a fabulous little gift certificate

One lucky mom got this one-of-a-kind Nesting Instincts gift certificate from her kids this Mother's Day! I was dying to show you a picture of it sooner - but had to wait till after Mother's Day so I didn't spoil the surprise. I created this gift certificate with beautiful fonts in chocolate brown, then finished it with a plaid ribbon and a handmade button. I don't know if you can tell from this picture - but the button is actually handmade with a vintage image of a nest on it. How cute is that (if I do say so myself)?



I am slowly but surely creating my own line of custom invitations and stationery. I'm thinking of selling this line on Etsy...but am waiting for a better camera to take more detailed shots. In the meantime, be sure to let me know if you'd like a custom-designed invitation for an event or personalized stationery for yourself. I'd love to create a one-of-a-kind item for you!


In other news...could we please have a moment of silence for my laptop? It totally died on Monday. The hard drive is toast. Of course, I didn't have it backed up anywhere. Which means my entire brain, pretty much, is gone. I've lost everything I've created - all my custom invitations, every song I've ever written (that's personal, but still...), all my business files, blog files, my Outlook calendar & email, everything. I have only myself to blame, for not backing things up...and even worse, I had a feeling it was coming...just thought I had more time. So, my husband is kindly letting me use his computer, so I'm still able to post on the blog and do email...but everything else is gone. Yikes. I try not to think about it, but I have to, because each day, something new comes to mind that I lost. We are exploring our options to see if anything can be retrieved from the hard drive, but it's looking like it would be totally out of our price range to even try. So, (cue funeral dirge) rest in peace, little computer. You served me well, right up until the very end, when you died in the middle of composing this very blog post. >sigh< >sob< ;-)