The Process of a Custom Order... Quite a Story Behind it!

 I thought I'd share the story behind this custom order I made for a lady named Sandi from Alabama. I received permission from her to share her story, so I thought I'd just share our emails back and forth, and you can see the process and enjoy hearing about her experience that led her to want the verses customized.
  Here's the first email I received (she had just heard about the storms that went through the area near me in Joplin, Mo.)...:
Sandi said :   "Hey! First of all... just checking if you are okay after the tornadoes? We are blessed here in Alabama. Wondering if you could make me a sign with the verse from Mark 4:39 & 40 and then underneath that... Be still and know that I AM GOD.
I found these verses in my backyard after the F5 went through and i want to put them on a sign.
It would be great on one of your folkart signs, i think.
Let me know.
Thanks a bunch! Sandi"

My reply...
"Hi Sandy! Thanking the Lord it didn't come our way this time. Yes I could letter these verses on a sign. Do you like one of my designs as a base for this. And an idea of colors? I've been thinking of doing one with the roses and vines with a light color like light green or gold instead of the black around, under the roses and vines....
www.etsy.com/listing/39726744/folk-art-bible-verse-sign-be-of-good
Or maybe you'd like the Sheep one with your verses...
www.etsy.com/listing/52015440/folk-art-painting-sheep-under-the-moon?ref...
Also I will need to know what version of the Bible. Your verses have about 50 words which is 3 times what I have on the above verse, so this would be larger of course and it would be about $75.00. Let me know if you have any different ideas. Thanks, Jennifer"

Sandi:
"Hey Jennifer,
I really like your folk art sign, but maybe make the roses and hearts a crimson red?, everything else will blend with my colors. I like the NCV version; i currently have the Max Lucado Bible.
I would love a big FAITH centered
and then just part of the verses: Jesus commanded the wind and said, "Quiet! Be Still! and the wind stopped and it became completely calm. Jesus said, " Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" and then underneath that:  Be still, and know that I AM GOD.
What'cha think? Would this still be $75?
Blessings!
Sandi"
My Reply:  "Hi Sandi, That sounds good! I think it would come out about 11" by 16 or 18" Would you want it vertical or horizontal? I think it would look good vertical. I could do this for about $55. Thanks, Jennifer"

Sandi's reply:   Okay! I'm writing to you in-between "chores". Do you want me to pay for it now or when you're finished?   Sandi

Me:       " When it's finished is fine. I could send you a rough sketch when I do a lay out. Be talking to you . And could you answer this for me---I think it would come out about 11" by 16 or 18" Would you want it vertical or horizontal? I think it would look good vertical. Thanks, J"
(She answered...  Vertical)
    I finished her order and sent her this message...
"Hi Sandi! Your order is listed!
www.etsy.com/listing/75629412/custom-order-for-sandi
I hope it is to your liking, Thanks, Jennifer"

Her reply when seeing her item online:
"Just sent you payment via Paypal. It is absolutely wonderful! You did such a good job!!!!!! Can't wait to see it!  Thank you!  Sandi"

Then I asked her...
"I'm so glad you like it. I was wanting to ask you about what you said..."I found these verses in my backyard after the F5 went through". When I first read it my thought was wow , these verses blew into your back yard? Then I thought maybe you were sitting in your back yard reading the Bible or a devotional book after the tornado. My husband was wondering too. Thanks so much! Jennifer"

Now Here's the Story!...
   " No... that's the "goose-bump" part! The mile wide, 210 mph wind brushed past our house and absolutely demolished everything around us. We lost a screen door and some shingles. Amazing!
The next morning, my husband and i were picking up debris; wallpaper, insulation, roofing, BUT the only 4 pieces of paper in the yard were: a piece of a hymnal page, with the hymn," Saviour, like a shepherd lead us", a paper that was titled" How To Live" and underneath that, said " Life is a challenge", another piece of paper from a hymnal, and then a tiny paper with the verse Mark4:39. I looked it up and read.
I was in the bathroom when the tornado went over and praying so very much. My husband came in, sat down beside me, held my hand and told me he loved me. I knew it was bad, so when i found the verse in the yard i knew to have faith!
Since that day, i have been seeing "Be still and know that I AM GOD" all around me... on a sign in a store,; on a cross in a thrift store; the minister preached on it, etc. ,so i am being still and believing that GOD needs us to keep our faith. I am amazed at the people that have nothing but a concrete slab left and do not believe in GOD and they were in the bathroom!
Blessings to you!!!
Sandi

         And then I got this lovely Feedback!...

    "Oh my goodness! The pictures did'nt do it justice. It's beautiful!!!! I'm so blessed to have found you to do this for me. Thank you so much!"                          

          
                                                        It was my pleasure Sandi!

Our Winners Choice and Other Mulberry Lane News

   Anita of AMKreations, the winner of my give away was on vacation and now she's back and has chosen her item from my vintage shop Old Bittersweet! She chose this lovely Italian Square Storage Jar with a Wire Clamped Lid! Good choice Anita! And thanks to everyone who entered the give away!

A few months ago I discovered the artist Linda Martin on Etsy. She has two shops...

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LindaLMartinArtist--Animals ---

Country Life in Watercolor Acrylic Graphite

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MustangADayChallenge?ref=seller_

Preserving America's Horses One Face at a Time

She is it an Etsy team that I am in also--Christian Artists Street Team

I enjoyed her artwork so I started following her facebook page-http://www.facebook.com/LindaLMartinArtist , and learned about the Sand Wash Basin Wild Mustangs who also have a facebook. I had wood burned a horse and put it for sale in my etsy shop, so I posted it on the wild mustang facebook and they asked me to do wood burning of one of their horses, a band stallion

named Picasso.  I work at a tee shirt screen printing company so I scanned this and printed this tee shirt...

Then I decided to try painting one of the mustangs and I selected this colt named Falcon. (The photo is by photographer John Wagoner and I got his permission to use his photo.)

As a result I was featured as a guest artist on Linda Martin's Blog...

http://mustangadaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/07/mustang-day-challenge-guest-artist_07.html

This is quite an honor. Linda has been painting horses for many years and I am very much a beginner!

Linda has become a good friend and I hope to meet her in person some day!

Here are my latest woodworking projects!

I thought it would be fun to put a hand carved tree on a birdhouse and carve a heart to customize with initials for wedding or anniversary gifts....

I sold three of these the first week I listed them!

See the listing here!

AND last week I completed this project I've been working on and listed it in my Etsy shop! It is a Wedding Card Bird House for the reception gift table, for people to put cards in for the bridal couple. There are other woodworkers who sell this type of thing and they seem quite popular for weddings so I wanted to make mine unique! I saw a house something like this when I was out garage saleing and did a quick sketch and went from there! It is about 18" tall X 17" wide. It would be a nice keepsake box after the wedding.

I will hand letter their name and date on the little sign over the door!

I will woodburn their initials in the heart.

Here's the back with a screen door. The little stick that props it open is attached with a little leather hinge so it just lays down inside when it's closed.

Opinions? Do you think it would look better with the window shutters on the front and back painted instead of stained? I thought maybe green?

This was a fun project! Have a blessed week you all! Jennifer Beers

I'm Back! (With a Give Away!).....WE HAVE A WINNER!

 THE WINNER OF THIS GIVE AWAY IS********Anita of AMKreations!!!!Congratulations Anita!
She has a blog you all should check out... http://amkreations.blogspot.com/


Are there any bloggers out there who can beat me on MONTHS since the last post! Well, I won't think about that right now...I'll think about that tomorrow. (does anyone spell tommorow wrong every time and get that red zig-zaggy line, thankfully?)  And by the way.... I want to thank all those people who have been checking out this blog... I wrote down in a notebook on Jan 8th that I'd had 2,270 views here, and now I have 3,892! That's 1,622 views since my last post on Jan.1st.! But, I was looking at my friend's blog...
http://firecrackerkid.blogspot.com/ and she's had almost 50,000 views! Soooo, I'm going to try to turn over a new leaf, even if it is half way through the new year!

   I think I'll start with a give away! I have my Vintage store on Etsy, Old Bittersweet and I'm going to give the winner of my give away, their choice of any item $10.00 or less, or $10.00 OFF anything in my Mulberry Lane Folk Art shop (OR Old Bittersweet). There are 38 items in that price range at Old Bittersweet to choose from (and hopefully your favorite item there won't sell this week). The give away will end 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, June the 28th. To enter just leave a comment and make sure I'll have a way to contact you. I'd appreciate you all spreading the word 

 any which way you can! Here are my newest birdhouse designs I made this weekend ... 

                                                       Blessings! Jennifer Beers                                                                        

My Very Merry Christmas, And Isaac with his Noah's Ark!

 My husband Dale and I just returned from a two week vacation in southern California to see our son and daughter-in law and grandson Isaac! We had a wonderful time. We went to the Wild Animal Park and the Oceanside Pier and sight seeing in the mountains, but mostly just enjoyed spending lots of time with them!

     While we were there I got some pictures of Isaac playing with his Noah's Ark I made for him and sent to him last August. I also made one to sell in my Etsy shop- http://www.etsy.com/listing/53484559/large-noahs-ark       I wrote about making the Noah's Ark in my post- Labor of Love - A Work In Progress

                                                     Yes, we had a very Merry Christmas!
                                                               Happy New Year!

Life's Changes

  I see I haven't posted since Sept. 25th! Time sure flies! There have been some changed here on Mulberry Lane. In mid October my 90 year old mom moved in with us! She is in good health but has a little short term memory loss and didn't like living alone in her house anymore. She's adjusting pretty well except when she forgets why she lives here. My 25 year old daughter, who was still living  with us, basically traded places with mom so her house wouldn't be left empty. My husband and I work different shifts so someone is always here with mom.
 I thought I'd show and tell you all where I get my artistic leanings from. My  mom has done a lot of drawing and painting through her life time. Here are some of her paintings...

 

Here is a watercolor she painted of my dad shortly after he past away in 1991.

My mothers dad, Benjamin Johnson was also an artist and a sign painter.  Of her six siblings there were five who did art work of one kind or another. Mom said when they were growing up they would all sit together in their living room and draw. I wrote about my two aunts who were artists at Hallmark in this previous post...

http://mulberrylanefolkart.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html
 My grandfather's sister, Ella was also an artist and poet and headmistress of a women's College in Midway, Ky where my grandfather met my grandmother, Jennie May. Here is a painting by my great aunt Ella...

                This was likely painted in the late 1800's . She died in the early 1950's in her 90's
                                   Here is a picture of my mom, with my two sisters, Julie and Paula at her 90th birthday party last August. I'm the one in the middle.

    Here are some of my latest projects! I did some wood burning of horses, and also of a collie dog, when I was a teenager, and decided to try it again. I'm thinking of doing custom animal portraits!

 

    These are for sale in my Etsy shop.    And, I was reading this blog (I just love it)...
http://yesandamenblog.blogspot.com/search/label/barnyard   And decided to try drawing this little sheep. They are so cute. I want to draw some of the baby lambs next!

Since I'm also back to working full time there is never enough time to do everything I'd like, but I'm so thankful to God for my many blessings!
Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually,let God be magnified. Psalm 70:4

                                                                                Much Joy! Jennifer
    

What's New on Mulberry Lane?

 I was on summer lay off all summer from my "regular job" at Graystone Graphics. I've worked there for 16 years. We print tee shirts and sweatshirts, etc. for Senior High School students among other things, and ship all over the country. I work in the art department  there, and I arrange the student's signatures or typeset names in their design and hand trace the signatures.  I guess you could say I get paid for forging signatures! : )

I so enjoyed being off- to work on my wood crafts and one of my other favorite things...Garage Sales!  Here are some of my best buys... This antique violin for $5.00! It just needed a minor repair and strings-$47.00 and it's worth about $350.00. I already have a violin so I'm selling this one on craigslist.com.

  I also got myself some great tools for my workshop...a variable speed Dremel tool which I use for wood carving- $3.00!!! (I wore out my old Dremel tool.) A trimmer/router - $10.00 -which I used to remove a lot of the wood from the heart tray pictured above! ( It's for sale in my Etsy Shop-http://www.etsy.com/listing/56018211/heres-my-heart-handcarved-wooden-tray )




And this nice miter chop saw for $20.00! Very handy! My husband gets to use my new tools too!

I also got lots of vintage items to sell in my new shop on Etsy! Check it out!!!...
                   Old Bittersweet Vintage Shop 
My shop banner is an old street sign from a street nearby!  I thought it made a great name for a vintage shop, as old things bring back memories of people, and things, and days gone by, and that can sometimes be both a little bitter/sad, but also sweet! And my Avatar (Badge picture) is one of my Aunt Janice's little watercolor paintings she did in the 60's when she worked at Hallmark! (See my Post about her if you haven't already ... http://mulberrylanefolkart.blogspot.com/2010/04/buried-treasure-and-jealous-aunt.html )  

I  got a lot of frames that I'm making into chalk boards for my shop too! Here are 2 of them. I'll be adding more to my shop soon!
Mulberry Lane Folk Art

And! I found this great old crown molding that I used to make this birdfeeder! Here it is before I painted it.

                                 And here is the finish! I call it a Victorian Bird Feeder!
I hope you enjoyed my ramblings on about my summer! I guess if you were bored you'd be gone to something else by now! I'll be back soon! Having a wonderful time, wish you were here!...Oh You Are Here!... well uh... anyway...  have a nice day!  Jennifer

August Giveaway!---We Have A Winner!

The winner of my Heart Birdhouse is Carol Anderson of Firecrackerkids Primitives! Here's her shop-- Go by and check out all her great Primitives--http://www.etsy.com/shop/firecrackerkid

Thanks to everyone who entered and shared on their blogs and facebook, etc. And thank you all, so much, for all your lovely comments and support! Blessings! Jennifer