Friday, April 24, 2009

Friday Feature No. 38 -- Featuring Happy Haven

It has been since January since we've had a Friday Feature! WOW! Time flies when you're havin' fun, right? Well, hopefully we are going to get back in to the swing of thing, starting with Becky, from Happy Haven.


I love to randomly take little jaunts through Etsy to find new shops that I like, or haven't seen before. I happened upon "Happy Haven", and loved the bright colors, and great photos, so I contacted the shop owner to see if they wanted to be featured on our blog. Becky wrote me back, and here is what she had to say, in answer to my questions:

TDB: How did you start crafting?
HH: I was bored and depressed and needed something to take my mind off my twin sisters failing battle with cancer. I had already lost my older sister and grandma "my best friend" to cancer and now my twin sister Barbara "Bubby" was dying too. It was more than I could wrap my mind around. I started with scrapbooking, putting together my sister "journey" pictures from the beginning of her battle up to date. My mom is a Breast cancer survivor, diagnosed 2 months after Bubby was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it was a rough Fall that year to say the least. So I was making my mom a journey book too. I became obsessed with it. I have always been a talented writer but thought that was were my creativity ended. I learned with the journey books that I was actually creative in other ways too.


TDB: What made you choose to start creating your pendants?
HH: After the books I needed something else to make as I was sad to see the books end. I made all together with mom and Bubby’s about 10 journey books. Then I made my son some books then I couldn't come up with anything else to scrap so I had to find something else. I started making picture frames, not sure why though. That lead me to scrabble tiles, I was decoupaging the frames I thought the tiles would be a cute thing to glaze. I found the instructions on line gathered the material and was off again on another obsession. Fortunately this one pays for itself. I sold a few frames but not nearly as many as I made. I have a few boxes of them here in the house collecting dust. Not sure what to do with them.


TDB:
Who has been the most positive influence in your life and why?
HH: My grandmother because she loved and liked me no matter what I put the family through and no matter how much she disagreed with me she never let it interfere with her ability to listen and take interest in what I had to say. She ate up my words like candy and it felt so good. She liked to hear me talk about my life and experiences and I needed that. She has this way of making you feel like you were the only thing that was on her mind and for someone as insecure as I was that was fulfilling. She believed in me and made it a point to let me know. She thought I was amazing and that made me feel amazing. When she died it was horrible, I felt like a part of me dies too and I never fully got over it. I don’t think we ever do.


TDB:
How do you balance your Etsy shop and being a single mom?
HH: Not so well. I spend way too much on my shop and not enough focus on my son. At least I am aware of it and making changes to better it. For example, abut a week ago I started “family hour” It starts at 7 every night ad we do whatever Keegan wants to do, within reason of course. Mostly he wants to play connect four but we have made pendants together and fixed the VCR as well. One night I had several orders that I needed to work on as I fell behind, I made the mistake of canceling family hour thinking he would rather play with the neighbor boy anyway. He started crying and I realized that family hour was very important to him, more than needing it, he wanted it. I did not know he wanted to spend time with me like that. It hurt so badly and I felt like such a horrible mother. Of course I put the shop on hold and we had family hour that night and I will never do that again.


TDB:
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
HH: To have more time, to be a better mother, to have a cure for all cancers.

TDB:
If you could spend a day with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be, and why?
HH: My grandmother because there are some many things I never got to ask her. I want to know more about her. It pains me when I think of all the time she took to listen about me and I never matched her time to listen about her. I will credit myself with listening more than the average person does to their grandmother as I ate her words and history up too, I loved this woman so very very much, but I never matched her time and that I would like to do.


TDB:
What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
HH: The best advice I was ever given will easily have to be to “Fake it ‘till you make it” -that means to imitate confidence so that as the confidence produces success, it will generate real confidence. - Wikipedia

Thank you Becky, for sharing a piece of your life with us. And thank you for having a giveaway for us to give away!

Becky is giving away the winner's choice of any one premade pendant from her shop ($5.50/$6.00 value--excludes photo pendants or custom graphics), along with a 16"/18" petite silver ball chain.


To enter: Simply visit Happy Haven and then come back here and comment on your favorite pendant. Please make sure you have a valid email address attached to your comment or Blogger account. You do not have to have a Blogger account to enter.

This giveaway is open worldwide. Deadline to enter is Thursday, April 30th at 11:59 PST. We will draw the winner on Friday, May 1st.

To earn an extra entry, please blog about this giveaway. Leave a separate comment with the link to your blog post.

To earn an additional extra entry, please tweet about this giveaway on Twitter. Please include "@dwntownboutique" in your tweet.

Have a great weekend!
Angie

64 comments:

Amber said...

I love the Tinkerbell Scrabble Pendant!
Thanks for the giveaway :)
hurdler4eva(at)gmail(dot)com

slb3334 said...

I like the butterfly retro.

Sheila Hickmon said...

I like the Look After My Heart Twilight Scrabble Tile Pendant! Thanks for the chance!! hawkgirl_16 {at} hotmail {dot} com

Sheila Hickmon said...

I tweeted! http://twitter.com/mom2anutball/status/1635432460

Roxanne said...

I love the red slippers tile. Perfect for my daughter.

MOMFOREVERANDEVER said...

Winnie The Pooh And The Gang Scrabble

janetfaye said...

I like Laugh Black And White Scrabble Tile Pendant.

Thank you!

janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com

janetfaye said...

Tweet:
http://twitter.com/Janetfaye/status/1637325744

janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com

Denise S. said...

I like the Two Pink Lovebirds tile.

Happi Shopr said...

The Faith tile featured here is my fave. trinitygsd at yahoo dot com

Unknown said...

Thank you for a great giveaway! I love the live laugh love pendants. Thank you!
tatertot374@sbcglobal.net

Janice Wright said...

The Laugh Black And White Scrabble Tile Pendant is my favorite.

jwright (at) iowatelecom (dot) net

Vicky H. said...

I love the Red Cherry Blossoms pendant~

lilnamekangelivy[at]aol[dot]com

Deborah Stinson-editor said...

my favorite is the Pink Floral Mini Rectangle Glass Pendant. sierramuse8 at aol dot com.

Ali said...

I like the Black Cat Scrabble Tile Pendant, it has a great expression!

Anonymous said...

I like the Love In Red Scrabble Tile Pendant.
germansweep@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

I love the Pink Goth Scrabble Tile
Jewlo1324@aol.com

mverno said...

Laugh Black And White Scrabble Tile Pe mverno@roadrunner.com

The Merry Death said...

I like the "Be Green" pendant, great selection.
meredycat*lycos*com

Sherry R said...

My favorite is the Photographer Scrabble Tile Pendant!

jnkrim (at) qwestoffice (dot) net

daizee said...

I like the Retro Tree.

txterryo said...

The Red Owl on the black scrabble tile is AWESOME!

txterryo@yahoo.com

kygirl said...

Here Kitty Kitty Scrabble Tile Pendant

elaine said...

I like the Dragonfly Words Pendant-very pretty colors.

Elaine R
emrosser@shaw.ca

SeahorseLady said...

My favorite is the nice black "Faith" pendant. Thanks much for the nice giveaway.

Mimi the kitten said...

"Cats Make Us Smile" - because they certainly do! :-D

vboackle said...

i like the Yellow Floral Scrabble .

Unknown said...

I like the purple Keep Calm and Carry On pendant.

thefatesarevicious at yahoo dot com

Damla said...

I like Dark Heart Music Scrabble Tile Pendant - Listing # 23588635.

annabell_lee_dk (at) yahoo.com

toughturtles said...

Keep Calm and Carry On

409cope said...

I like the Pink Cherry Blossom Square Glass Pendant the most. cardshark42(at)hotmail(dot)com

Emmy Coffee said...

They are all so beautiful! I'm so impressed :)

But, I am particularly fond of the Guitar Fingers tile.

Emmy Coffee said...

Blogged:

http://thethingswehopefor.blogspot.com/

Heidi Gail said...

I love a lot of the tiles, but I was able to settle on the Butterfly Butterfly Scrabble Tile for my granddaughter.

Tammy said...

I like the Pretty in Pink and the Tinkerbell It was so hard to choose

Lisa Garner said...

My favorite is the Autumn Tree Scrabble Tile Pendant! Beautiful!
lisalmg25 at gmail dot com

danosor said...

I am a musician.I like the Guitar Fingers Tile.

Crystal F said...

My daughter likes the If The Crown Fits Scrabble Tile Pendant. Thank you!!

crystal faulkner 2000 at yahoo dot com

terri142 said...

It is very hard to choose just one, but I really like the Rainbow Flower Scrabble Tile Pendant

Anonymous said...

I like the Gothic Butterfly Scrabble Tile Pendant.

Pamela S said...

My favorite is the Retro 2 Pattern.

pamelashockley(AT)netscape(DOT)net

Gabriel S-J. said...

I like the Tinkerbell Scrabble Pendant.

cougar44 said...

I like the retro butterfly pendant.

Christina said...

Christina - xristya@rock.com - My favorite is Raven Red Scrabble Tile - very, very striking! Thanks for such a wonderful giveaway!

intime said...

Black Bird On A Branch Scrabble Tile Pendant

casib69 said...

I love the Hello Kitty Pink Scrabble Tile Pendant. I still love Hello Kitty to this day and have stuff from when I was a little girl. My daughter has since gotten into it too.

ehhogan said...

I like the Retro 2 Pattern Scrabble Tile Pendant

ehhogan@ellsouth.net

Marie said...

I really like the Moon Kitty pendant!

marielay@gmail.com

masonsgranny59 said...

Cats Make Us Smile ty 4 the entry into this awesome giveaway:)

Anonymous said...

There are so many I like but I'll say Pink Cherry Blossoms Scrabble might be my fav.
my e-mail is: thewhittens@yahoo.com

mojomomma said...

I love the tolerance scrabble pendent. Thanks for the fantastic giveaway.
mistressfaerie(at)gmail(dot)com

Anonymous said...

I like the Big Sister flower pendant. Cute! theprophecygirl at hotmail dot com

Jinxy and Me said...

I love the Laugh Black And White Scrabble Tile Pendant.

cman said...

I love the 2 Pink Love Birds On Branch Scrabble Tile Pendant :)

Fae said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charlene Kuser said...

I love the Twilight Apple Scrabble Tile Pendant.Coming from a Twilight
fan I love it!

CharlieGurl57@aol.com

Charlene Kuser said...

Tweet:Swtlilchick

http://twitter.com/Swtlilchick/status/1667244134

CharlieGurl57@aol.com

Anonymous said...

I am aware this is an old post, but I bought a few things from this Becky at Happy Haven and she did NOT send me the necklaces and they were paid for by PayPal. Needless to says he knows how to work the "system" I contacted etsy and they made several attempts to get a hold of her, no luck! I lost my money and she closed her shop! etsy contacted me and said that they had numerous complaints (around 100) and they could NOT contact Becky!! Buyer Beware!

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