This Weeks Featured Shop Acute Designs

Regina, owner of Acute Designs, is an artisan, avid cook, and writer. In addition to making chic accessories (hair and jewelry and a few pet items) for her Etsy shop, she also maintains two blogs. Useless Endeavor is all about her business, fashion, design, and reality TV. And the second blog, Taste, is about her other passion – food, cooking, and eating!

Regina is self-taught and finds inspiration in all things shabby-chic (with more of an emphasis on the chic), vintage, and a little Victorian.

She is constantly experimenting with new materials and techniques. She attempts to make her work current with the trends, creating pieces that are right now while simultaneously timeless.

Acute Designs’ accessories are made utilizing a mix of materials (satin, chiffon, voile, cotton, silk), feathers, buttons, vintage jewelry that has been deconstructed, vintage buttons, and quality artificial flowers.

Regina practices her craft, cooks and writes in hopes of leaving a beautiful touch on someone, inspiring people (or at least making them smile), and escaping the monotony that is her cubicle. The dream to work on what she loves and be her own boss is something she hopes to realize soon.

Shop: http://www.acutedesigns.etsy.com/

Blogs: http://uselessendeavor.blogspot.com/ (all about Etsy, fashion, design, etc)
http://gina-taste.blogspot.com/ (all about food, cooking, and recipes)

Facebook Fanpage: www.facebook.com/acutedesigns

Vote for Me Or Not.... :)

This months etsy kids challenge is May Flowers. So I picked my one of a kind girls purse called flowers and France. It's a small bag made of 100% cotton fabric, with an appliqued vintage eiffel tower on the bottom. I found the Eiffel Tower on another leftover piece of fabric I had. I absolutley adore the Eiffel Tower, and was in awe when I visited Paris in 05. I find it a big inspiration for some of my designs. Anyway here is the link, voting opens tomorrow, my entry is pictured. There are many fantastic items featured definetly worth a peek.
http://etsykids.blogspot.com/2010/05/etsykids-design-challenge-for-may.html

Fantastic Eco Friendly Tutorial

I found this great tut for reusable snack bags. I was going to purchase a few of these becuase my girls bring snacks to school, and I hate hate hate plastic baggies. I already have 2 reusable bags, but I would like a few more. I happened to find this tutorial on the etsy kids website, and I am happy to be able to make these on my own now. I just need to find the materials, which can be challenging in Switzerland LOL. Anyways for all you DIYers out there here is the link!

http://etsykids.blogspot.com/2010/05/tutorial-tuesday.html

Giveaway Month of MAY!! Columbian Coffee Scented Handmade Soap

This giveaway is now closed, and the winner has been contacted by email. Thank you for participating!!


YUM YUM!!! This months giveaway is hosted by Turtle Bug Love, and she has agreed to giveaway to 1 lucky winner, a handmade coffee scented exfoliating bar of soap. You can enter up to 4 times, here's what you need to do.

1) Visit her shop http://www.turtlebuglove.etsy.com/ and pick your favorite item. (This Is Required to Enter)
2) Become a blog Follower, and put that in another comment.
3) Retweet This post, and put that on another comment.
5) Put the link to this giveaway on your blog, and post the link in another comment.





Here is Turtle Bug Love's description of her giveaway item.
Our handmade soap is made using the cold process method. This is the old fashioned way, it creates and retains glycerin, which helps to moisturize your skin. You don't get that dry itchy feeling you get from using commercial soaps. During commercial process soap making the glycerin is removed.

This bar is 3.5 oz or larger. It is scented columbian coffee and has fresh ground coffee inside, this provides a great natural exfoliant. Great for all over or just use it in kitchen for your hands! Recent studies show that caffeine reduces the risk of skin cancer! Another possible benefit of caffeine is cellulite reduction.

This soap contains no petroleum or animal products.

Manufacturers of commercial soaps add some chemicals, detergents, and artificial dyes to their products. It might be true that some of their ingredients have good effects on the skin such as moisturizers, vitamins, and other minerals. However, the presence of artificial and chemical ingredients cancels out the benefits of these good ingredients, which makes commercial soaps useless, if not harmful.

Since handmade soaps only use natural ingredients, they are also environment-friendly. Commercial soaps have detergents, and detergents are not natural. When you take a shower and use a commerical soap, it might seem harmless but actually it has a great impact on the environment, especially since millions of other people use the same artificial products.

Ingredients:
Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Soybean Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Distilled Water, Jojoba oil, Shea Butter, columbian coffee grounds, Fragrance Oil

And The Winner Is!!!!......

After a fantastic 141 comments, the winner was comment number 31 Heather!! The comment number is always chosen by random.org. YAY!! Congrats. Be sure to get all your info to me asap so I can give it to the seller, and you can recieve your earings!! Thank you to all of you who participated, and come back in a few days because I have another great giveaway lined up for you!!

A fun Mothers Day Idea

I was researchng some handmde ideas for mothers day gifts. I love making things obviously. :) But not only do I love it, it's much more cost effective, and you are almost always recycling something, so it's good for the environment too, not too mention more than likely a one of a kind gift. Enjoy!!

ONLY 5 MORE DAYS TO ENTER

This months giveaway for a super great handmade pair of earings!! The link is at the top of the side bar, get your comments in now. Winner will be chosen on the 7th of May!!