As I work through a 2024 yearly plan for the shop, and especially for craft items AND classes we offer, I’d love some feedback from our friends and followers! Can you look through the list and comment with any of the ideas that appeal to you? (Feel free to private message me as well, if you prefer).

– Watercolor Kits and/or Paint and Sip Events

– Acrylic Painting – Paint and Sip Events

– Cross Stitch Kits and/or Events

– Fabric Embroidery Kits and/or Stitch Events

– Wood Embroidery Kits and/or Stitch Events

– More Wood Barn Quilts / Wood Decor Pieces

– Regular (Monthly?) Fiber Nights for crocheting/knitting (Bring your own project and/or work on something we might offer)

– Larger Door Hanger classes

– Smaller Door Hanger/Wall Art classes

– Paper crafting kits (cards, scrapbooking, etc)

– Kids crafting (share any ideas you might have!)

– Needle felting / Felt Crafts

– Macrame

– Jewelry making

– Bible Journaling

– Calligraphy / Hand Lettering

We will continue to add kits and items you can craft anytime to the shop. We LOVE when you come in and craft during the week when we’re open! BUT, we’d also like to offer regular weekly (or bi-weekly) evening/weekend events this year, if there is interest. If you have an opinion on dates/times, that’d be great to know. And if you have additional suggestions for crafty classes, I’d love to hear them!

And finally, if YOU would like to facilitate craft/art classes, please let me know!

If you aren’t local, I’d be interested in your opinions too, as we’re working on a revamp of the website for 2024 too!

2023 will go down as one of the hardest years of my life, no question. We started the year with the knowledge that I would need open heart surgery if I wanted to live longer than 3-5 years. Surgery wasn’t what I wanted, but it was what I needed.

In January, I poured all my energy, angst, worry and fear into a project that I’m still very proud of – “The Heart Collection Prayer and Gratitude Journal”. I’ve been wanting to publish something like this for years, and the time was right. By the first of February, the copies were in my hands (and listed on amazon).

The months between February and June are a bit of a blur. Birthdays, graduation and trips. I was supposed to be slowing down to pace myself and not push too hard, and yet there was a true sense of “I don’t want to miss a thing”. To top it all off, I was dealing with a volcano of unresolved trauma from childhood surrounding my first open heart surgery. It was literally the best of times and the worst of times.

By June, I was as ready for surgery as I was going to get. And we found out later, it was definitely time. During surgery, my heart struggled and the surgery took hours longer than planned. Recovery did not go as I expected either. What I hoped would be just a few weeks away from my shop/office turned into a few months. I had to embrace the concept that the recovery process could take up to a year.

There’s no way to be prepared for the emotions, the trauma, and the difficulty you go through during a year like this. I’ve had to flex ALL my patience muscles, learn bucket loads of humility, swallow every bit of pride, and cry rivers of tears through anger AND thankfulness, sadness AND joy. Through it all, there have been some amazing experiences, joyful life-giving visits with family, and deeper connectedness with my husband and kids.

And that brings me to this last day of the year. I’m SO READY for the chapter that has been 2023 to be closed. I’m more ready than I’ve ever been to welcome a new year. I’m hoping to continue in my recovery, to regain strength and energy, to get clarity of mind back, to feel the creative juices flow.

Here’s to more growth, more love, and more peace in 2024.

Get your Word of the Year in a lovely 5×5 inch framed print, with a matching black easel. This is perfectly sized to sit on a desk or bookshelf to remind you every day of your focus for this year.

https://www.delightaccessories.com/product/word-of-the-year-5×5-inch-framed-print/1125

Choose from two fonts (shown in the samples), with a light pink floral accent, and your word in black centered within the frame.

Frame is a black finished laser cut wood.

After over 20 years working from home, we’re making some HUGE changes with my business. Delight Design has been run from corners of bedrooms, nooks and crannies, basement offices, and wherever I could find room to run it in whichever home we lived in. But now, for the first time ever, Delight Design is getting it’s own brick-and-mortar, outside of the home, downtown location! We are now located at 516 N Grant Avenue, (next to the Boot and Repair shop) on the town square. The BEST part about this space, is not only will it be a much larger office for me to run the business, but it will also include a retail space AND a small party room for crafting of ALL kinds!

Excitement is too mild a word to describe what I’m feeling about this, and even though I’m usually known for having plenty of words, I find myself getting speechless over this new endeavor. It’s everything I ever dreamed, and then some! We’re slowly but surely getting all the pieces in place, and hoping to have (very soft) opening this weekend – June 17th – for York’s Balloon Days and Sidewalk Sales. If you are local, come see us! It will be a tiny sneak peek into what’s to come.

Even though the retail space is still not quite ready, we WILL be open for business in our party room very soon. In fact, on June 24th, we’re planning two craft party events – one at 10 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. I’ll have additional info and an online sign-up/calendar set up by this weekend. A Grand Opening event is being planned for mid-August, with more info to come on that too! So… check back, come see us on the 17th, and get ready for some FUN!