5.

We bought a new car! Well, it's used, but it's new to us! A 1999 gold Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's got lots of miles on it but my monthly payment is low and it has leather seat warmers! Not to mention all the door handles work and we won't have to re-fill the brake fluid every week :) 

In etsy news....I worked all weekend on my new line of boutonnieres. They still need work (like everything!) but I'm happy with them so far. Here's a link to my boutonniere section, let me know what you think!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/danamazing?section_id=7457436

I'm also on a hunt for gold buttons for an order of 15 boutonnieres I'm working on. I want somethin shiney! Anyone have any ideas?

Oh. and I realized I wasn't "following" people correctly so no one comes up on my list of blogs that i'm following. Ahh! I had thought I was following so many cool blogs but I screwed it up somehow. Back to the drawing board on that one. 

Have a great monday!

4.

So I just got approved for my first car loan! Woo! Our car right now is on it's last leg so we're very relieved to be able to get a new (used) car. So that's pretty exciting. We haven't picked a car yet but it's a relief having the loan in place. My boy is quite sick this morning. We hardly ever have fast food and we had some last night on a whim and he is paying for this morning which seems unfair. The unfortunate part is that I drove to work instead of walking since I was running late and now I have to pay downtown parking fee's all day; 10 bucks to park downtown for the day, isn't that ridiculous?

I have a potential new customer who would need shipping to Ireland....anyone have any familiarity with international shipping? I've never done it before and could use some advice. I got a quote from USPS and it said approximately $40-50, that seemed astronomical until I checked with Fedex and they quoted it at over $100. Ahh! The order would be large enough to justify such high shipping costs but it seems hard to ask for 40 dollars in shipping...

Finished up a bouquet last night for a returning customer, had a bit of a panic attack when I couldn't find the last bit of the ribbon she needed but alas it was sitting right in front of me the whole time. It always seems to work out that way.

I hope everyone has a great day! I need to get my work done so I can get home and take care of my boy!

3.

What a weekend! First and foremost, my amazing boyfriend made his biggest painting yet. It's 36"x56" and for sale for $150, a total steal in my opinion. I'm always torn when he wants to sell a painting since that means it will no longer be on our walls. Anyway, here it is. Pretty great right? The rest of his work can be found at http://www.artbreak.com/trainstopdecoy/works

In other news, didn't get as much crafting done this weekend as usual, I guess I needed a bit of a break. Took some flowers over to a cool new boutique called Knack to drop them off on consignment. Packaged another bouquet this morning to have shipped off to Andrea in Georgia for her wedding. She wanted fall colors; reds, oranges and browns. I think it came out quite nicely.

Not much else happened this weekend. A pretty epic Mario Kart-a-thon happened Friday night with the help of some pizza and wine and both N64 and Gamecube. Nerdy? Absolutely.

2.

2.

Do you ever wake up at an unexpected time in the morning and find yourself looking at the clock and having absolutely no understanding in what you're looking at? That happened this morning. I usually wake up around 7:30 on my own but I have an alarm set for 8 just in case and this morning I woke up at 7:30, looked at the clock, turned over with the intention of just closing my eyes for a second and the next thing I know I look at the clock and simply can't understand that it said 8:45. Talk about a rude awakening. Apparently I wasn't ready to be awake; my boyfriend tells me the alarm went off, I turned it off and fell back asleep. So much for the alarm and so much for the boyfriend waking up. What happened to team work?! So I had to run out of the house without my usual turkey sandwich pre-made for lunch and with a stale toothpaste taste in my mouth because I forgot to rinse. Not to mention I'm on a new diet plan that requires lots of running so my knees are bit unhappy with me. So it was a tough morning, that's all I'm sayin!

Last night I started working on a prototype of a boutonniere, I don't have them up in my etsy shop yet since its not perfect but this is what I've come up with so far. I like it (If I may toot my own horn), it seems classy, simple. I used tiny flowers made from some sheet music I had laying around and little gems I picked up in the impulse buy aisle at JoAnn's (they get me every time!)

I haven't decided on price point's either. Like I said, underdeveloped idea but this is what I came up with in between Mario Kart rounds with the boyfriend last night. I bought him Mario Kart for his gamecube and he's been a happy camper, it's a lot of fun and a perfect little break between folding flowers.
I suppose its time to pay attention to my day job!

-Dana

1.

1.

Everyone has to start somewhere. I'll start while on my lunch break on the 5th floor of the building where I work in downtown Portland. I notice that I mention that a lot, I guess I'm just proud to live and work here considering where I was a year ago (actually, exactly a year ago we had just arrived here, but you know what I mean).

Since then I have found an apartment, a car, a job and figured out how to get to and from the grocery store without getting lost- the essentials. My relationship with my boyfriend was tested in those beginning months but we both passed with flying colors and enjoy each others company more and more each day. I guess I didn't think I had enough on my plate when I decided to open an etsy shop after making some origami paper flowers for my boyfriends' sister's wedding this summer. We were in Michigan for a week and between sleeping in and swimming at the lake I found time to make 15 or so flowers as table decorations for the wedding and everyone just loved them! I was blown away. So I came home and opened up my shop a couple weeks later and have had great success!

I've wanted to start a blog for a while now but felt so overwhelmed by the blogging world that I just haven't done it. I've kept livejournals, regular journals, lived in poetry for a couple years and kept every email my close friends and I have ever traded. I am a word addict and I need to get back to indulging in my addiction and never a better time to start than now. I will also be posting my latest updates in the flower world, my newest creations, my train wrecks, successes and disappointments.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the right name for my blog and I didn't want to use "danamazing" since I use that in almost every other facet. I almost went with "Dana and paper and Portland" which I like but lately I'm stretched so thin and bordering on exhaustion so I decided on The Dana Machine, so welcome to the tour!

And since this is my very first blog post (a monumental moment) here also is my very first advertisement for my etsy shop:

I made this bridal bouquet for a very sweet woman named Sara Beth who is having her wedding next year; she just received it and loves it! This was my first bridal bouquet sale on etsy and was a very special moment for me. www.etsy.com/shop/danamazing

<3
dana