How Was Your Pearl Formed?

Do you know how pearls are really formed? They  are formed when a tiny bit of sand gets trapped inside an oyster. The oyster then produces a "nacre" (rhymes with breaker) as a defense mechanism that coats the intruder, layer after layer. A pearl is only found NATURALLY  in 1 in every 10,000 oysters.

This all sort of reminds me of the saying, "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." Just like the oyster, we too have the ability to produce our own type of pearls by coating our "life intruders" with a persistence to overcome set backs. We too can appear to be tarnished on the inside while we are growing into something much more beautiful and stronger. I would encourage you all to take your sand and polish it into something you can be proud of!

Creative Recycled Pillow Gift Boxes

February is Creative Romance Month. For me, when I hear the word romance, I don't necessarily think of the bold red hearts associated with Valentine's Day, but I go to a softer place with Victorian images.

These pillow boxes are what I have been working on this weekend. They were created for a Victorian theme challenge I committed to doing on one of my Etsy teams. The team is an upcyled / recycled team too so making something that qualified for that was also part of the challenge.  You can find out all the details by checking them out here!