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A lot of you in the internet world know about my friend Tara-keep your minds out of the gutter! You don't know her THAT way. You know her for her amazing crafting skills and quick wit. She's a pretty rad chick but I'll let you find out for yourselves.

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You ARE the Mistress T. but who is this woman of mystery?
TheMistressT is about as unmysterious as they come; if not for the nom de plume I'd have no mystery at all.  Essentially, Tara is a nice lady who 's been known to cuss.  I have big hair and big feet.  I'm both obvious and shy... you know, a dork.  I own a small decorative painting business and a small house in a small-to-mid-sized city that I love.   With my other time, I co-parent my 2 octogenaricats (Dave, 20 and Pearl, 17), spend time with my man, try to maintain and expand my socializing, read and craft, craft, craft!   I spend too much time on the internet and almost no time watching TV.



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 You do so many different crafts, which is your favorite?
I'm HORRIBLE at favorites!  Terrible!  Awful!  I always have multiple favorites, which should be an oxymoron if it isn't already.  For the last year or two I've done more sewing and embroidery than other projects, but I'm fascinated by paper crafts like decoupage and assemblage.  I've dabbled in those, but don't feel like I really "get it" quite yet.  One of my favorite projects in the last year was one I made last xmas for my man (known as The ManFlesh in my craftster posts): "pimp chalice" which was a gold leafed, decoupaged and resin coated glass goblet. It was my first attempt at doing these things on glass and working with resin.   Another was the altered journal-type scrapbook I made while traveling to Argentina earlier this year - but that's more about the sentimental stuff than the aesthetic qualities of the finished project.  Oh!  I made a friend of mine who had to have part of his colon removed some underpants with semicolons ( ; ) on the butts and that was really fun.  I guess it's things that make me smile or laugh while making them that are my favorites and probably what I'm best at.

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 Do you have a shop/site?
Indeed, I do!  Thank you for asking!  My business site is bubbleoffplumb.com, I sell some of my crafty creations at bubbleoffplumb.etsy.com and am a monthly contributor to the MrXStitch.com blog with "Domestitchery With The Mistress T" where I show off people's needlework creations for interiors (second Friday of every month) and the occasional other entry.

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What does the future hold for you?
Hoo boy.  One thing I have come to understand in my early middle age is that you never know what the future holds, you only know about the past and present and those aren't even always what you think you know.  That said, one of my next crafty endeavors is to learn some zombie FX for zombie-fying my and The ManFlesh's last year's Halloween costumes!  I'm pretty excited about that.  I'm going to start working on holiday gifties for the kiddos in my life (as soon as that dang UPS delivers my supplies).  Also, I love carrot cake and since it's been a good long while since I had some I hope to partake of some really good stuff before the month is out.

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 What advice would you give to the masses?
I don't know that I feel qualified to give general advice. In fact, I've sat here in front of the monitor with a flashing cursor for several minutes trying to think of something either valuable or funny and all I've come up with are misquotes of famous people or trite-sounding affirmation BS.  Maybe a few phases I like to try to live by that may get others thinking about what phrases/rule they like to live by? I'd love to hear what other people have like this!

The first two are some I've had on my list since my teens/early adulthood and the last two are ones I've embraced as I've come into my own as an full-fledged adult. These are both literal AND metaphorical for me:
The Golden Rule goes both ways; if you act like a prick expect to be treated like a prick, even if only behind your back.
A good person isn't the one who's nice to YOU at dinner, it's the one who's nice to the person who busses your table.
Any excuse for a costume.
There's no such thing as too much carpincho.

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Bonus Question:
Favorite word/least favorite word.
I used to really hate "tepid."  I've gotten over it for the most part, but sometimes it still irks me.  Also not a fan of "unique" used with modifiers and "do do" as in "I don't do windows, but I do do floors."  So yeah, I'm kind of a crank about some word stuff now that I think about it and I don't want to end this wearing my crankypants, so... favorites include "circumnavigate," "Winnemucca," "pants," "colophon," and a couple of secret rhyme-y phrases involving animals that always make me laugh when I say them. 


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See! I told you she was RAD! Make sure you check out her website and etsy shop. She has also entered two amazing pieces in the Craftster Needlework Challenge and they are pretty awesome. Yeah, she's a keeper!