Fall Foliage Giveaway

 

The fall colors around my apartment in the mountains are incredibly lovely. I've been snapping pictures left and right, tromping in the leaves, and generally enjoying the season! Our balcony looks down over a steep hillside into a gully where it dips briefly before rising again up a mountainside across from us. It's wonderful!

I wanted to capture the season somehow, so my first thought was to paint some leaves to be made into necklaces. Then I thought, why not just make the leaves themselves the necklaces?!

 

I made three necklaces: 2 are in large brass ovals (a new setting I recently aquired and will be making paintings for soon) and one brass circle with a single clover against a yellow leaf. 

To share the fall with you, I'm giving away this little piece of Asheville, North Carolina set in a brass circle! You can enter to win this necklace by

1. Visiting my Etsy shops (TuckooandMooCow and TuckooandMooCowsArt) and leaving a comment below letting me know which piece in each is your favorite.
2. Becoming a fan on Facebook
3. Blog/Facebook/Tweeting about this giveaway  (make sure to add @tuckooandmoocow to your tweets and facebook shares so I can verify them)
4. Purchasing something from either of my shops

You can enter in as many different ways as you want!
Leave a separate comment below for each entry.
I will select a winner at random on November 7th using random.org

AND THE WINNER IS.....DINA LANE!

Thanks to all who entered :)

5 Tips to Avoid a Christmas Season Meltdown

"Cardinal" by Sarah-Lambert Cook

I could easily give you 5 tips about preparing for the holidays, but I imagine one or two Google searches will turn up pretty much everything you'll need in that regard. Preparing for holidays business-wise is not too difficult--it's a matter of kicking it into gear and just plain doing it. Preparing for the exhaustion of selling through an increasingly busy season to increasingly frantic customers all against the backdrop of your own holiday plans can be incredibly exhausting and ruin your own season if you're not careful. Here are 5 tips to help you keep calm in the middle of the rush:
1. Take the time to treat yourself. This is your holiday season too! Sit down and enjoy some Thanksgiving left-overs, kick your feet up and watch 'It's a Wonderful Life,' take a long bubble bath...treat yourself to some creature comforts--they go a long way.
2. Don't pull all nighters fueled by caffeine or energy drinks. I know, I know, it seems unavoidable sometimes, well, it's not. If you think you're approaching a time where you need to be up for hours on end take power naps. You'll feel a lot more energized after an hour curled up on the couch than you will 3 hours after that Red Bull when the sugar catches up to you. If you do need some caffeine, stick with some strong tea.
3. Don't take all of the tasks in your business so seriously. Some stuff is grunt work, so find a way to make this fun and include others. Swap some time with your neighbor where you'll make dinner for them if they'll answer treasury convos, get your kids involved stuffing cards and freebies into packages, make it a girl's night and make your packaging with some friends over wine.
4. Take a day and clean up thoroughly. Get rid of trash, vacuum extremely thoroughly, organize everything. Now is the time to get cleaning done. You probably won't have much time while you're working through the holiday season and even if you do, you won't want to waste it cleaning, so get as organized as possible ahead of time.
5. The best laid plans of mice and men... Stress can be unavoidable, and even with a stock of dark chocolate, plenty of rest and lots of help you can still find yourself caving under pressure: this is not the time to pick a fight with your family. It's not the time to call people and fuss and whine about how things are rough. Everyone gets a little stressed over the holidays, but these are the holidays, so remember not to alienate your friends and family with grumpy behavior. Try your absolute hardest to Keep Calm and Carry On without biting someone's head off.