A little splash of color

Hi everyone!

I have a brand new BEAUTIFUL original painting today - for my upcoming (well, 2012) calendar - a holiday painting for December- "Christmas Candle" and she is LOVELY- and she's on eBay for just ONE PENNY now!

And also, since you all keep asking - yes, I will be self-publishing my 2010 calendar shortly, so keep an eye out - it will be very soon and I'll be sending out the link! It's a little late (oddly enough) because I've been working on my 2012 calendar (gotta pick up where those Mayans left off, mwahaha) which is a mass-marketed published calendar for retail stores. Yes, the traditional publishing world moves a little slow - they are planning the 2012 calendar already in 2009, hehe. So that one (featuring the new painting most likely) will be in stores in a couple years =P But the new 2010 calendar (available online) will be up soon, and I'll definitely let you all know!

Also - for those others of you who keep asking - my 25% off eBay sale will be running very very soon - so keep an eye out for that announcement as well!

All righty, the new original painting! "Christmas Candle" is the title - possibly my favourite Christmas painting I've done yet! This is actually intended as the December image on my 2012 calendar, we'll see. It is beautiful - an angelic creature cradling a candle with garlands of poinsettias and other holiday hoopla about her. I love it! A ton of beautiful detail! She's 12"x16" in size, READY TO HANG - 2" deep cradled masonite, hanger already on back. This ORIGINAL acrylic painting is up on eBay starting at just ONE PENNY for a 10-day auction ending the evening of Monday, November 23rd at 6:27PM Central Time , and you can see her below:



"Christmas Candle" 12"x16" ORIGINAL PAINTING!

And as always, to see all of my other currently available original paintings, click below - I have some BEAUTIFUL originals up right now:

Jasmine's Originals

In other news - I have a ton of new stuff up in my Zazzle store! Check all the goodies out HERE!

Enjoy!

Until next time...
-Jasmine


make custom gifts at Zazzle

It has been one week since my first chemo session and I haven’t even been able to write about the experience until now. For days, even just thinking about the chemo made me instantly want to vomit. Not just the chemo itself, either – I now have several triggers that make me ill to think about. I'm glad I wasn't watching any medical dramas on TV, because I sure can't now!

Friday itself was actually fine. The process lasted about 3 hours and I had no adverse reactions. I went home just feeling a little tired but thought, “hey, this isn’t so bad...”.

Saturday I didn’t feel too bad, either. I was still able to eat and sleep. I felt tired and a little “off”, but not too nauseous. I didn’t take any of my nausea medication.

Sunday is when it really started to hit me. I felt constantly on the edge of nausea and actually threw up dinner. I was also tired and apathetic. Nothing made me happy – I took pleasure in nothing, not even the beautiful little face of my puppy or my warm, cozy bathrobe and a good book. As for food – forget it. Between the nausea and painful mouth sores, food and drink became an ordeal. My entire mouth and throat burned like I had drunk scalding hot water. I couldn’t eat anything even remotely acidic. No oranges, lemon juice, pineapple, not even apples. Everything had to be super-bland; yogurt, cream of rice, protein shakes...I had a lot of dairy, which isn’t really healthy for you, but damn it, I had to eat something!

Monday was better than Sunday, but not by much. My mouth still was very painful and I was starting to get aches and pains in my back. Tuesday was better – I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up any minute, but I still didn’t take any pleasure in food. Wednesday was better nausea-wise, but still painful mouth sores and back aches. Thursday was the first day I started to feel even semi-normal. I actually felt hungry for the first time in nearly a week and went to McDonalds. lol Having food be a pleasure again was the most amazing feeling!

Today I feel fairly good. I’m just a little tired and I still have aches and pains. However, the mouth sores seem to be pretty much gone and the nausea is gone, so that’s a huge improvement! Hopefully I will continue to feel better as I go into next week. Then, of course, I have my next chemo next Friday. Ugg. I can’t believe I have, best-case scenario, 4 months of this! I knew chemo would be hard, but there’s a difference between knowing and experiencing. I now understand what chemical depression feels like and I dread feeling that again. And things will only get worse, as the chemo effects are cumulative.

The one big positive in this is tangible evidence the chemo is working. The large swollen node under my jaw has shrunk to half its size, even with just the one treatment. Every time I feel overwhelmed I just touch that spot and remind myself why I’m doing it.

And some good news yesterday on the financial front – we just got a memo from Corporate about the forced two weeks off at Christmas - they are going to pay for the 21st, 22nd and 23rd, in addition to the holiday pay of the 24th, 25th, 31st and 1st. That means that instead of having to lose six days of pay, I am now only losing three. Whoo hoo!

Thank you so much, everyone, for all your support, well wishes and healing vibes! *HUGS* This is a challenging journey, but I am not alone. :)

Business as Usual

Getting more orders than I expected to with the whole giftshop downsize. This is GOOD. I will have very little stock left at the end of the year.

Art and Authoring

Got the down payment on a commission (I will still take interesting and well-paying jobs from time to time) and sketched a draft of it and worked further on the Torn World map.

Home and Health

Oh, did it snow! It's all pretty again, but it's always too dark for photos when I leave for work and go home at night. I may have to bring my camera to work.

Planning

I have work coats to pick up, and a bed to go shopping for, need to work out (did not last night, so lazy!), and go shopping for weekend food.

I really love the Autumn Faerie Items at Pet Society...

I hath tweeted:

• 15:44 Where, oh, where has my motivation gone...? Is it in my desk drawer? Is it in my shoe? Have you seen it? #

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Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
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3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Business as Usual

A few orders in the car to post this afternoon. Several adoptions and a new submitted description approved. Woo!

Art and Authoring

Still plugging along on the steampunk piece and City of Lights cover.

Home and Health

Still snowing. And snowing and snowing. You'd think it was winter or something...

Planning

At work now, plan to go work out and mail packages after, then I'll need to do some shopping, because we are out of many important things. Including salt.

Linking

toeknuckles, I thought of you: http://oddee.com/item_96774.aspx (hilarious sexist vintage ads)

Hi everyone!

Since yesterday was Veteran's Day (post office closed) all orders that were placed or paid for while I was away at FaerieCon will now be shipping out this morning! Thank you all for your patience! Good news for you today - firstly I have ALL THREE of my "Dragonling Garden" series now up as SALE prints at eBay! Only $9.99 for small prints, $20 for big ones. Pick your favourite, get all three, whatever! Also I have two brand new paintings you've never seen (ones I debuted & sold at FaerieCon) that are available now as ACEO cards! Their names are "Lyre Angel" and "Faces of Faery #47". I have a couple of other new ACEOs up on eBay too - all ACEOs are starting at a penny.

To see any current ORIGINAL PAINTINGS up on eBay for auctions, click HERE

Now for the new ACEOs - for more info about ACEO cards, how I make them & what they are (basically tiny hand embellished one of a kind canvas prints, trading card sized at 2.5"x3.5" and highly collectable), consult the individual auction descriptions - they are each one of a kind and are awesome! All are starting at a penny, with no reserve for seven-day auctions ending on the evening of Wednesday, November 18th 6:00PM-6:09PM Central Time!



To see them all together visit the ACEO section of my store here

or individually, the links are below:

BRAND NEW - NEVER SEEN: "Lyre Angel" ACEO

BRAND NEW - NEVER SEEN: "Faces of Faery 47" ACEO

"Faces of Faery 44" ACEO

& "Faces of Faery 45" ACEO

Now for this week's SALE PRINTS! ALL of my new "Dragonling Gardens" are available, from only $9.99! To see all of the SALE prints together, CLICK HERE!



The 8x10 "Dragonling Garden I" SALE prints are here for $9.99

& The BIG 12x16 "Dragonling Garden I" SALE prints are here for $20

& The 8x10 "Dragonling Garden II" SALE prints are here for $9.99

& The BIG 12x16 "Dragonling Garden II" SALE prints are here for $20

& The 8x10 "Dragonling Garden III" SALE prints are here for $9.99

& The BIG 12x16 "Dragonling Garden III" SALE prints are here for $20

Enjoy!

Until next time...

-Jasmine


create custom t-shirts at Zazzle

Okay guys I am officially in love LOL....

We bought this little guy couple of days ago and I am still looking in awe how it working all by itself and also communicating with us when necessary. With our superbusy living (I work from 9 till 18 or sometimes 21 in the shop) I hardly have time for any cleaning. I love my house clean so when I am "crowling" home and trying to cook, clean and help kids with homework I kinda getting drained....you also noticed there are not much art lately huh? LOL

So when our IRobot arrived I have a clean house without almost doing anything besides clicking on the button :)....we are such a good team, I am taking the dust away and Bumba (called by Melody) happily bussling and vacuuming :)

You dont know anything about IRobots yet? Well....than you definately should!



http://www.irobot.com/

Here you can also see official videos of IRobots :)

We have this little guy Roomba 560... I am already saving for Scuba! :)

http://store.irobot.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=3334619&cp=2804605&ab=CMS_IRBT_Supercat_070109

Business as Usual

Did no business, to speak of.

Art and Authoring

Part 1 of City of Lights is finished! The cover is further finalized! The map comes along smashingly! Sketch complete for a steampunk piece!

Home and Health

It snowed today. Snowed and snowed. It was warm, almost 20, so we went for a long walk with the dog and came back all snowy. I also cleaned out my hair/jewelry/makeup drawers (4 of them! I had FOUR drawers worth!), which was a fairly momentous task.

Last night I made crunchy coconut bars. Due to my inability to read the temperature on the oven, they turned out a little... funny. I will try them again, though - they are very easy and taste like they could be good.

I woke with a headache, but immediately pinpointed it to muscle strain in my neck and tackled it with stretching, rubbing, advil and coffee. The walk cleared the last of it away. I seem to be pulling out of my general funk, though I am still being very careful with myself. We're getting to the dark and cold times of year, and that can add interesting wrinkles to the battles to stay sane.

Planning

Bed soon. Have to go to work tomorrow.

*this entry is crossposted from my current blog the art and tree chatter of aquariann*

Last Sunday, Justin drove us to the Baltimore Marriott Hunt Valley Inn for FaerieCon. We arrived around noon and stopped for lunch at Wegmans. It was the first time I'd been and am jealous we don't have one closer. What a neat supermarket! Then Justin helped me put on the wonderful crocheted ears I bought from the lovely Meri of Elfling Creations and off we went to the convention.

There were so many whimsical sights to behold, as I hope you can tell by my collage! Most of my photos were taken during the costume contest. Storyteller Mark Lewis was the announcer. I was won over as soon as he admitted he did three of the voices for the Pirates of Caribbean ride. But wow, the costumes were stunning! As were so many of the vendors' creations. Handmade corsets, bustle skirts, steampunk goggles and wings galore - one day I will make more of you mine! As finances are, the only purchased thing I took home that wasn't a gift was a pale blue and silver hip scarf for me to shake at belly dance class.

I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon the booth of fellow Delawarean and Fantasy Artists of Etsy member, Sarah of Toadsools N Treestump. She's the cutie in the hat to the left of the FaerieCon sign and I. Her art dolls are even more adorable in person! As usual, I was nervous to approach someone I'd never met in person before, but she was super friendly. I also got to see the very talented and sweet Giovanna Adams, whom I met for the first time at last year's FaerieCon.

I still haven't made it to a faerie ball, but there's always next year! I would love to be able to have a booth and experience the whole weekend, but I'm not sure I could sell enough work to cover the costs. A girl can dream, right?

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

Stolen from:

sobloodycute

• Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal. (Not in comments! On YOUR LJ!)
• Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
• Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!



I fell in love with this wallpaper when I saw it under "downloads" on Tinkerbell's facebook page.  Iridessa is a character from the Tinkerbell movies which I adore..  It is from an early scene in the new movie "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure" which is an instant fave of mine.  I love it also because it is perfect for fall.  I love it because it is bright and cheery.  I love it because it has a fairy in it.  Enough said.

Iridessa's bio

Hello!
I hope that you are looking forward to the holidays as I am :) Time is flying! As many of you already know I had to cancel my November craft show appearance. Sadly there was just no way possible I could of done the show. Hopefully next year I will be able to. So the craft show's loss is your gain since I am now running a HUGE SALE on my website! Tigerpixie Art Studio, www.Tigerpixie.com The Biggest Sale I have ever had! Now is the absolute best time to buy from my website!

Along with my current FREE Shipping offer on orders over $20.00 you can now also get 20% OFF EVERYTHING* on my website! This is perfect time for all of your holiday shopping for yourself or the Cat Lovers on your list!......

Super Holiday Sale! 20% OFF EVERYTHING* on my Website!
Tigerpixie Art Studio, www.Tigerpixie.com
Use the Voucher Code = NOSHOW1109
& click Recalculate when you checkout to receive the 20% off discount AND if your subtotal is over $20.00 after the discount you will also receive FREE Shipping too!!
This sale will end at Midnight (Pacific Time) November 25th so Shop Now!! :)

I do not run this kind of sale very often & I have never offered one this large on my own website! This offer applies to everything* on my website. Have you been watching one of my Original Paintings? If you buy it now you could save Hundreds of Dollars and get Free shipping too! Have you always wanted one of my Limited Edition Canvas Prints? Now they are starting at $79 for the 11x14 size and $60 for the 8x10 size! All Open Edition prints are starting at just $7.20! Need Gifts for the Cat Lovers on your List? Keychains, Magnets, Cameo Necklaces, Coloring pages, Figurines, etc, are all at Great prices too!

Tigerpixie Art Studio, www.Tigerpixie.com
Remember you must add the Voucher Code, in the Voucher section of the Checkout Cart & click Recalculate to receive the 20% discount. Then if your subtotal is over $20.00 you will also receive the Free Shipping for your order too. This sale will end at Midnight (Pacific Time) November 25th.

*Exclusions, This sale does not apply to Custom Commission Paintings, Wholesale Orders or on any of my other shops, eBay, Etsy, Artfire, Zazzle etc.

Just a Reminder....FREE Shipping on my Website! This offer is running from Now - December 10, 2009 Only. The shipping will be removed automatically in the Checkout Cart for all orders OVER $20.00. *Note This offer does not apply to eBay or Etsy sales! More details are on the Monthly Special page on my website

*Zazzle Gift Gallery
I have added more items to my Zazzle Store.
My Zazzle Gift Gallery, http://www.TigerpixieArt.com
Please remember, If there is a particular image you would like to see added, please let me know you are interested & which products and I will add them to the gallery for you.
Also if the image you love is not on the product you would like yet, please let me know and I will get that product added to the gallery for you.

Here are some current Zazzle Sale Codes you can use on your Zazzle orders....

10% off $50 or more order
Zazzle Coupon Code : DLTVSAVING10

12% off $75 or more order
Zazzle Coupon Code : DLTVSAVING12

10% Off T-Shirts
Zazzle Coupon Code : 10OFFTSHIRTS
Expires 12/31/2009

10% off Mugs
Zazzle Coupon Code : 10SALEONMUGS
Expires 12/31/2009

I hope that you enjoy these Holiday Sales! Let me know if you have any questions about anything :)
Carrie

Jenna Vincent - a young Australian artist started drawing at twelve.

     Sorry I've been gone so long, and sorry for (again) deleting my LJ. But, I've restored it again, and I intend to update it--firstly with a long and rambling entry about what I did this Spring, Summer and Autumn, or more accurately, what I didn't do!

     Earlier this year, around April, I finished up the last of the paintings for my 2010 Calendar, and I fully intended to get right to work on lots more paintings. And then it hit me--a terrible, terrible case of burnout. For day after day, I would dutifully sit in front of my computer, and produce-- absolutely nothing. I would start new pieces, and wind up deleting them, or paint on half-done pieces and then wind up deleting what I'd done. Eventually, I realized that this was serious, and needed some serious action (or inaction). So I took the rest of the Spring off from art, and then the Summer as well, and now most of Autumn. I've been back working for a couple of weeks now, and I'm taking it very, very, veeeery slowly, since I don't want to scare away my (apparently FRAGILE and easily distracted!!) muse.

     What I did accomplish while I wasn't painting was to lose weight. I've lost 29-ish pounds so far, with 14 more to go to reach my goal. I quit the diet for a couple of weeks since I just got tired of the tiny meals, but now I'm fired up again to lose the rest of the weight so I can buy new clothes, since my old clothes just hang on me. My jeans are so baggy my husband says they look like jodhpurs. And the sad thing is, that just a couple of years ago, I threw away my old jeans from when I was thinner because I thought I would 'never be that size again'. My husband is also on the diet and has lost over 50 pounds! It's pure diet the way we do it, no exercise whatsoever, and although we started out following the South Beach diet, we have since discovered, that for us anyway, it doesn't really matter WHAT we eat, it's all about portion control.

     We also lost three of our stray cats we feed. Taskett, a short-haired tortiseshell, simply vanished one day several months ago, and then and Mocha, a dark brown shorthair vanished as well, and Spot, Taskett's brother, was killed by a car a few weeks ago. However, we do have a couple of new strays, a gorgeous but wild long-haired black cat with a little white spot on his chest just like Spot, (and quite probably Spot's father) that we have named Domino, and there is a tough skinny black and white shorthaired tom we named Tuxedo. And we still have Graylordling , a beautiful long-haired gray cat, and the younger half brother of my Cassira-boodles. Graylordling  is taming down quite nicely.

 That's it for now.

Jessica Galbreth has created a delicious new dark gothic series of artworks with beautiful maidens in masque. Jessica has really outdone herself yet again, we love these three new works and are struggling to pick our favourite! All three new paintings are now available through Fairies and Fantasy, as art prints and most other items! See the new designs here-
http://www.fairiesandfantasy.com/catalog.php?category=35

Christmas, of course, is barrelling towards us. Why is it we always feel like we have plenty of time then all of a sudden it's upon us again? If you're planning on getting some of our great giftware items to give an enchanting gift to someone special this Christmas (or treat yourself, and really, why not?!), it's time to get in now before the Christmas rush really starts rushing!
The awesome news is, Fairies and Fantasy will be staying open this year all holiday season! Excepting public holidays, of course, you can keep shopping whenever you feel like it. Do remember if you want your order there for Christmas day, that mail times slow to a crawl with the huge amount of extra parcels travelling the world at this time of year. Below are some rough guidelines as to shipping times and dates for getting your pressies for Christmas day-
Australian orders before- 15th December (Average 1-5 business days delivery time)
International orders before- 8th December (Average 6-10 business days delivery time)

Alright. So...I realize I haven't updated this in a while but I feel the need to vent today about work. Because I can.

I fairly often get customers in that just generally irk me. My interactions with them however are generally so short it's not worth writing down [unless I did it collectively]. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of wonderfully pleasant customers as well, but they do not generally make my brain hurt.


Pet Peeve of the Day: Found a lipstick stained "vinte" starbucks cup empty just sitting amungst the floral counters today. We are not here to clean up after you, please throw away your shit. There were at least 10 (yes I actually counted) trashcans 20 feet from where you decided your trash went. Bitch.

Irritating Customer of the Day: The following scrip would become too long if I wrote out the times I repeated myself more than once...so I'll sum it up:

Me: "Did you need some help M'am?"

ICotD: "Yes I'd like to get something framed."

Me: "Alright let's see what we can do for you." *Arranges counter neatly and prepares for giving advice and input*

ICotD: *pulls out paint sample sticks*

Me:*slight mental note...sometimes this is okay...sometimes it's a royal pain in the ass..depends on the customer*

ICotD: I want to have this framed but the outside cannot be bigger than 10 1/2" x 10 1/2" That's all the wallspace I have. I don't know how big this is.

Me: Alright well let's see *measures art* Well, it looks like from edge to edge it's already 8 3/4" by 8 3/4"

ICotD: I'd like to have it double matted and framed in these two colors *shows me paint swatches*

Me: If you put a frame around this and only want the end -outside- result to be 10 1/2" x 10 1/2" there is no way it can be double matted. The mat would be extremely small.

ICotD: I want these two colors and a wood frame...I might be able to do 11" x 11" but that's as big as it can get. These are the colors of my kitchen. Now, my decorator suggested that the top mat would need to match my wall. *shows me wall color sample*

Me: M'am finding a frame small enough to even have a double mat is not likely. We can't cut a mat smaller than 1". We might be able to get a 1" mat into this frame *pulls off tiniest wooden frame on the wall*

ICotD: My decorator said the top mat should be the same color as my wall. Do you have this color?

Me: I would actually advise against that. It is very difficult to match a mat with a paint color. Paint can be (and often is) mixed to precise color, where as mats only come in certain colors and if it's even slightly off it will fight with your wall. My suggestion is to go lighter or darker than your wall color in the same color...or pick a color that compliments both the art and the wall. *noting that the customer does not give a flying rat's ass about the colors that are actually IN the artwork she brought in, she's far to concerned about matching her new paint colors..starting to get really irritated.*

ICotD: Well my decorator said that we should try, so can we look at what you have?

Me: [in my head] What did I JUST tell you lady? [outloud]: Sure. *pulls out any and all colors even remotely close to her paint sample*

ICotD: None of these match. Are you sure that's all of them?

Me: Yes.

ICotD:*doesn't believe me* May I look?

Me: Yes. *not happy* If I were to suggest one I would go with this one *pulls a shade darker than her wall color to go with accent paint color mat as well*

ICotD: Hmm. Well I'll go with your professional opinion on this. Are you sure that's the best choice? *keeps looking and trying several of her own...while complaining*

Me: If it were me I'd go with that one, Yes.

ICotD: Alright, well how much will all of this be?

Me: If you'll give me a moment I'll figure that all out. [Keep in mind framing takes a lot of measurment configuring when it's custom so this takes about 7-10 minutes]

ICotD: Are you sure this is the right color? If my decorator absolutely hates it you'll cut me a new one right?

Me: *now while trying to make sure my math is correct* If we have to redo it you have to pay for the new mat [true unless it was our fault]. We also have to order our mats in so that would add more time to it's completion. Could you bring her in? Or have her come look at it first?

ICotD: I don't have time for that. How long does this take?

Me: Right now about 3 weeks.

ICotD: Three?! It sure does take you a long time!

Me: The holidays are really busy for us. We have to send out for the frame and the mat. We don't make the frames here so we have to order them. The mats are not in stock so we also have to order them. We cut the mats, glass, backing, and do the rest of the work here. Your art stays here with us until we get your frame and the full mat sheet in. *now that I figured the price* It's going to be $66 before tax

ICotD: That's expensive! I thought you were better than that here.

Me: We're cheaper than any other custom framing business out there in this state.

ICotD: Well is there any way it could be cheaper?

Me: We do run sales on our custom frames but it's about every other week and they're not on sale this week. You could always come back with this estimate when they are.

ICotD: Well I'm going to be in the hospital for the next 3 weeks can't you just give it to me?

Me: No m'am. I could get fired.

ICotD: Alright. Go ahead and do it then. 

Me: *finishes up the order and gives her her copy to be on her way*



So, after I get her order written down she stops me to ask me another question.




ICotD: I have another question for you.

Me: [in my head] "oh god just please go away" [outloud]: Yes?

ICotD: I have this doggie treat jar that is going in the kitchen as well. Do you have any sort of spray paint I can use to spray it with?

Me: What is it made out of?

ICotD: It's ceramic and glazed *pulls out the lid of said "treat jar" to show me* It's pink you see...and that won't go at all with my new decor. So I need to repaint it.

Me: Well it's already been fired with a glaze. Anything you put on top of that is going to come off.

ICotD: *not happy with my answer starts to talk down to me* Well I know, but there has to be some sort of primer.

Me: No m'am. They don't make a primer that will adhere to a fired ceramic glaze.

ICotD: Well could you just show me what options I have, if I can't paint it I'll have to throw it away because it doesn't match.

Me: I have to stay here so let me get someone to walk you over there.

-
People like this piss me the fuck off. First off, I don't give a shit what your decorator says. 90% of the time "interior decorators/designers" are the most awful demanding customers we have...even worse when it's an indecisive customer who eats every word from their decorator's mouths and doesn't give us any slack whatsoever. I don't give a shit what's in your house. I might ask what sort of theme it is or furniture colors..and general overall colors....but I do not care what color your pillow cases are..I don't care what color your carpet is, I don't care what color your trim is. If you're not picking art that GOES WITH your so precisely color coordinated room WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU FRAMING IT?! Don't expect me to frame it for the room you're going to change in 4 months when you get tired of it. I frame for the art...as it should be. [There are few exceptions to this rule...but most of those customers are nice...family heirloom and they just want it to match a little better....that's okay.]
Second, Don't talk down to me just because I'm in a little blue vest and look like I could be your granddaughter. I HAVE a brain, I know how to use it, I excel in color and artistic merits, that IS why they hired me. [This is not all their fault..just don't assume that I'm a ditz please...I know most retail stores are not that selective in their employees...] Again, I don't give a fuck what your decorator says.
Thrid, DON'T THROW SHIT AWAY BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATCH! You WASTEFUL whore! And don't give me attitude because I can't magically conjure a primer out of my ass that adheres to a gloss fired ceramic. [btw, she then asked the person I sent over with her the same damned question..and got the same damned answer]

GAH!
Need I say more? She wins that trophy for today. /endrant