Wow, the last four months have flown by at an amazing rate. I knew that taking care of a child was a lot of work, but I never dreamed that I would be THIS busy. I’ve had to resort to cramming my work hours in at night when the baby is asleep — which sometimes only allows me to work 1-2 hours a day. As a result, emails are sometimes answered days late – but I promise I am answering as fast as I can!

I just have to give props to WAHMs. It is tough to try to balance a home business with children!

Alice is just a bit over 4 months old now and is growing wonderfully! She is babbling, grasping, rolling and amazing me more and more every day.

The bad news is that aside from custom design work — I haven’t had the opportunity to design anything new lately. I have some web store designs that need a few final touches and I plan to have those up for sale in my shop soon!

I am happy to announce the birth of my daughter Alice Nichole! After a long labor that ended in an emergency c-section, my sweet girl was born — she weighed in at 7lbs. 11oz. and was 20 inches long.

My recovery is going to be a bit more cumbersome than I had hoped, but other than that both the baby and I are doing great and my husband and I are having a wonderful time as first-time-parents — luckily our little one is mellow and is very patient with our newbie-ness!

The day has finally arrived! I will be going in tomorrow morning at 5am for my induction, so I will be officially on leave. I expect to be mostly unavailable for the next two weeks. However, I will check emails periodically, so please don’t hesitate to email me! I will resume work on custom projects and any ready-made designs that have been purchased around February 15th, but my hours will be limited to whenever I have a chance

Thank you once again for all the well-wishes I have received! I will be updating my blog over the next few days when I have news and pictures, so check back!

Wayyy back in July, I announced that I had a baby on the way. Originally due on February 5th, I will be getting induced on January 27th, just a bit over a week from now.

I still plan on working right up until the day before I am induced and also plan to be back to work part-time within two weeks following the birth of the baby. So, if you are in the market for custom work, I am still taking orders, but they will take longer to complete and my communication through mid-February may be a bit on the slow side, since I will be looking to make time to work between feedings and sleeping!

I did want to take a moment to thank everyone who has written with advice, well-wishes, congratulations and those who have been so understanding of my shorter hours and slower communication! You have helped to make this new transition between Self-Employed Desiger to Self-Employed Designer & Mother fantastic! Thank you so much!

I’ll update again as soon as I can after the 27th about the condition of the baby and I!

It has been a while since I did a large auction template launch, so I am really excited to announce these four new designs:

If you think these designs might make good e-comm sites — I am in total agreement! So, keep your eyes out for budget web design versions of all of these!

In other news, I am a little bit past the halfway-point in my pregnancy and I am getting more and more excited every day. We’ve found out that we are having a little girl, and I am really starting to feel all her moving around. It is completely amazing (even if it does keep me up at night!)

It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but I have been busy with even more than usual! Since my last post, my husband and I have learned that we have a new addition to the family on the way, who is due on February 5th! This is our first baby, so we are really excited and the ups and downs of the first trimester knocked out a bunch of my time. Below is our first glimpse:

Now that I am feeling better, I have a new auction template design listed and plan to have more on the way in the next week or so as I put some finishing touches on some projects that got a bit pushed to the wayside.

Available now: the Belinda Auction Template design. This template features gorgeous caramel and peach tones in a design the is both rich and stylish. Scrapbook-style details such as grosgrain ribbon and eyes and depth and interest! Click on the thumbnail to view the listing!

I am also happy to announce the launch of http://www.dluxelacewigs.com/ — this lovely shop features both front and full lace wigs for women who need wigs for medical reasons or women who desire fashionable style options without the risk of damaging their own hair. Please stop by and check it out if you get a chance!

I’ve been delinquent in updating my blog about what I have been doing — but I did want to take a few minutes to make a few updates.

I’m getting to the end of one of the largest projects I have worked on, and I am so proud about how it has turned out. The site is http://www.fastbackstack.com/ — this is a very full-featured site with lots of bells and whistles as well as a proprietary content management system the client can use to add and organize new content. They sell vintage Mustang parts for collectors and people rebuilding or maintaining classic Mustangs.  Check out the site — I would love to know what you think!

I’m also working on adding a few more website and auction template designs. I hope to have those done in the next week or so and will drop a line here once I have them listed!

Have you been looking for a particular color-scheme or style of template? I am currently accepting suggestions, so feel free to add your ideas to a blog comment!

Happy selling!

Yesterday, I had to have my 13 year old cocker spaniel euthanized. Today, nothing seems right in my house. For the last few days, I have been pre-occupied with his health and have had to put many things on hold while I tended to him, so I apologize for email delays. This comes on top of my computer dying the middle of last week, so for now I am struggling to catch up, but being busy is helping.

I am a huge fan of the Summer Olympics, and I have scheduled my vacation to coincide with the first week of the games. I will be mostly unavailable between August 11th – August 15th. If you need technical support, I will be checking my email daily to offer help and answer questions. I will try to get new purchases done within my normal time scale, but all custom work will be and custom work requests will be put on hold until the 18th.

Also, an update about our new kitty! She has now had all of her initial shots and with all that loving care she is flourishing and has already doubled her weight from when we found her and is now almost old enough to be spayed, so we’ll be tackling that in the next month or so. My dog (an older cocker spaniel) has been a trooper and is pretty patient with her (but she has been told that his biscuits are totally off limits!) Overall, we’re all getting along great and happy to have a new friend in our home!

After some delays, I have finally listed all of my Fall and Halloween designs into the Seasonal category of my store. Next up is getting my Winter/Christmas designs listed, as it the busy holiday selling season is fast approaching!