The glamorous Audrey Hepburn!

My "Audrey Hepburn Your a Star" card was posted on The Stampsmith blog today! She is one of their many movie star themed rubber stamps that I happen to own. Although it already sold on Etsy, I wanted to share it with everyone! Check it out!

I'll be submitting more cards in the future, so keep watching!

www.thestampsmith.blogspot.com

Chicago, Here I Come!

On Friday, May 29th, I will travel to Chicago to attend Country Living Magazine's "Women Entrepreneurs Seminar", which will be held on Saturday May 30th. This marks my 3rd year, and I am very excited to see and hear what they have in store!

The seminar is designed to support, inform, and inspire woman to "bank on their bliss"! In other words, find your creative passion and turn it into a paycheck! The panelists are some of the country's leading women entrepreneurs and business owners. They feature topics like launching, networking, marketing, e-commerce, and this year they are discussing trade shows. The magazine is currently featuring it's newest group of entrepreneurs, some of whom will be present this weekend. It's such a thrill to hear the inspiring stories of how some of these businesses came about!

I highly recommend attending this seminar in the future! I'll report back next week!

Here's the website: http://www.countryliving.com/women

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Today is Memorial Day, and we walked downtown with some friends to watch our village's annual parade, honoring our soldiers, past and present. The veterans lay wreaths at various monuments around town to remember our fallen heroes, some of which are quite young given the current war. It's a good reason to come together, to listen to the high school marching band, salute the volunteers of the local fire department, and wave to friends marching with the girl scouts. But for me, it gives a feeling of community and belonging, and that is what we want most of all for ourselves and our kids.

Design team update

Unfortunately, I got news over the weekend that I was not selected at this time for the Stampsmith design team. Kim was very complimentary of my work and I was encouraged to try again in November for the next open call. I was, however, invited to be a Guest Designer on their blog for the month of September. This would be the next best thing, and I'm thrilled to have been asked! So, I'll keep you posted on when to look for my guest appearance.

Congrats to the ladies who made the team, I'll be looking for your great design ideas!

Here is the link to The Stampsmith blog, please check it out!

http://www.thestampsmith.blogspot.com/

I Love My Bird Tags!

These are a few of my handmade bird themed tags that I sell on Etsy, "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade". Birds and nests are so very popular at the moment, and I see them in all areas of home decor. Maybe the appeal has to do not only with their beauty, but our desire to reconnect with natural simplicity in our lives.

The bird images on my tags are copied from original Victorian era trade cards from my collection. I've been collecting these beautiful miniature prints for several years because of the unique design images and brilliant colors. The printing process, chromolithography, was done on limestone printing slabs, and has become a lost art.

My tags incorporate bird and nest images, along with vintage book pages, beautifully printed patterned papers, rubber stamp images, with bits of vintage seam binding and mini scrabble tiles. They look great adorning a simply wrapped gift box, tied to a gift bottle or just hanging from a furniture knob.

My Beautiful Flowers!

My girls on Mother's Day at the arboretum.

My Mother's Day Visit to the Arboretum

As always, Mom gets to choose what she wants to do on Mother's Day!

When the kids were small, Dad got to be "Mom" for the day, so the real mom got to garden without interruptions. That was a big deal back then, because as you moms know, as soon as you get started, someone needs you for something. Don't get me wrong, I love my motherly duties, but gardening back then was one of my few creative outlets, and I truly cherished every back breaking moment! One year, my friend next door and I were each working simultaneously on our front gardens while the guys sat on the porch relaxing. Who knows where the kids were, but Dad was in charge and it wasn't my concern at that point. Luckily, it turned out fine for all, and to this day my husband thinks he got the better end of the deal.

Now that the kids are older and I can garden when they're in school, I like to find things that we can do as a family. Ultimately it's my day, so it has to be something that I like and hopefully no one will complain. This year I chose the local arboretum. This way I can look at the beautiful flowers without doing the work. The property is a former Gold Coast estate with gardens and greenhouses to explore, and great big lawns for running or playing Frisbee. It was a beautiful day and everyone seemed happy! I took some photos in the greenhouse of my girls and some of the flowers. What more could a mom want?

Actually, I did get more! On the way home we stopped at a little Thai place that we had tried once before and loved. So, we all had a great meal and everyone was happy!

Hope all of you moms had a great day too!

Things are blooming in my garden!

It's been such a pleasure to go outdoors lately, now that spring has come to the Northeast. The bleeding hearts are blooming, along with tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinths, my daughter's favorite because they look like little grapes. Many of my perennials are waiting in the wings for their turn to shine. As a matter of fact, I have entered a local street garden contest, designed to encourage villagers to cultivate beauty for passersby, since we are a "walking" village. Three gardens will win top honors and receive a plaque to display in their garden, but everyone else will get recognition for participating. Wish me luck!

My Maiden Voyage!

Hello out there in blog land! This is my maiden launch! This is opening day of my very own, brand new, first time blog!

I am absolutely thrilled and utterly terrified all at the same time! Of course, I want to make the best impression and totally WOW everyone the first time out, so I'll do my best. Here it goes!

I'm Karen Fisher, a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful girls, with a hardworking husband and a Ragdoll cat. I worked for many years as an interior designer, in both commercial and residential design, having graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Since staying home with my kids, I've channeled my creativity into a small craft business that I've named Fish In The Attic Studio. I love creating handmade cards and tags, decoupage accessories, faux floral designs and hand sewn Christmas stockings. Many of these items can be found on my Etsy shop, which I opened October 2008. I love selling on Etsy, and I especially love the wonderful people I've connected with on the site, both buyers and sellers. They have proven to be a very creative, exuberant and supportive group, which is what I hope to find in the blogging community as well. So shop Etsy for all things handmade!

I am currently applying for for a design team position with The Stampsmith, and one of the requirements was having a blog to promote their rubber stamp line, so what better reason to start. If I am fortunate enough to make the team, please look for beautiful card designs using their unique vintage style photo stamps.

Part of my research into blogging came from reading Somerset Studio's Artful Blogging magazine. It has great articles by many talented artisans successful with blogging, and photos of their work is stunning.

So, here I am giving it a try! I know it will get better with time, and I welcome any critiques, suggestions and support! Thank you for visiting and hope to see you again!

Sincerely grateful,
Karen