One Month Later...

Well, unfortunately... longer than that since my last blog post! I've been such a bad blogger, and shop owner! I had planned on getting everything going in November to make some holiday sales but it looks like that's not going to happen as I thought. I just really want to be prepared business wise, and starting a new job has really taken away the energy that I had to actually make things to sell. But I've gotten used to the job now and I'm on track to be selling by the end of January. January FOR SURE!

So, on to the real reason for this particular post, which I really meant to write about a month ago. One month ago today was the big one year anniversary for Sean and I! It was, conveniently, a Saturday, so we set aside the whole day to spend it with each other. First, we exchanged gifts.

I made Sean a book of drawings, one for each month we'd been together. I took certain events that we went to together, wrote down how it made me feel to be there with him and then came up with an illustration to go along with it. I followed a tutorial from Craft magazine for the binding and it turned out great! One of the (MANY) reasons I've been putting off blogging this entry is because there are only pictures of the finished book on his camera (he's a much better photographer than I) and I'm still waiting to get them! But I'll be sure to make that a separate entry because I'm really proud of the book.

Sean, the best gift giver in the world, made note of how I was in awe of a turquoise necklace when we went to the Schlafly Art Fair in September. And man did he do well! He even picked out some matching earrings:

And get this, he didn't want to just wrap them in a plain old chipboard jewelry box, so he went to Hobby Lobby, got a plain wooden chest, painted it, and LINED IT WITH VELVET. I was so impressed by his presentation!!! (Love that it matches my dresser :)

And to top it all off, he added some flowers. They started off as two separate bouquets, but when he added the lilies to the fall mixture I thought it was one of the most beautiful combinations I've ever seen:

So after giving gifts we decided to go apple picking! I'd never been to Eckert's, we figured out that we both love Fuji and Granny Smith apples, and it was the most gorgeous October day you could have ever imagined. (Just about the only gorgeous day in October for Missouri this year!)

We ended up with around 30 lbs of Fujis... I'm still working on them! There's really nothing like eating an apple straight from the tree. And they really do stay good in your refrigerator for months afterwards. I'm hoping to still get my mom's delicious apple butter recipe and see what it's like with Fujis.

The rest of the day we made dinner together (homemade alfredo, fettuccine, and chicken) and lounged on the couch-- it couldn't have been a better celebration of us. And to top of the weekend, we hit up a mild, Sunday Oktoberfest celebration in Hermann, MO with my parents. Missouri is so pretty in the fall! I just wish it would last longer before the leaves are replaced with snow and ice.

Look forward to more frequent posts, I promise! There's much to come with the holidays coming up.