A few weeks ago I started following the blog Feeling Stitchy, & this last week they posted a felt Dwight (from The Office) pin.  Once I saw that it was an item from an Etsy store… I quickly checked out the store and KNEW that I had to feature it!  Instantly, I contacted the shop owner, Gwen, and asked her if I could feature her store.  Her response was even better — she’s going to sponsor a giveaway AND a little something extra for readers who purchase an order!!!  So, stay tuned — at the end of the post you’ll see how you can win your very own felt pin and get something extra with your order!

When I contacted Gwen, here’s what she had to say about Etsy and her creative process (& I can totally relate!)

I love etsy for bringing such an awesome community of crafters and just wanted to share the love for some of my favorite characters. I really take my time with each piece, though at times I find myself excited about a new idea that I just start sketching it on paper. So many more of my favorite people will be coming to the shop soon!

On to some of my favorites from Gwen’s store, My Little Cabbage.

Here’s the Dwight pin that caught my eye… the only thing missing is a mustard shirt!!

Now, if Dwight isn’t your cup of comedy, Conan probably is!  Celebrate his move up in the ranks of late-night comedy by sporting this awesome pin!

I was never into Pee-Wee Herman… maybe I was just too young, but he definitely is an icon of the 90’s!  I love how Gwen so easily captures the unique features of each person.

Mom, this one is definitely for you!  A Charlie Brown pin!  What a great way to show you love that block headed kid.

With these one-of-a-kind Snoopy magnets, you can show that you love Charlie Brown’s dog too!  Grab these quickly – they’re upcycled pieces, so they wont be appearing again once they’re purchased! *COUGH*Mom!!!*cough*

Gwen has several different owl magnets, with their very own names like Nick, Amy, Evangeline, Emily, and Alice!  If I had a fridge, you can bet your bottom dollar that this owl family would be roosting there!

This pin is perfect for anyone in your life who is always carrying around their camera!  I have several friends this would be perfect for!

This item isn’t listed in the store currently… I pulled the image from Gwen’s sold items… but it’s another perfect gift for a Conan fan!  I’m sure I’d probably be a fan, I just can’t stay up late enough to watch him!

Here’s another item I pulled from Gwen’s sold items, who knew that Domo was the perfect shape for a card case??

What are you waiting for??  Head over to My Little Cabbage and check out the other things Gwen has made!!  Browse her sold items too — there’s plenty of great things to look at!!!  Once you decide to purchase something, mention What Meg Makes in the message to seller and you’ll get a little something extra!

Ok, time for the giveaway!!  Gwen is giving away either a Pee-Wee, Dwight, or Conan pin — your choice!  You have the chance to make four entries:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling which pin you would like. *Mandatory entry*
2. Blog about the giveaway & link back to this post.  Leave a link in the comments ONLY IF a trackback link doesn’t appear.
3. Tweet about the giveaway, post a link to the tweet in a comment.
4. Favorite My Little Cabbage or What Meg Makes on Etsy.  Leave a comment — with your Etsy username so we can double check.
5. Favorite What Meg Makes .com on technorati (link is in the left sidebar.)  Leave a comment telling me you did so with your username!

So basically, for every entry you need to leave a comment, exception being if you blog about the giveaway and a trackback to your post appears in the comments.

The giveaway ends the following Friday, at 10pm PST!  So get your entries in!

& AS ALWAYS — I’m taking submission from Etsians to feature their stores on a Friday Favorites !  Head over here to see how you can be featured at WMM.

I’ve spent too much time on customer support calls in the last few days that my brain is shot.  Somehow, Wordpress published my unfinished Thrifty Tuesday post, which I hadn’t even decided to go thru with posting… and now I’ve deleted it.

I’m just not having a very good day.  Some of you might be able to read the unedited unfinished post in your RSS readers, but I really wish you just pretend you never saw it…

Tomorrow I might post it, or even something completely different.  Right now, I’m going to feed my Deadliest Catch addiction and get some rest.

Back in May I went to a baby shower for this little girl waiting to come home from South Korea.  At that baby shower I had the pleasure of meeting Emily from Hope Ink.  Ever since that baby shower and seeing Emily’s work for the first time, I’ve wanted to feature her here as a Friday Favorites.

Not only is this the usual Friday Favorites … but Emily is also offering a giveaway…

All of Emily’s work is inspired by God’s Word.  This is the piece she had at the baby shower, Psalm 139.

You know how I love artwork with birds… here’s probably my favorite Hope Ink piece.  I love that the bird is outside of the cage.  It totally shows how Christ has released us from the cage of our sins.

Emily has a few pieces depicting 1 Corinthians 13.

All of her 1 Corinthians 13 pieces would be great as wedding gifts, but this one is great if you want to customize it for the couple and their new home.

Most of the Hope Ink pieces are completely customizable — color, scripture, names… this piece would be perfect to customize for a housewarming gift.

This is one of my favorite verses, it’s gotten me through a lot and still is…

This piece would also make a great housewarming gift!  It would go great in a bathroom or kitchen.  Emily’s pieces aren’t printed with a cheap photo printer at home like so many other Etsy sellers out there!  Her pieces are printed at a professional lab with premium quality material.

For the young woman in your life — great graduation or sweet sixteen gift.

I absolutely love Emily’s lettering… I wish it was a font!

Here’s another one of my favorite verses paired with a great illustration.

All of Emily’s pieces are also available as greeting and note cards…

… and  she’s offering five note cards to giveaway today, your choice!

Here’s what you can do to enter, you have six different ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me which Hope Ink piece is your favorite. *Mandatory*
2. Blog about this giveaway and post the link in a separate comment.  If your blog sends a trackback of your post and appears bellow with the comments, do not comment again to tell me you blogged.
3. Send in either your etsy store or one of your favorite etsy finds to be featured here at WMM.  Head over here to see how you can be featured at WMM. Leave another separate comment letting me know you emailed me.
4. Post a “tweet” about the giveaway and give me the link to your tweet in another comment.
5. Favorite either Hope Ink or What Meg Makes on Etsy.
6. Favorite What Meg Makes on Technorati (the link is in the left sidebar) and leave a comment here telling me you did so with your username.

Submissions that do not follow the entry guidelines will not be allowed.

Edit: Totally forgot to add — giveaway ends NEXT Friday at 10pm PST. Extending the deadline until Wednesday July 1st, at 10pm PST.

Ok, I have several pet peeves about blogging.  This one is most definitely tied for first place.

Plagiarism!  The most plagiarism I see around blogs is of recipes and craft projects.

I don’t understand how people can post a recipe from a cookbook or ANOTHER BLOGGER, and not realize they’re breaking copyright laws.  Yeah, you can give credit (and most offenders I’ve seen do,) but that doesn’t make it RIGHT. Especially when it’s another blogger… why can’t you just link to their post?  Instead, you take the time to copy and paste the entire recipe to your own blog post.

And just because you change one or two, or five items… that STILL doesn’t make the recipe YOURS.  If you created it from start to finish, then it is yours.

Look at it this way — you wouldn’t publish a cookbook filled with recipes from other cookbooks and websites.  You would get sued, and by blogging it — you’re opening yourself up for that.

Eventually, by posting recipes from your cookbook collection… you’re going to have entire cookbooks posted on your blog.  If you were a cookbook author, you wouldn’t want your entire cookbook published on someone’s blog for the whole world to see.

So from now on, if you blog about what you made for dinner… instead of posting a recipe that isn’t yours… just mention where you got it and what you changed and your thoughts.  I’m sick of seeing blog after blog of recipes that are not the author’s original work.  For those of us who blog what is truly ours to share with others… it makes our efforts seem futile.

Wouldn’t you find it more satisfying to create and post about something that is truly yours?  Take the risk to try to do something on your own, and write about it!  I love to read about the successes and failures of others in their attempts of making a creation that is 100% their own.  We can learn from each other!

Leave a comment on this post to pledge that you will not steal creative works of someone else for your own blog.

Now… I’ve made this button for bloggers who agree with me to put in their sidebar.  Those of us who write original posts, recipes and tutorials need to stick together and stand up for this!

Here’s the code to link it in your sidebar.  You can change the height and width in the image code to fit your sidebar, just keep them the same value.:

<a href=”http://www.whatmegmakes.com/?p=643″ target=”new”><img src=”http://www.whatmegmakes.com/ifitaint.jpg” alt=”Bloggers Against Plagiarism” height=”180″ width=”180″></img></a>

NOTE — This post in NO WAY points the finger at ANY blogs or bloggers.  THAT IS NOT MY INTENTION.  My intention is to MAKE OTHERS AWARE of plagiarism so they can right their wrongs.

If you’re like me and you’ve been itching to sew something OTHER than your Etsy store items… you need to check out this tutorial.

I’m now trying to think of ways to get Jeff to take me to get some fabric to make a few skirts today.  If you don’t follow me on twitter, then you probably don’t know that my car broke down the Friday after school let out.  I’ve been sans car ever since.  So, when I don’t have a car to borrow, Jeff drives me around if he’s not at work!  I think I’ll be able to convince him to take me to get fabric, he wishes I wore skirts more.

Several days ago I mentioned that a week ago today Jeff and I had to travel to Santa Cruz for job related business.  Lucky for us, we got the business part of our trip done with in just an hour of arriving.  That left the rest of the day for exploring the area!

Last fall was the last time we were able to make it over to the Santa Cruz side of Monterey Bay, but unfortunately that trip was for Jeff’s grandpa’s burial.  Before that trip, we had been to Santa Cruz one time before together… but that was part of our college group adventures before we were even dating!

(Remember – As with all my posts, click on the photos to enlarge them!  Grrr… for whatever reason the photos are washed out when you view them in FireFox, I’ll figure out a fix for that sometime…)

One of the few places we visited last fall was the Lighthouse State Beach on Cliff Drive.  Here’s a memorial to surfers who were lost to the waves.  If we ever move to the coast, I’m probably never going to let our sons (or daughters) surf in areas where the waves crash against the cliff side … oh sheeshhh… I get the shivers of thinking about that… what were those boy’s mom’s thinking? They probably didn’t even know where they were… oh gosh, I’m already developing an ulcer for my unborn children…

We drove up Cliff Drive some more, and turned on Fair Avenue to visit Jeff’s mom’s old house and haunts.  This is what’s know as the Red Castle in Santa Cruz.  It’s right off of Fair and Plateau, Jeff’s mom and aunt used to hang out at this abandoned property.  They called it the Mayan Temple or something.  If you’re looking to make the move to Santa Cruz and want a pretty awesome place to live & have a budget of $2.75 million, the Red Castle is up for sale.

We stopped at a few turn outs along Cliff Dr while looking for some geocaches.  Here’s a memorial for another lost soul along a cliff.

I had a hard time capturing this little beach… I couldn’t compose the photo without catching part of the fisherman standing infront of me.  Oh, while balancing on the cliffside.

After Cliff Drive we moved on to the Wharf.  We were going to go to Natural Bridges State Park and Wilder Ranch State Park… but uhm… we weren’t going to pay $8+ to park the car.  Nor were we going to park along the 1 and hike thru blooming poison oak to the beaches.

This seagull decided to nest in one of the planters outside of one of the restaurants on the wharf.  She got really mad at everyone who walked by.

There’s a few sights to be had on the wharf aside from the eateries and stores.  For example, you can read up and look at The Marcella, a real-life Monterey-Style retired fishing boat.  The Marcella ain’t your “Deadliest Catch” boat…

You also can also view more nature on the wharf aside from nesting attack birds… seals!  or Seal lions… or … giant lazy mammals, I always get them mixed up.  Take your pick.

This guy wanted to be sure his little notch of hair was nice and ruffed up for his appearance on What Meg Makes.

Or gal.

It’s easy to confuse these things.

If I lived on the coast, I’d probably lounge around like them all day in the sun.

Or maybe not.  This poor gal has not only six little ones using her as a bed… but one of her peers is using her rump as a pillow!

After moving on from the wharf, we drove around a little more in Santa Cruz before deciding to head down the coast to Capitola.

Jeff took this photo of the cutest little bunch of homes lining the beach in Capitola.  The former real estate agent in him looked up how much they’re worth… believe me, even in this market… YouDon’tWantToKnow.  We walked along the beach & the wharf, the Capitola wharf is not touristy like in Santa Cruz.  It most definitely is still a fisherman’s wharf.

We ate dinner at Zelda’s, which I totally reccomend, especially their happy hour margaritas.  Then we spent the rest of our trip walking around the little town and relaxing by the beach.  Jeff found his replacement flip flops.  Like I mentioned, our kids are screwed because we both have extremely wide feet.  Our wide feet make it nearly impossible to find shoes, and even more impossible is finding sandals and flip flops…  but Jeff lucked out!  I hope you can tell those are his legs and camo flip flops, not mine.

I wish we could spend every evening of our lives sitting by the ocean… with a great book and drink at hand.

I just could live without these evil creatures and the white droplets they leave everywhere.

We should have taken photos of the car.

Take my word for it… it was BAD.

I’m glad to finally reveal a new store item today – cedar sachets for shoes!

These sachets are unlike the ones I’ve seen in stores like Walmart so far… I’ve used two layers of fabric (muslin, and then the decorative fabric) to make sure no little splinters work their way thru.  Plus, these ones are pretty cheap in comparision!  The two layers of fabric definitely do NOT deminish the fragrance AT ALL!  In my opinion, they’re more fragrant than the expensive shoe cedar blocks and hangers.

I’ve had these completed for awhile now, but I was set back in photographing and listing them when I came down with this cold.  Yep, I’m still sick!

They come in three fabric choices – red, blue, and green.

I’m so lucky that Jeff’s shoes actually don’t smell… I just have to worry about my own stinky shoes.  I commendeared his shoes for this mini photoshoot after he left for work.  I probably should have tied the laces on this pair, oh well.

Go check them out in our store!  If you want to grab a pair for Father’s Day, order ASAP & convo me so I can change the shipping to priority price so you get them in time!

In other news — Thrifty Tuesday might be posted on Wednesday.  I’m having some problems with wordpress not showing the right things in the sidebar ever since I upgraded to the new version.  Right now, the categories are missing! I’m going to reorganize the sidebars so the page will load faster too.  There might be some downtime coming soon too, but that’s a good thing –  my new host is migrating to new faster servers!  I’m really excited.

I’m still in recovery mode from this flu.  It’s been a week now, and I’m still not feeling any better.  I’ve used so many kleenexes that I’m actually considering digging into my fabric stash to make some hankies.  But then I get to thinking how disgusting it is to keep putting my germs into the same piece of fabric.  Then that same piece of fabric lays around the house until I do the wash again…. yeah, kleenex is the way to go right now.  Yeah, not very eco-friendly – but uhm, no one else around here can afford to get sick like this.

Plus, I don’t have the mental ability to sew right now!

The worst part about this cold is I’m stuck inside.  I really want to get out of the house, but I have no energy to do so.  Plus I’m so sick that I know I can’t go out into public without grossing out everyone around me.  Most of the time I’ve been over at Jeff’s so I don’t get my housemate sick.  Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep, so I tore apart my room looking for this one medicine that used to help me but I just couldn’t find it in all of my boxes.  Then, last night… I couldn’t sleep again, so I put my room back together and cleaned up!

Another sad thing is that I’m craving different foods — and I am hungry — but I have no apetite.  For the last few days I’ve been craving french fries — and I finally got them today — but I could only eat a few.  I guess the upside to this is that I am losing weight — just in time for Jeff’s company picnic on Monday!

I’ve been sitting around doing a cross stitch and watching tv.  I REALLY want to get out of the house!

At least right outside my doorstep there’s these little guys.  The teeny tiny little frogs are living in the planters on both sides of our walkway.  I have no idea where they came from, but they sure are cute!  This is the only one I could get a photo of.  The others were too fast, and they need to be — there were two birds nearby looking for breakfast when I took these this morning!

This weekend I rather be healthy and up in the mountains hiking around and having fun… but for now I’m going to have to keep the kleenex nearby and vegitate on the sofa.

This Friday Favorites is going to be short and sweet — I’m still having a hard time getting over this cold/flu/thing.

Today’s Friday Favorites is Crafy Girls Workshop.  They’re a mother-in-law/daughter team who whip up great crafty things to sell in their etsy store.  They hope to continue to expand their store not only with more items – but with more upcycled items!  You’ll be sure to find several one of a kind items that you NEED to have, or you know someone who does!

This is one of my favorites in their store — I can just picture myself wearing this while making a batch of lemon bars!

This apron screams apple or cherry pies…  I wish I could wear one of these aprons and not look like a kid playing dress-up!

I think this purse is too cute!  Jeff wishes I carried a purse this small — but I’m a big purse kind of girl!  But I DO love those buttons… hmm…

They have several burp clothes in their store, this one is my favorite…

but then there’s this one….

And then this SUPER cute dish towel!  It matches that first apron PERFECTLY!

One thing I remember the most from my childhood is the pillow cases my mom made me.  Regina & Anna also make some super cute pillow cases… but that’s not all…

They sell kits for you to make some yourself!

So be sure to stop by Regina & Anna’s etsy store and blog now that you’ve seen a few of their items!  If you mention What Meg Makes with your order, they’ll be sure to send you a little something extra!

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Thanks for stopping by for this week’s Friday Favorites .  Be sure to submit your etsy store (or one of your favorites!) before you do ANYTHING else!  I love to feature etsy sellers, but I don’t have the time to discover every single great etsy seller on my own!  So please –  Head over here to see how you can be featured at WMM.

1. Last Wednesday we went on a day trip adventure to Santa Cruz for my honey, he had some job stuff to do there.
2. Jeff broke his only pair of flip flops the previous Sunday, and Santa Cruz was the best place to find new ones.  It took a handful of stores and going further down the bay to Capitola before we found a pair that fit his wide feet.
3. I never found a pair that were perfect for my wide feet.  Our kids have no hope.
4. Thursday Jeff started to feel a little sick.  Saturday I woke up feeling sick.
5. Monday we went back to the policy academy to watch them yell at the new class of recruits.  It was great to see what Jeff went thru.
6. Tuesday morning Jeff woke up feeling like he was drowning in his lungs.  As soon as I arrived at his house, we were out the door to urgent care.  Diagnosis – Bronchitis.
7. Wednesday afternoon suddenly I felt like I was going into allergic shock, my tongue and throat were swollen.  After going to urgent care – bronchitis.
8. When the Dr. came back in after getting the results of my breathing test, before and after a breathing treatment… he started to ask Jeff what he had given him the day before.  Me – Don’t tell me I have bronchitis.  Dr – *sheepish smile and laugh, looks at Jeff*  Me – *turns to Jeff* I’m going to kill you.
9. They didn’t test us for swine flu, even though it’s obvious we have some kind of influenza.  Jeff was disappointed.
10. Jeff’s mom introduced me to honey vanilla milkshakes — which are AMAZING.  Perfect to wash away gross cough syurp.  Don’t worry, I have what I call a “dry cold”… the milkshakes wont make things worse.

Tomorrow — a Friday Favorites post.  Last Friday I was too busy taking care of Jeff to remember to post one or to realize I was getting sick.  Good thing I had left last week open!