back from our spring trip down south!

Last weekend, Kinsey and I were in Richmond doing Spring Bada Bing.  We look forward to this show every year and have been attending it for 6 years and have been a vendor for 5 years.  This year was by far the best for us and I was so happy with how our table turned out.  

This year, my main offerings were soft toys.  I've really been focusing on the area of plush toys quite intensely now for the past 5 months.  

This was my first show with the plush rockets and boys, so I was excited to see how they would be received.  Rockets were by far my most popular item - I almost sold out!  

Another new item I had for the first time were soft rattles, which went over very well as well.  

(Oh and here's how nerdy I can be: I totally got really excited when I saw Sherry and John Petersik from younghouselove.  And even more excited when they stopped and my table and chatted for a few minutes!)

Before we headed to Richmond, we spent a week visiting my grandparents who live just south of Myrtle Beach.  Early April is such a wonderful time to go to the beach.  See all the people out on the beach?  Oh wait, there's hardly anyone.  Warm weather, clear skies, and local strawberries!!

While we were in South Carolina we took a day trip to Charleston.  We were searching for a place to eat lunch when we came across this quiet, old church cemetery right off a busy street.

I'll be sharing some more pictures in the next day of one of my favorite places I've ever visited while down south. 

Shiny and natural inspirations

The other week, we were in Richmond selling our crafts.  We love going here and look forward to the time to relax and go to some of our favorite places.
There are a number of pretty interesting shops and restaurants in this area.
Kinsey always stops here to check out the hat selection and I usually end up "just looking" at the local bead store.  I'd work here in a second.

Here's my shiny selections.

I don't even really bead much anymore, but I fall in love with the selection here every time.


Another favorite is Maymont.  Tons of acres of plants, trees, gardens, and more.  Here's a shot of the Italian garden (with Kinsey).

I love these tulips!  We have a similar style in our backyard, only the pink and white are reversed.

Here's one side of the herb garden.  I'd love to have a nice herb garden in our yard.

And overlooking the back of the Japanese garden.

Such a peaceful place...even though it was spring break week and the place was packed with kids!  

Spring...and bada-bing!

We recently just found out that we got accepted to Spring Bada-Bing this April!  We've done this show three of the past four years and love it.  Not only is it a great and well put together show, but it always gives us an excuse for a little spring trip!

Some of our favorite places to go are here and here and here and to stay is here.

We've been busy working on some new items for the show.  Can't wait to see the official list of vendors for this year's show.  If you're around Richmond, the show is Sun April 17th from 11am-5pm!  

the gift of art prints

A few weeks ago was Kinsey's birthday.  One of the gifts I got for him was this great print from etsy by laurageorge.

The very top has the heading "things I'm thankful for" and includes just about everything we love.  

Here's a fun little card, too.  Also from laurageorge.  They kind of look like potato people.

This one I got for Kinsey last September for our anniversary.  It's from etsy by artsharkdesigns.

The print is actually of Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia.  Ever since we went to Richmond in 2007 to sell our crafts at Spring Bada Bing we've loved going to Maymont.  It is a huge outdoor area/mansion/educational center and has some really amazingly large trees, too! (In fact, I called it the "land of huge trees" in an old blog post about the park here .)  I was thrilled to find a print of this wonderful place and loved the couple with umbrellas image.