsy

http://Camillescloset.etsy.com
- Become a fan on facebook


-Suggest another color you would like to see in the future.

Winner will be picked by random number generator. They will receive a wax seal pendant there choice of initial and color.


Have fun participating.

Stay tuned for next weeks. (Hint: I am introducing something old with a new twist)

Ogden Marathon 2011

For the last three weeks I have had so much anxiety over this race. I would back out one second and then change my mind the next. Someone would ask me if I was ready and I would start crying. My training did not go as well as I had wanted it to. I had to take two weeks off when I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia and then a week off (when it was my longest training run of 20 miles) for a possible stress fracture. I was scared that I would not finish and afraid of the pain. I did yoga sometimes twice a day to get over the anxiety and to help me relax the week of the race. I made a mental list of all the positives that had happened since my last marathon over a year ago. I have lost over 70lbs, better training (really), I eat so much healthier and I was not out site-seeing the entire day before the marathon (Like in San Francisco) and the marathon did not seem entirely up hill like the last one. It really helped out a lot. The day before the race was a perfect day. I MADE sure that I carb-loaded (I usually don’t eat a lot of carbs) and drank plenty of fluid. At the expo I started having a panic attack, I was shaking and very teary-eyed again, doubting my ability to even be able to do this race. Dale kind of insisted we listen to the Run like a Mother ladies and I am glad we did because they gave some really good advice that helped me get through the race. One thing they said is have a mantra. I did at that time, it was “ I’m ready I’m ready” until Dale brought it to my attention that Sponge Bob said that all the time, I still used it even though I did not know if it would work having a picture of Sponge Bob stuck in my head.

The morning of the race I woke up prior to the alarm clock going off. Really that is unheard of for me. I usually hit the snooze button until I have 15 minutes to get ready. Dale took me to the buses, I found some of my running friends and was glad I did. Talking to them helped keep my mind off of what I was about to do. As the race neared I got ready, dropped of my bag and went to the end of the line. I normally don’t make chit chat with people I don’t know but was determined to make small talk with anyone to help ease the anxiety. Then I was off. I chunked the race into three mile sections. Whenever I passed the set of three I would celebrate to myself, I never counted down like I did at the last marathon until I got to mile 25. I jogged the entire first half. I felt good and light on my feet but my right knee was super stiff by mile 9. I knew after passing the volunteers at mile 13 that I had to push it to get past the dam by 11:30. I ran for a while with a guy that was running with Team in Training, we helped push each other along. He keep giving me a count down till 11:30. An hour and a half to go, an hour to go, thirty minutes to go, etc.. I could not take the countdown so I just pushed it past him as fast as I could. I could see the dam in the distance. This was the part that I was having anxiety about. I did not know if I could do it and it stressed me out, I did not want to be driven down the canyon in a school bus. I kicked it into gear, my legs feeling pretty tired and the knee very tight. There were people at the end of the dam taking pictures and cheering everyone on. A guy was motioning to me to keep going, keep going. I passed the dam, just what I thought I could NOT do, and my eye’s filled with tears. I was overwhelmed that I did it. As I was running down the canyon and looking around at how amazing and beautiful it was I totally fell in love with running and was pumped. I keep on jogging down the canyon, picking people off one by one (felt really good to do that) but I made sure that I would say something encouraging to everyone I passed. At about mile 21 I was running out of steam. The team in training guy and a friend had caught up with me. I talked and chatted with them for two miles. They were struggling and did not know if they could finish. At mile 23 a group of about 7 of my employees were standing on the Ogden Parkway cheering me on. Again they made me cry, I could not believe that they waited there to cheer me on, they had signs and all. That was just the motivation I needed to kick it into gear and start picking people off one by one again. I passed 8 people on my way into the finish line. I ran all the way down Grant Ave. I could see Dale and my kids waving and cheering me on. I looked at the clock 6 hours 37 min. I thought it would take me an hour to an hour, hour and an half longer. I was elated that I finished with a time better than I thought. I gave Dale and my kids hugs and kiss’s then I had to chase the medal dude down to get my medal because he was too busy taking pictures for different groups of girls that had just finished, and I wanted that medal!!! I can’t wait till my knee heals, so I can start training for the next race. I was ready for another one on Sunday if it weren’t for me knee I probably would have been out running on Sunday. Instead of telling people now that I am slow, I say I am slower than most.

For me it is not about the time I get at the finish line. It is about the journey I had the last four months preparing for race day. It is about the challenges I was given and how I over came them. It is about what I learned about myself and how I was going to incorparte what I learned in a postive manner in my live to change the course of my life.


Stay tuned next week I will be announcing my first contest ever.

Before and Middle

I blogged once about my running and I thought that maybe it was time to do it again. Running for me is a release. Something to get rid of the stress and the mubo jumbo (if that is how It is spelled) that goes on in my head. It is my time to not think about one thing to be at peace with my self and enjoy what is going on around me. I started running after watching my hubby run his first marathon. I wanted a piece of what he had just earned. I trained and I trained hard to run my first marathon, a hip injury and a knee injury and ton's of phycial therapy, I was semi healed. Ready to go again. I have ran all but one race on my schedule this year due to some medical issues but man what an accomplishment I keep telling myself. The real reason for me going on and on about my running is this. I love to run, I gain creative inspiration from running. It has allowed me to come up with an entire line of jewelry that I will soon be posting. It makes me appreciate life and myself so much more. When I have had a stressful day(like today) I know that I can get my shoes on and go for a run. The pictures I have posted are before and Middle pics of me. I have lost 77 lbs I have a little more to go( Hence the name Before and middle cuz I am in the middle of my weight lose journey). I met an inspiring individual on my saterday 18 mile run. A really fun lady. She said while she was runs every time a new song comes on her Ipod she thinks of something she is grateful for. She told me about her after race ritual. After about 5 miles of running with her she left me behind and said see you at the finish line. I did not believe that she would be waiting for me at all. Just a nice little saying to part ways with right. Well readers I came in last ( in my defence kind of 4 lady's dropped out that were behind me) This dear runner was at the finish line waiting for me 45 min's after she crossed the finish line. Screaming cheering my name and jumping up and down. I was shocked and started balling. In my pain and agony of the possible re injury of my knee she reminded me why I run, and gave me the faith and confidence that I could do it and it did not mater that I came in last, it mattered that I finished it. She also made the running company keep the finish line up for me to cross LOL. It still makes me cry just typing this. (PS the handsome boy standing next to me in the second pic is my son)