Some very exciting and fun news in my world!

Hi my few and mostly far away friends! I wanted to take a second to say that although this has been a really, and I mean really tough many past months, that I finally have something exciting and fun to share. all of the good karma, happy thoughts and fairy wishes everyone sent seem to finally be finding me! (those of you close to me know that I have struggled with a spine issue that makes my life difficult sometimes, and then on top of that I lost the core of my universe, my grandma Hartzog, who was more than a grandma, more than a mom and just very special to me. if that was not bad enough I lost my other grandmother and my mother as well. any way, although I am sad that they are not here to share in my little bit of excitement, I know without a doubt they are smiling and clapping around me.
Several months ago I was pm'd by someone that worked with a band called 'The Dresden Dolls'...........she said she had seen one of my altered art mini lunch box tins and thought the band and singer Amanda would love it if I made some in a similar way but with the bands theme. She said they were going to branch out and form ' The Post-War Trade' which would be connected to the band , but its own entity. They wanted to offer high quality hand made art work. So I designed one and sent it off to them to see if they liked it. they did, and started out by ordering 20. I spent a lot of time making sure that the design was my 'style' but also showed the bands personality. I think I accomplished that. the site is up and running now and they are featuring my item and have a wonderful artist profile feature as well. here is the link to the page of my item...... http://www.postwartrade.com/products/mini-lunchbox I encourage you to take a look at their total site, it is done soooo artful and I love it. (the pictures of the altered mini lunch box above are of the proto type that I did in a shrine style, the bulk order was not a full shrine)
And if that news is not enough to put me on the moon...........I was honored to have two pieces of my artwork featured in the Art Trader Magazine. you can visit the online magazine at http://www.arttradermag.com/ my items are on page 14 and page 23. It is a tasteful and beautiful magazine that has projects, instructions on how too's as well as featuring many artists pieces. It has really opened up the world of artists and brought us all together with the sites where we all come together also. I know I have grown in huge leaps and bounds because of the influence and interaction of other artists from all over the world that come together to trade, swap, share, encourage, teach and even sale their work. I truly is amazing how the internet has just blown every corner of the art world up and out to reach others and bring us all together. Not to mention bringing some recognition that would never be for those of us that have been in our own very small parts of the world and very unlikely to ever be 'known'. The known part of course is so encouraging and exciting, but just as important to me.......is those of you that will be reading this and sharing in my joy, I could never have met most of you without the crazy, maddening, confusing.........but wonderful world of the internet! sandy